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.
Not really Antiwork but I do like seeing ancaps become homeless so
I like it more when they have homes and bears fuck them up.
It is a great book. Lots of bear attack history.
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.
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.
Also, the fires that broke out were mostly ones he started himself.
Fake news, everyone knows the Christians started all those fires.
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
Beaten to the Crassus comment 😮💨
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.
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.
those poor rich people! gasp!
Lol
If it’s a legitimate fire the House has ways to shut it down.
He should just douse the fire with bootstraps.
He should grab the flames and take them off the house.
Just here to point out the irony that this guy is called “Waterman” (in German, though one ‘n’ was dropped somewhere)
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it
For the bullet of course
The only part of this that aged poorly is the Penn Gillette bit. He’s come around.
Nice to see this one here. Was going to post myself if no one had already.
Immediately thought of this when I saw the screenshot.
That was simply President’s Choice Filipino Adobo chips amazing®.
I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
That line gets me every time.
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.
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.
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.
Did you have to put a coin in your computer to write this comment?
Fucking brilliant every time
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
Huh. TIL. I’ve never seen it before.
Exactly why I posted it! Enjoy.
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!
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
“Why isn’t throwing money at the fire making it stop???”
Removed by mod
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.
Please seek the nearest high school and complete your education champ.
The government is people, and people acting in bad faith are the foundation of the shittiest parts of human history.
Slash budgets and sabotage government services
Government services fail
:o
socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more socialist it is
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.
Jesus you’re dumb
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).
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/
Is having a functional society with public services not a good enough incentive for you ? that’s your return on investment
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.
burning to death to own the libs. gee I sure am triggered, what a snowflake I am
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.
There are thousands of other people in LA who don’t have “any amount of money” to pay to save their burning homes. I have sympathy for all of them and I’m sure they would all wish the same, but someone thinking they deserve better than everyone else just because they have wealth is immoral just on the face of it, no matter how “good” of a person they are otherwise.
In fact, I would argue the poorer people’s homes should be a priority because they would have a higher portion of their net worth tied up in their home and losing it could ruin them financially. By his own admission, this guy has “any amount of money” to rebuild his home too.
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.
Anyone capable and willing to fight fires in the Los Angeles area should be working with the proper authorities to maximize their efforts. This guy is asking for people to not do that and to benefit him instead.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Wonder if they will also start back up the practice of arson towards their competition.
¿You mean, customers, don’t you?
Well yes, but we know both are likely.
“Did someone email us about a fire?”
