Elon offers Wikipedia $ 1 billion to change their name to Dickipedia
Now is a good time to flood Wikipedia with donations. For the first time in my life, i have just donated to them and will do so again. You can do it too for a minimum of €2, no requirement for recurring donations or any nonsense.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/23/why-is-elon-musk-attacking-wikipedia-because-its-very-existence-offends-himOpen linkView original on lemmy.world186
Comments146
All of the wrong people have money.
I'd argue that you have to be horrible already to have loads of money. Any reasonably good person would be using their excess wealth for a good cause rather than building ego rockets.
Normal people stop exploiting others before they reach having unfathomable amounts of money. So somebody with different values and morals will never have so much money since it is impossible to make such money without being corrupt and a piece of shit
I'd be willing to take part in an experiment to confirm this hypothesis. I'll wait for delivery, each day until 3.
I mean, Musk was born fairly rich, but not like that. Most tech billionaires come from a sort of upper-middle-class to low-upper-class background, probably just because there's not a lot of super rich families to start with. There are a few lower-class exceptions that prove the rule, although they can be hard to pin down because they all like to claim they grew up rough (and therefore earned their place by being better the peasants), and of course the heirs of other billionaires.
As far as I can tell, they act about the way a random person would given their situation. You get power-drunk dicks like Elon Musk, but also philanthropists like Chuck Feeney (who gave it all away) and Bill Gates, while most just stay quiet and enjoy having unfathomable wealth (Bezos, Zuckerberg).
No. Assholes are assholes, and Elon is just an asshole with money.
Compare this man child to a billionaire like Yvon Chouinard, founder of the company Patagonia, and you'll understand that money doesn't change good people.
No such thing as a good billionaire. The only variance is how good they are at maintaining their public image.
You mean the guy that straight up lied about giving away his company?
https://youtu.be/0Cu6EbELZ6I?si=uzOazb8HxEy8kYsL
Thanks for the video. That guy seems to go off on a lot of tangents, sets up too many strawman and red herring fallacies. He also doesn't actually prove that Yvon is somehow evil in a way that's comparable to Elon, or that he lied about anything.
The only real criticism he had was to say that Yvon is purposely evading taxes and assigns that motive with absolute certainty (red herring).
It sounds to me like Adam has a problem with the system. Hell, he even said that it doesn't matter if good work is actually being done, because he doesn't like the idea of billionaires using their money for good. Then he goes on to give an example using Walmart (not an ethical company) and Bill Gate's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein... bizarre how he even went there as a way to disprove what Yvon has done with the company.
I'm not saying that Yvon or Patagonia are perfect. Heck, I don't give a damn about the CEO of any company, and I think I only own one of their products, so I have no loyalties at all.
But they are a for-profit business (they are very clear about that) who operates under some of the most ethical guidelines available, and they have a multi-decade proven track record of environmental stewardship and human labor practices.
We need more companies like them, even if Adam doesn't.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/0Cu6EbELZ6I?si=uzOazb8HxEy8kYsL
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It’s the effects of capitalism. It’s pathocracy.
Wikipedia should counter by offering Elon $4 to go towards paying off his massive hole from buying Twitter. 😂
He doesn't need to pay. Twitter is already worth less than the debt, if he continues to break that company apart there'll he no reason to even consider paying the debt off.
The debt is a tax writeoff. The entire company is a tax writeoff for him and his clique.
This will allow them to gain billions more without spending a cent in taxes.
Tell me you don’t understand taxes without telling me you don’t understand taxes.
https://youtu.be/XEL65gywwHQ?si=KcjWj3xXtg2un4h7
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I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Tell me you don't understand that its exactly what Trump did.
That’s not how debt works, he almost certainly pledged assets and a personal guarantee against it. This is known as collateral.
The banks take the collateral when you stop paying.
The way I understood it is that he didn't get a loan to buy the company, but had a bank itself buy Twitter as a loan, so Twitter itself is the collateral. That's what I did when I bought my apartment: a bank bought it from the constructor and let me live in it while slowly buying it from them over hundreds of installments. If I stopped paying the bank would kick me out and sell the apartment to someone else.
That isn’t quite right. If you stopped paying the bank would kick you out and sell the apartment to someone else, but if they get less than you owe them for it, they will also send you a bill for the remainder.
And then sue you to get that money.
Interestingly, if they get more than you owe them for it, they will cut you a check for the difference.
But you are actually wrong about how and what the order of operations is.
You are buying the house, the lender (bank) writes the check directly to the seller, and you sign a mortgage agreement for that much with the bank and they put a lien on your house. The bank does not own the house, you do. The bank owns a promissory note from you, backed by your personal wealth and credit and the value of the house (that they have a lien on).
In the case of Twitter, yes, Twitter itself is part of the collateral, but so was Elon musks personal wealth and Tesla shares.
I forgot to mention I'm not American so some things might be different in my case, but you're right in general.
If you tear down the apartment, you cannot stop paying with the excuse that now it worths nothing. You'd still need to pay the original value
Downvote Musk spam.
The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring him and his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle. Don’t be a useful idiot.
Sorry i wasn't in the loop when we decided to stop talking about the town clown. I guess I'll stop being an idiot now. Thanks for the advice.
We already have Dickopedia elon, it's called twitter and YOU paid $44 billion for it.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
wikipedia foundation's financials are solid, stable, and healthy.
how's twitter doing lately, elon?
Are they though? They're asking for money constantly
I mean, donations are their only income so they have to ask but that doesn't mean they don't get enough.
They have more than enough money
They have more money then they know what to do with and blow a shitload every year
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation
I checked their reported expenses and couldn't really find anything they "blow" money on. Their revenue is smaller than a midsize EU football team, and considering the value comparison between the two, that makes me think either we disagree completely, you have extra info that you did not share, or I don't understand you.
I mean, I’m not sure what they use all that money to develop, but they definitely don’t need all this money to just develop and sustain. Despite activity having hit its peak in the 2000s, spending continues to increase, and extensive feature request and enhancement backlog still stands while developers focus on whatever the foundation’s whim is. Not to mention there’s some controversy over the Tides Foundation.
Well then I'm glad I've never given them any
Indicator 9,876,872,820,111 that that fucker has more money than anyone should ever have.
There's not one single person in the world who should own a thousand million dollars, never mind hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars.
The pure existence of billionaires is unethical and immoral - doesn't matter whether they're being stupid and fascist in public, or quietly pulling strings and bending society to their will in the background.
Tangential, but I've always wondered why in English 10^9 is one billion. 10^6 is one million. Twice as many zeroes should be one billion. Three times as many, one trillion, etc.
Only in English is this weird naming system used and originally only in American English. You can put it in the pile over there with the miles and pounds and other oddities.
Other languages have milliard between million and billion, billiard after billion etc.
Long vs short counting system. Americans use the short system. As a European, long system makes so much more sense! Here's an interesting video about it: https://youtu.be/C-52AI_ojyQ?si=-TS4BYg-FT0SAeSo
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Miles and pounds came to America from England, but miles were the common system at least as far back as the Romans.
Short form numbers are used throughout the English speaking world and are the international scientific standard.
Why is is that you think that your system of squaring makes more sense than the system of a new name for every third power of ten?
Short form is used in English only and was reluctantly adopted outside of the US since the 'mericans weren't going to budge. Any science done in other languages uses the more logical form. I've done it myself in 3 of them. And it's weird how I fluently translate between American billion and international milliard or American trillion and international billion. But I'm sure there is going to be a rocket blown up over this at some point.
Why more logical? Billion, prefix bi for 2 is million squared. Trillion, prefix tri for 3 is million cubed. Septillion, prefix sep for 7 is? Honestly, though, at the end of the day it doesn't matter that much. It's just grating that were being yanked backwards. However slightly. And yes, that pun was intentional.
Sure, the US didn't come up with the imperial measuring system but everyone else has moved on. Miles were used by the Romans but were they the same miles? Everyone had their own foot... the story about Napoleon being short was simply that he was measured in French feet and they were longer than English feet so he amounted to fewer of them. I guess it's slightly better now that there is only one set* of archaic pre-enlightenment units in play :shrug:
*having said all that, some of the US measurements don't quite coincide with the UK ones but I can't remember any if those details. But it'll probably kill a other rocket too.
PS I dare you to look up the Swedish mile.
From memory, when I was a kid, it used to be that a billion was 10^12, but I think most of the world changed at some point to adopt the American billion of 10^9.
Edit: wiki article that discuss a little of this
As a kid I was taught numbers like so.
Once you had X amount of X, then it became the next one. 10 ten = 100, 100 hundred = 1000 1000 thousand = 1 million, 1 million million = billion. And so on.
100 hundred is 10,000
Yep - same here. Australia, early 80s. You?
I'm only 29
But I want to quietly pull the strings of society so everyone can have food and housing security, get rid of food deserts, and end Elon Musk personally. Like, with my hands. Give me a billion dollars
I don't think you'd be a billionaire for long. I'd have that problem too. How can you just sit on a huge pile of money when you could do so much good with it? They are all like stinky dragons hoarding their gold.
Nah the billion dollars is a get out of jail free card.
Oh wait you were talking about the stuff I wasn't being facetious about.
why do we allow this to happen?
Because too many people think that one day they'll be rich and get to take advantage of poor people like themselves.
ah so greed?
Who is "we"?
What have you done to prevent it?
I know this is trolling but fwie, 'we' is the community that we're all part of.
More that it's a confirmation that having money doesn't make you a good person.
So he’s offering that money to name it after himself?
I’m not even clicking on that link, I never click on stuff with that turd’s name on the headline, just wanted to make the joke.
Don't think he needs that domain when he's already got:
FigurativelyHumongousButLiterallyTinyDick.com
Disappointed that it isn't real
Take Money.
Re-Name to Dickipedia.
Re-Name back to Wikipedia.
Laugh about Musk.
Profit.
bold of you to assume elon would pay up
He had to pay up for Twitter, on basically the same joke.
I think purchasing a public company and promising a donation are two different things.
Even better, tell him sure thing, send the money, and then just don't change it.
More evidence to support taxing the fuck out of billionaires. No one needs that much money.
I am so, so tired of this tedious man child.
I'm starting to think this guy isn't very wise about spending his money.
Or just in general.
He doesn't need to be, that's the worrying thing...
Ah rivermonster an
insane andnotupstanding citizen of today's modern societytotally not a danger to othersAre they really tho it just seems to me like you just really don't like anyone with a differing opinion after a quick glance through your comments I could be wrong dare I say but after looking through your comments it looks like you think anyone remotely right wing is a big nazis facist boogeyman sure there are some people out there with those beliefs but there generally quite small in numbers
What do you call 9 people hanging out with 1 Nazi?
::: spoiler spoiler 10 Nazis :::
I don't believe this to be the case. this is my opinion. but I know. that there are honest. good hardworking people. on both sides. of the political spectrum. Not everything is black and white as well some issues are more complicated than others
This sounds interesting, I will prehaps look into it m8
Stfu, nazi
Define nazi for me tell me what does the word nazi mean and do this without searching it up I also want you to read my comment again as nothing I've said makes me a nazi tankie or any other political extremist
"remotely right wing". So, Obama?
Isn't obama apart of the democrats? I dunno I'm not mercian m8 so I'm not too used to mercian politics all I know is there are two main political parties republicans which it's main ideology is Conservatism and democrats which it's main ideology is social liberalism obama is left wing I'm fairly certain as he runs with the democrats
He's trying to distract from the probe into Tesla's range. It's working.
Wait, what?
There's a federal probe into Tesla lying about their vehicle range. He's throwing a fit and closing that it could cause great harm to the brand.
That man child has the emotions and humour of a little kid, I swear.
Never donated to Wikipedia before... this shit changed that in a hurry.
Likewise. Jumped at it immediately
Maybe Elon should just donate a billion because he supposedly cares about free information so much?
Oh, but you see, information is really only free if it's something Musk agrees with.
I offer Elon $1 to change his name to Doge McCumStain. I hope he will accept my generous offer.
I'll offer him $10. As a measurement of a percentage of my personal wealth I am offering double what Elon is offering.
I challenge elon to give the one billion to me and I will give him back double
He clearly has the level of self-respect required for such a dignified name. And I doubt he's ever passed up an opportunity to make a quick buck.
Why do we let this man-child have billions of dollars?
Yep also narcissism and casual cruelty
Pathocracy
Nah the most efficient system humans ever imagined can't be that bad. Infinite growth sounds very logical
I thought my sarcasm was obvious
To everyone thinking Wikipedia should go with the deal and then change the name back.
It's like taking money for doing d*ck tatoo on forehead and then doing laser removal, humiliation. No foundation or company should show they are craving for money by doing anything someone would pay for.
Honestly, they'd be stupid not to take it.
Imagine how much you could do with a billion. It'd perpetually sustain the organization, it'd allow them to hire translators and writers, resulting in better content for all of us.
Hell, I'd take it, and 99.9% of people on this planet would too.
Did he offer them a legal contract? Because otherwise he's just flapping his fat lips, seeking attention like a toddler.
If the deal were real of course
In practice organizations don't have mechanizms to secure such amounts of money. It would be a massive cake to divide. Dirty money is dirty money, don't show Elon Musk he can de anything.
Worst case, they can keep chugging along without any changes, except maybe stopping the donation "nag".
I don't think it's immoral, but who in their right mind takes Elon seriously? Would you really accept 1 billion dollar from a known attention-seeker scammer, if you tattoo your forehead? No thanks.
If this were coming from Jeff, or even a drug lord, I would probably be ok with it, as long as they are serious and without childish conditions.
I think you misunderstood, if Elon were to be taken seriously I would definitely accept it, but are you really sure he will go though the deal? That guy is a clown, can't be trusted a bit.
Who hurt you?
It's honestly kinda perplexing.
Everyone keeps talking about taxing the rich but when someone offers to give a nonprofit we all love a billion dollars it's suddenly the worst thing on the planet.
Are you that naive by choice or what?
I think you call his bluff, play chicken with him. See what he comes up with as his terms to the agreement, read the contract, have lawyers check it for loopholes and it they find one, sign the deal and exploit it.
Then donate the money to another foundation.
At some point I'd be willing to bet he would back down and not follow through, but anybody that is in a position to call him on his bullshit should do it
No reason. It would require elon to be part of whatever position and he will destroy it like twitter.
Also his endgoal is most probably to control what's written about him
Sounds like a good idea for a wikipedia page. Put Elon's picture on it.
For shits and giggles, the Foundation should absolutely get lawyers to put together a binding agreement to this effect and send it to Elon to sign.
… and then watch him run away
And let him destroy wikipedia?
You are aware that Musk isn't doing what he's done to Xitter because he's stupid, right? That he's very intentionally destroying the platform, and that was a platform purchased at 44 billion?
Seriously?
It's not like he's buying it, it's just an agreement on a change of name
Idk, names are pretty fucking important to search engines.
Although, they could pull an ultra 5head omega brain move and change the name alongside a policy that allows anyone to change wikipedias name similarly to it's articles. Maybe let it last a week for notoriety, change the policy back alongside the name and pocket the money.
I guarantee if Wikipedia changed names today, there'd be 0 issues finding it even immediately after the change.
Probably, unless they accept even more ez money from Papa Musk for other stupid things.
I can't say I'm aware of that
No, I’m suggesting they troll him
Troll him at the expense of the search engine that likely keeps them afloat.
I don't want Musk to influence social media anymore than he already has.
and he'd definitely pay too.
Just like he fought Zuckerberg, and how he followed through on the Twitter purchase without having to be forced!
don't forget about his full self driving cars by 2015
For a billion I'd change my name to that.
The other part is that you would also have to sue Elon to actually get paid.
That's what escrow is for
Chance the name for an hour, display only Elon’s wiki page and sue the dickhead.
All it takes for you guys to donate is for Elon to make a dick pun about your name?
If I can get him to do mine will you donate to me? I'm broke af I could use it.
Does he stipulate for how long? If not, change it for a day, take his money, change it back, and give Elongated Muskrat the finger.
Get the money first. You don't want to end up in a long, protracted legal battle because he offered you money in a social media post. It's how he ended up with Twitter.
he seems to be speed running the tesla bankruptcy arc
Vaguely relevant Big Train
Big Train was s-tier sketch comedy.
It was basically the light-hearted counterpart to Jam
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Vaguely relevant Big Train
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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I'd give Elon 1 billion picoDollars to change his name to Dickipedia. Rounded down.
This is so douchey. Why not just give that money to Wikipedia? Or even a smaller amount? As the largest free information resource in the world, Wikipedia is an invaluable asset for humanity as a whole. Just feels weird to say, "I'll give you money, but do a trick first," to anyone, let alone the holders of a free, worldwide encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is a useful tool, Elon is a major tool.
Yo I’ll change my name to Dickipedia
He should keep it and rename himself. It suits him more.
Wikipedia is already rich enough, donate to the contributors instead
I'd give Elly 1$ to suck that pedia.
I'd actually take that in their shoes. That's a lot of money, who cares if the English edition gets a silly name.
That's really funny actually
Because israel controls wikipedia. Wake up sheeples. They say it clearly. Learn about hasbara. Google it hasbara influence on wikipedia.
Sounds like a decent deal and pretty funny tbh wikimedia foundation gets a shit ton of money which'll go towards a variety of good causes while being in the public eye because elon is involved and Elon is a big figure Elon gets to make a billon dollar shitpost everyone's happy sure as hell doesn't seem like Elon is attacking wikimedia foundation just that he wants to make a bad financial decision although saying that most things Elon do end up being bad financial decisions
He said billion, with a B, not million.
Even better more money