socialism is when you play games on linux

"Socialism is when capitalism" is an evergreen take

In socialism we would be on half life 7 or 8

He's not though, what petty-bourgeoise nerd shit are they imbibing?

Ex finance minister of Greece worked for him at one point and claimed he was a very misguided left anarchist in terms of politics

Yanis Varoufakis actually described Gabe/Valve as like unknowingly anarchist or something. It's in an interview on YouTube and I think he's wrong. He does this rhetorical thing where he describes capitalist enemies as way smarter than they are to end up with SuccDem conclusions.

On lemmygrad they were seriously talking about whether Gaben is a socialist.

This can only be described as false slander.

A single person asked a question, not a crime, not a problem. People responded. No one argued he was a socialist. They were talking seriously. They usually talk in a serious tone. They were not seriously suggesting (made it the fuck up) that he was a socialist. There was analysis of for example private vs public companies, shitting on valve, discussion of Huawei and the larger economic picture.

You were there I think misunderstanding some things but anyways your description of it is false: (Ref: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9744686/7297089)

An extremely vaguely defined "cooperative" label is all it takes!

I would never formally believe he's ideologically a socialist based on all known informationabout him, but possibly a class traitor? And even then, "class traitor" is something he might do in the future, not something I'd say he currently is. Either way, critical support for the man who does good things.

And big time criticism for all the fucked up shit he's doing (normalizing child gambling addiction is probably all I know about).

Could you link to that?

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Best case scenario, he's only doing this because he's expecting law makers to react (accelerationism).

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I can actually think of a rational purpose for Newell specifically, although it doesn't remotely justify the extravagance of his yacht. From what we know, he seems to be COVID-conscious:

https://www.pcgamer.com/court-rules-gabe-newell-must-appear-in-person-to-testify-in-steam-anti-trust-lawsuit/

Newell had previously requested a remote deposition, saying "that he is at risk of developing a serious illness were he to contract Covid-19," according to the filing, and thus "has structured his life to minimize exposure to possible Covid-19 transmission. According to Mr. Newell, an in-person deposition, even with the health measures which plaintiffs propose, is not consistent with those safeguards."

He has indeed taken steps to avoid exposure to the pandemic: Newell famously spent a good chunk of time through 2020-21 in New Zealand as a "Covid refugee." The court rejected his argument, however, saying that while Covid-19 presents "continued public health risks," Newell failed to present any substantial evidence that he's at greater risk of serious illness arising from Covid-19 than the general public—and even if he had, Wolfire's lawyers "would be unduly prejudiced by a remote deposition given Mr. Newell's unique knowledge as to defendant's business strategies."

To accommodate Newell's concerns, the court ordered that everyone in the courtroom must wear an N95 or compatible mask during his appearance, although Newell himself will have to remove his mask when answering questions.

Speaking from personal experience, one of the greatest obstacles to creating a COVID-safe bubble is trust. The only person I trust to fastidiously take precautions is, mercifully, also my roommate. But I've heard so many horror stories of people infected by family and "friends" who lied about precautions and/or test results. From the perspective of a billionaire who has close contact with a bunch of staff (cleaning, cooking, administrative, etc.), there's just no way that you can trust (or legally enforce) that people are taking precautions when they go home at the end of the day. But what if they didn't go home? And what if you could ensure this, beyond a shadow of a doubt? Therein lies the appeal of living on a yacht. You do one set of PCR tests when the crew boards, and then you can relax as long as you're at sea.

To be clear, I am in no way defending the purchase of such a grotesquely expensive yacht. He's apparently involved in some research on technology for instant detection of airborne pathogens, but detection is sort of beside the point at this stage...for the rest of use who DON'T live on megayachts, we need to clean the air. He could, for example, equip all King County (Seattle) public schools with top-of-the-line ventilation and filtration systems, or set up a matching grant system to fund programs like that across the country, fund (and perhaps more importantly, publicize) research to show how these measures drastically reduce disease burden and improve student outcomes. He could use his wealth and influence to campaign for laws to require monitoring of air quality and enforcement of indoor air quality standards. But no, he's content to use his massive wealth to insulate him, individually, from the consequences of the COVID pandemic, and let the rest of us fend for ourselves. I can at least understand it (unlike billionaires crashing out on Twitter, which truly boggles the mind), but that doesn't make it defensive.

As for people not named Gabe Newell...some combination of dickwaving and horrifying criminal acts, I'd guess.

They have second yacht for the help

well because when you have that much money it's really hard to spend it, and big boats are expensive. sports cars are relatively cheap and collecting them is for your star actors and low tier CEOs. islands are too expensive (i don't think they sell greek islands anymore) so only pedophiles that give "tax advice" can afford them. yachts are the right amount of expensive, between 100 mil to a couple of billions. at that range you can comfortably afford them, but they are not small enough to just be a drop in the bucket.

plus big boat cool. you can travel around the world and have the chance to pay filipino sailors fuck all for all their trouble. did you hear about the submarine garage? so awesome.

Conspicuous consumption? Differing boat cultures being common class signifiers (deep sea vs fresh water)? Also the sex pest stuff you said? The fact that the bourgeoisie are the only international class?

It's essentially making their own private mobile resort.

A mansion with everything you could ever want is "only" tens of millions of dollars, so any billionaire has as many as they could want. But you you want to go to different cities for different events, and settling in to a new place is such a hassle. You ever spend a week on vacation or at a relative's house and, for the first few days, every time you wake up in the middle of the night to take a piss, you have to remember where you are and where the bathroom is?

What if you were so rich that this is the biggest remaining problem in your life? Wouldn't it be nice if you just had one mansion set up the way you like, and could take it with you?

(Nobody should have this much fucking money.)