Exactly. A broken clock is right twice a day. If “idiot” rich people can monetize their mistakes, consistently do so, and manage to do it almost as if by using the same playbook as each other…they’re not idiots, it is on purpose, and they just want enough plausible deniability that they don’t get strung up from a Michelin star restaurant.
No one will convince me he isn’t doing this on purpose to tank the brand.
He and his buddies were mad that they couldn’t compete. So he made the offer in a manic moment, and then was forced to go through with it. Now that he’s got it, he’s going to destroy it, and use the loss to reduce his taxes from all his government contracts.
And he simultaneously gets to platform fascists and silence people calling out the powerful. Wins all around.
For a normal person, this looks like failing. I totally get that. But rich people can derive massive benefits from stuff that would ruin us, and every single thing Musk is doing benefits him in some way.
Citation for the drama around betamax recording, including Mr. Rogers testifying to Congress: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29686/how-mister-rogers-saved-vcr
When it all falls apart, he doesn’t need a bailout. He leaves his investors holding the majority of the lost equity, pays off his portion, writes it off and carries it forward, and uses it to reduce his tax bill in upcoming years when he’ll have a bunch of government contracts.
All of this looks stupid if you assume he’s trying to run a profitable business. But he’s not. He’s moving cash flow through as many other of his own ventures that he can, and he’ll cannibalize the rest. The only people who will actually lose money are normal citizens who will have to make up the list tax dollars.
There’s a lot to unpack here, and I’m not sure that I can do it justice.
This is one example of what happens when women are not involved in a space. It allows for casual misogyny, because men do not tend to call out other men for bad behavior, which further isolates women in the space and keeps new women from joining. Both as consumers as well as producers.
Having a more even spread across genders means that we should eventually see more content created for and by women, which in turn will make the whole thing more accessible, and may ultimately tamp down on some of the incel garbage that many online gamer spaces have allowed to fester.
This. Cryptofascism relies on being able to scream, “It was just a joke / I didn’t know!”
Mistakes can happen and you might accidentally engage in a dog whistle as a normal person.
A dozen mistakes all pointing to the exact same thing are unlikely.
And to be fair, it could be one person at the top putting all these wink wink indicators in, and the majority involved might just be normal folks.
I still won’t be buying the game.