Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire.
There's quite a bit of competition out there ,,,
Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire.
There's quite a bit of competition out there ,,,
I kinda get the hate but harking back to the la terreur doesn’t do anyone any favors and instead will engender strange bedfellows.
I think some people imagine the rule of law to be a replacement for the law of nature. I think it sits in front, protecting all parties from a much more violent form of justice.
If billionaires fail to support the rule of law, especially if they wield their immense power to press on the scales, they should not be surprised when people lose faith in the more civil option.
Where are you seeing billionaires not supporting the rule of law (and Zuckerberg in particular)?
I'd be a happy tricoteur
Do you have a concrete suggestion that is better in some way?
It took the literal burning down of aristocratic homes during the english reforms of 1832 for the House of Lords to finally sit down with Earl Grey and hash out a bill that would finally grant large populated cities like Manchester actual voting rights.
The French Revolution was still fresh in minds of these elites - the July Monarchy having just taken place - and yet still they let it escalate to the point of near civil war.
The point is a guillotine somewhere else is good. Guillotines at home don’t particularly hurt the rich as a class. (It’s debated whether France’s elite actually consolidated wealth and power through its revolutions.)
Not the best success story, granted, but socialist revolutions in China and Russian Empire had definitely hurt the rich as a class. Definitively even.
"A riot is the language of the unheard." ~ MLK Jr.
Oh, well better let them destroy everything with greed then. Wouldn’t want to break, like, five eggs to save every other egg in the world…
The ethics become laughably simple, with as far as they’ve taken the resource imbalance. They should be very worried.
The phrase about omelette and eggs (or rather its direct counterpart, about timber and chips) ended up as the unofficial primary justification for Stalin’s Great Purge, so the point about strange bedfellows stands. Twentieth-century Russia is in general a good example of what happens when you systematically eradicate the country’s elites, regardless of how unfairly they have gotten into the position or how miserable everybody else is.
The broader point, dating back to at least the French Revolution, is that once you establish the precedent that killing opponents is a way to win, it only takes a decade or two before the most ruthless killers become the winners. All proxy metrics are bad, including electability, but this one is especially awful. I’m more puzzled by why some violent movements do seem to have had some success than by why most didn’t.
You generally don't get to choose how few eggs you'd like to break. As Olympe de Gouges found during the French Revolution, revolutions tend to be run by people who enjoy the process of breaking eggs, and if you call for it to stop they may decide that you are an egg who needs breaking.
Reminds me of Thucydides describing some of the civil wars that erupted in various cities in the wake of the Pelopponesian war.
He says that when order breaks down, thoughtful moderates are treated as weak cowards, and that simple-minded but aggressive people make the first move and kill off thoughtful people who think they will be able to make compelling arguments.