I don't know brothers... we're headed for a world of hurt if Trump wins. That enough of a majority of Americans might give Trump the electoral votes he needs, gives me every reason to believe something that I've always believed. There are no good people.
I know, you probably think you're a good person. Sure, everyone does, even the fuckers that want to return us to the Middle Ages.
I know, you probably think others are "bad" persons because they demonstrate values and actions you're opposed to. Sure, everyone does... It's a given.
Relatively speaking, OK, sure. In absolute terms of reality it's all meaningless.
I suggest the high order primates we refer to as homo sapiens sapiens that live around you are neither good nor bad. They have behavioral instincts. They're conditioned. And that's all they/we are.
I think the Feudal order is the most basic man made governmental organization and when central governments fail as we see happening now, the Feudal order is the next step. In the Feudal order the negative components of human behavior will come to the forefront.
We're tumbling toward social disintegration, civil war and breakup into regional factions if Trump wins. It may be inevitable even if Harris wins.
I'm not religious and I don't believe in a God that will help us, but for fucks sake I hope Harris wins. The rest we may be able to deal with.
Ehhh, he'd be more of a Temu Putin, or a Wish.com Putin. He WILL fuck it up because he's an incompetent idiot who thinks that the role he played on The Apprentice means he really is some sooper-dooper business genius
Trump and Vance are WORSE than billionaires - they're stunted moral vacuums ( vaccua? vaccui? vaccuæ?) who have been bitterly WISHING they were real billionaires their whole lives. Musk, Thiel and Bezos should look up what happened to Fritz Thyssen.
It isn't hyperbole. When the Gaza Strip Luxury Seaside Condos go up for sale, maybe people will feel comfortable using the word then. If the West Bank wasn't under attack by the IDF I would be inclined to agree with you, and call it a land grab. But it is....so:
genocide
noun
geno·cide ˈje-nə-ˌsīd : the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
Restacked. I feel like this Lewis guy is the real baddie here, doing some Wormtongue cosplay. Does Bezos think he's gonna land AWS contracts when VP Harris is president? Or NASA will soend more money on Blue Origin? And what does Soon-Shiong get out of this? Just keeping his daughter happy?
She's not wrong. Amazon does a gargantuan amount of business with AWS. There probably isn't any company doing anything on the internet that isn't using them.
Awesome! I've not missed it in the years since I cancelled mine. If you go one step further- it does take a little longer to find ways to order things through not-Amazon, but I've not been defeated by the hurdle yet. I ended up paying one dollar more to order a cleaning tool from their own website, but it was a dollar well spent.
You’re right Bruce, let’s not try anything. You and I can start phone banking for “stay home on election day” how’s that sound?
As to Amazon, lots of people only vend through Amazon. I don’t buy from them. The web services? Well gosh darn, I guess we should all give up! Boycotting is only a very small thing, but solutions are often started by small things, just like problems. Have a nice day as you go about assuming nothing matters and then you never have to change your own behavior!
You are so right- most of the time I can find the same item direct from the maker with little to no extra cost. I don’t even mind ordering the amount required for free shipping. With so many streaming options (and pretty sorry selection) I never use prime video. Lastly I think there is an awful lot of cheaply made junk on Amazon that’s not well vetted. Don’t get me started on fast fashion and unnecessary home goods 😵💫
They need to fucking pick a lane. This is what sociopaths do. They draw you in making you think everything is OK, and then they kick you while you're down. This is them making up to us for treating us so badly, I'm not falling for it. Not this close to the election. The time for this spread was at least several months ago, and every Sunday Since
Anyone else remember William Randolph Hearst? What is the solution to the problem where only ridiculously rich people can afford to own national media properties that don't actually make a profit? I certainly don't have an answer, but I know that if George Soros bought the Washington Post, the right wing crazies would lose their freaking minds over it.
All I know to do is to continually speak out and advocate for every media entity to tell the truth, not to equivocate, not to sugarcoat reality, and insist loudly on relentless coverage of gaslighting politicians and business persons. And for the writers for those publications to have the courage to oppose any efforts to silence their voices. Stephen is one of those voices.
If liberals can raise billions of dollars for political campaigns, they can probably raise enough to start a cable news network and a national newspaper, especially when those entities would be able to make money off ad sales.
The Left is fractious and probably couldn't order pizza for everyone. If it weren't, we could skip funding campaigns and just, you know, fund the programs directly. You still need a head honcho that people can disagree with.
But if someone did it, I wouldn't mind putting you at the top for the first two year term.
It had financing problems and currently exist solely as a brand. It absolutely could rise again, but will need some braver leadership than currently exists among our moneyed class.
Yeah--some endeavors will fail, for various reasons--not enough capital to get started, the content not being able to draw eyeballs (or ears)--but it may be more an issue with the execution than the concept. It just seems with about half the country being liberal, having a thirst for news and infotainment, and not really having a good option for that--listen to how liberals talk about the MSM and you get the sense they'd love to have something else to watch or read--it's hard to imagine that if done right it couldn't make money.
Might be because the audience, people like us mostly, don't want to he walled off. Unfortunately the more the right comes with bad faith the more I'm inclined to shut them out.
It was drowned in the tub by legacy media when a truly shady loan from the Boys & Girls Club was uncovered. Though the loan was paid back it never recovered.
“$10 billion is serious money, and not even your most bored Amazon Prime spending sprees can make up the difference.“
I’m looking at three different as-yet unopened boxes from my latest Amazon spending spree. It’s random stuff I may or may not have been able to find here locally, if I’d get off my lazy butt and go out looking for them, but it’s just so much easier to sit in my house and find what I really want in about 5 minutes. That alone isn’t worth not canceling my Amazon Prime account; I could get along fine without it. But a friend posted on FB the pay scales for various Amazon workers (not real great), and as she noted: “Before you Boycott Amazon: Amazon has revolutionized and democratized the way we get stuff. People with mobility issues, the sick and the disabled have equal access. People in small rural towns have access to products that local stores can't possibly stock (and can still shop locally). A lifeline during the pandemic that employed so many Americans who were laid off and continue to provide a million people with paychecks.”
What do y’all think? Boycotting Amazon may make us feel righteous as individuals, but as has been pointed out, that’s not going to hurt Bezos in any significant way.
As someone who has not ordered from Amazon in 3 years, except to spend a gift card from a client (all clients now know that I prefer donations to the food bank as gifts) it isn't that hard to order elsewhere, even through a local retailler. (I order books via 2 local bookstores, for example.)
It is true that this situation does not suit everyone, but it suits me very well.
As to the pandemic, well, they were "essential workers" who took all the risk because they would have been ineligible for the unemployment benefits that were open to most other workers. They were not compensated fairly for their work
"Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions in additional profits during the pandemic, and shared almost none of it with their workers:"
Yes, many lives are improved with delivery service. No, it should not be monopolized. The people will always suffer under monopoly. We could: support the USPS to become the deliverer of choice, support UPS as a union shop over Fed Ex, order through local people, etc.
You ask what we thought- I think those who can choose other places to shop through should do it. Before there are no other options.
excellent points, I love the idea of cancelling Prime but am among the disabled, chronically ill who rely on it to get me items I don't have the wherewithal to go out and buy, which I would strongly prefer so I could directly support local businesses. and Amazon's treatment of its employees is a real issue, as it its exploitation and suppression of its sellers. but I'm not sure how I would replace it, less as a mindless spending spree place but for items like the new printer cord I just received, which save me more futile trips to local stores that turned out not to have it. it's frustrating not to feel like I can yank that plug and join the army of Prime defectors. but right now, I can't make it work.
Please don't let not immediately cancelling Prime be too upsetting. It's what you have to do for you to get your needs met. It's like deciding when you might need to leave your state because of legislation. Everyone haa a different situation. Some can do it quickly others need time to marshall their resources. I got this bit of wisdom from Beau of the Fifth Column here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O74huDYBPbI
Plus I think Bezos' real concern here are those sweet gov't contracts. $10 bil for Amazon Web Services? Keep your Prime if you need it and write your representatives to block those contracts. And to protect Liba Khan at the FTC so when you can quit Prime it's just one click away.
Excellent points. Cancellations and boycotts can give us a frisson of righteousness personally, but such actions are often misguided and have next-to-zero effect on the intended target. For ex., even if there were a meaningful impact, there are many many Amazon workers who would feel the pain of it, not Bezos. Alternative online shopping is a possibility for some, if you can find a reliable distributor, which can mean being savvy enough to distinguish a reputable source from a scammy one. Not everyone can.
Last time I checked, Amazon Prime has 200 million customers in 25 countries, so a customer boycott, no matter how justified, is unlikely to even cause a blip in their business. Cancelling a subscription to the Washington Post may be more effective.
Yes, except as someone (perhaps Stephen?) pointed out recently, WaPo could wither up and blow away entirely as far as Bezos is concerned. It’s just another line item on his balance sheets, and it’s not where his really lucrative opportunities come from.
True. Wapo has never made money in the modern era, and Bezos bought it knowing that fact. I don't mean cancel your subscription to try to influence Bezos, I mean cancel because it might push the people who run it every day, care about it as a public voice, and derive their income from it to speak up loudly and push for change within. Bezos will get bored, tired of the blowback, and sell it to the next wannabe media mogul, and the same dynamic will apply then.
And even if you do find one, their ecommerce might very well either run on Amazon Web Services or be fufilled by Amazon.
It’s something that keeps me from saying Mark Cuban is one of the good ones becausr of what he’s trying to donin the pharmaceutical space. Yeah he’s sticking it to the benefit managers, but never believe he doesn’t have a monopoly long game.
He's actually been really vocal about the unregulated supplement market for a long time, I think the pharma stuff goes hand in hand with his views on that. While he surely won't do things to take a bath financially, his pharma stuff is among my favorite of his actions.
Yeah I respect that but I feel like Bezos and Musk were supposed to be good and disruptive until they weren't. I guess it's a fear of getting milkshake ducked yet again.
It only works if you actually try ordering elsewhere instead of assuming there is only one online retailler.
This will not work for everyone, for everything, everywhere. But now that you know you can look around, maybe you'll spread your orders out among various retailers and not send all your shopping money to one place. Or not. Up to you.
The cowardice on the part of a man who could fund entire states just steams me. Newspapers have POWER and they’re part of the permissions structure. It matters what they print and what they choose not to.
For the last few years I have watched people/companies insist they don’t have any power, that their actions are meaningless and that they can’t be blamed for any consequences, forseeable or not. These are the people that tell us that AI has no ethical questions to be dealt with because it’s fun and potentially helpful for (someone - it’s rarely for themselves and when it is you wonder how they got through life so far when they can’t be bothered to click to a website to read and verify something). These are the people who believe in climate change but who find it useful for others not to so they shrug and take what they can get. The ones who tell us it was moral to drop the atomic bomb because they pretend no one knew what devastation would occur. It’s straight up weakness, and because they feel themselves weak, they refuse to see the power they actually have despite that feeling.
Between the morally weak denying their power and the evil flexing it, I’m not feeling positive about ongoing democracy.
Bezos would have been better off letting the endorsement run, and publishing his own personal op-ed arguing for why he disagreed with it and thinks Trump is just awesome. It'd have let his paper keep its integrity while still adequately sucking up to Trump. Even better if his op-ed had the first letter of each word spell out "HELP ME TRUMP IS FUCKING CRAZY IF HE CAN GET A POWERFUL GUY LIKE ME TO KISS HIS ASS JUST THINK WHAT HE'LL DO TO THE REST OF YOU."
I'm dumping Prime.
I don't know brothers... we're headed for a world of hurt if Trump wins. That enough of a majority of Americans might give Trump the electoral votes he needs, gives me every reason to believe something that I've always believed. There are no good people.
I know, you probably think you're a good person. Sure, everyone does, even the fuckers that want to return us to the Middle Ages.
I know, you probably think others are "bad" persons because they demonstrate values and actions you're opposed to. Sure, everyone does... It's a given.
Relatively speaking, OK, sure. In absolute terms of reality it's all meaningless.
I suggest the high order primates we refer to as homo sapiens sapiens that live around you are neither good nor bad. They have behavioral instincts. They're conditioned. And that's all they/we are.
I think the Feudal order is the most basic man made governmental organization and when central governments fail as we see happening now, the Feudal order is the next step. In the Feudal order the negative components of human behavior will come to the forefront.
We're tumbling toward social disintegration, civil war and breakup into regional factions if Trump wins. It may be inevitable even if Harris wins.
I'm not religious and I don't believe in a God that will help us, but for fucks sake I hope Harris wins. The rest we may be able to deal with.
If Trump wins - he's right, there will be blood.
"𝘖𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦, 𝘉𝘦𝘻𝘰𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱’𝘴 𝘸𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘩, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘕𝘰𝘶𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘹 𝘗𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘯."
Ehhh, he'd be more of a Temu Putin, or a Wish.com Putin. He WILL fuck it up because he's an incompetent idiot who thinks that the role he played on The Apprentice means he really is some sooper-dooper business genius
Yes he is an incompetent idiot, but he’s not the one who would be in control.
I totally believe the idea that people who feel the need to compulsively hoard money in such vast amounts are Just Not Right.
"Amazon is getting away with murder, taxwise." Is he just pissed because Bezos found a loophole he didn't?
My final WaPo comment on the last day of my sub running out was:
'Democracy Dies in the Bathtub with WaPo Holding It Under'
Fascists like to nationalize industries, too bad Bezos doesn't know that.
those who don't know history... something something... repeat it
Yep it's never enough for these billionaires, and billionaires are not your friends.
Bezos might not be a President Klan Robe supporter on paper, but he's as good as.
Another homerun of an article by SER.
Trump and Vance are WORSE than billionaires - they're stunted moral vacuums ( vaccua? vaccui? vaccuæ?) who have been bitterly WISHING they were real billionaires their whole lives. Musk, Thiel and Bezos should look up what happened to Fritz Thyssen.
It isn't hyperbole. When the Gaza Strip Luxury Seaside Condos go up for sale, maybe people will feel comfortable using the word then. If the West Bank wasn't under attack by the IDF I would be inclined to agree with you, and call it a land grab. But it is....so:
genocide
noun
geno·cide ˈje-nə-ˌsīd : the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide?origin=serp_auto
Restacked. I feel like this Lewis guy is the real baddie here, doing some Wormtongue cosplay. Does Bezos think he's gonna land AWS contracts when VP Harris is president? Or NASA will soend more money on Blue Origin? And what does Soon-Shiong get out of this? Just keeping his daughter happy?
I just cancelled Amazon Prime. If enough people do it might hit a nerve
Maybe? I hope?
Although Rebecca Solnit pointed out that an awful lot of Amazon's money comes from services sold to other businesses, not consumers.
But I hope she's wrong in this case.
She's not wrong. Amazon does a gargantuan amount of business with AWS. There probably isn't any company doing anything on the internet that isn't using them.
Like Substack.
I think that that may really make them stand up and rethink their position.
For some reason, I’m reminded of the title of the National Lampoon’s movie “A Futile and Stupid Gesture.”
Futile and stupid gestures. Maybe so but I’d like to think of it as taking a stand against cynicism
Ah I love the smell of defeatism in the morning. You remind me of the Homer Simpson quote, "Never try."
Awesome! I've not missed it in the years since I cancelled mine. If you go one step further- it does take a little longer to find ways to order things through not-Amazon, but I've not been defeated by the hurdle yet. I ended up paying one dollar more to order a cleaning tool from their own website, but it was a dollar well spent.
Yeah, but I'll lay great odds that "their own website" was running on Amazon Web Services...
You’re right Bruce, let’s not try anything. You and I can start phone banking for “stay home on election day” how’s that sound?
As to Amazon, lots of people only vend through Amazon. I don’t buy from them. The web services? Well gosh darn, I guess we should all give up! Boycotting is only a very small thing, but solutions are often started by small things, just like problems. Have a nice day as you go about assuming nothing matters and then you never have to change your own behavior!
Well put. I just found that Amazon prime memberships brought in $35.22 billion in 2022.
You are so right- most of the time I can find the same item direct from the maker with little to no extra cost. I don’t even mind ordering the amount required for free shipping. With so many streaming options (and pretty sorry selection) I never use prime video. Lastly I think there is an awful lot of cheaply made junk on Amazon that’s not well vetted. Don’t get me started on fast fashion and unnecessary home goods 😵💫
A lot of fakes, too.
Chuckle, and NYT and WaPo were hopping mad that Harris wouldn't give them sit down interviews...
Well, this'll show her!!!
However, NYT has actually done a journalism on the weekend: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1e3n6bz/the_print_edition_of_the_new_york_times_this/#lightbox
They need to fucking pick a lane. This is what sociopaths do. They draw you in making you think everything is OK, and then they kick you while you're down. This is them making up to us for treating us so badly, I'm not falling for it. Not this close to the election. The time for this spread was at least several months ago, and every Sunday Since
Anyone else remember William Randolph Hearst? What is the solution to the problem where only ridiculously rich people can afford to own national media properties that don't actually make a profit? I certainly don't have an answer, but I know that if George Soros bought the Washington Post, the right wing crazies would lose their freaking minds over it.
All I know to do is to continually speak out and advocate for every media entity to tell the truth, not to equivocate, not to sugarcoat reality, and insist loudly on relentless coverage of gaslighting politicians and business persons. And for the writers for those publications to have the courage to oppose any efforts to silence their voices. Stephen is one of those voices.
If liberals can raise billions of dollars for political campaigns, they can probably raise enough to start a cable news network and a national newspaper, especially when those entities would be able to make money off ad sales.
The Left is fractious and probably couldn't order pizza for everyone. If it weren't, we could skip funding campaigns and just, you know, fund the programs directly. You still need a head honcho that people can disagree with.
But if someone did it, I wouldn't mind putting you at the top for the first two year term.
You’re right, Suzie. Let’s not try anything.
You're too kind!
Though I've long figured some entrepreneurial liberal could start up a liberal version of Fox News, there must be some reason no one has tried it yet.
So in the early 2000's there was a run at a liberal talk radio network called Air America
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(radio_network)
It had financing problems and currently exist solely as a brand. It absolutely could rise again, but will need some braver leadership than currently exists among our moneyed class.
And Al Franken
It had great people on it, the brilliant Rachel Maddow as a prime example
Yeah--some endeavors will fail, for various reasons--not enough capital to get started, the content not being able to draw eyeballs (or ears)--but it may be more an issue with the execution than the concept. It just seems with about half the country being liberal, having a thirst for news and infotainment, and not really having a good option for that--listen to how liberals talk about the MSM and you get the sense they'd love to have something else to watch or read--it's hard to imagine that if done right it couldn't make money.
Might be because the audience, people like us mostly, don't want to he walled off. Unfortunately the more the right comes with bad faith the more I'm inclined to shut them out.
It was drowned in the tub by legacy media when a truly shady loan from the Boys & Girls Club was uncovered. Though the loan was paid back it never recovered.
Because it sounds like a shitty way to spend their time?
“$10 billion is serious money, and not even your most bored Amazon Prime spending sprees can make up the difference.“
I’m looking at three different as-yet unopened boxes from my latest Amazon spending spree. It’s random stuff I may or may not have been able to find here locally, if I’d get off my lazy butt and go out looking for them, but it’s just so much easier to sit in my house and find what I really want in about 5 minutes. That alone isn’t worth not canceling my Amazon Prime account; I could get along fine without it. But a friend posted on FB the pay scales for various Amazon workers (not real great), and as she noted: “Before you Boycott Amazon: Amazon has revolutionized and democratized the way we get stuff. People with mobility issues, the sick and the disabled have equal access. People in small rural towns have access to products that local stores can't possibly stock (and can still shop locally). A lifeline during the pandemic that employed so many Americans who were laid off and continue to provide a million people with paychecks.”
What do y’all think? Boycotting Amazon may make us feel righteous as individuals, but as has been pointed out, that’s not going to hurt Bezos in any significant way.
As someone who has not ordered from Amazon in 3 years, except to spend a gift card from a client (all clients now know that I prefer donations to the food bank as gifts) it isn't that hard to order elsewhere, even through a local retailler. (I order books via 2 local bookstores, for example.)
It is true that this situation does not suit everyone, but it suits me very well.
As to the pandemic, well, they were "essential workers" who took all the risk because they would have been ineligible for the unemployment benefits that were open to most other workers. They were not compensated fairly for their work
"Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions in additional profits during the pandemic, and shared almost none of it with their workers:"
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/amazon-and-walmart-have-raked-in-billions-in-additional-profits-during-the-pandemic-and-shared-almost-none-of-it-with-their-workers/?origin=serp_auto
And by June 3, 2020, the $2 "hazard pay" had been withdrawn:
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-cuts-2-dollar-hazard-pay-bezos-150-billion-2020-6?op=1&origin=serp_auto
Yes, many lives are improved with delivery service. No, it should not be monopolized. The people will always suffer under monopoly. We could: support the USPS to become the deliverer of choice, support UPS as a union shop over Fed Ex, order through local people, etc.
You ask what we thought- I think those who can choose other places to shop through should do it. Before there are no other options.
excellent points, I love the idea of cancelling Prime but am among the disabled, chronically ill who rely on it to get me items I don't have the wherewithal to go out and buy, which I would strongly prefer so I could directly support local businesses. and Amazon's treatment of its employees is a real issue, as it its exploitation and suppression of its sellers. but I'm not sure how I would replace it, less as a mindless spending spree place but for items like the new printer cord I just received, which save me more futile trips to local stores that turned out not to have it. it's frustrating not to feel like I can yank that plug and join the army of Prime defectors. but right now, I can't make it work.
Lesley, me too.
Please don't let not immediately cancelling Prime be too upsetting. It's what you have to do for you to get your needs met. It's like deciding when you might need to leave your state because of legislation. Everyone haa a different situation. Some can do it quickly others need time to marshall their resources. I got this bit of wisdom from Beau of the Fifth Column here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O74huDYBPbI
Plus I think Bezos' real concern here are those sweet gov't contracts. $10 bil for Amazon Web Services? Keep your Prime if you need it and write your representatives to block those contracts. And to protect Liba Khan at the FTC so when you can quit Prime it's just one click away.
Excellent points. Cancellations and boycotts can give us a frisson of righteousness personally, but such actions are often misguided and have next-to-zero effect on the intended target. For ex., even if there were a meaningful impact, there are many many Amazon workers who would feel the pain of it, not Bezos. Alternative online shopping is a possibility for some, if you can find a reliable distributor, which can mean being savvy enough to distinguish a reputable source from a scammy one. Not everyone can.
Last time I checked, Amazon Prime has 200 million customers in 25 countries, so a customer boycott, no matter how justified, is unlikely to even cause a blip in their business. Cancelling a subscription to the Washington Post may be more effective.
Yes, except as someone (perhaps Stephen?) pointed out recently, WaPo could wither up and blow away entirely as far as Bezos is concerned. It’s just another line item on his balance sheets, and it’s not where his really lucrative opportunities come from.
True. Wapo has never made money in the modern era, and Bezos bought it knowing that fact. I don't mean cancel your subscription to try to influence Bezos, I mean cancel because it might push the people who run it every day, care about it as a public voice, and derive their income from it to speak up loudly and push for change within. Bezos will get bored, tired of the blowback, and sell it to the next wannabe media mogul, and the same dynamic will apply then.
And even if you do find one, their ecommerce might very well either run on Amazon Web Services or be fufilled by Amazon.
It’s something that keeps me from saying Mark Cuban is one of the good ones becausr of what he’s trying to donin the pharmaceutical space. Yeah he’s sticking it to the benefit managers, but never believe he doesn’t have a monopoly long game.
He's actually been really vocal about the unregulated supplement market for a long time, I think the pharma stuff goes hand in hand with his views on that. While he surely won't do things to take a bath financially, his pharma stuff is among my favorite of his actions.
Yeah I respect that but I feel like Bezos and Musk were supposed to be good and disruptive until they weren't. I guess it's a fear of getting milkshake ducked yet again.
You can find other reliable online shops. I order things like power chords through NewEgg
https://www.newegg.com/
And music specific cables through Musician's Friend
https://www.newegg.com/
or Sweetwater.
https://www.sweetwater.com/
It only works if you actually try ordering elsewhere instead of assuming there is only one online retailler.
This will not work for everyone, for everything, everywhere. But now that you know you can look around, maybe you'll spread your orders out among various retailers and not send all your shopping money to one place. Or not. Up to you.
The cowardice on the part of a man who could fund entire states just steams me. Newspapers have POWER and they’re part of the permissions structure. It matters what they print and what they choose not to.
For the last few years I have watched people/companies insist they don’t have any power, that their actions are meaningless and that they can’t be blamed for any consequences, forseeable or not. These are the people that tell us that AI has no ethical questions to be dealt with because it’s fun and potentially helpful for (someone - it’s rarely for themselves and when it is you wonder how they got through life so far when they can’t be bothered to click to a website to read and verify something). These are the people who believe in climate change but who find it useful for others not to so they shrug and take what they can get. The ones who tell us it was moral to drop the atomic bomb because they pretend no one knew what devastation would occur. It’s straight up weakness, and because they feel themselves weak, they refuse to see the power they actually have despite that feeling.
Between the morally weak denying their power and the evil flexing it, I’m not feeling positive about ongoing democracy.
Bezos would have been better off letting the endorsement run, and publishing his own personal op-ed arguing for why he disagreed with it and thinks Trump is just awesome. It'd have let his paper keep its integrity while still adequately sucking up to Trump. Even better if his op-ed had the first letter of each word spell out "HELP ME TRUMP IS FUCKING CRAZY IF HE CAN GET A POWERFUL GUY LIKE ME TO KISS HIS ASS JUST THINK WHAT HE'LL DO TO THE REST OF YOU."