@nat Oh geez, this is just too accurate:

Michael Dell owned both companies and smashed them together like a kid demanding that his action figures kiss.

@alpha People want there to be some *narrative* that explains the acquisition and I really believe that there just... isn't one

@alpha Like sure there are reasons Dell thought it was a good idea and those ideas might even make sense but it didn't have a lot to do with the things that those of us who worked for the companies know about them

@nat I mean, there might be, but IMO that explanation is just as plausible as the others. 🤷

@nat I somewhat unseriously but also sort of actually believe that people at that level (of wealth/privilege/power/etc) just aren’t really… real people, if that makes sense? They’re just so far removed that even if they wanted to and could actually know, they can’t.

@alpha Oh -- animal psychology has a term for this -- umwelt -- the semiotic world created by sensory data and modeling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt

@alpha It seems plausible to me that Michael Dell's umwelt is about as different from mine as my dog's is

@alpha @nat

“And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.” — William Gibson, Count Zero

@nat @alpha the tick example is apt