Today I Learned

Its a great example of why we don't want to abandon calculated social services for the whims of billionaire philanthropists.

Even the best billionaire backed project is still taking their part of the pie, even if it's just adhering to their vision.

EoD society generates value and we have right to collectively invest that value in bettering our own circumstance. Billionaires syphon that value from society and give it back to us pennies on the dollar.

What a weird parasocial position to attempt a sincere defense of... Really planning for the future huh, you temporarily embarrassed millionaire?

One daty you'll get that sweet mega yacht invite, and you'll be able to say, "don't worry friends, I always had your back when THEY would try to disparage you" and they'll say, "we always knew you were different, better... one of us, Stewart. We just had to wait until you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, as of course, we all had before"

So, I love boats and sailing.

Megayachts aren't for people who love boats and sailing, they're for rich people who love the privacy of having a mobile private island. In their operation (big diesel engines, fiberglass hulls made with MEK, dumping raw sewage and such), they pollute a lot more than basically any other method of travel/living.

The people at Gabe Newell's company probably make decent money. But it's a dangerous job working with extremely toxic chemicals (if it's good for the boat, it's bad for the environment, and it's bad for the workers). A lot of them probably have to retire early with health problems.

I love boats and sailing, but this megayacht shit sucks.

The amount of tankies on here is why, some of them just hate the fact rich people exists and not the fact a lot of them simply cheat the system and exploit legal loopholes and do shady deals. I don't like that mega rich people exist but I don't care if they do simply exist, I HATE that they influence legislation and law to suit themselves in spite or neglect of the average person, It's childish to attack those who are simply successful.

It'll happen when Gabe dies and gets replaced

I guess if they ever decide to go public, that would be the start of the enshittification process.

Within faulty power structures, we should make the sober decision to support the ones we seem are best fit for us!

No corporation or billionaire is your friend. No matter how nice they appear just because the rest are genocidal sociopaths.

Not all of them are necessarily evil either, but regardless of their intentions, they're almost always a net loss for society.

Fairly happy to find a business that wants to make money long term. Pretty rare these days. I would say thats a good thing, wouldnt you?

How do they do it? Looks like expanding into the open hardware space, the open source space, have good customer service and avoid ads except to promote games.

And the alternative is what? GOG?

In the end they are just a store front, so it isnt even like they are the only place to buy a product, yet somehow they are the only ones that seem to even give a shit about me playing games on Linux.

And then there are the employees. As far as we know (please if you work at valve say something) they are the highest compensated people in the it/game industry.

Their organizational method is pretty cool and their book on it is open sourced.

He's also not an enemy though. For an extremely wealthy person he's a decent guy imo. Then again, I don't know everything about him

Or just putting the money back into the company or wages.

Like imagine what you could do with that kind of cash. You don't even have to give it away, you can just run good businesses that aren't based on unsustainable greed.

Say you build decent housing and set the rents so the break-even date is 40 years from now, let your foundation own it, and kick back with a tall glass of milk. Say you build an insulin factory in Vermont and pump out pens at $7 each. Say you buy up some farmland and build proper greenhouses to grow food efficiently, allowing 90% of the land be rewilded.

Why in the fuck would you buy 3 Bugattis every year.

I thought his yachts were specifically designed as ocean research vessels no? Like the whole reason to buy the company out was to use their resources to make custom order research vessels (with submarine and medical bays) cheaper.

Not to say there aren't better causes, there absolutely are, but if he's out there pushing our scientific knowledge forward, I'm here for it.

Billionaires would be cooler if their obsession was the bettering of mankind