Replying to Avatar dannybuntu

Well put. But "locking" me in to the "best thing I could do" is not at all accurate. I could have just let it lie there and hope that nobody else sees. Or, I could have concocted a brilliant come-back with deflectionary diversion ala Trump. I could have used a barrage of "is that so's, then if so, then how comes..."

Setting something into stone does have its limits - but you forego character, you forego weakness, you forego context, you forego intention, you forego circumstances that are not encapsulated in the moment prior to pressing "post".

That said, it is what it is. You may consider it vapid - or you may consider it a matter of public interest.

You may consider it insipid, or uninspired, but yet TV shows have been made about it . Lifestyles of the rich and famous, Crazy Rich Asians, etc. - the whole of civilization is premised on desiring, what one will never get. Or even Brewster's billions.

If an average American for instance, has an outstanding debt of $20,000, then $978,000,000 could potentially make life a little bearable for 48,900 individuals. There's something about big numbers that strikes the imagination. Before all of these, I am the author of a blog post that garnered me half a million views - in 2006 numbers, for some research I did wherein the keyword was "How much money does Bill Gates have?"

Back then, he was the only tech person worthy of note - and since then, my blog forgotten but the likes of Mashable, Forbes - have condensed, straightened and penned some work of a similar nature which leads us to the Forbes list of wealthiest individuals wherein - a crowd darling, Elon Musk, I believe, still ranks as number one.

Well said. And FWIW I meant only to use the case as a way of talking about the phenomenon in general, as a feature of the protocol and the technology determinism it may impose on us, not that this was a particularly egregious case—it was not. Like the AI, I myself had assumed Jack had sold his shares until someone recently highlighted this issue in a separate note. Also FWIW I felt you handled it as elegantly as possible. In general I think we owe each other—and maybe more importantly ourselves—much more existential slack with regard to the way our thoughts are iterated online. There's an impulse to circumscribe entire human beings—despite all the complexity of our lived experiences and internal contradictions—within the confines of our expressed and recorded ideas. As if we should all be only as evolved as our last most visible speech—or to nod at Lacan, as well put together as the image in the mirror.

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