Original article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/us/indian-creek-surfside-billionaire-sewage.html

Without the paywall: https://archive.li/HrE38

Alternative: https://gizmodo.com/billionaire-island-where-bezos-lives-lobbies-state-gov-to-flush-its-poop-down-neighbor-towns-pipes-2000615795

Note

While the news is concerning, it seems Daily Galaxy had all the hallmarks of a content mill aping more legit sources. I had no idea because I follow a lot of RSS feeds and this had been sitting there for a while now. I choose it for the science stuff. Sorry. I honestly wasn’t aware.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    109 hours ago

    To put this in perspective, Jeff Bezos just one of the islands residents makes $10 million dollars every hour and 20 minutes. That’s day and night, round the clock, whether he is ‘working’ or not. He makes more in 14 minutes than most people do in their entire lives.

    This would be like an average person paying $1 to fix their towns sewage problem. It costs approx $420 on average to have your septic tank pumped, which ‘normal’ people with septic tanks have to pay every 3 to 5 years. They can’t pay off a politician to have their neighbors pay for it, and they probably wouldn’t if they could. Bozos could have just paid the $10 mil, and donated another 10 mil to upgrade they system and it would have been the equivalent of pocket change for him.

    People act like leftists are just jealous of Billionaires, it has nothing to do with jealousy. The literally insane levels of greed and entitlement it takes to think this way is off the charts. They would rather pay off a politician and change the law than to just pay their bills like a normal person. This is toxic thinking of the highest degree.

  • bthest
    link
    fedilink
    English
    12
    edit-2
    19 hours ago

    I loved going to this Island and killing people in GTA Vice City. I hope GTA 6 includes it.

    • Echo Dot
      link
      fedilink
      516 hours ago

      I don’t know Florida all that well at all, so from the leaks I can’t really tell because I don’t actually know where we’re talking about but apparently it’s an extremely detailed map so it may be included.

      • bthest
        link
        fedilink
        English
        4
        edit-2
        7 hours ago

        Probably not this one specifically because there’s several rich Epsteinite islands in the bay.

        But that house on the lower left looks EXACTLY like Diaz’s mansion.

  • TheTechnician27
    link
    fedilink
    English
    111
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Here’s the NYT article they’re aping instead of checks notes whatever the fuck the “Daily Galaxy” is.

    Why is every, like, sixth word bolded? Like I know pragmatically why, but it’s so transparently designed for brainrotted zoomers who think 300 words is “long”. What a slop trough of an article.

      • TheTechnician27
        link
        fedilink
        English
        16
        edit-2
        1 day ago
        • It’s trivial to bypass the paywall.
        • The paywall is only there if you’ve already read a certain number of articles.
        • It’s still a considerably better read than this telephone game version from the “Daily Galaxy”. (Edit: reading it all the way, it’s almost guaranteed written by an LLM.)
    • Tony BarkOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      161 day ago

      I follow a lot of RSS feeds and added Daily Galaxy due to the science stuff. I wasn’t aware.

      • TheTechnician27
        link
        fedilink
        English
        33
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        That’s fair, and hopefully here I can give you something more concrete than just saying “wow dumb source lol”.

        • The article is written by Arezki Amiri. This author puts out two or three articles per day on a very wide variety of topics, yet he lists no qualifications except: “expert specializing in health and technological innovations. He has extensive experience in sharing his knowledge on the impact of space technologies on health and science in general.”
        • A ton of words are bolded with no rhyme or reason. Far from being something related to accessibility, this is done so your brain keeps seeing bolded text and subconsciously thinks “something important; better keep reading”.
        • The article links to the Daily Galaxy at the words “sewage system” for absolutely no reason except for SEO. In this article about Bezos, it links to “1,300-Year-Old Royal Flush? Ancient Korean Palace Toilet Stuns Archaeologists!”. When legitimate news sources do this, it’s to enhance understanding; for example, a news outlet referencing an event from four years ago might link to one of their articles covering that topic for readers who may not be familiar.
        • The words in this article (and other articles of Amiri’s) feel like they were at least assisted by an LLM. A big tell is that LLMs love to say “it’s not X; it’s Y”. They also absolutely adore em-dashes.
          • “This isn’t just about sewage; it’s about how the wealthiest individuals […]”
          • “This move wasn’t about being unreasonable; it was about fairness.”
          • Other articles of theirs reek even worse.
        • Not a single one of their articles appears to be original reporting. It’s always a summary of one source.

        TL;DR: I’m 99% sure that every article from the “Daily Galaxy” is just taking an existing article (journal, news, etc.), running it through an LLM to summarize it, randomly adding bolds everywhere for atrophied, dopamine-starved zoomer brains, and published two to three times daily per author. It’s a content mill.

        • Tony BarkOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          11
          edit-2
          1 day ago

          Thanks for shedding light on this. Took them off my feeds.

          • TheTechnician27
            link
            fedilink
            English
            11
            edit-2
            1 day ago

            If it’s any consolation, I can show you something similar to potentially swap in which actually is written by experts. The Conversation is always written by subject-matter experts (usually professors of the subject) and covers the same breadth of topics. The Conversation is basically what the Daily Galaxy wishes it were, and it’s one of my favorite items on my feed.

            • Tony BarkOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              6
              edit-2
              1 day ago

              Thanks. I actually follow those guys!

              I should mention that around the time of tripping upon and posting this article, I did catch their post about US supposedly investing in a carbon capture machine pretty close by on my feed reader. It seemed oddly out of place given recent events. Not to mention combined with all the other niche or local outlets I follow, some of which are specifically about renewable technologies.

              So, yeah, alarm bells were already ringing.

          • TheTechnician27
            link
            fedilink
            English
            21 day ago

            I could’ve looked at other authors’ work, tried to find an editorial team, etc., but didn’t think it was worthwhile. When you frequently write and cite sources in said writing, this type of investigation often becomes second nature.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    701 day ago

    I have seen slum lords spend hundreds of thousands to avoid tens of thousands in septic repairs.

    This totally tracks.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    31
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Wait wait wait wait

    Many billionaires live on a man made island ioff the coast of Florida?

    I mean if they’re all in one spot, I guess this makes things easier

    They need more than a gated bridge to stop the floods they will endure.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      19
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Many billionaires live on a man made island ioff the coast of Florida?

      It’s inside the Miami metropolitan area.

      Last cenus was in 2020, showing 41 homes and 84 people across 0.43 sq mi/1.11km2. It is sometimes referred to as “Billionaire bunker”, because it’s a gated community on an island, and the one bridge in and out has a police checkpoint, it also apparently has its own government and law enforcement. If you try to get close by water, a police boat shows up.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        151 day ago

        I wonder how they deal with drones.

        I would imagine they might be a bit paranoid about them.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          9
          edit-2
          20 hours ago

          ever see a drone light show? you literally can’t see the whole swarm of them until the lights are on.

          on an unrelated note, an electronically actuated ghost gun wouldn’t need to have a conventional shape and wouldn’t need a bunch of conventional parts.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            419 hours ago

            You can do a lot with electricity, the right materials, and the right delivery mechanism.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      11
      edit-2
      24 hours ago

      I mean if they’re all in one spot, I guess this makes things easier

      They need more than a gated bridge to stop the floods they will endure.

      What floods? This has been public knowledge for time. You gonna do it? Or is this just wishful thinking

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    621 day ago

    So 40 billionaires can’t pay to hook in to the local sewage system and then pay their fair share? Why the fuck is it so hard for them to part with what they would consider pocket change? I mean fuck they could even fund the whole sewage system for not only them but for the nearby towns as well.

    • Miles O'Brien
      link
      fedilink
      English
      411 day ago

      Why the fuck is it so hard for them to part with what they would consider pocket change?

      It’s not about the money

      It’s about “fuck you, I do what I want now do what I tell you or I will throw more money than most cities get in their yearly budget in order to ruin everything for everyone”

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      331 day ago

      You don’t get ultra-rich by paying your fair share, but by leeching on others, like they are now trying to do

    • ✺roguetrick✺
      link
      fedilink
      25
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      They don’t even care about the sewage. They pay some flunky who pinches pennies to justify his existence and that one is the one that tries to dump sewage into other people. The banality of evil.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    421 day ago

    So instead of a $10M municipal contract to upgrade the sewer lines, it was easier to just get the republicans to add a specific waver and force the neighbouring town to take their sewage.

    I’m pretty sure Bezos can find that in his couch, and the whole island is billionaires.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    8
    edit-2
    24 hours ago

    hey Siri, where can I get a few of those cool aquatic drones that Ukraine is using in their war with Russia?

    #SendMoreBlueShells

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    201 day ago

    jared/ivanka and tom brady live there too. surprised there isn’t a multi-billion dollar federal grift involved yet.