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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I'm too lazy to search my comment history, but I wrote a comment on the original post about pg's essay that I did pretty much agree with what pg wrote, and so consequently I agree with most of what you wrote.

But that said, I definitely could not ignore the timing of pg's essay, and it felt plain gross to me. It felt like a lazy, convenient pile-on at that moment, even if pg's position had been largely consistent for a long time. I've seen all these tech leaders now lining up to point out the problems of the left (again, a lot of which I agree with), so where is the essay about the embarrassingly naked grift of the POTUS launching a ridiculous and useless meme coin just before his inauguration?

Also, there was nothing in that essay that I felt was particularly insightful or that I learned much from. It was, honestly, some bloviating pontification from someone who I now think holds his ideas in much higher regard than they deserve.

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I can explain the "pile-on", because the climate has been unsafe for the last 10 years or so he might have gotten cancelled harder, with tangible business impact to his acquaintances. I know because I faced similar dilemmas as I commented on that article.

You know who you can't speak up against because they might feel upset, that your speech is mean, unkind or malicious? The privileged class. There has not been equality on social discourse for the last 10 years or so, at least for the intellectual crowd. I see this as a natural caused power balance cycle.

I can largely agree with this as well. There were plenty of interesting and valid critiques people could make of the content, if they actually read it. I'm seeing a few of them in the replies to my comment here, but more intellectual sneezes.

The pile-on isn't a coincidence. Forgive me for the tin foil hat, but there was an absolutely massive amount of investment in Silicon Valley coming from Saudi Arabia in the last year, and reading the tea leaves from the public statements of all of the partners of these firms, those investments absolutely came with strings attached. Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who were both longtime democratic donors but only occasional-endorsers, suddenly announced their support for and endorsement of Trump almost simultaneously with an announcement of $40B from Saudi Arabia. That's just the tip of the iceberg...hundreds of VCs have received funding from SA in the last year, and many of them ended up helping Elon buy twitter and get out of a lawsuit for trying to back out of the twitter deal, and he didn't even have to sell his Tesla stock to do it. Conveniently all within the same month that Elon first met Putin, and first started echoing Putin's "plans" for Ukraine.

It is well known that Donald Trump's deal to sell jets to SA is what elevated Mohammad Bin Salman from Defense Minister to Crown Prince over Bin Nayef. It is also well known that Donald Trump ran political interference for MBS when he had international condemnation for the assassination of Khashoggi...he even was caught bragging about it. And from the best that I can see from the public record, Trump called in all his banked Saudi Arabian favors all at once and Silicon Valley, once the domain of establishment democrats, became the firm territory of MAGA nearly overnight. All it took was money.

> embarrassingly naked grift of the POTUS launching a ridiculous and useless meme coin just before his inauguration

It appears to be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

> It appears to be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

Hahahah! You mean that clause of the Constitution that nobody cares about because politicians have decided it doesn't mean anything?

Laws only have power if they have consequences, and it's quite clear that right now that Trump could sell tickets to the annual White House Easter Egg hunt and Congressmen would laud him for "teaching entrepreneurship" or something impossibly insane.

To be clear, I'm not laughing at you or your statement, I'm just laugh/crying at the clear slide of our republic. 30 years ago politicians on all sides of the aisle would have rightfully condemned this gross money grab, and now it's either crickets or resigned shrugs.

Idk if it's just me, but I voted blue in the last 3 presidential elections and I'm way more pissed about the Democrats than the Republicans right now.

They failed the country, so hard, by making poor decisions which made them lose. They did this repeatedly, I think which decisions were the wrong ones is up for debate, but the surest one imo is Joe Biden running again instead of stepping aside and having a real primary.

Anyway, all that is to say that I feel like I understand choosing now as a time to talk about what things you despise most about the left, because a lot of people feel like they failed America and the entire world by losing so decisively for reasons that feel stupid.

Very much agree, but as I've found myself saying lately, "As much as I think the Democrats deserved to lose, I can't fathom thinking Trump deserved to win."

That makes you "way more pissed" than DJT literally trying to steal the 2020 election? The Dems are bad, but let's keep things in perspective.

It's all about expectations. I expected very little of Trump and expected, something, of the Dems. When my expectations are far out of wack I get pissed.

> Idk if it's just me

This is a widely held view amoung a lot of socialists and left-of-centre folks within America and globally. You could try "Chapo Trap House" podcast if you want to hear this point of view.

I can see why those groups would also be mad at the Dems, although I very much do not consider myself a socialist... Also I'm not exactly hungering for people to agree with me

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