#broligarchs

^^^ Another way of thinking about what a trillion represents.

To paraphrase what they say in the pest control business: There's never just ONE multi-billionaire.

We may not be able to get rid of them, but we can certainly vote their MAGA pawns out of office.

Elon Musk, Alex Karp, and Peter Thiel may want a sleek Blade Runner dystopia where they control the masses through surveillance and brutality, but it’s still a future we can kill before it’s too late. In the political global alt-right, the wheels are coming off for three of today’s worst: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Orban. Instead of a flying car, these mooks are behind the wheel of a Soviet-era Lada screaming at the dashboard as if that will make the engine start again. »

— Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, at his Substack Rick Wilson’s Against All Enemies.

Elon Musk's DOGE was supposed to rein in fraud. Instead, DOGE employees allegedly sold Social Security data to a rightwing political group.

Fifteen years later, the revolutionaries are no longer storming the gates. They’re inside the castle, polishing the silverware. »

— Aaron Zamost, tech communications consultant and former executive at YouTube and Google. Writing at the New York Times. (archived)

His opinion of Silicon Valley has declined considerably in recent years. He's particularly critical of how tech bros are kissing Trump's ass since his re-election.

Another quick excerpt...

For tech companies, courage doesn’t scale. Google, Apple and their peers now act like the self-preservation-obsessed incumbents they once disrupted. They move slower, talk safer and patrol the moat. They’ve traded risk for complacency — too afraid of offending the president, losing access or inviting a subpoena. Big Tech now serves power before it serves its users.

— Andrew Egger at The Bulwark.

Our use of money is tied to our use of power. Many people still don't really understand that.

The No Kings marches did not really change things a lot. But large numbers of cancellations of Disney+ brought Jimmy Kimmel back faster than most people expected.

Unfortunately, too many people put convenience ahead of fighting authoritarianism.

"It's inconvenient for me to ditch Amazon Prime."

"I'll lose touch with friends if I delete Facebook and Instagram."

"Google is the only search engine I've ever used."

You can still buy stuff online without going through Amazon. Friends have kept in touch with each other for thousands of years before Mark Zuckerberg was ever born. Google is not the only search engine; and there are even some where you can switch off annoying AI.

Be careful about which Amazon products you buy. It seems that Amazon doorbell cameras will potentially let the police spy on your home.

Law enforcement agencies will soon have easier access to footage captured by Amazon’s Ring smart cameras. In a partnership announced this week, Amazon will allow approximately 5,000 local law enforcement agencies to request access to Ring camera footage via surveillance platforms from Flock Safety. Ring cooperating with law enforcement and the reported use of Flock technologies by federal agencies, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has resurfaced privacy concerns that have followed the devices for years. According to Flock’s announcement, its Ring partnership allows local law enforcement members to use Flock software “to send a direct post in the Ring Neighbors app with details about the investigation and request voluntary assistance.” Requests must include “specific location and timeframe of the incident, a unique investigation code, and details about what is being investigated,” and users can look at the requests anonymously, Flock said. “Any footage a Ring customer chooses to submit will be securely packaged by Flock and shared directly with the requesting local public safety agency through the FlockOS or Flock Nova platform,” the announcement reads. Flock said its local law enforcement users will gain access to Ring Community Requests in “the coming months.” Outside its software platforms, Flock is known for license plate recognition cameras. Flock customers can also search footage from Flock cameras using descriptors to find people, such as “man in blue shirt and cowboy hat.” Besides law enforcement agencies, Flock says 6,000 communities and 1,000 businesses use their products. For years, privacy advocates have warned against companies like Flock.

Jeff Bezos is an official MAGA ass-kisser broligarch whose sole motivation is greed for even more wealth. It shouldn't surprise people that he would assist with the Trump police state.