Comment by pjdesno
1 day ago
Bryan Cantrill, "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728
The specific lines about Ellison and a lawnmower start at 38:28 in the linked video; the entire Oracle rant starts at about 34:00.
We shouldn’t anthropomorphize any billionaires. They’re not even people at that point, just destructive aliens who undemocratically ruin everyone’s good time.
We need confiscatory taxation for a better future.
Whilst true, it’s important to focus on the worst ones first, as with everything there is a scale.
It's kind of saying we should only focus on the #1 mass-murdering dictator in the world, so while many of them are actively slaying people, lets just focus on #1 for now.
No, we can have many targets. People who hoard money for the benefit of themselves with the detriment of society and the population at large are all "destructive aliens who undemocratically ruin everyone’s good time" to borrow the words of parent commentator. If just 10% were slightly less evil and egoistic, it would lead to huge improvements, and only a slight reduction to their own lifestyles. That they don't, is a stain on the legacy of humanity.
Nope.
We need to bring the entire extraction class to heel. They are degrading, even destroying, society.
Don't tell that to Paul Graham.
The Ellison Cabal represent the primary enemies of freedom all over this earth. It's imperative to defeat them.
Every time I see this video, I feel a strange tenderness for the new generations watching it.
They do not really understand how bad Oracle used to be. This is us, old combat veterans, sitting by the fire, describing unspeakable battles to the youth...knowing full well that they think we are exaggerating. :-)
And the most disturbing part is the realization that the Frankenstein monster itself, Larry Ellison, is still out there. Still roaming free. Still very much alive... An eternal, terrifying, lawnmower wielding zombie of enterprise software and government corrupting rent extraction.