Summary
Carlos Slim’s telecom giant, América Móvil, canceled $22 billion in planned Starlink orders after Elon Musk insinuated Slim had ties to drug cartels.
The decision, made within hours of Musk’s tweet, costs Musk his main partner in 25 countries and shifts business to Chinese and European competitors, further reducing U.S. commercial influence.
Musk’s increasing political entanglements and conspiracy-laden posts are alienating key business partners and consumers, with potential ripple effects on Tesla sales.
Billionaires trying to preserve the status quo are far less dangerous than billionaires trying to disrupt it.
Damning with faint praise, but you’re not wrong. No billionaire getting stuck-in like Musk is doing it to make the world a better place for anyone else, and no one except autocrats and accelerationist wackos should be pleased with how things have changed in the last 6 months.
So? No billionaires at all are better than both cases. Bezos is evil too, any investment going towards him is terrible to. It’s better than Elon, but all this is terrible. Also, Bezos is not trying to preserve the status quo, he’s only trying to protect himself and his pockets, that’s all.
Nowhere did I claim that billionaires are good. I’m saying which type are the most dangerous.
It’s like saying “which tiger is more dangerous, the hungry one or the hungry AND rabid one?” Obviously both are existential problems to us, but one is still worse the others.
Of course, nor did I mean to imply you did so!
I do get your point, and, on the surface level, I agree. However, I think it’s an inferior analysis of the situation.
Take your tiger metaphor; naturally, the rabid and hungry one is the most dangerous. Nevertheless, as you pointed out, they are both existential problems. I simply can’t celebrate, be satisfied, or even be appeased by the knowledge that we’re harbouring a hungry tiger, no matter what hungry and rabid tiger we may avoid by doing so. That’s my point.
It does seem we’re on the same page about this, to be honest… It’s just that your initial reply seemed a little — how do I put it… — irrelevant? It’s the Maxim of Quantity. We both agree that billionaires are fundamentally problematic, then why did you go and specify which ones are worse?
Yeah… I get that, but why would you even bring that up? Why say that? It doesn’t imply that you’re someone that pisses in cereal, but it does give off that feeling.
Yeah… I get that, but why would you even bring that up? Why say that? It doesn’t imply that you’re someone that thinks billionaires are good, but it does give off that feeling.
Do you pick up what I’m putting down?!
Yeah we’re on the same page. The original context was buying Kuiper internet instead of Starlink, so choosing the least bad option seemed relevant to me.
True, but not good enough. Eventually there will come a billionaire who is even more psychopathic than all the others, probably some Nepo-baby who thinks he’s a super-villain-genius because he was smart enough to be born with money. That guy will truly wreck the world more than the current batch of billionaires will.
If we don’t end this power grab by the billionaires, and eliminate them from existence, now and in the future, it will ONLY get worse and worse, until it is the end of civilization.