I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
Anybody who claims crypto is useful for buying drugs is a fed. The blockchain contains the transaction history, you can trace a coin back to every wallet it's ever been in. Buy your drugs with cash, but make sure the cash has been places: cash from an ATM might have no history aside from you withdrawing it.
I'm unsure about the drug trade, but isn't Monero preferred for ransomware because it's harder to track than Bitcoin and other crypto? I would assume if it's good enough for ransomware hostage, it'd be sufficient for illicit purchases.
"Harder to track" is still easier to track than wiring funds overseas to an account made with a stolen identity.
A lot of countries straight up do not respect the FBI and US Government, or have privacy laws preventing cooperation. A popular route would be Switzerland > Trinidad > Russia (but not right now because the Russian monetary system is fucked), it will take forever for law enforcement to get cooperation and then at the end of the line Russia tells them to fuck off.
When Crypto scammers steal from people, they don't steal Crypto. They have you wire money overseas.
It tells you how useful it is for covert transfers and discretion.
As I have laid out to multiple people: those have never been what it was for and by design never will be. It is a digital multiple ledger system which replaces the need for a bank.
EDIT: and to be clear theres nothing wrong with banks, but they're inefficient for a lot of things like payment gateways and can be unreliable.
Unfortunately, if his house does burn down, he's just going to blame public services for their failure to protect his home, and then claim that privatized fire services would have been better.
The irony may be lost in him, but if he had advocated for his neighbors to have the resources they needed to prevent their house from burning, the imminent risk he's now facing to his house would not be a threat. The individualistic mindset of fire prevention, disease spread, etc is so flawed. The best way to protect yourself is to make sure your neighbors are protected, and for them to do the same to you.
(supposed to be Crassus according to wikipedia, who was a roman that was infamous for, among other things, having a private fire brigade that would take financial advantage of people whose homes were burning)
Ancient Rome had privatized fire department. Caesar's friend Crassus got the job and used it to extort people to sell their homes in a neighborhood when a fire broke out. As a result he became one of the richest people in history.
He was also killed by the Persians who poured liquid gold (or silver, depending on source) on his decapitated head and sent it back to Rome.
America's original firefighters were private industry as well. They were known to loot peoples property and allow fires to spread in order to charge more for putting out multiple buildings. So it sounds like we have about 2000 years of history telling us private firefighters aren't a great idea.
People need to realize the rich are not smart. And when they fuck things up, we all suffer.
It’s nice to see them fuck around and find out, but we cannot afford to keep watching them find out on climate change. They’re going to get us all killed.
Crazy thing is that there are people who genuinely think he is very smart, because he uses bots on social media to promote that image and it works as we can see.
"The rich" created an environment for this to happen by making sure the government could not regulate anythingand be effective in addressing any issues such as climate change, insurance, public utilities. You name it they fucked with it.
This was a case of not being prepared for climate change. There was four times the normal demand for 15 hours straight. The water ran out because nobody anticipated needing the amount they did. That wasn't because of socialism.
When one person posts an extremely articulate comment with a well-defined argument about why they feel the way they do, and another person (YOU) replies to that with a comment in which the only thing they say is "Jesus you're dumb", I'm going to assume the dumbass is the one who was NOT articulate or detailed in any capacity (YOU).
Fire fighting is a category that has tried privatized model and thoroughly thoroughly shown to not work at all as a privatized endeavor.
Key problem in that is that requires the firefighters to protect only properties that have paid for their services. So a wildfire breaks out in the middle of nowhere, and you see it, but no one pays to protect "middle of nowhere", so business wise it doesn't make sense to fight a fire without a customer. Nevertheless, that's your only hope to control it, so you end up protecting a whole lot of non-subscribers to try to protect your subscribers. What if your customer is surrounded by non-customers? You shouldn't fight fires back, but unless you push back on the neighbor properties your customer gets burned. If you know your neighbors have protection, you might opt out knowing that, practically speaking, their coverage means you get covered.
Another problem is that privatized suggests competition. Which means coordinated response is severely limited. Also, they can't run parallel fire hydrant infrastructure in any reasonable way, so water on the truck or from the customer direct are all you can get. This is a recipe for being highly ineffective.
This is putting aside how private industry loves to optimize around the normal day to day demand. Being prepared at all times for the worst case is expensive, so private industry tends to shit the bed when faced with a catastrophe because they only have the modest capacity to keep expenses under control. When this is something like a shortage of smartphones, no big deal people just have to wait for the scenario to subside and get by as-is, it's worth it to have affordable smartphones 99% of the time. But for a wildfire that would cause multiple gigantic catastrophes a year. What we see in LA now would be a routine disaster in the privatized scenario.
Are you saying privatizing systems makes them better prepared for extreme circumstances? The energy infrastructure in Texas is an example where they aren't incentives to invest in rare occurrences and therefore people die when it snows in Texas.
Yes, let's scrap the whole thing because of this one fire. /s
There are 50 wildfires burning in the US right now, and that's a very low number, only because it's winter.
Do you realize just even 20 years ago how many kids used to die in fires? We're doing fantastic. 50 years ago, I'd wager everyone knew a kid that died in a fire.
Get fucked Keith, Crassus and his shitty private firemen haven't been around for a fat minute. But hey you should celebrate, this is your free market paradise right here. Meteorological markets shorted the value of your home's existence.
He's gonna get an insurance payout like almost everyone there. I wouldn't be surprised if state legislature takes tax money from the masses to make the rich who live there 'whole' on top of it.
Then there's FEMA/Federal tax dollars that they'll get even if the state government doesn't hand them piles of cash.
They always get their payday. They never actually risk anything, they just steal from the middle class taxpayers.
Bah, insurance companies never lose man. They're just gonna crank up rates come policy renewal time and earn a commission/profit on top of the increased rates.
Well, he’s a founding member and CEO of a company that is basically a corporate landlord and specifically profits off of car culture (apartment buildings and self-storage.) So he’s a leech on the working class, moreso than the typical member of the capital class.
Welcome to the days before professional police and fire. Where only the wealthy could afford to pay for their homes to be protected or crimes against them to be pursued. The poor had to hope for community to come to their aid.
Calling it: Trump will privatize those services to ensure rich people never have to watch their houses burn because the firefighters were busy saving poors
I know! But I always bog myself down with moralistic, philosophical questions like "is that how they got started?" and "does that make me as loathsome as them?"
Questions they I doubt they ever felt the weight of.
Most of them got started with generational wealth. Be careful though. The only crime the rich people get in trouble for is stealing from other rich people.
Just send them official looking bills with obtuse language describing the billed work. Many will just pay them without looking further into things. I once did a landscaping delivery to some nouveau riche looking a-hole who bragged about being so busy and rich, that he just payed whatever bills came in. He also wasn't that rich, but liked to look the part. Probably swimming in debt right now.
I feel really bad for the lungs of all the Angelinos who don't deserve this, but I can't say I haven't enjoyed the fact that this fire is centered around an area where a bunch of rich fucks have their mansions.
FYI, in The United States ALL FIREFIGHTERS were private, and would demand to be paid BEFORE putting out a fire on private property or a business. Private Fire Brigades were the only "proffessional" firefighting available and if you didn't have the case your shit burned. Private Fire Brigades would often go to war with each other with fists, knives, and firearms over the right to collect duty and fight a particular fire.
While it's broadly accurate that private fire brigades were highly competitive and staunchly capitalist (and exploitative in nature), the idea that any of them would refuse to put out a fire without first being paid has been debunked.
It's not impossible that it happened on some occasion, but in general this would have been a horrifyingly terrible business decision: not only would they be lambasted by their competitors, but they usually covered at least some of the neighbors of any given burning property. It would have made their jobs infinitely more difficult when it came time to make good on protecting their clients if they let nearby fires grow (and grow they would, very quickly).
See here for a retraction of a previous piece by Tom Scott on this topic as it relates to the UK, where these stories originated, including reference to a correction of his original source, the London Fire Brigade Museum's webpage. https://youtu.be/Wif1EAgEQKI?si=vgjotkm19mrJGjyU All of the points made in that video about the UK apply the same to the US, as far as I'm aware
What DID actually happen was that brigades would send someone to prevent their competitors from putting out the fire before they could arrive (e.g. by blocking access to a hydrant/water main) in an effort to guarantee they would get the payout for putting it out. Similarly shitty, for sure, but not quite the same
As I said, there is I'm not surprisedthat it has happened throughout history, and that's super fucked, but even that article has other firefighters going "WTF is wrong with you? Why would you do that?"
Posts like these are why the next regime in both LA and California will be more conservative, even if that just means centrist.
The way these fires have unfolded indicate a pretty big failure of state and local government. It's not the first time both entities have been caught unprepared for stuff like this.
Instead of having an honest conversation, the liberal world is just going "Drunpf bad". Eventually most people are just gonna vote for someone who promises to fix things.
Don’t wanna be that person, I don’t think it’s okay to make fun of someone else’s misery. I can’t speak to the ethics and morality of this tweet dude, but not everyone who’s rich is an immoral or unethical person, and not everyone who’s working class has morals or ethics. People should aim to do better for each other. Maybe I am just naive to want something like that.
I feel like it was the Trump supporting Republicans that really ignited the us-vs-them mentality though. So here we are playing their game, and people are upset that we won't have compassion toward the people who are trying to beat us down? I'm just speaking in general--I don't know who the guy was, how rich he is, or if he actually is a Trump supporter tbh.
No that’s fair, which is why I said that I don’t know whether this tweet person is someone anti-social or sociopathic. A person doesn’t have to extend compassion or empathy to anyone who wants to harm them, or is some sociopath or psychopath (unless the sociopath/psychopath is going through some kind of psychological treatment for a disorder).
I know, that’s why the face eating leopard memes are funny too. People say a lot of thoughtless things out of biases and indoctrination. Some people will never learn, only thing which makes sense is to tax the wealthy so they stop corrupting democracy.
I agree with you in principle. But I don’t think this tweet guy is saying everyone else’s house should be ignored in favor of his, instead it was more like “can I hire someone quickly to prevent damage to me and my neighbors”. I know people can make a lot of snap judgments about others on race, class, gender etc. I just don’t think it’s fair or just to do that.
Yeah, if I was in the area I’d help out and go with how the professionals and authorities are triaging the area. Triaging is super important in such situations.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
That line gets me every time.
For the bullet of course
Anybody who claims crypto is useful for buying drugs is a fed. The blockchain contains the transaction history, you can trace a coin back to every wallet it's ever been in. Buy your drugs with cash, but make sure the cash has been places: cash from an ATM might have no history aside from you withdrawing it.
I'm unsure about the drug trade, but isn't Monero preferred for ransomware because it's harder to track than Bitcoin and other crypto? I would assume if it's good enough for ransomware hostage, it'd be sufficient for illicit purchases.
"Harder to track" is still easier to track than wiring funds overseas to an account made with a stolen identity.
A lot of countries straight up do not respect the FBI and US Government, or have privacy laws preventing cooperation. A popular route would be Switzerland > Trinidad > Russia (but not right now because the Russian monetary system is fucked), it will take forever for law enforcement to get cooperation and then at the end of the line Russia tells them to fuck off.
When Crypto scammers steal from people, they don't steal Crypto. They have you wire money overseas.
That right there tells you everything you need to know about how useful crypto is as a currency
It tells you how useful it is for covert transfers and discretion.
As I have laid out to multiple people: those have never been what it was for and by design never will be. It is a digital multiple ledger system which replaces the need for a bank.
EDIT: and to be clear theres nothing wrong with banks, but they're inefficient for a lot of things like payment gateways and can be unreliable.
Yes, by all means, just add wire fraud and identity theft to your portfolio when buying some weed
The user above me said kidnapping. Also it might sound complicated but you could probably set it up in an afternoon.
You can track monero? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?
No, I don't I've never even heard of that shit but if its crypto then its a multiple digital ledger by definition. They all are.
Did you have to put a coin in your computer to write this comment?
Fucking brilliant every time
The only part of this that aged poorly is the Penn Gillette bit. He's come around.
Somehow I read that story in my mind in the voice of Matthew McConoghey…
So when I read the alright alright part it definitely had three Alrights.
Great story, got me hooked.
Edit: ah shit, i just read down below that it’s a well known cooypasta. Got me good
You should consider a career as a cyberpunk satirist.It's a well known copypasta
It's from The New Yorker
As I was reading it, I kept thinking how the writing was higher quality than a usual shitpost.... this all.lakes sense now!
http://archive.today/UTYYE
Huh. TIL. I've never seen it before.
Exactly why I posted it! Enjoy.
Immediately thought of this when I saw the screenshot.
That was simply President's Choice Filipino Adobo chips amazing®.
He also doesn’t want to pay property taxes, and for what little it’s worth, he drives a cybertruck/wankpanzer.
Upvote for wankpanzer. That's gold
I can’t claim to have created that nickname, I borrowed it from elsewhere.
I don’t think anyone else has used WombleWagon yet, though it’s not quite as brutal.
If anyone gives you a dirty look for saying it, immediately apologize and correct the pronunciation to "vank"panzer.
Perfect!
https://feddit.org/c/strassenpanzer
Oooh, wankpanzer, that is beautiful, thank you 🤣
Can we please start calling it president wankpanzer?
Name any price eh? Someone is going to learn very quickly, why public services exist.
Marcus Crassus smiles in his grave
Should be shiny smile with all that gold poured down his throat.
Unfortunately, if his house does burn down, he's just going to blame public services for their failure to protect his home, and then claim that privatized fire services would have been better.
The irony may be lost in him, but if he had advocated for his neighbors to have the resources they needed to prevent their house from burning, the imminent risk he's now facing to his house would not be a threat. The individualistic mindset of fire prevention, disease spread, etc is so flawed. The best way to protect yourself is to make sure your neighbors are protected, and for them to do the same to you.
The irony is having ’wassermann’ as his last name and asking this 😹
Without a hint of irony that those privatized fire services did not save his home anyway.
The good news for the privatized fire services is that they got a bunch of extra zeros in their bank account.
No, please, let him find out!
(supposed to be Crassus according to wikipedia, who was a roman that was infamous for, among other things, having a private fire brigade that would take financial advantage of people whose homes were burning)
Ancient Rome had privatized fire department. Caesar's friend Crassus got the job and used it to extort people to sell their homes in a neighborhood when a fire broke out. As a result he became one of the richest people in history. He was also killed by the Persians who poured liquid gold (or silver, depending on source) on his decapitated head and sent it back to Rome.
we should bring that back. the persians were onto something here.
Best I can do is liquid poo
sold
America's original firefighters were private industry as well. They were known to loot peoples property and allow fires to spread in order to charge more for putting out multiple buildings. So it sounds like we have about 2000 years of history telling us private firefighters aren't a great idea.
Without any irony at all these people simultaneously demand deregulation of all industries
On an unrelated note, "crass" basically means fat
Interestingly "krass" and "fett" are both informal/ slang in German for something incredible
Crasse in frensh has a "really bad"/cheap&bad connotation.
Also, the fires that broke out were mostly ones he started himself.
Fake news, everyone knows the Christians started all those fires.
Beaten to the Crassus comment 😮💨
People need to realize the rich are not smart. And when they fuck things up, we all suffer.
It’s nice to see them fuck around and find out, but we cannot afford to keep watching them find out on climate change. They’re going to get us all killed.
Just look at Phony Stark.
Crazy thing is that there are people who genuinely think he is very smart, because he uses bots on social media to promote that image and it works as we can see.
What did "the rich" do to create this situation where there's no water to feed the hydrants?
https://perfectunion.us/how-this-billionaire-couple-stole-californias-water-supply/
And Nestle being allowed to take it practically for free for decades
"The rich" created an environment for this to happen by making sure the government could not regulate anythingand be effective in addressing any issues such as climate change, insurance, public utilities. You name it they fucked with it.
"Why isn't throwing money at the fire making it stop????"
This was a case of not being prepared for climate change. There was four times the normal demand for 15 hours straight. The water ran out because nobody anticipated needing the amount they did. That wasn't because of socialism.
When one person posts an extremely articulate comment with a well-defined argument about why they feel the way they do, and another person (YOU) replies to that with a comment in which the only thing they say is "Jesus you're dumb", I'm going to assume the dumbass is the one who was NOT articulate or detailed in any capacity (YOU).
Is having a functional society with public services not a good enough incentive for you ? that's your return on investment
Fire fighting is a category that has tried privatized model and thoroughly thoroughly shown to not work at all as a privatized endeavor.
Key problem in that is that requires the firefighters to protect only properties that have paid for their services. So a wildfire breaks out in the middle of nowhere, and you see it, but no one pays to protect "middle of nowhere", so business wise it doesn't make sense to fight a fire without a customer. Nevertheless, that's your only hope to control it, so you end up protecting a whole lot of non-subscribers to try to protect your subscribers. What if your customer is surrounded by non-customers? You shouldn't fight fires back, but unless you push back on the neighbor properties your customer gets burned. If you know your neighbors have protection, you might opt out knowing that, practically speaking, their coverage means you get covered.
Another problem is that privatized suggests competition. Which means coordinated response is severely limited. Also, they can't run parallel fire hydrant infrastructure in any reasonable way, so water on the truck or from the customer direct are all you can get. This is a recipe for being highly ineffective.
This is putting aside how private industry loves to optimize around the normal day to day demand. Being prepared at all times for the worst case is expensive, so private industry tends to shit the bed when faced with a catastrophe because they only have the modest capacity to keep expenses under control. When this is something like a shortage of smartphones, no big deal people just have to wait for the scenario to subside and get by as-is, it's worth it to have affordable smartphones 99% of the time. But for a wildfire that would cause multiple gigantic catastrophes a year. What we see in LA now would be a routine disaster in the privatized scenario.
Are you saying privatizing systems makes them better prepared for extreme circumstances? The energy infrastructure in Texas is an example where they aren't incentives to invest in rare occurrences and therefore people die when it snows in Texas.
:o
Yes, let's scrap the whole thing because of this one fire. /s
There are 50 wildfires burning in the US right now, and that's a very low number, only because it's winter.
Do you realize just even 20 years ago how many kids used to die in fires? We're doing fantastic. 50 years ago, I'd wager everyone knew a kid that died in a fire.
https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/fire/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/376703/us-civilian-fire-deaths/
socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more socialist it is
The government is people, and people acting in bad faith are the foundation of the shittiest parts of human history.
burning to death to own the libs. gee I sure am triggered, what a snowflake I am
Get fucked Keith, Crassus and his shitty private firemen haven't been around for a fat minute. But hey you should celebrate, this is your free market paradise right here. Meteorological markets shorted the value of your home's existence.
He's gonna get an insurance payout like almost everyone there. I wouldn't be surprised if state legislature takes tax money from the masses to make the rich who live there 'whole' on top of it.
Then there's FEMA/Federal tax dollars that they'll get even if the state government doesn't hand them piles of cash.
They always get their payday. They never actually risk anything, they just steal from the middle class taxpayers.
Well think of the shareholders. This is gonna tank some insurance companies.
Bah, insurance companies never lose man. They're just gonna crank up rates come policy renewal time and earn a commission/profit on top of the increased rates.
I don’t know, but I was being sarcastic. Fuck ‘em.
Fuck 'em. Lol
Insurance companies don't like to pay out for the same thing more than once.
Well for the normies they delay, deny, defend anyway. Why even pay at all if they can't afford to fight you?
Yeah, dude doesn't understand that old "I'll put out the fire but you have to sell me your house for $5,000" trick
Not really Antiwork but I do like seeing ancaps become homeless so
Well, he’s a founding member and CEO of a company that is basically a corporate landlord and specifically profits off of car culture (apartment buildings and self-storage.) So he’s a leech on the working class, moreso than the typical member of the capital class.
I like it more when they have homes and bears fuck them up.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
It is a great book. Lots of bear attack history.
Welcome to the days before professional police and fire. Where only the wealthy could afford to pay for their homes to be protected or crimes against them to be pursued. The poor had to hope for community to come to their aid.
The police have always acted mostly for the benefit of the rich. American police started out as slave catchers for wealthy plantation owners.
All true. They protect wealth.
Calling it: Trump will privatize those services to ensure rich people never have to watch their houses burn because the firefighters were busy saving poors
The poor will just get substandard service and usage fees vs the rich who will get it included in their insurance.
And then there's California, where nobody gets access to fire response
Awwww he deleted his account. Or maybe it burned down too.
Is it bad I kind of want to con these rich fucks out of some of their money so I can afford to move away from this greed prison country?
No not at all, they don't deserve more money than us.
I know! But I always bog myself down with moralistic, philosophical questions like "is that how they got started?" and "does that make me as loathsome as them?"
Questions they I doubt they ever felt the weight of.
Most of them got started with generational wealth. Be careful though. The only crime the rich people get in trouble for is stealing from other rich people.
Just send them official looking bills with obtuse language describing the billed work. Many will just pay them without looking further into things. I once did a landscaping delivery to some nouveau riche looking a-hole who bragged about being so busy and rich, that he just payed whatever bills came in. He also wasn't that rich, but liked to look the part. Probably swimming in debt right now.
Have you tried being a faith healer for the rich?
You need to know how to launder money for that. A lot of those psychic/faith healer types the rich use are just laundering money for them.
So you're saying I need to be an Asian Nail Salon faith healer?
Wait this is unironic? Like not trying to troll the ancaps or something? I'd troll it on r/austrian_economics if I wasn't banned.
I feel really bad for the lungs of all the Angelinos who don't deserve this, but I can't say I haven't enjoyed the fact that this fire is centered around an area where a bunch of rich fucks have their mansions.
Don't worry, they're insured
Apparently not for enough or he wouldn't have posted that.
Losing your shit sucks, even if you do get a payout
I feel the same.
from another billionaire experiencing the "hung" part of "hung by his own petard" and ...
You mean "hoisted"?
Actually you mean “hoist”.
Looking it up now, I apparently do.
The more you know 🌈
FYI, in The United States ALL FIREFIGHTERS were private, and would demand to be paid BEFORE putting out a fire on private property or a business. Private Fire Brigades were the only "proffessional" firefighting available and if you didn't have the case your shit burned. Private Fire Brigades would often go to war with each other with fists, knives, and firearms over the right to collect duty and fight a particular fire.
While it's broadly accurate that private fire brigades were highly competitive and staunchly capitalist (and exploitative in nature), the idea that any of them would refuse to put out a fire without first being paid has been debunked.
It's not impossible that it happened on some occasion, but in general this would have been a horrifyingly terrible business decision: not only would they be lambasted by their competitors, but they usually covered at least some of the neighbors of any given burning property. It would have made their jobs infinitely more difficult when it came time to make good on protecting their clients if they let nearby fires grow (and grow they would, very quickly).
See here for a retraction of a previous piece by Tom Scott on this topic as it relates to the UK, where these stories originated, including reference to a correction of his original source, the London Fire Brigade Museum's webpage. https://youtu.be/Wif1EAgEQKI?si=vgjotkm19mrJGjyU All of the points made in that video about the UK apply the same to the US, as far as I'm aware
What DID actually happen was that brigades would send someone to prevent their competitors from putting out the fire before they could arrive (e.g. by blocking access to a hydrant/water main) in an effort to guarantee they would get the payout for putting it out. Similarly shitty, for sure, but not quite the same
I mean, it's a thing TODAY where rural fire services where government services don't exist won't put out homes of people who didn't pay NBC News | No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn
As I said, there is I'm not surprisedthat it has happened throughout history, and that's super fucked, but even that article has other firefighters going "WTF is wrong with you? Why would you do that?"
this sounds like some libertarian ass shit
He should grab the flames and take them off the house.
We don't need no water let the mother fucker burn
Burn motherfucker, burn
Just here to point out the irony that this guy is called "Waterman" (in German, though one 'n' was dropped somewhere)
Remember... these are the oh-so-smart Richie Riches that gets to be the de facto ruling elites in our capitalism-addled society.
There is a niche industry of private firefighters in SoCal. I'm not sure why he is tweeting for them instead of googling them, and calling.
"Did someone email us about a fire?"
Is there really? My heavens.
Well this is about a place in the us and we are in full clown world.
Makes sence that private sector fire departments are back. Wonder if they will also start back up the practice of arson towards thier competition.
¿You mean, customers, don't you?
Well yes, but we know both are likely.
If it's a legitimate fire the House has ways to shut it down.
Oh look! It's time to play "Fire, Water, Burn" by the Bloodhound Gang on maximum volume again.
What you need are some beautiful rakes.
Congratulations! After processing your payment of $1392.63, we have put out the fire on your house.
Since everything else around you is still burning, we will require another $1392.63 to come out again.
Wouldn't the neighbours house already being on fire be considered a pre existing condition?
those poor rich people! gasp!
Lol
Well it turns out a brand new fire engine is nearly 500k, plus equipment, firefighters, training.
The price might be more than one is willing to pay!
Posts like these are why the next regime in both LA and California will be more conservative, even if that just means centrist.
The way these fires have unfolded indicate a pretty big failure of state and local government. It's not the first time both entities have been caught unprepared for stuff like this.
Instead of having an honest conversation, the liberal world is just going "Drunpf bad". Eventually most people are just gonna vote for someone who promises to fix things.
exactly. while the supposed left incarnates betrayal, disapointment and innaction, the right grows and fulfils its fascist promises.
Don’t wanna be that person, I don’t think it’s okay to make fun of someone else’s misery. I can’t speak to the ethics and morality of this tweet dude, but not everyone who’s rich is an immoral or unethical person, and not everyone who’s working class has morals or ethics. People should aim to do better for each other. Maybe I am just naive to want something like that.
I feel like it was the Trump supporting Republicans that really ignited the us-vs-them mentality though. So here we are playing their game, and people are upset that we won't have compassion toward the people who are trying to beat us down? I'm just speaking in general--I don't know who the guy was, how rich he is, or if he actually is a Trump supporter tbh.
No that’s fair, which is why I said that I don’t know whether this tweet person is someone anti-social or sociopathic. A person doesn’t have to extend compassion or empathy to anyone who wants to harm them, or is some sociopath or psychopath (unless the sociopath/psychopath is going through some kind of psychological treatment for a disorder).
Sure but when people demand deregulation and privatization get both it's a little funny to see them sobbing their eyes out
I know, that’s why the face eating leopard memes are funny too. People say a lot of thoughtless things out of biases and indoctrination. Some people will never learn, only thing which makes sense is to tax the wealthy so they stop corrupting democracy.
If that was possible, we wouldn't be where we are now.
I agree with you in principle. But I don’t think this tweet guy is saying everyone else’s house should be ignored in favor of his, instead it was more like “can I hire someone quickly to prevent damage to me and my neighbors”. I know people can make a lot of snap judgments about others on race, class, gender etc. I just don’t think it’s fair or just to do that.
Yeah, if I was in the area I’d help out and go with how the professionals and authorities are triaging the area. Triaging is super important in such situations.
Yes, you are respectfully naive.
One does not become rich enough to buy these $10m homes and $2m apartments without enacting violence on others.
Just because you don’t think class war is violence doesn’t change reality.
And boy do I feel like some self defense these days.