Lol. Agreed. I feel like Cory picked a controversial title for attention, and then did an odd logic dance to get there.

But I found some of his other analysis in the post thought provoking, anyway.

For some context, Cory is on a quest to change hearts and minds about Intellectual Property law

I like my politics boring if it gets the job done and keeps improving and iterating on a better system.

Absolutely.

Of course, I try to stay aware that my ability to wait patiently for a better world is, in itself, a privilege.

There’s wisdom in carefully iterating forward.

But billionaires also need something to help them focus on cooperation toward a better world. They need to believe in some non-zero chance that the fate of some person they stepped on could randomly suddenly become their own fate.

I don’t have answers for how that happens, but history says it’s almost never been pleasant for anyone concerned.

I don’t know if we can all do better. I hope so.

The sweet spot is for the current ruling class to obey a set of rules out of fear of the guillotine or incarceration.

Exercising the guillotine or incarceration excessively would just be starting over to build the necessary fear with a new ignorant crop of ruling class.

I don’t even know why I’m replying here.

Yeah, if the woman is lucky.

But the woman in this comic doesn’t look like she’s rolling in spare money to replace a buck that still mostly works.

(Having to spend time to carry water on a walking path isn’t usually a signal of extravagant wealth.)

She probably threatens the bucket with replacement daily, though.

I know there’s a Till Death Do Us Blart joke that wants to happen here, but I can’t find it.

We have the best comics on the Internet, because of jail.

Lol. But that bucket isn’t going to get fired because it provides balance and still almost doubled the woman’s carrying capacity.

Lol. I would just go with it. If learning Hadouken with friends is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

You may want to check out “The Girl With All the Gifts” - book or movie.

Yeah. Rockefeller pretty much owned the government in his heyday, too.

And then at some point he didn’t anymore. Money can buy power, but it does run out eventually.

Rockefeller was a lot smarter than Musk, and got a bit ahead of it with publicity stunt donations, before his influence ran out.

Musk thinks he can achieve a better outcome by controlling the media or the courts.

I think it’s objectively true that controlling the media does work, but I also think Musk wildly overestimates his own competence, and is in for a worse time than Rockefeller had.

Hooray for Risc-v, anyway.

I think I joke too often about ruling benevolently over the world’s robots someday after everyone lays off their Cybersecurity staff.

But if we continue this trend, this community may have the only clean secure laptops after everyone else sells out and fills their shit with backdoors.

Maybe we can rule together as a benevolent collective…

Yeah.

And there’s a very good chance that Elon spends his waning years in and out of every court, trying to stay out of jail.

Source: Rockefeller’s biography.

And that’s actually the optimistic version, from Elon’s perspective. There’s been plenty of rich assholes in history that didn’t have to worry about the courts.

And after buying the expensive motorzed desk, may as well spring for a good seat.

Plus the tall chair gets rid of any need for an expensive motorized desk!

Oh, wait…

10/10. No notes.

Also, I now realize that “Dumbass Billionaire” is a single unambiguous word.

That’s a great point. And come to think about it, the flamethrower drones may work better alongside the attack dogs.

With auto targeting tranquilizer dart firing turrets, of course.

I understood that reference!

Sorry about that. I copy pasted the wrong thing.

I’ve corrected it to the intended link at:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham