Mastodawn

SHell4747 Oct 13

We really have to stop uncritically accepting the batshit drivel that billionaires come up with. Their main qualification is exploiting people at scale to enrich themselves with power and money, and they will do and say anything to keep it that way, especially if they pitch it as "the future."

NosirrahSec 🏴‍☠️ guillotine enthusiast Oct 13

@zackwhittaker they're fucking clowns.

Wendy Nather Oct 13

@zackwhittaker I just gave a talk at a college last week in which I told students to evaluate everything they were being told about tech as if it were a phishing email.

Zack Whittaker Oct 13

@wendynather that's a solid idea. 'trust but verify' for the "bullshit CEO" age!

Wendy Nather Oct 13

@zackwhittaker “If you don’t embrace AI, you’re going to get left behind. Click here NOW!”

Zack Whittaker Oct 13

@wendynather 🤣

Toni Aittoniemi Oct 13

@zackwhittaker Got to where they are by talking about freedom, will implement police state with private logos on top.

@zackwhittaker OK, put data centers in space but make them orbit Venus. Our skies are too full already.

Olivetree Oct 13

@Nazani
I bet the response would be "Can't do, think about the ping!". Meanwhile, they're completely oblivious to outer space's ionizing radiation, debris, cooling and maintenance issues.
Or they are not and just want to feed off of the VC asses. I wish had those money grabbing skills though!
@zackwhittaker

Wladimir Palant Oct 13

@olivetree @Nazani @zackwhittaker Oh, looking forward to some genius’ idea to put data centers into low earth orbit “because ping times.” I mean, it isn’t the future without huge data centers burning up in the atmosphere every few days.

@WPalant @olivetree @zackwhittaker
If you don't alreadym follow Prof. Sam Lawler [email protected]
Satellite pollution is her wheelhouse.

fuzzyfuzzyfungus Oct 13

@zackwhittaker The important thing is to both be deeply skeptical of their 'genius'; but never of their ruthlessness.

Given how Oracle implementations go; having them deliver an entire surveillance dystopia would probably cost ~1.5 GDP; but that will be cold comfort if you get a partial surveillance dystopia for just eleventy-zillion.

And 'datacenters in space' is patently silly; but so long as he can just punt on solving the problem because that's in the future, Sam gets what he wants.

Guillotine Jones, Flâneur Oct 13

@zackwhittaker
Self-servers gonna serve themselves.

@zackwhittaker Citizens being on their best behaviour due to monitoring them only works in "shame" based societies like China. It doesn't work in "guilt" based societies like anywhere in the West.

In UK for example, you can watch and openly film a bike thief with an angle grinder breaking a bike lock and stealing the bike in broad daylight, and the thief couldn't care less. That's the mentality. In fact, often the mentality is to commit crime precisely because it's on camera, for street cred.

Bogdan Buduroiu has moved Oct 13

@zackwhittaker unsure why this is outrageous, billionaires understand their class standing and have class consciousness, it’s us peasants that don’t

@zackwhittaker Data Centers in Space 🤣

@zackwhittaker I could agree pointing cameras at Ellison constantly wherever he happens to be: in his private jet, on his private island, in his private study, in the board room, etc. And extend that to the rest of his family too.

We must make sure billionaires are on their best behavior.

SometimesLovely Oct 13

@zackwhittaker
The panopticon (Bentham) requires not just punishment for non-compliance, but increasing levels of punishment, as resistance continues. Merely being observed/recorded will not, of itself, command "good behaviour", especially where the standard "good" is subjective to the watcher, and arbitrary.
Also, the more that is taken from me, the less I have to lose. If you take my privacy, what need have I for shame?

Mr. Lance E Sloan (IRL) 👤Oct 13

@zackwhittaker
Thank you for sharing this and compiling them here. What are the dates of those articles?

@sloanlance @zackwhittaker You can search for a sentence or two in the text and find them.

Mr. Lance E Sloan (IRL) 👤Oct 14

@skry @zackwhittaker
LMGTFY? 👎 🙄

TrimTab 🇺🇦Oct 13

@zackwhittaker If billionaires will surrender their privacy and submit to 24/7 surveillance, i would reconsider my stance on privacy.

But in their future, privacy is a luxury reserved for the rich....

Truth Or Consequences ✅ 🇺🇦Oct 13

@TrimTab @zackwhittaker

The rich can afford the privacy to rob, engage in adultery and commit child rape but but are too poor to have morals or compassion.

@zackwhittaker Wasn’t this the plot of The Circle?

Cameron Bosch Oct 13

@zackwhittaker 1984?

Toni Aittoniemi Oct 13

@zackwhittaker These people read dystopic science-fiction, and without fail they identify as the villains!

They are simple-minded people who see the world only as divided between the powerful and the powerless.

I vividly remember Elon Musk explaining Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy like it was all about the mice.

Nobody likes the mice! 🙄

Nicole Parsons Oct 13

Eric Schmidt & Larry Ellison hate American cities so much they're going elsewhere, but still want to rule from afar, directing politics in a nation they got rich off from, then abandoned.

Eric Schmidt
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/9/21547055/eric-schmidt-google-citizen-cyprus-european-union

https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-google-cyprus-citizen-passport-for-sale-2020-11

Larry Ellison
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/13/how-larry-ellison-worlds-richest-man-buying-oxford/

https://observer.co.uk/news/business/article/ellison-the-almighty-81-sets-his-sights-on-oxford

Stephen Schwarzman
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/10/us-billionaire-shires-supersized-country-estate/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/12/trump-supporting-billionaire-stephen-schwarzman-prevented-filling-lake-uk-estate-during-drought

https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-stephen-schwarzmans-water-supply-cut-off-after-wasting-millions-filling-private-lake/

Peter Thiel
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-18/peter-thiel-malta-jd-vance-blake-masters

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/rich-americans-get-second-passports-citing-risk-of-instability.html

The former CEO of Google has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus

Schmidt is effectively buying a passport that he can use to enter the European Union.

Vox

Paco Hope Oct 13

@zackwhittaker Fascinating thing about putting data centers "in space." I was reading about humans exposed to the vacuum of space and one of the interesting issues is that there's no matter to conduct heat to. You have to dissipate heat by radiating and that's hard.

So their conjuring of ideas like "data centers in space" is just more magical thinking like the LLMs themselves.

Microsoft tried the far more practical underwater data center, but we don't see more of that.

Seems that sustainable computing has fallen by the wayside versus usustainable profiteering.

What would happen to the human body in the vacuum of space?

Nothing pleasant.

Live Science

@zackwhittaker could everything Larry Ellison does be recorded and reported instead? I suspect citizens would benefit more from that knowledge...

Anne Ominous Oct 14

my answer to all billionaires:

spherulitic Oct 14

@zackwhittaker a cursory understanding of physics tells you why putting a data center in space is hilariously braindead.

@zackwhittaker: Just referencing Schmidt, 996 is, aside from everything else, a failure of efficiency and policy; a society moving in the right direction would do more with less time, or judge what is unnecessary and strip that out instead.

@zackwhittaker
It is hard to imagine a practical data centre design that could work better in orbit than on Earth, given the cooling limitations imposed by radiative panels.

Small amounts of important processing maybe, where latency trumps processing power.