LMAO
Don't laugh, maybe he was away for a year or two and didn't follow latest developments regarding Ripple and XRP
Maybe he was laughing because Sling Blade looks similar to Ripple's chief cryptographer hehehe.
I do not follow Ripple closely. However, unless their developers open the validation process to everyone, Ripple is a centalized payment system and this might make it easier for the SEC to shut it down.
Its open to everyone for quite a long time
https://developers.ripple.com/run-rippled-as-a-validator.html
there is difference between ordinary and trusted validators, but even if you start as ordinary one, you still have a role in network