Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter, a high school which costs at least $47,000 a year.
Zuckerberg bought Instagram from Kevin Systrom who went to Middlesex high school, which costs at least $55,000 a year.
At this point it becomes a parlor game of who is rich, and who is "upper middle class", which apparently means spending $55,000+ a year on your kid's high school.
If you have thousands working and creating wealth, and then a handful of heirs not working, and siphoning off expropriated surplus labor time of those who do work, then the heirs have a pretty good deal going for themselves. A couple percent of the created wealth of a few thousand workers just for one person? That adds up quick.
> Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers.
Unproductive? Then you must really be exercised about the heirs who own the majority of stock, who can and often do siphon off the created wealth of those working and creating wealth, via dividend profit of expropriated surplus labor time.
Oh, I see no such complaint. Just some co-workers who are "unproductive".
So what else in his age makes it not a small thing? That he cooperated with the American intelligence community back then? If he was some random teenager I guess it would be no random thing. However, his father was defense minister of this NATO country. Him spying on the student peace movement and relating details to his father and whoever his father had dealings with is the accusation. He certainly did a complete about face on the US military - or did he? Maybe this was his inclination from the beginning.
Incidentally NATO had a massive intelligence operation against the Norwegian student anti-NATO movement which was in the papers a few years ago.
I'm sure you had no clue the papers talked about his importance as a supposed anti-Vietnam activist years ago. I'm sure you had no idea his father was defense Minister of a NATO country. You're attempting to "discredit" the article by seeing a date, knowing none of these details, and deciding it discredits the article.
Worth noting that both the White House and the New York Times walked back inconsistent claims they made in the days after bin Laden's death. So the White House and Times were self-admittedly inconsistent about it. If Hersh is inconsistent it is in that light.
Hersh pokes holes in different points of the official narrative. Particularly the idea no one high up in the Pakistani government knew bin Laden was in the compound. Contradicting the White House, but very convincing to me and others.
However, to be fair to you, Hersh goes into a great deal of detail about the initial intelligence, the raid etc. Was any part of that wrong or inconsistent? It's hard to know. He didn't just make a few statements but went into a lot of detail. So there could theoretically be inconsistencies in Hersh's reporting about it too, since he covered so much ground. It is hard to know though. You just take what the White House said, what Hersh says, what the Pakistani press says and try to figure out what actually happened.
In an interview with the Guardian he said, as you quote
"Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true".
You take this statement he made and translate it to "his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden". The original quote you print is much clearer. I certainly don't translate his quote to what you translated it to.
Speaking of changed claims, both the White House and New York Times walked back claims they made in 2011 about bin Laden. So Hersh's claim of "a lie" and "not true", if you want to call it that, is true by their own admissions.
Incidentally the disputed issues are did anyone high up in the Pakistani government know bin Laden was there, how did the US learn he was there (connected to the first point), was the firefight killing bin Laden a kind of John Wayne/Audie Murphy production or was it more pedestrian etc.
If it's not pedantic that Hersh telling the interviewer "not one word of it is true" was hyperbole, when at least one word of the White House story was true, then you have a point on that statement. But it still does not automatically translate as you said. The original statement is more clearly what he said.
> his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden
You give a link but it is nowhere in that link. I watched an interview where Hersh talked about how the US killed bin Laden. Hersh has always said this.
Hersh did do reporting that countered parts of the US government story about bin Laden. Namely the idea no high Pakistani army/intelligence/government official knew where bin Laden was in Pakistan. As well as some other things.
The conspiracy theory is believing bin Laden sat in a big compound in Abbottabad with no one important in the Pakistani government knowing this. I guess the US government feels it needs to state this for some diplomatic reason, but it is ludicrous.
If he denied the US killed bin Laden he would be unreliable. He never denied the US killed bin Laden. You saying he said that is what is unreliable.
He said that some of the White House and Pentagon assertions about bin Laden, which the New York Times did not question in the days after (but did question, to some extent, later on) were not accurate. Particularly that no one high up in the Pakistani Army, government or intelligence knew Bin Laden was in Abbottabad. Hersh asserted that was incorrect, as were some other things.
The "mainstream" "establishment" position on the death of Osama Bin Laden is that Bin Laden was living in the middle of Abbottabad, which is the Pakistani equivalent of the town of West Point, and no high level Pakistani Army official knew he was there, and no high level Pakistani government official knew he was there.
It is a completely absurd story. The "truthers" are the people who believe that story. The White House gave a lot of information about bin Laden's death, as well as the Pentagon, and the government had to walk back some of their story shortly after. The New York Times reported the government statements as fact, although later another section of the paper printed some of the questions about the mainstream narrative. This caused an internal Times squabble, some of the "memoes" of which were subsequently leaked.
If you want a better account of what happened, read the Pakistani press.
The ISI worked with the US and bin Laden hand in glove in the 1980s. The idea no one high up on Pakistani intelligence, government or military knew he was there is absurd. Yet you call this "truther".
> a advocate of the Syrian rebel chemical weapon conspiracy
Chemical weapons were released in Douma. The rebels and government blamed each other. If the "conspiracy" as you call it that the rebels released it were true, it would tend to have been a mishandling of them - a mistake. Hersh reported on the attack, including information pointing to the rebels controlling it. I have no idea who had control of the weapons - it could have been the government as you imply. I don't have a problem with Hersh reporting on the information he had on that.
> The idea that workers there are somehow this abused underclass is ridiculous
The heirs who own the majority of most of the FAANG stock created none of the wealth, did none of the work. These rich kids of Instagram never worked, never will - nor did their parents, nor did their parents.
So your argument is the workers creating the wealth should fork over the amount of surplus labor value to these heirs, that is being expropriated.
What about these parasitical heirs you are arguing for? The ones who live off the dividend check wealth created by those who work? "I can't even begin to comprehend your POV". If the worker creating wealth keeping it is an entitled attitude, what is the attitude of these parasitical heirs who do not work?
> But to me personally: I am grown up enough to not care how many Porsches my neighbor has. How does this matter?
When something I made is sold at a company, used raw materials are rebought, but then left over is the wealth I created. A portion goes to me in wages, a portion is mailed off in dividend checks to the heir who is expropriating my surplus time. It matters because the heir is expropriating surplus labor time from me, and all the wealth I create in this time. That is why it matters.
> Isn’t income equality (government interventions in some aspects aside) a mere reflection of people’s contribution to a economy and their ability to negotiate? So, are you assuming/applying everyone more or less has the same contribution or do you want everyone to be paid the same irrespective?
Sure, the heirs from Rich Kids of Instagram are living off their rentier expropriation as a "reflection of people’s contribution to a economy", while the people doing the work and creating the wealth are contributing less to the economy, in your view.
The fruits of the economy are swallowed up by these parasitic heirs expropriating surplus labor time from those who work and create wealth, but your view is parasitism is somehow the greater contribution to the economy.
> Julian Assange is possibly a criminal. He certainly intervened in the 2016 election, allegedly with Russian help, to damage the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
One of the main things Assange revealed, which has not been disputed, is how Clinton intervened in the 2016 Democratic primary election, to damage the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, using any means possible to stop the grassroots pressure from below felt in both major parties. Strange how the revelation of the inside truth of this election intervention is itself called election intervention.
> Deciding that one's life is all about luck is a miserable way to live. It means one has no agency, no choice, no way to make one's life better. Because it's all luck, that means there is no point in trying. The outcome of this is self-fulfilling - misery.
Regardless of the effects of luck, I should point out how far from scientific observation this is. One can examine the evidence of, as this article says, luck, in society. Or, one can talk about magical thinking, and if one doesn't believe some received hegemony it will lead to misery. It sounds close to Christian fundamentalism - believe in the received divine word of the Bible or suffer eternally.
The evidence based scientific method has less value in observing human society than in observing the orbit of planets and such, for a variety of reasons. The picture gotten from social science is less clear than from natural science. It is better than the alternative though.
If one observed society, and the class structure of society, and the forces of production and relations of production - and the changes to the forces of production and resulting changes to relations of production - one would have an evidence based observation of
society. Including the luck of being born into one class or the other.
We can look at Mark Zuckerberg, who went to the Phillips Exeter high school (current yearly tuition - $47000 a year and up). His company bought Instagram for $1 billion, founded by Kevin Systrom who went to Middlesex high school (current yearly tuition - $55000 a year and up). We can then look at people who did not pay $47000 for their freshman year in high school (or its mid 1990s equivalent).
> None of my friends believes their lives are all about luck. They all believe they have agency, and are constantly taking responsibility for their lives and acting accordingly.
I'm sure Zuckerberg and Systrom believe they have agency - I believe they have agency. I'm sure when Bill Gates and Paul Allen left the Lakeside prep school they had agency.
These are in fact people who were upper middle class and actually went out and worked. Plenty of heirs inherit their billions, live as "rich kids of Instagram" as shall their kids.
Or you can take the advice if this poster - forget evidence in the world and engage in magical thinking or face misery.
In fact my experience is the opposite in my cohort. We see luck of birth and class structure as bearing on relations if production. My friends are fun to be around in a manner smarmy, entitled trust fund kids are not fun to be around.
> Software seems to be overrun by a mentality that any future cost is worth it to save even 1 minute of development time today.
Because SWE's report to engineering managers, who report to other layers of management who report to the executive suite who report to a board who report to those who own a majority of shares in the corporation. The message coming down from on high is fast, fast, fast, features that will increase next quarter's profits, or even this quarter's profits. Everything flows from this.
Because the US already invaded Cuba and occupies Guantanamo Bay there, despite the Cuban government demanding the US leave for over 60 years (incidentally the US "renditions" and tortures Arabs in Guantanamo Bay in a manner that is against even US law).