It's possible for both things to be true. Perhaps for a rare few a more elaborate system is required, but for most it is a hindrance. A piece of advice doesn't need to be totally universal to be useful.
You can be the best lawyer of all time but if the police have a 4k close up of your guy pulling the trigger from five different angles there may be no sequence of words you can write that are gonna get him out of jail, and it's also possible anything you do write will sound absurd. That's more or less the situation here with Musk, although in contract form, not criminal.
I'm curious if there will be any attempt to recover damages from his legal representation. Maybe there was deficiency? Although I doubt any legal form is sufficiently capitalized or insured to make more than a tiny dent in the harm done to his fortune by this whole debacle. To be clear I assume he's been adequately represented but I mean he did make this offer so further buffoonery would not surprise.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean your lawyer doesn’t still try and make a case in your defense if you want one. That’s what lawyers do…
Think about it, no one really got hurt here. Musk ultimately buys Twitter for the agreed price, no shareholder loses. Musk assumes the cost for Twitter’s lawyers for the lawsuit to preserve the deal by buying Twitter and Musk paid his lawyers to defend it. It was chump change to a billionaire to take a long shot bet to maybe make the deal a little sweeter and it didn’t work. Oh well, Musk has not lost any more than he was originally willing to risk.
Their point is that no one was financially hurt. Nobody in this thread mentioned anything about people getting physically hurt, unless I’m missing something.
You don’t think anyone was hurt by the absolutely enormous amount of stress he chose to create? Or the army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for?
I think you meant to reply to my other comment[0], since that's where I did make that argument? But as to your questions:
> You don’t think anyone was hurt by the absolutely enormous amount of stress he chose to create?
Fair point, I imagine the last couple of months have not been great for many Twitter-employees.
> Or the army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for?
As far as I know the shareholders don't directly pay for the lawyers, that money comes from some financial reserve Twitter has. In normal circumstances massive legal costs can reduce the value of a company, but in this case the shareholders will be able to sell each share for the same $54.20 as before the lawsuit. If the company becomes less valuable because of this, that's the problem of the next owner of the company. Since Musk will end up owning Twitter, he'll end up paying for the lawyers on both sides of this suit. Or am I missing something?
Under this theory of damage, there’s no such thing as theft until you die because there’s always a chance you’ll get your belongings back on your deathbed. So no biggie, right?! Time value of money is a thing. Time under stress is also a real thing, and Musk seems to relish in putting other people in it.
> Under this theory of damage, there’s no such thing as theft until you die because there’s always a chance you’ll get your belongings back on your deathbed.
Only if you take really specific statements and turn them into a general theory. But this discussion isn't about theoretical thefts and deathbeds, it's one about the reality that Musk is buying Twitter[0]. There is no "army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for", because the current shareholders won't have to pay anything. Twitter is paying for the lawyers and Musk will and up owning Twitter. That's not some moral judgement, it's a description of the facts. Nothing I've said so far is in defense of what Musk does.
To be clear: I behavior is justifiable. He created this mess by making really dumb decisions and then trying everything to get out of this situation by not caring about anything or anyone but himself. It has been a huge waste of time and money. But as it turns out, Musk will be the one owning a company he doesn't want, and as that owner he'll be the one paying for that wasted time and for the costs made by both parties of the lawsuit. It just seems that the person that's by far the most hurt by Musks actions is Musk himself.
[0]In this entire comment I'm assuming the deal actually goes through.
There are a few other parties that could claim some sort of injury, although I don't know how much of a legal case any of them would have.
Some employees may have suffered undue emotional distress due to the excess uncertainty.
Anyone who sold TWTR while the price was depressed due to Musk's unjustified legal maneuvering certainly suffered economic injury.
Elon's creditors and co-investors may view his maneuvering as having damaged the asset, thus decreasing their expected returns.
To reiterate: I don't know if any of these people have a legal claim. And I acknowledge that Musk certainly injured himself the most. But the economic injuries suffered by these other parties are not trivial.
Sorry it's hilarious that people would be emotionally distressed about their jobs potentially disappearing? Curious to know what year this new "fragility" kicked in, in your eyes.
Anyone’s job can “potentially disappear” at any time and often without public notice and drama. I know former colleagues who showed up to work on a Monday morning at a company that had been operating profitably for decades to find the office shuttered and the company out of business just because the real estate it owned was more valuable to the owners than the company itself. No one at any level below the ownership group and CEO/CFO had any idea it was coming. Just wake up like another day and boom—a thousand people out of work.
If Twitter folk were worried to the point of health implications they have had six months to make a change. I know folks that would have given precious body parts for that kind of notice.
Ah the ol’ “this isn’t bad because there are things that are worse” argument. I suspect you don’t actually believe that, given the absurdity of its final conclusions, so I’m going to conclude here. Have a good rest of your week!
People with Musk's wealth can't lose dignity in any meaningful way, because social consequences don't apply to them. He's going to remain one of the richest, most powerful and influential people on the planet regardless of what he says or does.
All depends on your threat model. A company openly collecting your data by your say so seems significantly less threatening (to me, to many others) than all the actors who are doing it without your knowledge or consent.
I consider Google to already be an agent that is working for me. It obviously has its own interests, which are not perfectly aligned with mine. But its interests and my interests in the space of location data collection are sufficiently aligned that I don't object to them having it.
The point is, any / all data collection is - or should be - suspect. Today's benevolent actor is tomorrow's victim of a hack, or simply changes their spots. Furthermore, even data that is positioned as harmless (i.e., phone call metadata) can tell stories.
Finally, per "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" (and others) these minor privacy infringements add up and is used against us.
Read the book. Once you come to realize the collecting of your data isn't "passive" and that ultimately, it's being done to be used against you - and your free will - your perceived benefits are insignificant.
Put another way, being complacent and complicit not only sells-out your own privacy, it compromises the privacy of all those round you, your (future) offspring, etc.
I'm not going to read a whole book about this issue.
I already know that the collecting of data isn't passive. I deny that it's being done to be used against me. I also deny any concrete harms for most people on the short to medium term, although the far future is hard to predict.
Given that I deny the likelihood of harm to this data collection, I'm setting a concrete benefit against no drawbacks. Therefore I will continue to use it.
In some camps, a couple of years ago, the book was on a number of "Book of Year" lists. The issue is far less simplistic than you're making it out to be. That fact that you dismiss the risks and dangers is something - funny enough - covered in the book as well.
p.s. Not passive, as in the aim is to be proactive (in influencing behavior). There are plenty of other sources that explore how fragile "free will" is, so maybe we can do that some other time? :)
Do you find you convince many people with this style of argumentation? I used to do it this way but it never worked out for me. You think I'm naive, but in fact I just have different priorities from you, and different estimates of the likelihood of outcomes.
Odd. From my POV, there's nothing to argue here. You've decided. And per you, that decision is final.
Once you said, "I'm not going to read...to learn new things..." the conversation was over on my end. The line was drawn. But, for the record, there are other here that might be interested in new ideas and new perspectives, and the flaws in their own. It's why I'm here. So for completeness and fairness to others, I played through.
I'm fairly confident you didn't hear an idea I referenced. So to me, it's odd that you perceive someone was trying to argue with you. Why would anyone bother? You're immune to all outside influences, yes?
It's not on to say someone said something, and put quotes around it, when they did not actually say that thing. Your quote would be misleading even if it only enclosed the words I did say, since you took away the context (you told me to read a whole particular book on a subject, I said I would not -- nobody has time to read every book a random internet commenter tells them to read). But enclosing words I didn't even say in quotes as well to make me sound even more unreasonable is beyond the pale.
I really can't stand how Google has handled the whole stadia thing. Just want to get that that of the way. I don't want to excuse google here.
But I do question the wisdom of porting this game to Stadia. It has only a single user review on Steam after having been out on that platform for four months. Even if only one in a thousand people leave reviews, that suggests a revenue of only $2500 or so, or more like $1750 after steam takes their cut. How can it possibly make financial sense to spend nearly half a year porting this game to an even smaller platform?
Since there were much fewer games on Stadia, your game had a much bigger chance of getting discovered. And if they got their game into Stadia Pro (subscription) they would benefit from its generous revenue share. Hundred Days - Winemaking Simulator made 25% of their revenue from Stadia.
I was one of the people who regularly used Stadia and was part of the Stadia Reddit and discord.
It makes a lot of sense. Stadia has a very small game pool - VERY small, think a new console a few months after launch. It's the best time to launch a game that can get discovered and get a fan base. It's like that side scroller game that was free on PS+ the month PS4 launched - it got incredibly popular even though it normally wouldn't hold a candle to AAA games (Resogun)
Heck, look at Crayta on Stadia - it's a pretty average game, but was extremely popular on Stadia because it was a launch game and the only sandbox game available.
> After watching ReviewTechUSAs video on it, another Developer working on a Stadia port explained that apparently Google Stadia was paying the Developers for the amount of Gameplay Stadia users played their game. So it was enough for them to decide it was worth the investment to focus on porting their game as they would be making a bare minimum.
I think it's the best way to handle shutting it down but I'm talking about the entire product lifecycle: the technical choices made during development, the decision to launch, the business relationship handling, and post launch execution, marketing and comms. I am not claiming that every aspect of stadia has been a failure, and the full refunds for everyone (except developers lol) is one of the few things that is going well.
Ironically, I think that if they’d made that a policy at the beginning the service would have had a much better chance of succeeding. So much of the initial coverage was dominated by people balking at paying full price for games they couldn’t use when Google killed it - saying that they’d give you Steam/Epic/GOG codes or something would have been a good way to completely avoid that and start rebuilding their corporate reputation.
Yup, I never touched Stadia for this exact reason. I'd have been curious otherwise especially since I travelled quite a bit for work before covid (so no access to my gaming pc) but assuming I'd lose any money spent when Google inevitably cancels the service prevented me from even trying it.
It’s wild thinking how they missed the boat during a time when billions of people were looking for online entertainment and GPUs were hard to get. They could have done some kind of pandemic promo if they didn’t want to commit to friendlier terms forever.
But the public -- pensioners and future pensioners -- are embarking in the risk/profit side of things. We want to fund our pension with less money than we ultimately take out, and additionally have guaranteed outflows regardless of market conditions. To put it shortly, we want profit.
The average pensioner may not understand that they were joining in a risky undertaking. Whose fault that is I could not even begin to suggest -- too many possible candidates depending on your world view. But a lack of understanding will avail you little when your counterparty is the fundamental financial reality that there is no free lunch.
As annoying as it is that the bankers made a bunch of money, the alternative, where all pension monies go into a savings account, would leave people much less happy.
And fundamentally it must be risky. You are engaging in a deal to be paid a sum of money 30 years down the road, there’s 30 years of mandatory uncertainty and risk involved with that deal. With defined contribution plans at least the worker observes that risk directly (401k goes up or down) but you can’t, no matter what you do, make it not risky.
As far as I understand, weakening the USD for the benefit of parties foreign is not part of the federal reserve's mandate. Maybe it should be but it isn't. I'm also not sure how continuing with inflationary policy could strengthen the USD. Surely any delay in raising rates should weaken it relatively speaking?
Also, it is natural for the USD to appreciate given the energy crisis and knock on effects from that, isn't it?
The problem is really that they are doing it extremely fast while ignoring the very financial plumbing they made everyone around the world rely on for two decades. It’s quite shortsighted to keep USD at extremes to soften inflationary pressures in the US while letting the RoW and developing countries burn. It’s 2022 and everything is connected. There’s no such thing as a decoupled economy.
so you are saying we should sit through 15, 20% inflation for the sake of other countries? that's not the fed's mandate and you will never, ever get domestic support for that. nor should you tbh, we should not suffer for the sake of everyone else. we don't want the dollar quite this strong but it's better than the alterantive.
regardless it's not all our choice. people will keep fleeing to the dollar for stability and that will strengthen it relative to other currencies. believe me this is not all fed policy or even mostly fed policy, we still have a lot of inflation so domestic winds aren't making it that strong. this is a "relative basis" thing. besides, what do you think the RoW impact would be if there was no safe currency to flee to?
and lastly petrodollar go brrrrr, energy crunch means we will have a strong dollar like it or not.
U.S sells a lot of oil and gas and as it happens Europe needs both. A lot of capital is fleeing from Europe and other risky markets(China) to safe havens( the U.S). All this in addition to the fed rate cuts.
From a pedestrian safety perspective, narrower roads and worse infrastructure is a good thing. It slows cars down and makes it less pleasant to drive, so fewer do.
You'd expect so (and I'd hope so) but nope. Drivers become even more reckless. Driving huge, noise-insulated cars seems to put them in the mindset of total control, detachment from actual speed and "I'm not gonna hurt myself anyways". Depending on the country you can add a less than perfect driver education (if any) to the mix.
Copyright law is actually enforceable though. At least enforceable enough to keep book piracy more inconvenient than Kindle for most people of any means.
Then again, it is most often the boyfriend. I think when I initially listened to Serial I didn't realize that fact to quite the degree I know it now. That doesn't make him legally guilty, but it does seem to be the Bayesian center of likelihood.
Well, that's a pretty extreme interpretation of what I said. It's just one piece of bayesian evidence, not a 100% determiner. Are there any witnesses who claim that this other individual killed her? Because there is one for Adnan. Also, it seems like a recent ex is probably more dangerous than a new lover.
