I somehow lost the last line of my reply.

[...] that doesn't mean everyone agrees that it's a good idea, or that there's not something more practically beneficial to spend it on.

Interesting false equivalence. Ignoring the fact that I said nothing about how much money he should give to charity, do you really equate a $400 television and a few $12 DVDs to a $70,000,000 house?

Ah, the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth. Who knows -- perhaps once the majority of Africans have overthrown brutal despots, eradicated malaria and other diseases, and found reliable clean water they'll be able to start working on that.

How much time, money, and effort did it take to build a prospering American country and society -- from a largely empty land brimming with natural resources? Oh, and, how much of that came from Europe? "Self-made", indeed.

Oops, I think you tipped over your own straw man with that last remark.

There's no outrage in my post, and I think it's very telling that the examples you chose: a computer (which I use to earn a living), a car (which I use to get to stores to buy necessities), and a phone (really? [and it isn't even a smartphone]) actually are necessities for myself as well as the vast majority of people today.

Notch can literally eat his piles of cash for all I care. My point was simply that at some point you pass a level of wanton extravagance that you venture into a realm of wasteful absurdity. Our culture won't punish you for buying a $250,000 cell phone case, but that doesn't mean everyone agrees that it's a good idea.

It's his money to spend and I wouldn't stand in his way, but what a waste. Makes you wonder what kind of good could have been done or how many lives could have been saved with that $70 million.

Ah, that brings back some memories. Thanks :)

Personally, I miss the ohnoitsbennett tag that used to get applied to all his submissions. I still tag his walls-of-text with it, but I think it's been blacklisted along with most of the other fun tags.

This "article" (scare quotes very much intended) is about social media, not technology or being tech-savvy. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other -- in fact, there's probably substance to an argument that they're somewhat opposites.

It's akin to saying someone is very skilled and more creative at using toilet paper -- and then bemoan that they're a pretty poor plumber.

That's just beautiful. I might have to steal that for a new .sig at some point :)

Holy hell, Slashdot.

#commentlisting li {
    list-style: none outside none;
    margin: 0 0;
}

Well that's just beautiful. Take the effort to add bullets and instead get a massive wall of text. Thanks.