Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

> Now that today's testimony is over, I wanted to reflect on the public debate we're in. I'm sure many of you have found the recent coverage hard to read because it just doesn't reflect the company we know.

Yeah, we know you don't know, because you're looking at it from on top of a mountain of 100 billion dollars, Mark. There isn't a single damned thing that can change your picture of it being the absolute greatest thing ever.

> We care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental health.

What you care about, and what you say you care about, are nothing compared to your actions.

> It's difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives.

We don't know your motives, other than the obvious ones. We know your actions.

> At the most basic level, I think most of us just don't recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted.

That's because you live in a big dumb bubble where chat apps are somehow world-changing innovations and creepy stalker behavior is completely fine to you. You are out of touch and people are screaming it at you. You think you are entitled to encroach on everyone's private lives, intermediate on every interaction and mine it for vulnerabilities to auction off to advertisers. Your entire model of the world is broken, Mark. No wonder nothing makes sense.

Stopped reading after this point. I'm sick of billionaires with megaphones blaring their virtues.

> I'm sick of billionaires with megaphones blaring their virtues

As a society, the US has shifted its values from intellectually sound principles, to what ever rich people shout out.

I vomit in my mouth when I see videos of people showing currency, of people talking to you about "doing the hustle", etc etc.

US has fallen into an abyss of moral decline, where the value of your words are directly proportional to the amount of wealth you have managed to gather, no matter the means.

Worthington's Law in action. More Money == Better Than.

> As a society, the US has shifted its values from intellectually sound principles, to what ever rich people shout out.

When has this not been the case? Politicians in America are traditionally wealthy people.

Most of the presidents from the last century were not born into wealth.

> Most of the presidents from the last century were not born into wealth.

Whether or not they were born into wealth is irrelevant to my claim, which is:

> Politicians in America are traditionally wealthy people.

Of the 17 presidents from the last century, only three (and just nine total) are listed as having a net worth of less than one million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...

America is a country ruled by the wealthy. Both by wealthy politicians and wealthy corporations.

> Of the 17 presidents from the last century, only three (and just nine total) are listed as having a net worth of less than one million

You might want to quote the sentence at the top of the Wikipedia table in your link, that says this is their "peak net worth" and "may occur after that president has left office".

Read through the list in the link below. McKinley, Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Obama and Biden can't be considered to have been born into families of wealth.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/11/05/the-net-wort... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden#Early_life_(1942%E2%...

> You might want to quote the sentence at the top of the Wikipedia table in your link

> can't be considered to have been born into families of wealth

And you, in turn, might want to quote the sentence at the top of my previous reply where I state that I am not talking about being born into wealth. 12, by the way, is still a small minority. The majority of American presidents were millionaires. It's pretty cut and dry.

> America is a country ruled by the wealthy. Both by wealthy politicians and wealthy corporations.

As much as that statement is usually decried as "edgy teenage take", it's actually backed by political science [0]

[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

I appreciate what you’re saying and agree with you, but I’m not confident that the US was ever not “whatever rich people shout out”.

> As a society, the US has shifted its values from intellectually sound principles, to what ever rich people shout out.

Nothing exemplifies this as much as the whole situation surrounding public transport in the US.

A topic that's generally scoffed at "Everybody has a car, why would the US need a high-speed rail network?!"

At least until some billionaire presents his newest "innovation" by putting people in some pipe or another and allegedly making them go 600+ mph with magic inertia dampeners, then everybody loses their their collective poop about this amazing idea, by that amazing entrepreneur!

Then they end up with a bunch of cars being driven trough a tunnel, still no high-speed rail, but can't wait to chase after the next billionaire promising them to shoot people trough tubes at deadly speeds.

Would be excellent satire if it wasn't actual reality.

So agree. Comes off as super cringe. Silicon Valley has lost amy moral high ground from the early days and should act like any other corporate... "its not illegal and it would lose us money to change, why would we change it?" That would be honest, logical and frankly refreshing

Sorry, what "moral high ground" did it ever have? SV is just a place for smart people to create interesting new toys, and has developed an incredibly predatory and monopolistic VC-funded business practice in the process. For some reason, its inhabitants have determined that this makes them morally superior to everyone else.

> Your entire model of the world is broken, Mark. No wonder nothing makes sense.

+100

This has been the consistent picture of Mark from the very beginning of Facebook. ‘Stupid fs gave me their info’

As titzer said, the actions speak louder than the words and Mark’s actions over the years have never varied from their hyper focus.

If you kept reading you would see the points he makes where he outlines exactly where their actions match up with their intentions.

I believe Zuck became billionaire for creating value for people.

For creating something from nothing. So if he has 100 billion, it's just a tiny fraction of the value the society got from him in return. I wish there were more people like Zuck, Elon musk etc.. these are the people that advance society.

I read so much hatred towards rich people here instead of praising them, it somehow gives me the chills to know there so many people around me that are full of baseless hatred to the point that they are "sick".

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