this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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It’s possible that the enforcement of a rate limit isn’t because of AI scraping, but rather because they failed to migrate before the June 30th deadline.

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 2 years ago (5 children)

What's up with billionaires and not paying their bills?

[–] [email protected] 114 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think it’s more that people who tend to be billionaires tend to also be kinda scummy people.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You dont make that kind of money being honest and empathetic. The most honest ppl I know that run businesses are barely paying themselves. There's a reason CEOs have higher than normal representation of psychopaths. It allows them to make the best decisions even if it means running the orphan killing machine 24/7.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago

I think you mean the "most profitable in the next 3 months on average" decision. It certainly isn't the best decision by any other metric.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Think I got rich by paying people?

[–] the_itsb 74 points 2 years ago (6 children)

This is so much more true than I think most people believe.

My husband and I have a small engine business, and I took a free "community entrepreneur bootcamp" class through the local university this spring in the hope that we might learn something helpful. Instead, I learned fun things like leaning on your customers' fears as a marketing tactic (?? 😔🤦) and that the most prominent local accountant - brought in as an expert speaker by the university! - advises his clients to pay as little as possible as late as possible, and most appallingly, I'm not exaggerating, these are the actual words I heard this man say in front of a room full of people: "if one of your employees gets hurt at your business, it's better for you to stand on their neck until they stop breathing than to call for help, because it's so much easier and cheaper to settle a death claim then an injury." And he actually said that it sounds like he's joking but he's not, this is his understanding of the situation.

I genuinely want to see the best in everyone, and I have never before had the experience of fantasizing about a person's death while they were talking in front of me, and it was abhorrent and awful but also... Wtf? How do we even help someone who sees other people as expendable tools the way this person does?

What can we even do about people who not only don't want to live up to their agreements and commitments, but are just straight up out to fuck everyone else over? How do we help/fix that?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It sounds very similar to when I was in seminary. They literally had classes on how to manipulate your audience. How to “use vocal patterns and body language to make yourself appear more sincere.”

People severely underestimate how many shitty people there are in this world (and even those who appear trustworthy) that would eat your firstborn to increase their net worth if it wasn’t illegal.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I read an article years ago that explained why so many people get "religious" feelings at big revival-type events at Six Flags, Carowinds, etc, even if they're not particularly devout.

There's a thing called respiratory alkalosis (essentially hyperventilation) which makes you light-headed and confused. At it's really easy to trigger by making people stand up quickly, sing really hard, sit back down, stand up and cheer, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

That sounds interesting! Do you remember where you found it? I would love to read it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I'll try to look for it. It was a loooong time ago though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I'm back! I couldn't find the specific thing I read, but I found something probably better, an actual study published in Pubmed:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871314/

Statistical analyses showed that the psychological disposition during the religious worship experience speeds up the physiological responses, which was indicated by increases in HR [hear rate] and RR [respiratory rate]. Hence, the activation hypothesis was accepted, and the pacification hypothesis was rejected.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thanks! You made my day, my good lemming.

The conclusion fits what you said earlier, and it is easy to see how this is probably used cynically for these cult bro events:

The first analysis was an exploration of the physiological data, where it was seen that HR and RR were significantly correlated. The values of how strongly the participants were able to focus on God were strongly associated with the intensity of the experience as well as with the physiological variables

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

You're welcome! I had a personal experience with this, too.

When I was a kid, my parents used to make me go to church and youth group stuff. We went to one of those "hip" events at Carowinds (like a Six Flags, Disney type amusement park). Before it started our youth leader said - to his credit - "No matter what you feel, DO NOT go down to the front when they call people up."

Sure enough towards the end, I start feeling "the spirit", and I'm the most skeptical, atheist/agnostic in the whole group. But I stayed in my seat. And when we got back to the hotel I was thinking "what the hell happened there?"

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

This sounds like an unfortunate consequence of the evolutionary pressure that has been allowed to take place within humanity for the past ~150 years. Profit is more important than anything else. So of course you'll have sociopathic "profit-above-all-else" mindsets among influential business figures.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

From a business standpoint I would never want to hire that accountant. If he openly talks about employees that way and being a bad customers to others he would probably also be a very bad supplier.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

If one of your employees gets hurt at your business, it's better for you to stand on their neck until they stop breathing than to call for help, because it's so much easier and cheaper to settle a death claim then an injury

That is because of regulations that pass the buck. If the US had public health care, and fines for negligence and OSHA violations, this wouldn't be true. Public health care would be the best thing for small businesses because it removes the health insurance benefits and workers' compensation issues completely. One big problem with the GOP is they are half right a lot, regulations are problematic, but not in the way they think. They take this half rightness and use it to do the wrong thing.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] Triazyze 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You don't become a billionaire by being honest and spending your money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No you just become it by inheriting an emerald mine like Elon did

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

In this case I think he doesn't understand cloud hosting at all, so he doesn't see the cost making sense. If you don't value something, the pricetag seems ridiculous and you won't even consider paying it. He will probably realize the mistake eventually.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

with higher interest rates, it means they can't get cheap loans, these companies will go under if the rates keep rising