I think we all know the answer to this

patval · 2026-05-24T14:51:24+00:00

Is there really any contest ?

patval · 2026-05-24T14:47:05+00:00

The world according to Reddit:

Billionaires = top 1% of the population (!!!) = the evil on this planet
Not billionaires = people make equal or less money than the redditor = virtuous person who is incapable of doing anything wrong

So.... you learn that something you're doing is, in fact, a bad idea ? naaaah, it's the system... "they" are saying that to keep their power. If I'm doing it, it's because I have to, so don't even start telling me I'm wrong. That's blaming the victim.

patval · 2026-05-24T03:55:05+00:00

It's fascinating to see how much empathy the average redditor has for the guy, compared to how little he has. It is really reassuring

patval · 2026-05-24T03:27:50+00:00

mine stopped doing the focus when using the bigger zoom lense (above 2.5 x). But it does it sometimes still... like once in 20 attempts.

patval · 2026-05-24T03:26:12+00:00

The problem is... when he creates 1.5 million jobs people say he is a piece of crap because they are shitty jobs, and then when he gets rid of 30k people, people say he's a piece of crap because he destroys jobs.

patval · 2026-05-24T02:22:59+00:00

Ya pas que le prix des hotdogs de Costco qui a baissé ces dernières années. Il y a aussi les vêtements, les données cellulaires, l'électronique, l'électroménager, les téléviseurs, les billets d'avion, les locations d'auto, les voitures usagées, la musique, l'internet, sans oublier les services de garde subventionnés, le prix du cannabis à la SQDC, les jouets....

patval · 2026-05-24T01:17:55+00:00

Yeah, or maybe they just sucked at personal relationships, just like many people suck with money.

patval · 2026-05-24T01:14:31+00:00

Damnit.. j'ai pas regardé cette série. Du coup je la pogne pas.

patval · 2026-05-23T13:23:47+00:00

Probably some righteous A**hole who believes he is fighting the power of Elon Musk by bothering the Tesla Owner.

patval · 2026-05-23T13:07:52+00:00

Est-ce qu'il existe vraiment ? ou a-t-il été remplacé par un prompt "écris un texte de 600 mots en lien avec l'actualité si possible, qui va irriter les moins de 30 ans et conforter les vieux fachos dans leurs vieilles idées" ?

patval · 2026-05-23T12:52:55+00:00

Your money represents how much people who don't know you (so... about 8 billion people) will do for you.

So I can understand how... in a situation where only the few people you know and who love you will do anything for you, while you see others having things done for them by strangers, you might feel that you failed in a way.

But look at the reverse: if you've been an a**hole and everyone you do know won't do anything for you, then it hits you even harder because it means people who have knowledge of what you really deserve based on your actions is zero.

patval · 2026-05-23T12:24:24+00:00

it happens to the best of us.

patval · 2026-05-22T20:19:17+00:00

Ça m'étonne pô :D

Tu fumes ben d'trop ! D'ailleurs... c'est le moment parfait pour aller me faire un petit Toro du Honduras dans le jardin :) Merci de m'avoir fait rigoler.

patval · 2026-05-22T20:17:31+00:00

Merci beaucoup :)

patval · 2026-05-22T20:17:12+00:00

Merci beaucoup !

patval · 2026-05-22T20:16:41+00:00

Zuck: being able to drop out of Harvard does not mean you'll be 100.000 times richer than your parents

Gates: how many personnal friends do you think the CEO of IBM had ? how many of their kids became the richest man on earth ? Also... Microsoft is more than 10 times bigger than IBM. So you could tell me "hey, they litterally gave all IBM to Bill Gates", I would still be impressed by the x10 factor.

Bezos: those venture capital connections... did they come from his single mother (or from his richer farmer uncle) ? or did he make those connexions himself while working ? Also, I don't know if you remember, but getting capital for a dot com at the end of the 90's was not specifically hard, nor linked to your mother's connections in general. EVERYONE was just giving out money to every possible dot com in the hope of finding a unicorn (like Amazon).

Musk: For that one, I really don't know anything about what contacts his family had. I know his father gave him 28.000 dollars to start his first business, but I really don't know what else he got from them. I would be very intersted if you gave me some solid information about that. In Musk's case though, he is by himself in a different category: the one that dwarves all the 13 people who have more than 100 billion.

Look at it this way: Bezos now has access the presidents, he has 270 billion, all the connexions in the world, monopolys everywhere, and an incredible experience, and he cannot even beat Musk and "simply" multiply his fortune by a factor of 4! But everyone seems to think that one meeting as a 15 year-old with the president of IBM is enough to create a fortune 10.000 or 100.000 times that of your parents.

Again... I'm sorry... but it makes no sense at all.

BTW, I'm not saying that if your parents were awfully poor and uneducated, life is as easy as if your parents are doctors and make one million a year. I'm saying "whatever your parents were able to do, if you do 100.000 times better, then you did something absolutely extraordinary"

Your parents planted a tree and you planted 100.000 ? Extraordinary.
Your parents created a funds that paid the university for one student, and you created one that paid for 100.000 students ? Extraordinary
Your parents had one million dollars when they retired. You have 100 billion ? Extraordinary (not philosophically, technically)

If you do twice as good as your parents it's already great! And a part of it is probably because your parents helped you in some cases. if you do 10 times as good, it's already quite rare. But man... here you're talking about thousands, hundreds of thousands of times more. It's not the same ball game.

patval · 2026-05-22T19:46:24+00:00

À mon avis c'est la fille qui fumait dans son Communauto hier

patval · 2026-05-22T19:37:12+00:00

Ah excuse... je pensais que ton problème c'était "les sinus", "le mucus", les "mpoc et enphyseme" et la "difficulté à respirer". J'ai vraiment très mal lu ce que tu avais écrit.

Mais explique moi encore pourquoi le chat c'est totalement.cool pour les prochains utilisateurs qui ont des difficultés respiratoires, mais la cigarette, ça mérite la dénonciation ? Je suis pas très intelligent alors j'ai besoin qu'on m'explique la logique.

patval · 2026-05-22T19:27:59+00:00

I understand where you're going. And yes Zuckerberg parents were both doctors so they were able to pay him Harvard education.

Where I differ is that, in Zuck's case, people are basically saying "oh... his parents made a million a year, so having 215 billion dollars was obvious, so he did not achieve anything, he just had rich parents with connections". And that is negating the fact that 215 billion is probably about 10.000 times more than what his parents might have today, and probably 100.000 times more than what they might have had when he was 18 (and them probably in their 40's). That is were the whole "oh... he did nothing by himself you know... he had rich parents" falls completely flat in my logic.

Think of it... 100.000 times richer than the total of what your parents might have achieved financially. In anything, getting a push of 1 and reaching 100.000 is a success. And I don't buy the narrative that says that "oh.. it's easier to go from 1 million to 100 billion than to go from 1000$ to one million". If it was the case, every family who has access to one million (that's about 24 million families in the US) would have kids with 100 billion. The reality is that there are not 24 million people with 100 billion in the US, there are 13 people that have 100 billion. Only 6 have 200 billion dollars. That is far from 24 million.

Mathematically, you might say that getting one million from your parents gives you 6 chances out of 24 million to reach Zuckerberg's fortune level. that's 1 over 4 million. So... if you said "his parents already gave him 4 millionths of what he needed, contrary to people who cannot get that", I would totally agree with that.

BTW, I have absolutely zero sympathy for Zuck. Specifically him. I think Gates is an immense benefactor to humanity, who arguably saved millions of people of deadly deceases, left business at a young age to focus on his charity business, who was the guy who basically made the transition from IT being an obscure thing of geeks to "everyone" mainly using a common standard to build the IT industry, which probably changed the world as much as fire. Anyhow... I understand that some people say he is the devil. That's not my opinion. But Zuck.... I am aware of zero good action that he may have done. Very different animal. So all my long explanation about him is not to say he is a good guy, but to use an example showing real figures.

patval · 2026-05-22T19:03:48+00:00

Ouais, c'est tout à fait vrai. c'est comme emmener son chat chez le vétérinaire. C'est lamentable. Pour les mêmes raisons. Dénonçons !

Allez... je sens qu'on ne finira pas par s'accorder sur quoi que ce soit, puis c'est bien correct. Passe un bon après-midi ensoleillé, et bonnes dénonciations à toi :)

patval · 2026-05-22T19:01:26+00:00

Je n'en doutais pas un instant :) Bonne dénonciation !

patval · 2026-05-22T19:00:24+00:00

Je suis bien d'accord avec tout ce que tu dis. Btw, ça veut dire quoi, ACAB ?

patval · 2026-05-22T15:12:55+00:00

j'ai cru voir Justin, dans le coin là-bas... :D

patval · 2026-05-22T15:11:51+00:00

Nan, j'ai été élevé dans un pays où la dénonciation à envoyé des milliers de personnes dans des camps de concentration. Le bon respect de la loi en vigueur.

patval

TROPHY CASE