I think rich people have too much influence, I probably agree with Garry Tan on a lot but we need to get money out of politics. Let’s face it we’re all meant to get one vote but rich people spend money on this stuff so that they manipulate what and who can be voted for.
I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy.
I do so by taking Jeff Bezos' money and giving him a penny. Also by not supporting restaurants that have a Wall-street ticker nor any alcohol producers that have a Wall-street ticker.
I agree with you, in spirit, but I think the true issue lies elsewhere.
Rich people can spend money to influence elections, yes, but how can they do it? through political donations, super-pacs and bribes. Bribes are already illegal. political donations and super-pacs can give politicians the juice they need to get their messaging out, but getting the message across isn't enough to win an election. The people need to vote. Billionaires can spend as much money as they want to support candidates, but a billionaire still only has one vote to cast.
My point is, billionaires can pay for all the political campaigns in the world, but the electorate gets the final say. It's up to us to A) run for office and B) vote for the best candidate (but tell that to the 64% turnout in the 2024 presidential election)
Then Congress will need to pass legislation to that extent that would also survive a challenge based on the precedent established by the Citizens United case. Or a Constitutional Amendment that would weaken the 1st Amendment.
IOW, it is unlikely to happen in your lifetime. Focus your efforts elsewhere...
If rich techies had too much influence in California, the state government would not look like what it does. I mean I just don't see how you get to this opinion after any real review of the evidence.
How coincidental that I was just reading something related [0] before seeing this post.
"Silicon Valley is bad at politics. If nothing else during Trump 2.0, I think we’ve learned that Silicon Valley doesn’t exactly have its finger on the pulse of the American public. It’s insular, it’s very, very, very, very rich. [...] I expect it to play its hand in a way that any rich 'degen' on a poker winning streak would: overconfidently and badly."
And...
“People don’t take guillotines seriously. But historically, when a tiny group gains a huge amount of power and makes life-altering decisions for a vast number of people, the minority gets actually, for real, killed.”
This is an underrated point because the U.S. failure to rein in the excesses of the ultra-wealthy is not just impacting our domestic politics but actually the politics of every country on earth. Imagine if Jack Ma had eventually personally intervened in U.S. congressional elections? That's pretty much exactly what U.S. oligarchs do to other countries regularly.
Study after study shows that money doesn't really effect the results of high-information elections. If it really did, Hillary Clinton would have been president twice. It's just that candidates with a ton of support tend to raise a ton of money.
Low-information elections are where money seems to help. I think we can throw that on the pile of 'your democracy is only as good as your electorate', and we have an electorate where most people can't even name their US House rep, much less their representatives in state and local politics.
Not really possible. There's at least 40 more years of citizens united before any practical ability to restrict money in politics becomes constitutional again.
> we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy
Not true. The plurality that voted in the current administration are generally pleased with the state of things. Democracy is working as expected. It was close, but this is what more people wanted.
Such a group is not a PAC or a Super PAC, but anonymizes donors. It can be used as a vehicle to transfer money to a Super PAC while only naming the dark money group and keeping the donors secret.
> Garry’s List is structured as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, a tax designation that lets the group bankroll campaigns while affording donors a measure of secrecy they would not enjoy if giving directly. They are traditionally known as “dark-money” groups because they can spend on elections without revealing all their donors.
At this point it's just boring to have another rich asshole using government to protect their own interests. There's no substance or principle to it, it's just whatever policies makes CA more favorable to other rich assholes.
Which would be hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating.
All they can talk about is how they’re all going to leave the state if it happens, but then are more than willing to try to spend more stopping it than they would just contributing their fair share in taxes.
Don’t like it? Great, leave - but stop trying to buy elections.
A wealth tax is a great idea if your goal is to make everyone a whole lot poorer especially in the longer term, and not very much otherwise. It's pretty much saying that you want pure populist envy to be the priority, over and to the detriment of long-term prosperity.
Well on the bright side it's a complete mask off moment for the tech community. I think it is good for these people to expose themselves to the public. They will show you who they really are if you let them.
“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects”. -- Louis Brandeis
I'd prefer to see more of them do so, personally. That said, to watch Tan wading into a local fistfight about school curriculum and housing zoning and whatnot in the age of ICE abduction, targetted political prosecution and wanton macroeconomic regulatory chaos seems... frustrating.
I mean, I kinda agree with him about most of the centrist stuff. But really, Gary? This is what you need to be spending your money and time on?
The Mission Local is a good source for hyperlocal Bay Area news, but it does have a strong SF leftist/progressive political tilt in most of its articles, and Gary Tan is a favorite boogieman for these types. Here's what they have to say about his malign influence in the article:
> But the operation is also a media venture: Garry’s List started with a blog pillorying public-sector unions as “special interests,” attacking the ongoing teachers’ strike, and denouncing the proposed billionaire tax.
- Public sector unions are special interests. This is a plain fact.
- The current teacher's strike in San Francisco, even if it succeeds, will only push the district into insolvency, prompting a state takeover. The state will then cut much more aggressively. Maybe this would be a good thing though, although probably not what the union intended. Advocates of the strike are literally demanding the district spend its reserves on a couple years of raises.
- I'm certainly no billionaire, but the proposed tax will do nothing more than push the extremely small and mobile group of billionaires to take their business elsewhere. It's unlikely to raise tax revenues over the long run.
> the proposed tax will do nothing more than push the extremely small and mobile group of billionaires to take their business elsewhere
This is often claimed but has yet to be shown to actually be true. Billionaires want to live in the nicest places with the best amenities just like everyone else.
But let's pretend for the moment that it is true. Good. Billionaires are not a net positive influence anywhere.
> The privacy absolutists will tell you that license plate cameras are “Orwellian.” But here’s what I know: unsolved crime means more innocent people get hurt and maimed and killed. Flock has audit trails. There’s accountability. The people who benefit from keeping murders unsolved aren’t victims—they’re criminals.
jesus christ. assuming he's not going to start syndicating this, who is this even pandering to?
“Fuck Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a label and motherfucking crew,” he wrote in a since-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter, to his 408,000 followers during the early morning hours of Saturday. “Die slow motherfuckers.”
Tupac must have been rolling over in his grave, drunk or not this was absolute cringe and unacceptable from a public figure.
Among the many weird things that the U.S. have but real democratic countries don't, the most promiscuous of them is this flow of private money into politics.
Campaign financing, U.S. style, is just legalized bribing. In any healthy democracy it would be illegal. In the U.S. is just the way things are.
Watching things from outside, it feels like the US is a pay-to-win democracy. It's hard to say where exactly the line between lobbying vs. corruption is drawn.
he's been "clarfying his position" for a decade at this point. This isn't new behavior in the slightest, and it's only been more emboldened as of late.
I don't know if I agree or not with his views, but the fact that he's moving from complaining about something, to doing something about his beliefs, has convinced me to move from a negative to a significantly positive view of him, as a person; to reiterate, regardless of whether I agree with said views.
The will to fight for what one believes in - I think we can all agree that is an admirable human trait that would result, for those who do follow his views, in him being labeled as a hero and defender of people's rights.
"Garry's List" is just straight up AI slop. This is a window into the coming AI-enabled era of astroturfing from wealthy individuals for their pet causes.
I don't think the elite think all voters are dumb more like they think they're easy to manipulate to vote for something (which is largely true). Anecdotally I easily get manipulated by the type of information I consume. I occassionally catch it after the fact or a conversation with others but there's no telling how much I've just accepted that's manipulated.
From that angle it's a game of who has the money, power, and diatribution to enact this manipulation.
Twitter being a prime example. Is Elon "right"? Maybe but the main point is it doesn't matter as he has the distribution.
If you have money but low to no distribution -> you do what gary is doing. Maybe he'd be interested in removing rights to vote but someone like Zuck would NOT because he has outsized ability to influence as he sees fit.
It's way too early to fix California. The average California voter, which HN is a good sampling of by the way, really believes that California is fine, and that there's no corruption or grift, and that they can tax billionaires more without them simply leaving the state (because CA is magical and unique (it's the 4th largest economy in the world, don't you know!) and they'll come crawling back to be a part of it). It's going to take awhile for people to change. As the saying goes "science progresses one funeral at a time". People put ideology above the evidence in front of their eyes. (That "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command" Orwell quote is making the rounds, which is ironic because most people don't need a party to tell them to disbelieve uncomfortable facts!) We have to wait for a new generation to grow up with the visible corruption to fully internalize it. Then it can be fixed. I can't help but think that Tan's efforts would be better spent trying to get a startup scene going somewhere where you can park your car without getting the windows smashed.
>and that they can tax billionaires more without them simply leaving the state (because CA is magical and unique (it's the 4th largest economy in the world, don't you know!) and they'll come crawling back to be a part of it)
more like because data from other wealth taxes has shown that millionaires don't leave that easily. If they are, they are replaced by others
It won't work. The Trump admin has so thoroughly betrayed its voters that independent voters no longer want anything to do with billionaires like the all-in people lying to them for 4 years before an election.
To me, tech entrepreneurship looks more like some form of "lemon socialism." It feels more centrally planned than ever, and a company's success has much more to do with your relationships with capital than anything else. It's why we're seeing so much money invested into a bunch of similar takes on AI. Founders with a real vision of the future aren't really accepted into VC that has almost wholly accepted the FOMO strategy of investment.
I used to hold a lot of respect for Paul Graham and his essays, but I've realized his stances on things are pretty elementary, and largely come back to his ego or wealth management. People like Graham and Tan don't seem to really care about human flourishing, and they certainly don't seem to have any coherent vision of the future. Graham, like Andreessen, was technically good enough during a veritable tech gold rush, and Graham's lieutenants like Tan and Altman were lucky more than anything--just in the right place at the right time versus having started anything of value.
I am *absolutely* cynical and jaded when it comes to tech nowadays, so no need to call me out there. These people remind me of the high modernists, that tech will solve all problems, and we don't have to care too much as to how we solve those problems. Just handwave, and AI will solve all problems. But I think how we solve problems matters, and the entrepreneurship meritocracy that Tan and Graham allude to does not exist, and it never did.
I just find it abhorrent that while 15% of American households are food insecure, a company like Anthropic spent millions on a superbowl ad just lamenting OpenAI's ad strategy. Or that the Trump administration dropped a FTC case against Pepsi and Walmart for colluding to price out grocery competition. Or that Facebook and Google have been shown to have pushed for apps to addict people to their slop content. Or that tech capex this year alone rivals the Louisiana Purchase or the amount America spent on building out the railroads[1].
We're not solving the right problems because capital is entirely disconnected from the every day reality of Americans in this country. But by all means, let's aim to replace 50% of white collar workers with AI and handwave that prices will come down.
It's pretty simple: you don't get to that kind of wealth without having a few screws loose in the ethics department. There are some exceptions but they are just there to confirm the rule.
> Garry Tan, the local venture capitalist who has for years railed against progressive politicians on social media
You mean Garry, who has protested the dumbing down of schools?
Garry, who protests removing math from the curriculum?
He's "railed against progressive politicians" by supporting education and high achievement?
You know China and Asia are laughing at us, right? They do schooling right. We are so backwards.
I was bullied, beaten, sexually assaulted, name called, told to commit suicide, told I was a parentless bastard (I was adopted) in elementary and middle school by my peers. Yet the system did nothing to help me.
I was the only one in my class that tested into early algebra, I led the theater team, I won my elementary school's geography bee, and very nearly won the spelling bee (except for a teacher that unfairly disqualified me) - yet I was the problem for being smart and over-performing. The system catered to my abusers.
Do you know the amount of energy that was required to save me from the stupid public education system? It almost killed me, and it absolutely smothered my growth.
I weep for what my younger ten year old self went through. Because I know there are thousands of kids going through the same experience. It's probably worse now.
Any "progressive" that is pro-bully, anti-education is a problem.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
andy_ppp|19 days ago
I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy.
xyst|19 days ago
Republicans have bought/installed the SCOTUS which allowed for favorable decision in Citizens United v FEC.
This corporation dominated landscape is quite awful. Corporations have more rights than woman right now.
ralph84|19 days ago
assimpleaspossi|19 days ago
yndoendo|19 days ago
I do so by taking Jeff Bezos' money and giving him a penny. Also by not supporting restaurants that have a Wall-street ticker nor any alcohol producers that have a Wall-street ticker.
UncleMeat|19 days ago
RickJWagner|18 days ago
Celebrities can take minutes of time stolen from an audience to make a one-sided argument for their pet political issues. It’s intolerable.
One person, one vote. Equal platform.
supjeff|19 days ago
Rich people can spend money to influence elections, yes, but how can they do it? through political donations, super-pacs and bribes. Bribes are already illegal. political donations and super-pacs can give politicians the juice they need to get their messaging out, but getting the message across isn't enough to win an election. The people need to vote. Billionaires can spend as much money as they want to support candidates, but a billionaire still only has one vote to cast.
My point is, billionaires can pay for all the political campaigns in the world, but the electorate gets the final say. It's up to us to A) run for office and B) vote for the best candidate (but tell that to the 64% turnout in the 2024 presidential election)
donblanco|18 days ago
Then Congress will need to pass legislation to that extent that would also survive a challenge based on the precedent established by the Citizens United case. Or a Constitutional Amendment that would weaken the 1st Amendment.
IOW, it is unlikely to happen in your lifetime. Focus your efforts elsewhere...
bpodgursky|19 days ago
terminalshort|19 days ago
timmytokyo|19 days ago
"Silicon Valley is bad at politics. If nothing else during Trump 2.0, I think we’ve learned that Silicon Valley doesn’t exactly have its finger on the pulse of the American public. It’s insular, it’s very, very, very, very rich. [...] I expect it to play its hand in a way that any rich 'degen' on a poker winning streak would: overconfidently and badly."
And...
“People don’t take guillotines seriously. But historically, when a tiny group gains a huge amount of power and makes life-altering decisions for a vast number of people, the minority gets actually, for real, killed.”
[0] https://substack.com/home/post/p-187592016
Nate Silver often annoys the hell out of me, but I think he's right about some of the possible political impacts of AI.
fainpul|19 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
femiagbabiaka|19 days ago
oulipo2|19 days ago
We should tax billionaires away.
NedF|19 days ago
[deleted]
abtinf|19 days ago
We need to get the power out of politics.
scoofy|19 days ago
Low-information elections are where money seems to help. I think we can throw that on the pile of 'your democracy is only as good as your electorate', and we have an electorate where most people can't even name their US House rep, much less their representatives in state and local politics.
root_axis|19 days ago
Not really possible. There's at least 40 more years of citizens united before any practical ability to restrict money in politics becomes constitutional again.
> we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy
Not true. The plurality that voted in the current administration are generally pleased with the state of things. Democracy is working as expected. It was close, but this is what more people wanted.
fff_123l|19 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money
Such a group is not a PAC or a Super PAC, but anonymizes donors. It can be used as a vehicle to transfer money to a Super PAC while only naming the dark money group and keeping the donors secret.
palmaltd|19 days ago
> Garry’s List is structured as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, a tax designation that lets the group bankroll campaigns while affording donors a measure of secrecy they would not enjoy if giving directly. They are traditionally known as “dark-money” groups because they can spend on elections without revealing all their donors.
Spivak|19 days ago
bhouston|19 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro_Khanna
Based on this warning from Garry to Ro re: wealth tax
https://finviz.com/news/277038/y-combinators-garry-tan-warns...
So this appears to be all about the wealth tax and taken down anyone who supports it.
AIPAC is also mad at Ro so it seems that Garry Tan can find common cause with them:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GRXZqcQiU/?mibextid=wwXIfr
khuey|19 days ago
tw04|19 days ago
All they can talk about is how they’re all going to leave the state if it happens, but then are more than willing to try to spend more stopping it than they would just contributing their fair share in taxes.
Don’t like it? Great, leave - but stop trying to buy elections.
givemeethekeys|19 days ago
learingsci|19 days ago
zozbot234|19 days ago
RobotToaster|19 days ago
8note|19 days ago
[deleted]
vincentjiang|19 days ago
spicymaki|19 days ago
“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects”. -- Louis Brandeis
pbreit|19 days ago
ajross|19 days ago
I mean, I kinda agree with him about most of the centrist stuff. But really, Gary? This is what you need to be spending your money and time on?
diggyhole|19 days ago
piskov|19 days ago
Does this mean what I think it means: basically legalized bribery?
US: %country% has corrupt political system
Also US: it’s not bribes if we call it PACs, lobbying, and what have you
woah|19 days ago
> But the operation is also a media venture: Garry’s List started with a blog pillorying public-sector unions as “special interests,” attacking the ongoing teachers’ strike, and denouncing the proposed billionaire tax.
- Public sector unions are special interests. This is a plain fact.
- The current teacher's strike in San Francisco, even if it succeeds, will only push the district into insolvency, prompting a state takeover. The state will then cut much more aggressively. Maybe this would be a good thing though, although probably not what the union intended. Advocates of the strike are literally demanding the district spend its reserves on a couple years of raises.
- I'm certainly no billionaire, but the proposed tax will do nothing more than push the extremely small and mobile group of billionaires to take their business elsewhere. It's unlikely to raise tax revenues over the long run.
biophysboy|19 days ago
BugsJustFindMe|19 days ago
This is often claimed but has yet to be shown to actually be true. Billionaires want to live in the nicest places with the best amenities just like everyone else.
But let's pretend for the moment that it is true. Good. Billionaires are not a net positive influence anywhere.
driverdan|19 days ago
That tells you all you need to know about how trustworthy the site is.
magicalist|19 days ago
jesus christ. assuming he's not going to start syndicating this, who is this even pandering to?
seattle_spring|19 days ago
I really, really hate that our future has ended up in the hands of people like him, Andreessen, Thiel, Musk, etc.
diggyhole|19 days ago
CyLith|19 days ago
myvoiceismypass|18 days ago
“Fuck Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a label and motherfucking crew,” he wrote in a since-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter, to his 408,000 followers during the early morning hours of Saturday. “Die slow motherfuckers.”
Tupac must have been rolling over in his grave, drunk or not this was absolute cringe and unacceptable from a public figure.
diego_moita|19 days ago
Campaign financing, U.S. style, is just legalized bribing. In any healthy democracy it would be illegal. In the U.S. is just the way things are.
mtrovo|19 days ago
ergocoder|19 days ago
Money will go into politics. Nobody can stop this, and it should be out in the open and traceable.
Obviously, no bribe at all is the best, but is this happening anywhere?
its-summertime|19 days ago
rvz|19 days ago
unknown|19 days ago
[deleted]
johnnyanmac|19 days ago
rasengan|19 days ago
The will to fight for what one believes in - I think we can all agree that is an admirable human trait that would result, for those who do follow his views, in him being labeled as a hero and defender of people's rights.
Bravo, Garry.
jkubicek|19 days ago
elliotto|19 days ago
amarcheschi|19 days ago
[deleted]
0gs|19 days ago
brianbest101|19 days ago
[deleted]
touwer|19 days ago
johnea|19 days ago
Now I can refer to this list to let me know who, and what, to vote against...
text0404|19 days ago
piker|19 days ago
ChicagoDave|19 days ago
johnsmith1840|19 days ago
From that angle it's a game of who has the money, power, and diatribution to enact this manipulation.
Twitter being a prime example. Is Elon "right"? Maybe but the main point is it doesn't matter as he has the distribution.
If you have money but low to no distribution -> you do what gary is doing. Maybe he'd be interested in removing rights to vote but someone like Zuck would NOT because he has outsized ability to influence as he sees fit.
unknown|19 days ago
[deleted]
nektro|19 days ago
I know a dog whistle when i see one, didn't have to read much further but did anyway.
k310|18 days ago
Period.
phendrenad2|19 days ago
johnnyanmac|19 days ago
more like because data from other wealth taxes has shown that millionaires don't leave that easily. If they are, they are replaced by others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DXZMXZCY0I
>People put ideology above the evidence in front of their eyes.
It's funny that you're saying this while providing no proof that rich people leave from wealth taxes.
dramm|19 days ago
archagon|19 days ago
davidw|19 days ago
drcongo|19 days ago
GeorgeOldfield|18 days ago
theideaofcoffee|19 days ago
rrkajh|19 days ago
You had your chance, it is gone now.
catlover76|19 days ago
[deleted]
hisfraudulency|19 days ago
[deleted]
niggernagger|19 days ago
[deleted]
SirensOfTitan|19 days ago
I used to hold a lot of respect for Paul Graham and his essays, but I've realized his stances on things are pretty elementary, and largely come back to his ego or wealth management. People like Graham and Tan don't seem to really care about human flourishing, and they certainly don't seem to have any coherent vision of the future. Graham, like Andreessen, was technically good enough during a veritable tech gold rush, and Graham's lieutenants like Tan and Altman were lucky more than anything--just in the right place at the right time versus having started anything of value.
I am *absolutely* cynical and jaded when it comes to tech nowadays, so no need to call me out there. These people remind me of the high modernists, that tech will solve all problems, and we don't have to care too much as to how we solve those problems. Just handwave, and AI will solve all problems. But I think how we solve problems matters, and the entrepreneurship meritocracy that Tan and Graham allude to does not exist, and it never did.
I just find it abhorrent that while 15% of American households are food insecure, a company like Anthropic spent millions on a superbowl ad just lamenting OpenAI's ad strategy. Or that the Trump administration dropped a FTC case against Pepsi and Walmart for colluding to price out grocery competition. Or that Facebook and Google have been shown to have pushed for apps to addict people to their slop content. Or that tech capex this year alone rivals the Louisiana Purchase or the amount America spent on building out the railroads[1].
We're not solving the right problems because capital is entirely disconnected from the every day reality of Americans in this country. But by all means, let's aim to replace 50% of white collar workers with AI and handwave that prices will come down.
[1]: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-spending-tech-companies-compa...
jacquesm|19 days ago
niggernagger|19 days ago
[deleted]
hisfraudulency|19 days ago
[deleted]
saubeidl|19 days ago
xyst|19 days ago
[deleted]
sngltoon|19 days ago
xmonkee|19 days ago
[deleted]
echelon|19 days ago
You mean Garry, who has protested the dumbing down of schools?
Garry, who protests removing math from the curriculum?
He's "railed against progressive politicians" by supporting education and high achievement?
You know China and Asia are laughing at us, right? They do schooling right. We are so backwards.
I was bullied, beaten, sexually assaulted, name called, told to commit suicide, told I was a parentless bastard (I was adopted) in elementary and middle school by my peers. Yet the system did nothing to help me.
I was the only one in my class that tested into early algebra, I led the theater team, I won my elementary school's geography bee, and very nearly won the spelling bee (except for a teacher that unfairly disqualified me) - yet I was the problem for being smart and over-performing. The system catered to my abusers.
Do you know the amount of energy that was required to save me from the stupid public education system? It almost killed me, and it absolutely smothered my growth.
I weep for what my younger ten year old self went through. Because I know there are thousands of kids going through the same experience. It's probably worse now.
Any "progressive" that is pro-bully, anti-education is a problem.
Garry's stance:
https://x.com/garrytan/status/1650607982991011846
https://x.com/garrytan/status/1978187709169401956
https://fortune.com/2025/07/10/tech-ceo-garry-tan-y-combinat...
Garry is a stand-up guy. This is a hit piece.
Edit: -2 within minutes of posting this. I don't even understand nerds anymore. You shouldn't embrace anti-education.
JuniperMesos|19 days ago
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learingsci|19 days ago
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zthrowaway|19 days ago
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Computer0|19 days ago
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techbro92|19 days ago
draygonia|19 days ago
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