• Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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    12 days ago

    I’d normally never support such pettiness from trademark holders and whatnot. But I’d seriously like the Tolkien estate to do something really funny.

      • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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        12 days ago

        If anyone has the infinite money pool to explore such things it would be the Tolkien estate and the studios who either own or licensed the IP for The Hobbit, LotR, etc.

        I’d say if he had stopped at Palantir maybe be could have a good counter argument. He’s very clearly just ripping every single “evil” object, creature, whatever else he can from the books though.

        I don’t think there’s confusion for most people over the original source of the names. He’s definitely using the names to get more attention though. I feel at the very least he should be paying them some sort of licensing fee. I’m surprised they haven’t already tried something. Nintendo would certainly not let someone name their evil company Bowser’s Warship (I dunno, just trying to think of something close to similar). They’d at least send a C&D and review their options if the company ignored them. Maybe I’m crazy.

          • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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            11 days ago

            I could also make a game company named after my distant cousin “Mario” and name it “Hyper Mario Land”

            How would Nintendo respond in that scenario?

            But either way my hypotheticals are irrelevant and not anywhere near the reality of Theil just straightforwardly lifting names from Tolkien and doing so repeatedly. They’re not like common names either. Did the word Palantir exist before he published LotR? Obviously Tolkien “borrowed” (ripped off in some cases) from like Finnish mythology and others. I wouldn’t expect words like “Wizard” or “Elf” to be protected in anyway. “Hobbit” though? Well, I dunno. “Palantir”? “Nazgûl” (why the fuck does Apple auto correct that spelling)?

            Look, I’m feeling gross typing all this pro-corpo sounding stuff. I just want Theil to lose lots of money. However that can happen is fine with me. It’s also personally annoying to me that he keeps using LotR stuff. It’s cringe as fuck, and I’m pretty sure he couldn’t even explain why he thinks the names fit. Although Palantir sigh does sort of fit. In a round about way anyway.

  • Seasonal_Peace [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    Naming real life shit after a fantasy book is so lame. Look at my gym bro, I call it ellesar, elven stone, king of the united kingdom of arnor and gondor.

  • did anybody else watch that AMC anthology series “The Terror”. the first season is a fictional/dramatic account if an ill fated voyage in the 1840s to find the northwest passage which failed and i think has only been partially recovered in recent years.

    anyway, it had two ships full of dudes trying to penetrate an environment extremely hostile to human life: darkness that can last for weeks, extreme cold.

    what do they name their ships, literally IRL:

    HMS Terror (wtf) HMS Erebus (the greek god/personification of “darkness”, sometimes thought to be a son of Chaos or Time, depending on the author).

    im not superstitious, but GREAT WORK, GUYS.

  • Pieplup [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    I think you are giving crypto bors too much credit. The entire industry is literally built on exploiting other people (and that’strue for most industries under capitalism) but in crypot it’s in a far more direct often scamming way. Anyone who’s a crypto bro at this point in time does not care aboiut morals or ethics cause if tehy did they woudln’t be a crypto bro. I doubt many of them think they are the good guys at best they are moral nihilists. It’s definitley not that htey are too sucked into realize this person calling themselve sevil. or doing evil things. it’s more that htey care more about money than they do of morals.