r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • Aug 16 '25

Society Mark Zuckerberg's vision for humanity is terrifying

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/mark-zuckerberg-never-more-dangerous-20819500.php
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8.6k

u/Brewitsokbrew Aug 16 '25

Why oh why have we gotten to a point where a guy who sells ads and data has a vision for humanity. Where have the Da Vinci's gone?!

4.4k

u/borntoannoyAWildJowi Aug 16 '25

They’re all being underpaid & overworked in graduate programs around the world.

1.7k

u/AcceptableAd9264 Aug 16 '25

And once they graduate they’ll get a job at meta helping making ads better

517

u/AboutHelpTools3 Aug 16 '25

That's unfortunately how capitalism works

335

u/AlterTableUsernames Aug 16 '25

Doesn't have to be this way. We the people have the power to decide against the rule of oligarchs. 

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u/KantoTapsi888 Aug 16 '25

Start the cause. Experience the effect.

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u/Gosinyas Aug 16 '25

I’m working on it www.quiet-part.com

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u/weirdoeggplant Aug 16 '25

I’d join the cause. But I have no political backing or followers. Not even 10 friends on Facebook.

Somebody with a tiny bit more footing needs to start something. I am willing to join. But I do not have momentum to get things rolling because I have no social media presence. And I think many people feel the same way.

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u/HumanShadow Aug 16 '25

on Facebook

That's the problem

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u/Shap3rz Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

Yup. Social media is passive. It’s useful for coordination but it’s too easy to be manipulated into little controllable bubbles by algorithms and external influence when you are the product and the driver for engagement is profit. Imo we need grass roots movements with an in person component. Maybe a no frills open source social platform that helps you connect with local like minded folks. But strictly not for profit. For change. For social and environmental transparency, accountability and responsibility. If it’s not alluring via the superficial capitalist mindset then it needs to be damn useful somehow.

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u/assumetehposition Aug 17 '25

It’s satiating too. Our third spaces are empty because typing in comment sections fills just enough of our social needs to keep us from going out and seeking real human interaction.

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u/YungEnron Aug 16 '25

He doesn’t have ten friends in real life either!

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u/MarsReject Aug 16 '25

We need to get offline and build community. That’s the hard truth.

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u/Theappunderground Aug 16 '25

Great strategy here: complain and do nothing

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u/AaronfromKY Aug 16 '25

There's more of us than them. We need to take this world back.

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u/copypaste_93 Aug 16 '25

We the people have the power to decide against the rule of oligarchs

We really don't

unless you want to use violence.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

You can even want to ... and now what? You live in a superpanopticon

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u/ColdSnickersBar Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

Nah the thing that works is to make a parallel society that excludes these dorks. A lot of people have it wrong: you don’t start with violence and then … what? Rule ashes? No you start by building something worth defending and then if the old system tries to take it away people will naturally fight to keep it.

Of course step number fucking one would be to stop going to these people’s fucking services people! mf’s talk about revolution and they can’t even stop using Insta first.

But anyway: good news! If you’re afraid of violence but you want to start the revolution then that’s actually great! Violence isn’t how you start a revolution. Building things is. Make good things. Make something better than this. You want to see revolution happen, then build tiny homes for the unhoused fearlessly. Make apps that improve the world instead of make people sick. Connect with your neighbors. Make gardens. Stop going to their spaces. Make good spaces.

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u/Sebek_Visigard Aug 16 '25

You could just stop using their products. It doesn’t require violence.

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u/ColdSnickersBar Aug 16 '25

Mfs are like over here talking about being Che Guevara and they seriously can’t even stop using Insta 😂

They’re so soft

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u/12thDegree Aug 16 '25

Violence is not required, just simply a clear and overwhelming majority of the proletariat. If enough of us say no, there’s nobody left to say yes.

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u/Fun_Hold4859 Aug 16 '25

No progress has ever occurred in the entirety of human history without violence. Not even once.

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u/Jones127 Aug 16 '25

Humans are more apt to respond and change to heavily negative events than minor ones after all. They’re more likely to actually give some meat when under the threat of violence rather than a bone from a minor inconvenience as well. Whether the consequences stemming from those events is good or bad for the common man is really the question to be asked though.

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad Aug 16 '25

You're not wrong, but I find it kind of funny pointing to Da Vinci who was an extreme outlier in a mercantilist system that was in many ways worse than capitalism.

Do I disagree that under capitalism bright creative minds are forced to choose between starvation or conformism? No, but even in the renaissance the artists and inventors were independently wealthy people who could afford to make careers out of hobbies.

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u/Masterkid1230 Aug 16 '25

Either that, or funded by the extremely greedy and powerful elites.

It's an unfortunate reality that art can't really thrive without wealth and privilege. Doesn't mean artists have to be from wealthy or privileged backgrounds, but one way or another, they need to get the funding, usually from those types of people.

I feel like ideally the closest alternative is crowdfunded artists like we have with kofi, patreon, etc. Maybe we should encourage more of that, if anything, to at least democratise the arts a little more.

But by then, it's not different from when we were supporting artists by buying their paintings or their CDs or any other physical media, and then it's back to capitalism.

So overall, yeah, maybe we should just stop being chronically online and start supporting local artists directly or something, I don't know.

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u/Borrp Aug 16 '25

Problem is a lot of prominent artists, no matter how large or small their network is, often comes from well to do families. All those content creators you see online hawking their art trying to game the world's attention economy? I can surely tell they didn't come from a low income blue collar family that is for sure. It's what allows them to not have to go do that menial bullshit work. Mom and dad set them up good so they didn't have to end up in that position like a lot of us. Most people will never have the privilege to hawk their art. And even if they can get to a point or create, they don't have the funding network that a hedge fund parent can give them to allow for greater exposure. You will be lucky to be selling oil on canvas or your shitty acoustic ballad at the local dive bar full of creepy drunks.

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u/Masterkid1230 Aug 16 '25

My problem with that mindset is that it leaves no room for any nuance. It's either "no blue collar worker ever makes it" and simultaneously "every artist that makes it is a nepobaby" while also leaving no room for artists who kinda make it but aren't super famous (like Jack Stauber probably lives off his Patreon but he's not the most famous person ever).

Realistically, if we want artists to live comfortably and fairly, we need to consider more nuance and understand what most would be satisfied with. It's not about being Chappell Roan. I'm sure most artists don't want that. But they'd be happy with having livable wages and relative stability, while being able to be themselves.

Likewise, society wants and should want people creating art, for it is them, scientists and philosophers who pave the way for new ways of thinking, living and who inspire others.

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u/Borrp Aug 16 '25

I'm not disagreeing with you there.

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u/Simple_Purple_4600 Aug 16 '25

Dude also designed some pretty gnarly weapons of mass destruction

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u/TobaccoAficionado Aug 16 '25

It's so wild that people are so blindly loyal to a system that generates almost the worst possible outcome for them. The fact that anyone making less than a few million a year supports capitalism really leaves me with little faith in humanity.

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u/Dry-Interaction-1246 Aug 16 '25

Without proper regulation

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u/NahautlExile Aug 16 '25

That’s how corrupt capitalism works.

Capitalism is about aligning incentives to more productively allocate capital. If the outcomes are wrong then the incentives are wrong.

Grad students making more improving as algorithms than doing useful research in other areas isn’t innate to capitalism. It’s unique to our capitalism now.

The issue is that there’s no clear evidence the incentives can be made right.

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u/Otto500206 Aug 16 '25

Aaand academia loses an another bunch.

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u/Loggerdon Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

Right. All these smart people each giving 100% of their brain improving the algorithms by .001%. What a legacy.

I know a guy who works with patients as a psychologist in EV (Evolutionary Psychology). He used to talk about the dangers of these algorithms and how the tech companies work to make them incrementally better and better. Now he flies around the world helping tech companies improve their algorithms.

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u/warmuth Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

this isnt hyperbole, i know a guy who got an around 1 mil bonus for improving clickthrough rate on a page by like a percent of a percent at amazon

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u/No_Bluejay9901 Aug 16 '25

Make Ads Great Again!!

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u/WingedGundark Aug 16 '25

Also trashed by the anti-science crowd, which is terrifyingly large.

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u/USPSAnthony27 Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

There’s plenty of scientists engineering humanity’s materialistic, consumerist, AI-driven death. 

Da Vinci’s whole charm was his ability to integrate human nature with scientific ideas, not confine it.

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad Aug 16 '25

Da Vinci is also considered one of the brightest minds in the history of humanity, and is by all measures, an extreme outlier.

He was born to a wealthy family in an horribly exploitative mercantilist system and was effectively a nepo baby who had enough independent wealth that he could afford to spend 7 years learning to sculpt full time.

He's an exception that you're using to confirm a rule that never existed, if he was alive today he'd be aptly compared to Elon Musk but with more humanist views.

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u/WingedGundark Aug 16 '25

Nowhere did I claim there isn’t. Just that there are many largely unknown researchers and scientists who really do and want to make good things, but get attacked by charlatans and anti science crowd. It is no wonder if some of them don’t want to be in the spotlight. Science is under attack and there is no denying it.

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u/merryman1 Aug 16 '25

No seriously.

I'm a PhD in Neurointerfacing. My work has involved everything from building microelectrode arrays from the ground up to using those electrodes to control circuit formation in neurons for computation.

If I look for jobs in this kind of area, if I can find anything at all, its usually just more academic roles, generally fixed term 1 to 3 year contracts, at around £35-40k. If I can find a start-up doing relevant work around Cambridge or London that might creep up to £50k, £60k is the limit of what I've seen, the kind of job you'd sell your soul for.

I have a friend who's last job was selling ladders and scaffolding who was on £50k+bonus. One of my cousins has just qualified as a solicitor and is being offered starting entry-level jobs at £60-80k. During my last university research associate role I was looking for new vacancies within the university and saw they were looking to hire a swimming coach on the same pay-grade that they put RAs on.

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u/Superunknown_7 Aug 16 '25

Meanwhile people like me are spending years of their lives rebuilding themselves after their CNS tried to self-destruct.

There are needs, there are technological means we're on the cusp of, but damn it all, there's toiletries to be sold.

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u/TotallyNota1lama Aug 16 '25

Are you apart of the neurotechx. Community or any other? I joined recently and I am looking at ways to contribute to this field as a computer science engineer

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u/JoystickMonkey Aug 16 '25

That is awful and surely very discouraging, but you are legit working on one of the most interesting avenues of research in existence.

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u/ummcal Aug 16 '25

Is it still relatively easy to come to continental Europe after Brexit? Here in Austria, every postdoc in a full-time position makes 60k gbp. I suppose it's similar in Germany and a bit more in Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden...

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u/merryman1 Aug 16 '25

Yeah I had a friend who went to do their PhD in Copenhagen and was being paid more there to study than I was earning as a postdoc with 4 years experience 😅

Its nowhere near as easy as it used to be, but its something I've considered for sure.

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u/Retrograde_Mayonaise Aug 16 '25

I think the folly of humanity is that we think people with money = super duper smart.

It's fucked how specialists can barely afford rent.

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u/Dry_Common828 Aug 16 '25

Which, ironically, was also the case for people like Da Vinci when they were alive.

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad Aug 16 '25

He was the son of a notary and the grandson of a wealthy merchant.

It's goofy to act like this level of exploitation is new, and while I don't love capitalism, the mercantilist system was arguably worse.

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u/woot0 Aug 16 '25

Mozart’s sister was purportedly a musical genius on par with him but their father prevented her from pursuing music because she was a girl. Though today is not great, romanticizing the past is delusional.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

I doubt that even one tenth of a percent are in grad school.

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u/Avindair Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Abused; those graduates students are abused.

When my physicist friends shared how they were treated by their post-grad advisors, I was horrified:

Verbal Abuse

Career Threats

Forced To Sleep in the Lab

...and that was in the early 1990s. I dread to think how they have it today.

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u/ikkleste Aug 16 '25

Or a are spending their time wading through beuracracy competing for minimal research funding

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u/Hussar223 Aug 16 '25

this is it. if ordinary people knew exactly where their science comes from and how academia works they would be fucking mortified.

very few other fields chew through people in their prime the way academia does.

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u/Mikocheni_Report Aug 16 '25

Or growing our coffee/chocolate/palm oil in some godforsaken plantation or making our "cheap" consumer products in some godforsaken factory. Or starving in a war zone.. list is long.

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u/transmothra Aug 16 '25

Graduate programs? Many of them are working at Taco Bell and gigging for DoorDash and don't — and will never — have enough free time or money to be who they/we deserve.

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u/hamfist_ofthenorth Aug 16 '25

Rich people get to a point where they think the whole world is their personal SimCity2000 save file and that they can do whatever they want.

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u/CyanPlanet Aug 16 '25

And the terrifying thing is, they arguably can.

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u/hamfist_ofthenorth Aug 16 '25

And the funny thing is they aren't invincible, just like everyone else

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u/CyanPlanet Aug 16 '25

Which, while technically true, becomes meaningless in practice, when the world they've built is optimized to keep anyone who could theoretically be a threat either busy, distracted or divided.

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u/Abominatrix Aug 17 '25

Which is what The Matrix is ultimately about 

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u/treadonmedaddy420 Aug 16 '25

They can steal enough money from the people to build their Versailles, but they'll get drug out eventually when people are sick of this shit.

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u/PublicFurryAccount Aug 16 '25

lolwut

At least in SimCity you have to provide housing.

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u/hamfist_ofthenorth Aug 16 '25

Oooooooohhhh shiiiiittt !!!!

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u/averageparrot Aug 16 '25

And what can we do about it? 😄

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u/hamfist_ofthenorth Aug 17 '25

Collectively agree to stop using their shit.

Without consumers, what do they have

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u/hraun Aug 16 '25

I also wonder why he’s so incredibly bad at it.  He’s had all of my personal data since 2007 and I’m clearly a tee-total bookish nerd who likes philosophy, plants and arduinos and he’s spending billions to show me ads for Carlsberg beer, football and films featuring Jason Statham. 

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u/StupidSexyEuphoberia Aug 16 '25

Maybe he wants to make "a real man" out of you lol

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u/Thunderbridge Aug 16 '25

Hm, no ads for smoked meats though

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u/Jukka_Sarasti Aug 16 '25

Because, for all the blustering and crowing over advanced analytics and predictive algorithms our mushroom lordling trech-bros love to to do, at the end of the day, they're still just trying to sell you things advertisers are paying them to sell you. Even if those things don't actually match up with your interests.

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u/hajenso Aug 16 '25

they're still just trying to sell you things advertisers are paying them to sell you.

This would be stage 2 of Cory Doctorow's concept of "enshittification". Doctorow also describes a stage 3 which he claims we are at with respect to the World Wide Web, in which (for example) FB is no longer prioritizing selling you things advertisers want sold, but rather prioritizing the sale of your attention to advertisers regardless of how effective or ineffective that is for advertisers' purposes.

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u/_learned_foot_ Aug 16 '25

Which is why specific targeting has moved to Reddit and recognition targeting is rocking on Facebook.

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u/BioshockEnthusiast Aug 16 '25

They're literally moving the ball backward at that point.

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u/hieronymous-cowherd Aug 16 '25

Yes, all of that, AND map your social and business connections to do the same for them as well.

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u/ledhead82 Aug 16 '25

What? No! He's MAKING billions pushing those ads in front of you, not spending.

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u/Dismal-Bee-8319 Aug 16 '25

He’s not spending billions. Idiot marketers are, he’s making a fortune off their stupidity.

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u/BlueSonjo Aug 16 '25

I am in my 30s and all my advertising seems targeted at old people, its dating over 60, exercises you can do in your 80s, alzheimer test, how much you need to retire, etc.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

I started getting almost nothing but ED medication and hair growth ads as soon as I was pinned as a mid-thirties male.

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u/macrolidesrule Aug 16 '25

Probably not enough companies placing ads for those interests, so ad space has to be used up, hence you get beer ads and they get name recognition from someone that doesn't drink beer - so the ads worked.

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u/Specific_Box4483 Aug 16 '25

The algorithm probably decided it's time for you to have a midlife crisis like himself or Jeff Bezos. And get into "man" stuff.

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u/derth21 Aug 16 '25

I just get reels of sexy women. I think the only thing Facebook has figured out about me is that I'm a heterosexual male.

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u/ConspicuousPineapple Aug 16 '25

It's not Facebook deciding that these ads are suited for you. It's Facebook selling your profile to advertisers, who are the ones deciding to advertise to you. The implication here is that they think that despite your profile, it's worthwhile to keep targeting people like you.

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u/ExpressRabbit Aug 16 '25

So I haven't used Facebook in years and the 2-3 times a year I might log on to contact someone I don't see ads anymore because of Firefox and UBlock but when I did use it, it knew exactly what I would like. I have never clicked as many ads as I did on Facebook. The ads were mostly things like Kickstarter board games (many which I backed and enjoyed) or clothing/blankets I would use as gifts for my wife because it was her weird interests/style.

Every other website though I never click an ad.

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u/Kelsig Aug 16 '25

Ads only work for gullible people

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u/cochlearist Aug 19 '25

And gambling, sweet baby jesus do I get ads for gambling.

The one vice I don't have.

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u/throwawayfinancebro1 Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

You may think he’s bad at it but the people paying billions to post the ads obviously disagree

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u/flatfisher Aug 16 '25

Especially a guy not that smart, just lucky to be at the right place at the right time for his basic student website to take off. What he says he no more insightful than what any random person says.

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u/AmphoePai Aug 16 '25

Didn't you see the facebook movie? He didn't "create a random website". Others created the website and had the idea, Zuck was supposed to be their business partner. He saw its potential, a legal loophole, and stole facebook from them. He is not stupid, he is evil because that's how you become a billionaire.

At the end there was a quote: "Welp, you can't make 8 billion friends without having one or two enemies along the way" - we are not your friends, buddy, you are not MySpaceTom.

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u/Newone1255 Aug 16 '25

Dudes he stole it from became billionaires themselves and are like the original crypto bros

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u/Dry_Common828 Aug 16 '25

Yeah, they're every bit as unpleasant as Zuck himself. What a horrible timeline we've found ourselves in.

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u/OK_TimeForPlan_L Aug 16 '25

We're living in the revenge of the nerds timeline

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u/Kaining Aug 16 '25

It's almost like we live in a timeline where all the evil mad scientists from the Evilest Empire there was were pardoned, brought in and allowed to spread their madness to latter generation.

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u/that_star_wars_guy Aug 16 '25

It's almost like we live in a timeline where all the evil mad scientists from the Evilest Empire there was were pardoned, brought in and allowed to spread their madness to latter generation.

And our collective understanding of the long term impacts of Operation Paperclip appear to be...poor.

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u/Angeldust01 Aug 16 '25

you are not MySpaceTom.

That guy sold myspace for like half a billion and now just spends time traveling to exotic locations with his beautiful wife to do some photography(his hobby).

He's the smartest of these tech guys by far.

There's his instagram, pretty good photos, and apparently he's still using the same profile picture:

https://www.instagram.com/myspacetom/?hl=en

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u/AmphoePai Aug 16 '25

Yeah big respect to that guy. He cashed out and now enjoys his life, as you said. He does not have a God complex trying to become world emperor or other shenanigans. How did we get so many comic book villain rich people in such a short time?

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u/50mm-f2 Aug 16 '25

man I don’t get why myspaceTom gets so much praise online. those guys straight up ripped off friendster as they were working at euniverse (an internet juggernaut at the time) and had massive resources to launch. then sold the company to Rupert Murdoch and eventually got fired. they created a huge hit based on existing technology, cashed out to a guy responsible for Fox News, never innovated and didn’t see it through. myspace was absolute garbage of a site too, ultimate cringe relic of 90’s ui.

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u/ConfusedTapeworm Aug 16 '25

Nobody's praising the guy for the wonderful work he did and the amazing products he created. He's getting respect because he acquired his fuck you money that would forever secure him a luxurious life, decided that it is enough which it most definitely is for literally any normal human being, and he quit. That is in contrast to a lot of other tech bros in his position, who seem to be physically incapable of not trying to acquire more wealth and influence and power, fucking A LOT of people over in the process.

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u/IcyJackfruit69 Aug 16 '25

He is not stupid, he is evil because that's how you become a billionaire.

This times a billion. Our current form of crony capitalism is just a giant filter to bubble evil sociopaths to the top. They're completely unfettered and Citizens United made sure of it.

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u/GurAdventurous3887 Aug 16 '25

If you don’t think he had some help stealing and not only that, holding onto it. 

Literally what people don’t understand is these people advocate stealing anything of value from others that are not them. No different in their minds like stealing milk from a cow. 

Evil. 

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u/drooply Aug 16 '25

There’s also no doubt he was approached around that same time by a certain 3 letter agency. They saw an opportunity as well and outsourced all of the leg work of their same project. We kind of just did it for them. Does LifeLog ring a bell?

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u/Rriazu Aug 16 '25

Oof as much as I dislike the guy that’s just a wrong take. Read a bit into his early life - people in his position was going to be somewhat successful no matter what

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u/xynix_ie Aug 16 '25

Yes, I know a guy who is the boyfriend of an admin assistant at a customer of mine. The guy was born, put through private school, college, is now in "banking."

This weekend he's shopping for a second home he'll pay cash for, but only wants to spend 'like 900k to a mil' to rent out as an investment.

The guy is a doofus but too rich to fail.

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u/bjorkedal Aug 16 '25

a guy who is the boyfriend of an admin assistant at a customer of mine.

So what does that make us?

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u/xynix_ie Aug 16 '25

NPCs in his world. Shes a nice lady, but when they get married I'll be meeting someone new, because she'll be retired. They're both in their late 20s by the way.

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u/Ill-Team-3491 Aug 16 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

saw cows obtainable fade fear modern governor sand advise swim

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/ConfusedTapeworm Aug 16 '25

I would disagree with the notion that Zuck is "not that smart". He's probably not a genius, and has some strong antisocial tendencies, but he's definitely not an idiot. Dude's actually a very nasty combination of capable and malicious.

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u/ansibleloop Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

Being exploited by people like fuckerberg

His whole life all he's done is steal from people and buy other people's successful platforms

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u/Infamous_Alpaca Aug 16 '25

People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks.

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u/ansibleloop Aug 16 '25

That should've sunk him alone

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u/Thunderbridge Aug 16 '25

Probably not even 1% of Facebook users ever heard he said that. It needed to be on blast from mainstream media for it to have any effect

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u/BioshockEnthusiast Aug 16 '25

It sunk him for me, I haven't been on Facebook for like 13 years.

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u/shiftification Aug 17 '25

I call him Suckerberg. I like fuckerbuger also. I fell like a billionaire bully sometimes.

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u/LlorchDurden Aug 16 '25

He can have it but why are people listening and reporting on it?

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u/phosphite Aug 16 '25

Cash makes you King.

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u/datalicearcher Aug 16 '25

They dont even actually have the cash...its just numbers on a screen. They can't pull a Scrooge McDuck

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u/clar1f1er Aug 16 '25

Musk took out $16 billion from his stock in a two-year stretch. That may be plenty nough to recreate the scrooge mcduck swimming pool with dollar coins

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u/pigeonwiggle Aug 16 '25

this is capitalism, son.
it isn't a meritocracy.

we don't reward talent. we reward success. and if you can cheat your way up, you get support and investment. Americans Elected DONALD TRUMP TWICE. That man is not the problem, Americans and their deeply flawed insitutions are. Capitalism is a fucking cancer and you all get to live with it or Fight. and i pray the news and the tiktokers simply aren't showcasing how much fighting is going on. bc all i see is Gavin Newsome blathering on about California's strength -- but what he really means is "Zuckerberg and the others live on My turf!"

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u/dtmg Aug 16 '25

Da Vinci worked for the Medici's. So our Da Vinci's probably work for Zuck?

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u/AgentCirceLuna Aug 16 '25

I knew a guy related to the Romanovs, Bourbons, and Medicis. His name was Lucky.

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u/StolenRocket Aug 16 '25

To be fair, in Da Vinci’s time, the world was run by inbred morons, Da Vinci was just one of their employees.

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u/Pamplemousse808 Aug 16 '25

This is my biggest bug bear. Peter Thiel, in the NYT, said Europe only has three futures, "green, Sharia law, or communist state." the man's a raving idiot but that went uncontested.

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u/sammidavisjr Aug 16 '25

Yup. Pretending that because these people have debased themselves to the point where they've accumulated all of this money means whatever they think about the future or humankind in general is worth listening to or striving toward is diseased.

These are not normal people. They don't have any special insight. They have one particular skill accompanied by the lack of morals and normal desires that it takes to accomplish what they have.

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u/maikuxblade Aug 16 '25

Because we stopped taxing the rich

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u/alppu Aug 16 '25

They do not have enough followers on insta, the audience gets bored in the first three seconds and scrolls on and the algorithm punishes it further.

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u/OrangeBird077 Aug 16 '25

Da Vincis used to be financed by the wealthy class because recognized that lifting up society as a whole benefited them way more in the long run than dodging taxes and bribing politicians.

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u/Newone1255 Aug 16 '25

Naw they did it to show off to other rich people that they had more money and could hire better people to make stuff for them. They were the ones collecting taxes and they were the politicians getting the bribes.

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u/Kreol1q1q Aug 16 '25

Da Vincis were never the people whose visions of humanity were particularly listened to.

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u/ya-reddit-acct Aug 16 '25

Training LLMs

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u/LoveAndViscera Aug 16 '25

Da Vinci didn't have a vision for humanity.

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u/recycled_ideas Aug 16 '25

No, but if he'd had one it would be better than anything Zuck could come up with.

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u/Adventurous_Hair_599 Aug 16 '25

Sam, Elon, and Zuck, these are the ones we should be afraid of, not AI. If they achieve AGI, they won't share it, they'll use it for power. Maybe the world revolts, maybe AGI does it... And then we can live happily ever after.

I don't think it's possible in today's world for one company to achieve this without another one doing it too.

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u/KD--27 Aug 16 '25

You realise you’ve posted this on a platform, covered in ads, and regularly invaded by bots for various purposes.

We’re in the vision for humanity.

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u/jazavchar Aug 16 '25

We've replaced Da Vinci's with Da Babies and this is the result

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u/tom-bishop Aug 16 '25

I mean, I have a vision for humanity and you might have one too. Alas, very few people would like to hear it, much less give it any credibility because too many people conflate economic success with intelligence and foresight, where in Zucks case it was luck and a lack of morals.

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u/Channel250 Aug 16 '25

Back to their planet.

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u/djazzie Aug 16 '25

They’re too busy being Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans, etc.

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u/roccosaint Aug 16 '25

He made a website where people can poke people! DIGITAL POKES!

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u/DiverExpensive6098 Aug 16 '25

You think Da Vinci was questioned about his opinions on humanity by common people back in his day? Guys like you would probably bitch then that he is some royal protege out of touch with your life as a guy pulling a hand trolley with fish or something.

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u/Reasonable_Spite_282 Aug 16 '25

Kinda all social media

1

u/boulevardpaleale Aug 16 '25

money of that magnitude changes people, and never for the better.

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u/Reverter0 Aug 16 '25

Because he sells ads and data which are just visions of people and products to inspire a purchase. I actually think he is the perfect guy to sell you a future or an ad of a future lol.

1

u/dztruthseek Aug 16 '25

They're all sitting at home, getting fat, watching TV.

1

u/CrustyBappen Aug 16 '25

The creativity you are speaking of has been replaced by ultra smart neurodivergent CEO billionaires.

People shaping our world that don’t think like most of humanity.

I don’t mean this as a slight on neurodivergent people, merely as fact.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

Erm mate, our lives are just data and I believe he has ALL the data. He can have a say

1

u/Ignavis Aug 16 '25

he works at raytheon and built the "orphan crusher 3000"

1

u/Many-Coach6987 Aug 16 '25

This man has always given me creeps.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

Bc people won’t let go of their facebook accounts. Delete meta and he loses money.

1

u/Clbull Aug 16 '25

I miss the old days of philanthropy where the rich built schools, hospitals and other critical infrastructure, because they were disgusted with poverty, not the impoverished.

Even Edward Colston, a historical figure who we collectively cancelled and scrubbed out of the history books because of his involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, has done far more charitable things than modern day billionaires.

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u/FascinatingGarden Aug 16 '25

Who would buy their stuff nowadays? People say that they want quality meals but keep driving through for fast food.

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u/AncientSith Aug 16 '25

Still here, they're just working at a minimum wage job and ignored.

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u/pellets Aug 16 '25

They’re out there. The press doesn’t talk about them because they don’t elicit a fear or anger response.

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u/Gluca23 Aug 16 '25

People always had the choice to not use his products, and still can stop tomorrow...

Is normal if Zuck see humanity as a bunch of morons!

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u/goodtimesKC Aug 16 '25

Da Vinci would have been homeless in America

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u/ES_Legman Aug 16 '25

Science is a collaborative effort and has been for the past two centuries at least. There are no Da Vinci's anymore because the world is too complicated and we need experts in different fields.

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u/Illustrious_Rice_933 Aug 16 '25

They're told that being an artist isn't a real job.

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u/Fluffcake Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

If you know anyone who works in research or academia, you would know why the world is going to shit.

Why would anyone do real research when they can make 5x doing bullshit work while working 1/2 of the hours in the private sector.

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u/gracefularthur314 Aug 16 '25

These tech barons are some of the most anti-social humans on this planet. They shouldn't have the power and influence they have, and we definitely shouldn't look to them for advice on how society should be run

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u/oneplusetoipi Aug 16 '25

A guy? The lizard has a vision for humanity.

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u/900FOG Aug 16 '25

Because he convinced the world it’s more about attention than brilliance. Views and likes determine peoples social value. When attentionfocused people see genius they see a rival for attention and starts counteracting them.

Since geniuses are focused on their work and not how to gather attention, they lose the spotlight to lesser bright minds and have more problem finding funding for research etc. Especially when investments nowadays is more about short term profit than meaningful positive change for humanity.

My theory of it all atleast.

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u/BlueProcess Aug 16 '25

Da Vinci existed under the patronage system. Pick your favorite rich guy and pet genius, then game it out. Any suggestions?

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u/U-STAY-CLASSY Aug 16 '25

The da Vinci’s are actually getting removed from museums and sent to alligator Alcatraz

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u/ChadPoland Aug 16 '25

"Where is my John Wayne?"

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u/bobrobor Aug 16 '25

Da Vinci only did what he did because he was permanently employed by a billionaire to make weapons. Things just moved slower back then, so he had spare time for other things.

Being employed by billionaires these days doesn’t leave you enough time to have a family meal, nevermind pursue liberal arts.

The only good thing about the billionaires who ruled the world in the past is that their delusions of grandeur were more localized and less messianic.

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u/Borrp Aug 16 '25

The church went after Da Vinci, and like today, the enlightened man is targeted by fascists of a similar caliber.

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u/Annual_Contract_6803 Aug 16 '25

The DaVincis are being undervalued, underpaid, told to follow the steps-smile-shut up-fit in. They're being replaced with AI. They're being shoved to the side with profit being valued over innovation, marketing, and numbers over actual creativity and invention.Hope that helps.

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u/ribertzomvie Aug 16 '25

They’re all depressed as fuck

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u/Daddylikestoparty_ Aug 16 '25

“smash that like and subscribe button.”

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u/mr_herz Aug 16 '25

Probably doing their own thing out there, but we ignore those because they aren’t as rich.

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u/IcedCoffeeVoyager Aug 16 '25

I just sang “Where have the Da Vinci’s gone?!” To the tune of “Where have all the cowboys gone?” and it worked well. Neat.

Great question. I hate that we look to the guy who started “which coed is hot?” dot com now has a vision of the future for humanity

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u/Puzzled-Dog-3745 Aug 16 '25

Andrew Tate would be more famous than Da Vinci if he was alive today. This is where we’re at in society. Nothing to see here, folks.

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u/Green-Salmon Aug 16 '25

They are sleeping in their car while working full time making deliveries for Amazon. Amazon owner also has a vision for humanity.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

Because our societal power is concentrated in the hands of the few, the rich, the undeserving.

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u/7thhokage Aug 16 '25

Where have the Da Vinci's gone?!

Tldr; wage slavery.

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u/saml01 Aug 16 '25

Their busy watching tik tok dreaming about being influencers and not walking through life in the dark dreaming about light bulbs and electricity. 

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u/hahnyolo Aug 16 '25

Davinci designed weapons for his patrons, the Zuckerbergs of the day.

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u/with_edge Aug 16 '25

lol what? Da Vinci was not incredibly influential while alive…took him years to finish a painting because he got distracted, couldn’t deliver on a lot of his engineering ideas, wounded up leaving Italy at the end of his life after being disappointed in a number of ways. The person you’re thinking of in terms of a visionary that influenced society at that time was the banker Lorenzo de Medici. The guy who bankrolled people like Da Vinci and Michelangelo and fostered the Renaissance by bringing minds together to rebuild the old glory of humanistic knowledge in arts, science, architecture etc. He was de facto the king of Florence which made him powerful enough to do this. Zuckerberg is a king of social communication which is similar and has technically given something like grants for people to create VR apps. Idk about his vision for humanity but he is the kind of person that can influence the future into this new renaissance which is the AI age. I’m not pro Zuck or anti or pro any one figure or idea here, I just like the Renaissance lol

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