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by rnvhhynr 2685 days ago
Someone without that net worth won't be blackmailed by the US and Saudi governments.
3 comments

In order to be blackmailed by the US and Saudi governments, you do not need to have a lot of money. They don't really care about that, because they also have a lot of money.

What they care about is whether you have something that poses a danger to their (hidden) agendas.

If this is true, it may also mean that it is more likely that you have a lot of money (because there appears to be a statistical correlation between having lots of money and having stuff that's dangerous to the agendas of state-level global actors, likely because having lots of money means having lots of power and influence, which results in getting access to "stuff" you wouldn't have otherwise), but the former does not automatically result in the latter, and it also isn't a requirement for the latter.

Hence you can very well, through an infinite amount of random circumstances, come into possession of material deemed "dangerous" by the US and Saudi governments, while still being just a normal person living a normal life with a 5-digit net worth. Resulting in you being blackmailed by the US and Saudi governments. Most likely with quite some success.

At risk of repeating myself, Bezos one words:

On that point, numerous people have contacted our investigation team about their similar experiences with AMI, and how they needed to capitulate because, for example, their livelihoods were at stake.

You’re right, most people are never going to face such an adversary personally.

But there are legions of other adversaries, at all sorts of levels, who are out to pray on almost anyone with a bit of money / fame.

I don't think that's necessarily true. This sort of thing could very well be happening to individual journalists, and we'd never know about it.