this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024

575 points (99.3% liked)

Not The Onion

12577 readers

1663 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

Links to news stories from...
...credible sources, with...
...their original headlines, that...
...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

kescusay

575

Over 2,000 shell companies have directors aged 123 years or older, Moody's found. The oldest known human lived to 122 (fortune.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/nottheonion

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 32 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] WhatAmLemmy 222 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Remember, you can't transfer modest sums of money without intense scrutiny — coz tErRoRiSM — but corporations can funnel billions of dollars through fake corporations, run by fake &/or dead people, registered at locations that have never existed, solely to commit tax evasion — a crime you would spend decades in prison for, if you did it at 1/1000th the scale.

This is from the same establishment that argues against your access to encryption — coz pEdOs and tErRoRiSM — but Epstein didn't hill himself, and 99.99% of his pedo establishment accomplices were let off scott-free.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And people argue against overthrowing their governments in favour of upholding this.

[–] kautau 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

I mean yeah, the French Revolution had 2.5 million combatant casualties in addition to 1 million civilian casualties, which was similar in population deaths relative to World War One for France.

If estimates are correct, the French population was around 28 million at the eve of the French Revolution. 3.5 million deaths is 12.5 percent of the population of the country at that time.

So if violent revolution has any historical accuracy, the population of 330 million in the US today would mean that more than the entire population of France during the French Revolution would die (41 million people)

I’m not arguing that revolution isn’t the answer, but a casual “overthrow the government” is a significant loss of human life to achieve said goals.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Had the ancien régime been allowed to remain in power, it's likely it would have killed far more people.

[–] kautau 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I didn’t say that wasn’t that case, just that to get people to agree to something that drastic normally requires more significant impact on their day to day lives. By convincing many of the current population they are “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” the upper class have done very well at ensuring that many are “just comfortable enough” to do very little while they are moved into a system built to capitalize on their labor and keep them under control

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

But i do love fig newtons

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

you're almost certainly right, but if you're wondering why people are hesitant to initiate a revolution 3.5 million deaths is a pretty good explanation

[–] General_Effort 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Misleading. That number includes deaths in the Napoleonic Wars.

The Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars were not a necessary consequence of the Revolution. They were largely triggered by European monarchs attempting to make the world safe for tyranny.

[–] Buddahriffic 3 points 11 months ago

I think the US is the only country where a revolution might be able to happen without the other western powers themselves coming in to put it down and save capitalism (assuming it's an anti-capitalist revolution).

But I'm not even sure that it wouldn't happen to the US. The ruling class will pull out all of the stops to save their power (with the added incentive that it might also save their lives because of how successful revolutions tend to go for those at the top).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

All rights are won through violence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The "Epstein didn't kill himself" nonsense always bothered me. It ignores why he was arrested in the first place.

He was soliciting sex with underage girls from a local, and rich, high school. The solicitation was for himself.

So you have an old man trying (and sometimes succeeding) at picking up 14-17 year old white girls from rich families. He was super sloppy about it as well, attempting the shotgun approach of just messaging every single girl he could on various social media platforms.

This got the attention of the media, and pissed off some people with some money behind them.

He was going to prison for his own solicitation, and not for supplying anyone else.

But once the media started digging, they found a bunch of shit that said he had also been supplying girls to the rich and famous. But those weren't the charges he was facing, and his rich and famous friends could not, or would not, help him with the charges he was facing.

What they could do, was pull him off of suicide watch.

A pedo in prison either has to be in protective custody, or be otherwise protected from the other prisoners. Otherwise, the other prisoners will take out all their aggression on the pedo.

Epstein was facing prison time, and was being threatened with being placed in general population. He had already been attacked by another inmate, and had uncountable beatings to look forward to.

So the moment he was pulled from suicide watch, he killed himself. It was a selfish decision, but it also greatly helped out the people he had supplied girls to.

The main question is, did some of his powerful friends pull strings to get him off suicide watch? We also know that he met his lawyer days earlier and signed documents that made it much harder for his victims to get compensation, but only in the case of his death.

That alone points to him planning to die rather than spend the rest of his life being repeatedly beaten by other inmates.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Mm, I do appreciate your write up and viewpoint, however it does not address some of the details. One being the tampering of footage the night of his death, and if I recall correctly, one of the guards receiving a large payment. Among a myriad of other data points pointing towards sketch.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The footage thing is a game of telephone that the internet has played with itself.

There was no footage of the cell itself, because there are no cameras in any cells except those used for suicide watch. Epstein was pulled off suicide watch.

Internet sleuths keep demanding footage of the cell itself, which flies in the face of how prisons run.

There is footage of the cell block hallways leading to and from Epstein's cell. The footage there shows no people entering or exiting the hallway. Which leads to the next part.

The guards falsified records. They were both actually asleep on the job, but had filed statements saying they were awake and alert and watching the prison. The footage showed that neither guard did any rounds that night. They didn't do rounds the night before, or even the week before. They basically just didn't do rounds at all.

They were both prosecuted for such, but got off because law enforcement sleeping on the job is just sort of accepted...

I can't find anything about a payoff.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

People want shadowy conspiracies to exist because the world makes more sense that way. "The prison guards were lazy and careless" is simultaneously the most likely scenario and the one most rejected by "truthers".

Do these people think jails are hotels run like clockwork with constant vigilance and 4K video of every corner?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's a good breakdown of the facts, but "Epstein didn't kill himself" is still useful as the headline for the article you essentially wrote here

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Except for the fact that he did, in fact, kill himself.

He saw his future prospects of constantly being in and out of prison hospitals, as the other prisoners continually beat him, and chose instead to end it all.

The fact that it also screwed over his victims and made prosecuting his clients much harder is ancillary to the fact that he killed himself to get out of having his ass handed to him every day for the rest of his life.

It doesn't take a genius to see, but it does take a special kind of genius to see conspiracy and a clandestine murder in it.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I often wonder if it ever pisses Martha Stewart off that she did time for a crime that nowadays, is just seemingly a part of doing business for the super-rich. (as well as much much worse)

The world has gotten so much more fucked up since then. A little insider trading to save a few measly millions is NOTHING compared to what blatantly do in the open nowadays.

[–] okamiueru 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Wasn't she also jailed in the US? I never understood why politicians there are allowed to do insider trading. Then again, previous prime minister where im from basically did the same, but said "sorry", so it's cool.

[–] Chocrates 16 points 11 months ago

It is explicitly not illegal for Congress to do what Martha did. There was an article yesterday that Pelosi just made like 500k doing it?

One of the actual "both sides are shitty" examples is insider trading. It seems like a no-brainer that it should be illegal for our politicians to do it, but they refuse to vote on a bill to make it so.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

It seems Martha's mistake wasn't the Insider trading, it was not running for office before she did it.

[–] Sanity_in_Moderation 3 points 11 months ago

It was the cover up that really sunk her.

[–] skydivekingair 57 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Several vampires and highlanders just woke up with a lot of their cash missing.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One listed director — at 942 years old — would have been born in the 11th century.

You do not want to fuck with that elder vampire.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Just take him out for an all night party to get him drunk, and then accidentally open the door as the sun is rising.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago

almost like the whole economy is made up by criminals and enforced by violence

[–] Thaumiel 52 points 11 months ago

The secret ingredient is crime.

[–] snekerpimp 43 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If corps can do this and its legal, I should be able to claim my dog as a dependent on my taxes.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

Well, no, because you see, you're not filthy rich, so you actually have to abide by the law.

[–] southbayrideshare 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You're looking at it backwards. Look at it the ultra-wealthy way: you are the dependent your dog claims on his taxes, but you do all the work and pay the bills. The money just passes through you to accomplish these things, but it's not your fault your dog can't read the tax code.

[–] Sludgehammer 28 points 11 months ago

I knew it! Overly truthful vampires are running our companies!

[–] Mordred_85 13 points 11 months ago

Its just Fry from Futurama running his legal biz

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Makes sense. Highlanders should have insane returns on interest.