A Celebrity Does A Grift.

This happens a lot.

In crypto, it usually goes like this: Celebrity makes a coin. Uses fans goodwill to make them buy in. Coin gets rugpulled (oh no!) as in the celebrity and their tech friend cash out and leave the fans with a dead coin worth 1% of what they paid.

The celebrity will then say they were flimflammed. Fooled. Duped. Tricked. Teary apology. Very sad. Victim like you and me. Very also kept the advance $50k from the tech people. Also kept the cash they got from rugpulling. Don’t ask about that.

“CEO of shoddily coded autocomplete app says it will kill us all and he should get a trillion dollars to stop it.”

Basically the same headline repeated 8392 times the past three years, just phrased differently.

The two countries are deeply economically tied, are political allies, share much of the power structure. I don’t think it makes sense to separate them in this context of morality, corruption level, or personal risk.

But it was an unconscious simplification that may not apply to others judgements. Apologies for the confusing inaccuracy.

Today! Very well news! Good journalisted news! Headlines:

My toddler says she will never eat food again in her life because we demanded she eats two pieces of broccoli.

The child rapist who shits himself says he will kill the world if they don’t do what he says.

My cat says (interpreted) that he is literally dying of hunger and sadness if he doesn’t get a double portion of his favorite food.

CEO of shoddily written autocomplete app claims it will kill us all if he doesn’t get a trillion dollars.

Fridge magnets fell on floor, say FOOD ANY IS IS SUN FOR THREE.

It is good to tell stories like this, for the public good, but I refuse to sympathize.

He chose to “make a fortune” in a famously and obviously through-and-through corrupt dictatorship known for figuratively grinding migrant labour to bonemeal to pave their roads. Literally chopping up journalists. Murdering villagers for a fake greenwashing project.

He put on tall boots and waded into this pool of blood to “make a fortune”. Smiling at people stabbing each other in the back, he brought his son along to grab soggy fistfulls of blood money. And he just… stayed there until his luck inevitably ran out.

The privacy statements are fucking lies.

I will not share my innermost mental issues with some group of 20-something “move fast and break things” sociopaths in Silicon Valley.

He’s really getting under my skin. I think I will go over there and give him a piece of my mind.

Appealing doesn’t get them out of paying.

I mean yeah? As a PC gamer what are you supposed to use? Fucking… Windows?

I know some people still manage to tolerate paying Microsoft for an operating system that serves popup ads, popunder ads, inline ads, bundles spyware, bundles adware, bundles malware, and literally spies on you. They either manage to filter all that out or tolerate having to spend time turning it off or mitigating it every two weeks/months when an update introduces more of it.

They angrily cope. They say things like “what is so hard about just clicking Close / Ignore on a few buttons!?” when this is pointed out. But they grow fewer and fewer.

Macs are mostly valid but expensive. If work doesn’t pay for one, or you have another big hobby that makes Mac a necessity, buying one for gaming is a bit silly.