> Unsurprisingly, the journalists reporting on.the latest appearance by Zuckerberg did not pick up the reference to Cesare Borgia of "aut caesar aut nihil". This suggests that the concern about US newsrooms being populated by ‘over-educated’ elites is greatly exaggerated. In the same vein, are we sure that Zuckerberg himself was aware of the reference? If so, perhaps Meta shareholders should begin to worry, given how the story ended shortly after Cesare Borgia reached the zenith of his power.
Me: Cesare Borgia is the #2 hit on my google searches for the phrase... As I said, a staff that includes anyone 1% on the ball would have caught this had Zuckerberg been genuinely ignorant of the context...
I could recall reading a novel by Catalan writer Gabriel Vazquez Montalban O Cesar o Nada. It is a fictionalised history of the Borgia family at the time of the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI father of Cesar).
Thinking again of the Zuckerberg exploit, perhaps, before the shareholders of Meta get worried, its top managers should, in particular if they were invited to a team-building event in Italy.
I read somewhere, sometime ago that Zuck has a fascination and even emulation of Augustus, not Julius. These tech billionaires want to be perceived as deep, literate thinkers rather than what they really are: monopolists whose only interest and ambition is more money.
Unsurprisingly, the journalists reporting on.the latest appearance by Zuckerberg did not pick up the reference to Cesare Borgia. This suggests that the concern about US newsrooms being populated by ‘over-educated’ elites is greatly exaggerated. In the same vein, are we sure that Zuckerberg himself was aware of the reference? If so, perhaps Meta shareholders should begin to worry, given how the story ended shortly after Cesare Borgia reached the zenith of his power.
Cesare Borgia is the #2 hit on my google searches for the phrase... As I said, a staff that includes anyone 1% on the ball would have caught this had Zuckerberg been genuinely ignorant of the context...
> And you have to recognize that the players of these games does not intend any single one of these meanings. They intend them all.
Shouldn't we consider the possibility that in many cases their thinking stops at a shallow pseudo-understanding of the reference/"liking the vibes?" Not in the sense that Zuckerberg isn't the kind of person who would do that sort of thing ---he did facilitate genocide after all--- but rather in the sense that he's not skillfully and deliberately deploying a reference instead of just echoing a confused third-order echo of that ethos?
Like Zitron wrote, most of these guys are nowhere near as intellectually interesting as they think they are. Doesn't make them any less damaging, but it could be an analytical error to overestimate how much of that danger comes from that sort of sophistication --- or, even worse, to magnify that image.
Philalethes wrote:
> Unsurprisingly, the journalists reporting on.the latest appearance by Zuckerberg did not pick up the reference to Cesare Borgia of "aut caesar aut nihil". This suggests that the concern about US newsrooms being populated by ‘over-educated’ elites is greatly exaggerated. In the same vein, are we sure that Zuckerberg himself was aware of the reference? If so, perhaps Meta shareholders should begin to worry, given how the story ended shortly after Cesare Borgia reached the zenith of his power.
Me: Cesare Borgia is the #2 hit on my google searches for the phrase... As I said, a staff that includes anyone 1% on the ball would have caught this had Zuckerberg been genuinely ignorant of the context...
<https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0dfMCTFP9SqhQQnHmAyWjyUtg#_aut_caesar_aut_nihil_>
I could recall reading a novel by Catalan writer Gabriel Vazquez Montalban O Cesar o Nada. It is a fictionalised history of the Borgia family at the time of the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI father of Cesar).
Thinking again of the Zuckerberg exploit, perhaps, before the shareholders of Meta get worried, its top managers should, in particular if they were invited to a team-building event in Italy.
Dinner in Edinburgh would be very dangerous also, and they should definitely avoid windows in Prague.
I read somewhere, sometime ago that Zuck has a fascination and even emulation of Augustus, not Julius. These tech billionaires want to be perceived as deep, literate thinkers rather than what they really are: monopolists whose only interest and ambition is more money.
Unsurprisingly, the journalists reporting on.the latest appearance by Zuckerberg did not pick up the reference to Cesare Borgia. This suggests that the concern about US newsrooms being populated by ‘over-educated’ elites is greatly exaggerated. In the same vein, are we sure that Zuckerberg himself was aware of the reference? If so, perhaps Meta shareholders should begin to worry, given how the story ended shortly after Cesare Borgia reached the zenith of his power.
Cesare Borgia is the #2 hit on my google searches for the phrase... As I said, a staff that includes anyone 1% on the ball would have caught this had Zuckerberg been genuinely ignorant of the context...
<https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0dfMCTFP9SqhQQnHmAyWjyUtg#_aut_caesar_aut_nihil_>
> And you have to recognize that the players of these games does not intend any single one of these meanings. They intend them all.
Shouldn't we consider the possibility that in many cases their thinking stops at a shallow pseudo-understanding of the reference/"liking the vibes?" Not in the sense that Zuckerberg isn't the kind of person who would do that sort of thing ---he did facilitate genocide after all--- but rather in the sense that he's not skillfully and deliberately deploying a reference instead of just echoing a confused third-order echo of that ethos?
Like Zitron wrote, most of these guys are nowhere near as intellectually interesting as they think they are. Doesn't make them any less damaging, but it could be an analytical error to overestimate how much of that danger comes from that sort of sophistication --- or, even worse, to magnify that image.
touché...
"... if Julius Caesar had a thing for customized statement tees ..."
In fact those guys had a thing for customized bronze breastplates. Metal! not cotton jersey Meta!
Slightly off topic but assuming:
1) you think the AI bubble is like the dotcom bubble with a probable post-bubble real benefit.
2) there will be a few winners but most will be pets.coms
How would you invest to not pick the winners (which everyone is trying to do) but bet on the pricking (with apologies to Arnold Palmer) of the bubble?
Zuck is known for classical-Roman Caesar references, though. Just not Julius. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/12/what-attracts-mark-zuckerberg-roman-hardman-augustus
Thx... Brad
Please put your links only in the notes section. Please.
I also recommend as reference Ada Palmer's blog post on the Borgias, as it does not require searching out a book: https://www.exurbe.com/machilavelli-iii-rise-of-the-borgias/
However, the massacre at Senigallia figures relatively briefly; the post is in context of a series on Machiavelli.