“Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to donate $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, reports Axios. The donation will be a personal donation directly from Cook rather than a donation from Apple”

I’ll defend Apple as being the least shitty of the big tech giants but I can’t defend this.

      • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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        12 days ago

        Yes, not really better at all. These donations are all symbols, not meaningful except as a show of obeisance. So we should interpret it along the same symbolic parameters.

        It’s being framed as a personal donation because Cook is acquiescing to Trump’s pending authoritarian takeover, but wants plausible deniability that that imputes to Apple. But since Tim Cook is the one acquiescing and he leads Apple, it’s indistinguishable from the same thing. It carries the same message: Apple won’t get in your way, do what you will.

  • finley@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    Bad gay!

    When you’re a traitor to your own kind for the sake of an unquenchable thirst for profit, you become an enemy to LGBTQ+ folks. Siding with the neo-Nazis only makes it worse.

    Fuck you, Tim Apple

    Steve Jobs would have fired you the instant he thought you might do this. He might’ve been a legendary prick for his entire career, but at least he had a set of ethics and morals.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Yeah, as much as I hate Steve Jobs, he would have given Trump the finger on camera back in 2016 had he been alive.

      • finley@lemm.ee
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        11 days ago

        When people shit on Apple - esp Jobs - they forget that it was Jobs who directed the company to fight the FBI to protect our right to on-device encryption. And the FBI backed down because they knew if they went to the Supreme Court, chief Justice, Antonin Scalia, who was a huge supporter of encryption, would guarantee any challengers to that right would lose.

        The political climate is different today, but because of Apple fighting for the right of every person to have on device encryption, we all owe him a debt.

        Yes, Steve Jobs and chief Justice Antonin Scalia were both immeasurable pieces of shit, but some good came from them. And it’s a lasting good that will ensure the rights of individuals to encrypted their own data, possibly for generations.

        Again, I’m not defending either jobs nor Scalia, they were terrible people. But they did do some good.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      It really goes to show what kind of times we’re living in when Steve Jobbs is the limbo bar to measure good ethics that everyone today is clearing under.

    • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.worldOP
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      12 days ago

      It’s not just LGBTQ+ folks. Anyone not male, straight, white, christian, republican or natural born is in the firing line.

        • finley@lemm.ee
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          12 days ago

          Which is what makes it particularly disgusting when an LGBTQ-aligned individual commits such horrendous acts.

  • Schwim Dandy@lemm.ee
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    10 days ago

    It’s less than .05% of his worth. It’s like us dropping pocket change in the Red Cross bucket and he’ll make more than that in profit from changes the bribe paid for from the great cheetoh.

  • FireWire400@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    He’s totally not doing it to get Trumpf to like him. He’s gonna get his own imaginary political role.

  • ghostpony@infosec.pub
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    12 days ago

    He’s doing this to avoid being associated with Apple, but this only highlights that he’s personally a piece of shit, in addition to Apple.

    Fuck him, fuck Apple, and fuck all those other motherfucking bootlickers enabling these fucking fascists.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      12 days ago

      What’s funny (or sad) is that 100 years from now this will be looked at the same was as when Ford or IBM supported the Nazis. Their business won’t hurt long term and Tim Apple will be long dead.

      • Frostbeard@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        IG Farben, Krupp, Thyssen, Boss, Porsche and the mist goes on and on and on. Fuck I suspect that even my own grandfather “had stripes” (slang for collaboration with Nazis without yourself being proclaimed nazi) and he even fought them during the invasion of Norway.

        • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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          12 days ago

          History doesn’t repeat. It rhymes.

          Buckle in kiddo it’s gonna be a fun couple of decades if we survive it.

    • resin85@lemmy.ca
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      11 days ago

      He should just be honest and said “this $1m is a mandatory payment to trump so that he exempts Apple from tariffs, no other reason”, of course, then it’s an obvious quid pro quo.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    These CEOs are funding hate, violence and the end of American democracy - they have enough power, money and influence to oppose, yet they don’t. They decided that a few must be sacrificed for the greater good profit.

    Something happened on the 5th of December. Tomorrow is the 5th of January. Just in case anyone’s calendar app is stuck closed. Interesting if true…

  • Jinni@sh.itjust.works
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    11 days ago

    As a Bi man there is something that particularly stings about a well known, openly gay CEO funding a man who is hateful towards LGBTQ+ people. I never really liked him nor apple but it is an extra fuck you.

    Being rich is ultimately the disease as it compels him to appeal to power but I hope the last things hears is “Told you I would kill you last”.

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      he is ultra rich, the hateful divide and conquer tactics applied to common people don’t apply to him so he simply does not have any empathy for the matter.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Peter Thiel is also a gay man, and pulling a lot of these strings behind the scenes.

      It’s oligarchy. Thiel can fuck who ever he wants (and make them disappear when he’s done…) while maintaining political power by sacrificing queer people to the Hour of Hate.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      11 days ago

      Tim cook will never suffer the consequences of anti-gay legislation or the lack of legal protection for gay people.

      Unfortunately, gay people like money too. He cares more about furthering his own personal empire than he does about helping those who have less money than him.

      In the eyes of timmy, the struggles of poor gay people are completely irrelevant to the struggles of rich gay people.

      West was similarly eager to sell out his fans after they made him wealthy so he could suckle on trump’s teat.

      • irreticent@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        West was similarly eager to sell out his fans after they made him wealthy so he could suckle on trump’s teat.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      11 days ago

      Hands down, the most effective punishments for these people at the top is to redistribute their wealth so they have to live like everyone else.

      That is legitimately a fate worse than death in their eyes, which should put things into perspective for the rest of us.

      • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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        11 days ago

        The wealthy all seem to understand that class solidarity is more important than any other issue. Why is it taking so long for everyone else to figure that out?

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        11 days ago

        I’m really not sure what the threat to him is though. Does “die” in this case mean lose out on money? One would think he already has his walk away money.

        • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          I meant it more metaphorically. I think it’s more like lose out on some benefits and have to go through tons of bureaucracy if you don’t comply.

          • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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            11 days ago

            Yeah that’s what I was trying to imply: that he’s not supporting a bigot empowering fascist leader to save his actual skin, but to keep his personal business running smoothly.

            Whereas queer folk without money are existentialy threatened by this administration and those it emboldens.

            • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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              11 days ago

              Yup. For once we could have had a CEO choose the good side, but this just goes to show how corrupt the oligarchy is

    • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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      11 days ago

      There are no real allies in the oligarch class. Temporal alliances or common goals at best. They will (and do) kill for a penny.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    All these Billionaires PAYING Trump MILLIONS of Dollars is PROOF he CANT be Bought!

    • snek_boi@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      lol I interpret this as sarcasm, as with many of your other comments around Lemmy. If they are so, I think they’re funny and so far I agree with what you actually value, democracy. However, it took me some time to understand your sarcasm. This might be just me, but I wonder if your comments could be subjected to Poe’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe’s_law). Do you think it’s impossible that they could be?

      • helmet91@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        I got the joke right away, I don’t think there’s any problem with it.

        The thing is, no matter how obvious a contradiction is, far-right folks won’t understand any of it, because they’re so dumb. You cannot give them even the most basic, easily digestible facts and explanations, because even that requires a brain, which they don’t have.

        So I think, these kind of jokes are perfectly fine for our entertainment, and no amount of facts and information will ever convince the dumbest of the people.

        • snek_boi@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          Fair points:

          • I see how that joke can be fine in the sense that, if everyone in the group shares values, there is no need to consider how a staunch Trump supporter will respond to the joke. After all, I think there are very few staunch Trump supporters reading this.
          • I also see that it can be very hard to convince people to reconsider tightly-held beliefs, or at the very least gain perspective on them. It sounds like you do not believe changing perspectives is even possible, that no dialogue can ever be worthwhile or useful.

          I see you appreciate facts and information, the scientific process and the institutions that enable it. We have that in common. That’s why, ironically, I’ll start with anecdotal facts and then move on to more robust and generalizable findings. Do you know about my friend who went from defending “one dollar, one vote” (a couple of years ago) to explaining how the lack of third spaces is associated with inequality (a couple of weeks ago)? I don’t expect you to at all, so do you know Contrapoints’ impact on radicalized people who reach out to her (https://www.vice.com/en/article/contrapoints-interview-2019-natalie-wynn/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nrz4-FZx6k)?

          These may sound like cherry-picked examples, but there’s actually evidence of massive shifts in people’s political views: the World Value Survey. Do you know how world values have changed ever since the WVS started (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIXdRVe92gg)?

          In the face of the WVS shifts, it may seem like value changes only occur when material conditions allow for it, but there’s evidence within the WVS literature (check out the variance that explains democratic values, in particular how material conditions most explained democratic values in the past but today connectivity most explains it) that material conditions are not as important. However, we can also look at another set of scientific literature that shows that the way that things are presented can lead to changes in political attitudes. Do you know about the moral reframing literature? I’m sorry for the paywall https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12501 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337861541_Moral_reframing_A_technique_for_effective_and_persuasive_communication_across_political_divides

          • helmet91@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            Thank you for showing me this valuable piece of information. No, I haven’t seen these before.

            Until now, I’m 100% confident that it’s impossible to convince someone on the far-right of anything that’s against their views, because I’m from a country that is 15 years ahead of the US on this tragic path into the dark future far away from common sense, thus I have a somewhat clear prediction for the general mental state of the people in the coming decades, which likely cannot be reversed in a century.

            Yet, I’m thinking quite often, what I could do as an individual to at least somewhat better the situation in this miserable world. And so far all my ideas are based on withdrawal of content (much like how you take drugs away from a junkie) instead of adding arguments, which is obviously hard to pull off on a large scale.

            Not that I could do anything though. Today you need to be rich to achieve something.

            Nonetheless, maybe this is the missing piece to the puzzle. I’m considering to pay those extra bucks for that publication, also Welzel’s book; they look promising. So thanks again for sharing.

    • Frostbeard@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      None of these companies would touch Trump with a 10 foot pole in the situation wasn’t so dire. But he is the next president, and he is known to respond to stuff like this. Bend knee, kiss his ass and carry a huge wad of cash. This is just the cost of doing business, and even if a vocal minority cries out most people still buy iPhones, Teslas and shop at Amazon and Wal-Mart.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        They don’t hate gays, they hate honesty, and also having social and legal limitations for various divergent traits allows blackmail and defamation.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          They don’t hate gays

          Yeah, they only cheer on the concept of queer genocide and talk about how queer people groom children to support the idea.

          But they don’t hate them. Jesus loves them after all.

        • Snapz@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          No, they hate all gay people. They are just lower on the list right now, but they are definitely there.

          First they came for…

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          And open guys, and gays suffering for our sexuality. None of them visited Roy Cohn as he died of AIDS. Tim Cook may get spared from raids at first, but if it goes as bad as we fear he’s going to have nobody willing to defend him

    • tswiftchair@lemm.ee
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      11 days ago

      It’s absolutely wild how the first time around, everyone left of center was against Trump, even if it was only posturing. This time around, he’s even worse and the same people are literally supporting him.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      12 days ago

      They’re the only one selling physical products as their main business so they can afford to give you marginally better privacy and UX than say, Google, who’s built their business on tying tracking and advertising into their open source products like Chromium and Android.