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Unknown A
Foreign. I always hate covering stories like this because I always feel like there's nothing interesting for me to say because all of the prescriptions are so obvious. You know, it's like, you know what, what do you have to say about this that anyone couldn't have already said? Jeff Bezos is saying basically, we're not going to pretend to be impartial anymore. We are just going to be conservative. We are like most of the time. Like, like. I guess what I don't understand is why he's saying it outright. Like why? Like why? Why not just implement these changes slowly by accepting more and more opinion writers that are conservative leaning? Like why? Why say it so directly here? I'll just read it I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning. I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
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Unknown A
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars. Personal liberties and free markets will cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. Just no artifice, no like, no pretense, just flatly saying like yeah, Europe will allow opinion articles, but only if they agree. And of course personal liberty and free market means pro capitalist and pro free speech in supporting conservatives. Like I've seen this, this gamut run a billion times before. You know, in favor of free speech when conservatives do or say anything wretched anti free speech when you know anything even remotely left leaning is said. How can you possibly say that you're in favor of personal liberties and then say, by the way, if you disagree with us, you're not allowed to post here? We're pro free speech conceptually.
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Unknown A
Not here though. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Or in other words, we're not going to do that today. The Internet does that job. I am of America and for America and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical, it minimizes coercion and practical, it drives creativity, invention and prosperity. This is Silicon Valley LinkedIn slop posting. This is not a memo that is written for the the Washington Post team. It is a memo that he wrote for the people here and he's just sharing it broad. My guess as to why this is being done is that he is burning with jealousy that Elon Musk is the shadow president and he's hoping that if he becomes a more militant sycophant for Donald Trump that he can be favored thusly.
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Unknown A
I don't think it's going to work, but, you know, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if in the long run he didn't end up openly beefing with Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos is a lot smarter than Elon Musk. It must burn at him that Elon is so much more powerful than he is, even though Jeff Bezos did. Let's be fair here. Let's be fair to the man. Jeff Bezos built the most sophisticated, evil and wide reaching material distribution platform in human existence. Jeff Bezos built Amazon. Now, I'm not saying he's the engineer who built everything, but like, let's be clear here. He's certainly much more involved in the development of Amazon than Elon is in the development of Tesla. So like, imagine how much it must burn at him that Elon has this kind of power. I, that's, that's what I think. I think this is just a Mr.
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Unknown A
Trump notice me. I offered David Shipley, who I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't hell yes, then it had to be a no. After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift. It won't be easy and it will require 100% commitment. I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new opinion editor to own this new direction or to censor. I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. See again, language like this would not be employed if this wasn't an attempt to bid for Trump's attention. Like, it doesn't make any sense if he's just making an announcement about a change in editorial direction. You know, why is he, why is he doing this like big, you know, this, this like pretentious speech about like the future of the country.
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Unknown A
What does. That doesn't. It's totally irrelevant unless it's a bid for power. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. Remember when the free marketplace of ideas was like a term people made fun of because it was stupid and reductive? Because the, the implication from people who said it was always that everyone gets a fair shot at it when in reality the marketplace is actually dominated by a few oligarchs. Like here. I'm excited for us together to Fill that void, Jeff. So that's cool. So, yeah, the Washington Post has not been a reliable source of information for a long time. Bezos refused, previously refused, to let a WaPo cartoonist publish a political cartoon critical of him for grappling Trump. Yep. No, no, no. The Washington Post, he is. Guys, listen, he's very in favor of personal liberty and free speech for other people.
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Unknown A
Yeah, he. He rejected this. You've got these oligarchs offering their money to Trump, which is what's happening here. You know, Bezos was probably upset at his, you know, likeness being depicted so accurately here. You get me? Oh, hello. Sdl. So you're going fascist too, Jeff, bend the knee. Already happened, man. Look, there's a good side and a bad side to this, okay? The bad side is that all of the information that you consume is controlled by a small group of oligarchs who hate you. This is the same with Google and YouTube, by the way. I'm just letting you guys know. And I'm fully aware of that, okay? At any moment, Google could be, like, in line with our new Pro America initiative. Please notice me, Trump. We will now only be favoring, promoting and allowing content that venerates virtues such as personal liberty, free speech, capitalism.
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Unknown A
Da, da, da, da, da. You get it. Apple defended its woke policy. Apple, a little bit more so. A little bit more so. But at the end of the day, oligarchs is oligarchs, so there's that. The good news, though, is that the fundamental instability of the system, I really do think it's going to lead to antagonism between people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos is a. Again, I'm not saying he's not evil, but he is a smart and hard working person. Please, again, understand this is not me complimenting him, okay? It must burn at him that somebody like Elon has ascended to the level of power that he has. Like, imagine you're Jeff Bezos. For a long time, you were the wealthiest man on Earth. You're so insanely powerful. And then seemingly from out of nowhere, this idiot venture capitalist, who got lucky on a few early investments, soars up through the overvaluation of Tesla stock, and now is effectively the shadow president.
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Unknown A
Must feel great, you know? And he's bald. Exactly, exactly. You understand. Anyway, it might lead to infighting. Keep in mind, after all, Elon Musk and Sam Altman have both been beefing. Elon very publicly dislikes Sam Altman, and they've both taken, like, extensive shots at one another. These oligarchs don't get along. That's because they're not ideological fascists, Elon Might be to an extent, but they're ultimately very self interested. You know, the old nobility, aristocracy, the main thing you do in an aristocracy is prevent the aristocrats from all killing each other. Right, because they all want it. Everyone. You, you'd think these people would be like happy and content at the top of society. But Marx wrote about this, that in many cases the pressure of being on the upper crust is greater than the pressure of being at the lower crust. If you're a little, if you're a serf, you know, if you're a SERF in, in 14th century France, you know, you, your life sucks, yeah, but you've kind of got your own and you're like, you know, you're just living your life.
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Unknown A
No one's really coming after you. As long as times are stable enough, no famine, no war, you know, you're kind of doing your thing if you're an aristocrat, if you're a nobleman, if you're a damn duke. You people are all constantly politicking against each other. It's like that too for these oligarchs. You know, they're not all built in line and they don't respect any central figure. There is no cult of personality that is leading all of them, not one of them, especially not Elon. Musk thinks that Trump is like a guiding light that they need to take shelter under, you know, like, like a wing to, to, to follow or whatever. I, I mixed up those metaphors. They're not following Trump. They're all just trying to use Trump's mandate as a platform to get ahead this instability. It's going to cause rifts, it's going to cause problems.
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Unknown A
Unfortunately, the battleground they're all fighting on is made up of us, you know, so I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing, like stability wise, but, you know, yeah, we're the ball they're playing ball with. I thought you said companies merge and don't fight each other. And that's typically true, but we're not talking about companies, we're talking about oligarchs. Once you, once you reach a certain point, we're not really talking about like, you know, bland acquisition, you know, we're not talking about like mergers where shareholders on both sides get to enjoy like a 14.3% bump to the value of their portfolios or whatever. We're talking about big ego oligarchs, totally different you know? So we're getting the corpo wars? No, I don't think it'd be a corpo war thing. I think it'd be like an oligarch ego battle thing. You're not getting cyberpunk. Could we get the Yakuza franchise?
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Unknown A
At least? The Yakuza are a real thing.