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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Fuck, monetizing empathy. Is that even a fucking option? Can we just buy our way out of this shithole timeline? Can Gates just write a check for 97 billion and we go back to not performing genocide bring us back out of the Jim Crow and misogynist era?
This is just a meme, but it does touch on something important. There's a journalist by the name of Douglas Rushkoff. He put out a book last year titled, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaire Elite, and he was invited by a group of 5 anonymous tech oligarchs out to the desert to talk about surviving what they call "The Event", or when the consequences of their actions finally catch up to them.
He also says at the core of their desire to escape it is rooted in something he calls "The Mindset", which is belief that with enough money and technology, wealthy men can live as gods, and transcend the calamities and tribulations that befall us mere mortals.
"The Mindset" is rooted in empirical science, that human beings are nothing more than the sum total of their chemical components, and that's it, and only the "truly superior" (Billionaire Tech Broligarchs) understand that.
Sorry, but I feel 2014 should be replaced with 1980, 2018 should be replaced with 2000... Maybe 1990. But the whole monetisation thing started loooonngg before 2025.
I just listened to War is a Racket by General Smedley D Butler. It's 40 minutes long and very insightful.
Bankers monetize the lives of soldiers to protect private investments. If they put a price on blood there's nothing they won't monetize.
I like the other one better.
Yeah, by 2014 that mentality was being phased out, they just couldn't do it overnight.
This kinda follows the same pipeline that everyone else went down on Facebook and Twitter. At one point, the internet was all about Anonymous and Zeitgeist and revolution.
Then one Arab Spring and a couple of years later, we all went from Anonymous and Zeitgeist to thinking that billionaires and businessmen are the answers to all of our problems.
I don't know that it was ever as much like that--I think the earlier adopters of those technologies were more like that, and as the general public gained interest and increased usage, the trend swung the other way. Remember in 2005 when owning a mac device basically initiated you into a cult? Apple stores were set up like sanctuaries where people came to worship.
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.
I think only a handful of people could remain principled in spite of having attained wealth, power and status. And it is not that power makes one greedy, I think a person who attains success becomes surrounded by sycophants and yes-men who like to gain access to the successful person for the sycophants' own use.
What tech are we talking about here, theres a billion different pieces of software out there all doing drastically different things.
monetizing empathy
You Cave Johnsons...!
If anything, this is more how money corrupts tech folks.
This is why I always tell employers up front to never put me in, nor consider me for, management tracks. “I like to work in the trenches.” I have no desire to be among these corporate people.
You're smarter than I am. I took the promotions, and ended up miserable.
I learned the hard way that higher leveld don't mean more decision-making power. It means more of your time is spent in endless meetings trying to convince people to agree to the obviously right decision. It's a never ending exercise in frustrating stupidity.
I was lucky enough to witness managers deal with this ahead of time. Plus, I just know myself and I know that I shouldn’t be managing other people. I have ADHD and my executive dysfunction makes me a terrible decision maker. I learned my limits and stuck to them.
I'm that, but in reverse, a bro tech