I’ve not said very much on the Musk Twitter Takeover, because I have complex thoughts, rather than any clear thesis; and I think many won’t agree or find my take tedious. But, some have asked, so I’ll say this:
Elon Musk is one of the most overrated people on earth (Michelle Obama being the most overrated person on earth btw). Because of this fact people had unrealistic expectations and are now disappointed.
Musk is a slightly above average guy with alot of money. That is not enough to take on any of these horrible money-burning tech companies. Eventually I think it will improve, he just needs to get some people that know what has to be done on board.
Honestly wish somebody would buy all social media companies with the sole purpose of shutting them down.
He lived in the same office he used to code Paypal. He slept on the factory floor where he reinvented automobile manufacturing. He launched a space exploration company where he served as the chief engineer. He bought Twitter. "Slightly above average"?
He's WEF. He gets free money from the Federal Reserve and is subsidized by the Dept of Defense. His grandpa was the founder of technocracy. He is a front. https://www.corbettreport.com/musk/
Basically he's playing a role - and the PR Team is providing him with tens of billions in subsidies and MSM support -- to ensure he succeeds in that role
If this is not sarcasm then you are captured.
No I won't bother to argue this with you -- just as I won't argue with a CovIDIOT who believes the injections are safe and effective. Nothing I can say to you would change your mind.
Pious nonsense... I'd love to see the designs he drew up as "Chief engineer."
He was massively funded since the day he was born, and only owes his solvency to a $400M loan that bailed his bankrupt ass out of big trouble. (Connections matter). He's a human face on the CIA; not stupid, and obviously ambitious -- but not a genius, either. See James Corbett's presentation, for many more details. https://www.corbettreport.com/musk/
"I asked SpaceX’s VP of Software Engineering, Jinnah Hosein, about Musk’s nanomanagement. He said:
"The biggest surprise for anyone first joining the company—SpaceX throws around term 'nanomanager,' and you’re like, 'Okay he likes to go down in the weeds, that’s cool'—but you have no idea. For the CEO of the company, he has an incredibly deep stack—he has all that info available to him, and he can drill down on any one thing, and often does. He’s making very low-level decisions and very low-level course directions for the company, with high fidelity, and I can’t imagine it working with anyone else at any other company. The thought of one person being a key decision point for so many things is remarkable to me—he can hold it all it in his head and recall it on demand in real time, as necessary, in order to be able to make good decisions."
EDIT: Watched the first 7 minutes of that Corbett video.
"The cult of Elon Musk is strong. I mean, 'Hey, he's gonna save Twitter!' Again... as if that's something we should need or want in the first place."
Amazing. I share Mr. Corbett's pessimism about Musk 'saving Twitter,' ie restoring it to a platform where satirical Tweets about Rachel Levine are permitted. But to say we shouldn't want that? Whose side is this guy on?
probably means, intelligent slightly above average. You can hardly call the richtest man in the world slightly above average LOL. He makes more in a day than I in my whole life I presume.
And he is the most heavily government subsidized "entrepreneur" in the history of the planet. I don't know exactly how smart he is, but he is certainly clever. Not many people can build that kind of fortune on government grift and have so few people notice. He makes Harry Reid look like a piker.
I think your assessment of his being “slightly above average “ is incorrect. The “slightly above average “ individual rarely becomes a serial entrepreneur never mind inventing solutions to existing problems in the business and manufacturing arenas and making them profitable. He’s not a trust fund baby.
Apart from Paypal (which he didn't start) his projects are fully depending on government funding.
I still have half a mind to think the guy is an actor working for some government. Why else would they throw so much money at him ...
I listened to a few long podcasts with him and got the feeling he very much believes he is an intellectual. In reality he failed to say anything interesting in over six hours.
Have you ever applied for a government grant to do anything? That process alone qualifies him for more than “slightly above average” and if he’s funded more than one project that way, he might be boring but that doesn’t mean he’s intellectually deficient.
What if the government (the PR Team) approached him and offered him the money -- and asked if he wanted to play the role of Tech Messiah?
Can anyone explain how he gets away with what he does e.g. remember the 'taking it private' comment - the SFC let him off... anyone else and they'd be ground to a pulp.
He has immunity from everything .. because he's fake .. he's playing a role ... and he's been designated by the highest power to play this role.
They give him tens of billions - he is above the law
Watch the Corbett video, and see if you feel the same way. Musk is as connected as they come, which is the only reason he didn't go broke along the way.
Musk has been designated Techno Messiah - he gets tens of billions in subsidies to run is fake businesses.
But this is money well spent --- the masses need to be convinced that there is hope for a brigther more prosperous future!
They cannot be allowed to know that the cheap energy that powers our prosperity will ever be a problem... so we get Elon's renewable energy push + his EV's --- and of course when we completely trash the planet and pave it over --- he will fly us to another planet!!!
Climate change - well that's just the bogey man - they can't mention depletion of cheap energy as the motive for the Great Transition (oh no - that would spook the herd) so we get this proxy...
It's all fake. It's all total nonsense.
Of course it is - 400+ jets just landed at another climate conference hahaha.. Elon has a fleet of jets for himself... hahaha
He has been anointed by the PR Team as the new Jesus... the miracle-maker... and he's been given unlimited funding to keep his fake businesses alive. He has the full support of the MSM who have been told to support him ... to elevate him to cult hero status.
Another outstanding project brought to you by The PR Team.
The masses have bought in - they remain hopeful - they are not panicking even though they can see the energy issues have gone critical.
Come now -- did anyone actually think that CNNBBC would run front page headlines:
We are Out of Cheap Energy - The World is Ending.
Hahaha... imagine a giant asteroid was definitely going to hit Earth on Jan 1 2024. Do you think CNNBBC would inform us? Of course not - if they did civilization would collapse in a week.
Who would go to work? Study? Invest?
Jean Claude Juncker 'when it's really bad you have to lie'
Fast Eddy 'when it's really really bad - you lie, you censor, and you do whatever it takes to ensure the masses are not made aware of the wolves coming through the hole in the fence'
I don’t suffer from any delusions about Musk or his handlers; they are intent on a global reset with or without cooperation from the sheeple. Regardless, it’s nothing that surprises the sovereign God of the universe from whom we should all be crying out for mercy.
I am so sorry that you believe that lie. God is love and everything that is taking place in the world is happening with His full knowledge - even orchestration. He has purpose in all that is occurring, whether we understand it or not - that's where faith comes into play. God uses everything , even sinful man, to accomplish His purposes.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1John 4:7
I don't think it's been any great secret since the 1970s at least that the fossil fuel everything runs on was going to come to an end. When and if it happens abruptly, the impact will be huge.
It doesn't have to be quite that bad if we are regularly warned ahead of time, so that it goes into people's consciousness that in so-and-so many years gas will be too expensive for a fifty-mile daily commute. That would allow each person to self-ration, and spend the cheap fossil fuel they have now to build permanent homes that they can live in comfortably and economically when the cheap engines, light, and heat they have become accustomed to in the past century are gone.
If we agree that cheap fossil fuel is coming to an end, then we need to be planning now how we can modify our lifestyles and modes of income and commerce so that we can still survive when we can no longer drive. Our ancestors lived without fossil fuels, and with some forethought, so can we.
It's not clear to me that fear of panicking the herd is sufficient reason for TPTB to lie to us about endless green energy or climate change. I don't see an obvious benefit to them. In this case, I should think the kind of honesty that allows them to lead the landing would be their best policy.
Rationing means less economic activity ... so for example we ban or dramatically reduce travel. Let's say we restrict it to one trip less than 1000km every 2 yrs.
The travel industry collapses... millions of jobs are lost.
Far few aircraft are required. That industry collapses with huge job losses.
Economic growth and our energy burn are very closely correlated - if you reduce the energy burn growth stops - and goes negative.
Ever heard of a recession? That's when you fear for your job because companies cut back and layoff people to survive. Generally the government steps in with stimulus to encourage growth (and energy burn) to increase... otherwise a recession turns into a collapse.
You are suggesting an endless recession --- a unchecked recession means jobs losses... people without jobs can't service debt - they don't buy much -- that leads to more job losses... more people unable to pay bills unable to buy much --- and more job losses follow...
Endless recession = collapse of the global economy
I don't disagree with much of that. But I said self-ration, not government mandated rationing.
I understood that our premise was that we were actually running out of fossil fuels/cheap energy. If that happens, we can't travel so much anyway. Much of the current tourist industry will have to come to an end, either by gradually throttling things down in a prepared landing, or by suddenly finding ourselves out of gas.
If we run out of cheap energy, all the jobs that depend on procuring, processing, or consuming that energy, are gone. If that happens suddenly, it will be a life-destroying catastrophe much worse than a recession. If it can be tapered down gradually, there is room for replacing those jobs with others that do not depend on fossil fuels.
One way or another, we will be returning to a nineteenth-century level of energy consumption. People lived then, and had happy lives. We can do it again. How many of us survive the transition depends on whether we can glide into it gradually over a number of years, or whether we hit the end with a thump.
If there is no growth the financial system will collapse - the global economy will collapse --- and 8 billion people will starve.
Food production is nearly 100% industrial-reliant - from the machinery to the fertilizer and pesticides to the delivery systems... you collapse the global economy and all of that stops - and you have 8B hungry - angry people taking to the streets.
You're describing what happens if we hit with a thump, without preparing and gliding into it. It may go down that way, but it isn't technically inevitable, and if it happens it will be largely because of those PTB.
Food production being 100% industrial-reliant is optional. Until about a century or so ago, it wasn't industrial-reliant at all. If we run out of fossil-fuel energy, then we'll have to replace the tractors with our current glut of marketing and gender-studies majors pulling plows.
Normal people need a reasonably reliable base of renewable resources to live. People running Ponzi schemes, such as our current "financial system," need unlimited growth, else their schemes crash. Endless growth is an impossibility-- the "global economy" that they suck their wealth from will collapse, but the real economy of human life will continue.
I think we agree that the PTB are trying to exterminate us. We differ on what we think their motivation is. Your theory is that they are kindly trying to put us down, to save us from the misery of mass starvation and all the unpleasantness that would entail. Mine is that they are trying to land happily in their own way, retaining all their own wealth and power by killing off all rival consumers that are not themselves and their own servants, so as to keep the fossil fuels and industrial system going longer with only a fraction as many people drawing from it.
The third possibility I am suggesting for people that want to live, and not in servitude, is to start devoting thought and practice to figuring out how to live when the fossil fuels are gone and the financial Ponzi schemes collapse. It can be done, but it will take craft, work, thrift, and community.
He's just an actor --- do people hate actors who play the role of villain?
It's all fake... he serves a purpose though...
He deserves a public service medal ---I suppose he can live without that though - he gets all sorts of other rewards that make up for it ... highest paid actor of all time!
I wonder what it's like living in a fake world - at least with Hollywood stars their actual life is not the continuation of a movie role... for Musk he is living in a movie 24/7 hahaha...
But he gets to nail hot chicks and take lots of drugs (while running massive companies hahaha right)... so not such a bad gig.
The most amazing thing about Musk is that lefty-normie media and NPCs have proclaimed he is the New(est) Hitler and memory-holed that he was for a couple years the biggest lefty-normie celebrity. How long before his appearances in The Simpsons, Rick & Morty and The Big Bang Theory (!) are 1984-ed for inciting violence?
A couple of years ago, I was seriously considering shorting Tesla, since it was ridiculously over-valued according to every metric I could think of. It was obvious that they weren't even close to becoming profitable, and were committing accounting mayhem on their SEC filings. Tesla was also losing big on some sizable side-ventures, a manufacturing plant for completely un-feasible rooftop solar shingles being one.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not because I believed any of Musk's fantasyland predictions, or even because I thought he was a good business executive. It was because the man is most gifted bullshit artist ever, and has a proven ability to raise infinity amount of capital. No matter how much money his enterprises lost, he could always find ways to cover it. Between endless government subsidies and magic-wand stock offerings that the public snapped up, Elon Musk demonstrated the uncanny ability to print money almost as fast as the Federal Reserve. My instincts were correct, and I saved a shit-ton of money while watching his skeptics get a haircut. Never bet against Elon Musk.
Would be amazing. What shall we replace them with tho? Truly asking. Human nature is so often selfish, competitive and prone to self-serving actions. How do we make it work?
"The US Constitution requires a softer, asymmetrical approach in America."
There still are challenges to censorship here in the U.S., but our constitution relies upon the system of checks and balances between the branches of government (replicated at the state level), and that system appears to have fallen. With none of the branches defending them (in spite of all branches being sworn to do so), constitutional "requirements" become less and less meaningful.
This is a worst-case scenario for which the founders had no remedy. Their design required a certain prevalence of conscience and morality that we collectively lack today.
Their remedy was the USPS, the only form of democratic communication at the time. The Internet is the new postal road. We deserve protected privacy and free speech on a public online town square.
There are very few people drawn to serve on the federal bench for life (Article III judges) who believe in limited government -- even the "conservatives." By definition wanting to serve in the federal judiciary tends to select for people who want to exercise the power to correct perceived wrongs. As with all bureaucracy, the job attracts those who think they can create good by controlling people, limiting their choices because individuals don't make good choices. Our judiciary, executive and legislative branches attract statists. It will be that way forever.
I know a couple of those folks -- current or former federal judges -- and I enjoyed meeting and talking with them (personally, not officially!). And then 2020 happened, and 2021. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. I think I see what you mean.
After scrolling through a bunch of personal attacks on Musk, whether that has anything to do with the fact he now owns Twiiter is moot. We shall see if he gets captured or is able to make Twitter more than it's past. Twitter is a public square and often filters information in obscure ways. It's subset of users do matter and it's reach is greater than SubStack.
Whether or not Twitter is "real life," it is lame. It always has been. Who would send a text message to the world? Who would believe that it would matter, and more than yelling at clouds does?
whatever we think, it plainly does matter. twitter got trump elected to the presidency, twitter is huge – probably the most important forum in the world right now.
I agree about twitter being instrumental for Trump's 2016 election. The Dems weren't using it, and he was able to bypass the mainstream media filters by using it and speak directly to his potential voters, and that took the Dems by surprise. It was a brilliant strategy at the time, but that fleeting moment is now over. However, twitter has become a major tool worldwide, and often or even mostly not for the better. I thought twitter was dopey when it first emerged, useful for Trump a bit later on, and fairly destructive at this point. Obviously useful in some ways, but darkly destructive and deceptive in others. Reader beware with it.
YouTube probably played a bigger role in Trump's election than did Twitter. While Twitter gave Trump a platform to speak to the voters, the facts are that he rarely stated anything of any import, and that he had plenty of exposure in traditional media. What he thought and believed weren't secrets. Thus, Twitter at most, was a mere redundancy.
YouTube, on the other hand, was a forum which provided for the germination of genuine hatred for Hillary Clinton, who on her own provokes tremendous antipathy, and of dread of her potential election. All the stuff about her corruption, the countless Arkancides, and her health, which she called "fake news," galvanized about five million people who wouldn't ordinarily have voted to vote against her.
It was a strange event. Hillary is probably the only person Trump could have beaten, and Trump is the only person Hillary could have beaten. Two terrible candidates in a country of 300 million. You could fairly infer that the whole thing was staged.
In this vein, Orange Man vs Evil Witch was a smash, as such things are measured: While the public was distracted, the rich became obscenely rich. This makes Orange Man vs Evil Witch II inevitable. The only open question is who gets the Evil Witch part in the sequel. Indeed, we may actually be at Orange Man vs Evil Witch III, with Episode II having been the four years in office fake fighting with Nancy Pelosi, an Evil Witch, if ever there were one.
the major social media platforms have important cross interactions, and it's very difficult to disentangle the importance of any one by itself, but i think you're just massively underestimating the importance of twitter for 2016.
trump himself is only a small part of it; twitter was the major platform where a trumpist movement first emerged, with major pro-trump accounts gaining readerships that rivalled or exceeded that of major journalists, and pushing highly sophisticated, coordinated indy ad campaigns on the part of their candidate. all the later grousing in the media about "russian interference" on twitter and facebook was how establishment politicians processed and rationalised their defeat at the hands of social media-assisted viral messaging campaigns.
I think you fail to account for the real dynamics of bonding between people and within movements: just the fact that Trump could, and very much did, carry on a dialogue with “the people” on Twitter was profoundly different and enormously charismatic in attracting them to his base, regardless of what he ever said.
Most important doesn't mean most informative, most accurate, most interesting, or even most influential over time. Twitter is to public forums what television is to the dissemination of information. It's success is due to it's appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I'm not on Twitter but I remember when it first started, people were making fun of it because users were detailing every little detail of their daily life as it happened, as though others would find their every activity as compelling as riveting documentary.
Oh, for the good old days when there were only three means of communication: telegraph; telephone; and tell a woman.
Nov 12, 2022·edited Nov 12, 2022Liked by eugyppius
Oh, it matters all right.
Look what they did to Orange Man Bad when he realized that he could circumvent the filters at the "news" agencies and speak directly to the American people.
(They shut him down; the Propagandaministerium can't allow people to get a message past them.)
I always laughed when I first saw tweets being quoted in supposedly serious news reports. I laughed because it's lame. But the lame has become influential and therefore important.
PS: You're an exceptional writer. I read your most recent piece in The Asylum. I haven't the breadth of knowledge to determine how much of your analysis is truly plausible, but I was left very troubled, wondering how much, at your core, you might have a general loathing for people like me.
kind words. and: don't be troubled, these are for me historical questions, and i think related gentile rites are equally plausible, as I tried to suggest.
Nov 13, 2022·edited Nov 13, 2022Liked by eugyppius
I for one am glad that you wrote that piece. It's always good to expand your horizon. As for the subject of it, very few Catholics/Christians are willing to touch his story with a ten-foot pole.
I was able to read the full article at Amazon as a preview and thought it was excellent. Ironically, it speaks to what is going on all around us today, since history is being rewritten continuously to accommodate current sensibilities/narratives.
ha thanks, glad you like. I'm experimenting with AI art, I generated this from nightcafe. i started with a prompt from the piece (musk free speech etc.) but then tweaked and evolved it from there, so it no longer really represents anything I started with.
Personally, I've never liked social media, even though I've had periods where I was using it heavily for promotional reasons.
The reason is because I never found it very social. Certainly few followers or those I followed would be welcomed in my home. Some would, yet I still don't know them well enough other than their writing style or opinions. They probably feel them same of me. (I am not including Substack here, I would genuinely have most I engage with here over for a chat).
I generally believe social media has caused more division than social connection. It divides using snippets of thoughts with no deeper understanding. It creates talking points that need no further understanding. It generally dumbs down the user, and dulls the thinking synaptic systems of the brain.
Alas, this is what digital does to us in general. The heavy hand of algorithms doing our primary thinking.
A practice lost but still around in small towns of group breakfasts still exist. Usually it is farming communities where real discussion is had, this is real connecting. And, it's gone, now centered into a little plastic box having a sentence or two. This is why I like this platform, at least there is more intelligent human intercourse (the use of intercourse always cracks me up, it's an old Victorian way of saying conversation).
A far as its importance? I'm 50/50. I believe we have crossed the line where technology creates more negative than positive results. All tech has downsides, now it seems it has taken over.
Well, maybe, I see it more of a blog. To me social media is whores taking selfies for their imagined fame as influences. At its very beginning SM was great, but quickly was ruined by self promotion.
My son sets up events for music venues. All kinds from country , rap. R and B, Rock, you name it, including corporate events. He usually sees the end of the show because they immediacy take all down to load on trucks for the next stop.
The reason I mention it is this: he take videos of the females around him who are not watching the show, they are clicking selfies the whole time. He tells me he never realized one could make so many poses. Ive seen a few they are hilarious. They are posting to their influences pages the totality of the show.
I spend some time in financial media sites. Posters are seldom banned there, since validity is easily determined in tomorrow's tape, and "misinformation" results in financial losses. We have a practical measurement for determining what information is right or wrong. Some people try to manipulate that system by lying about things where they have a financial interest in the lie. If they are caught, they can have legal penalties. But it's up to each investor to decide whether what they read or hear from others is valid. Success comes from understanding reality well enough to recognize deception. Deception is everywhere. It's our nature.
The solution for non-financial media can be the same. Readers need to learn to understand reality well enough to recognize deception. That is a rare skill these days due to the failed education system having indoctrinated several generations in artificial realities. Anyone who accepts that gender is optional will believe any other deception. Many people still don't fall for the deception. We need to teach the others.
That culture trumps biology and that humans are blank slates to made into whatever the social reformer will, seems to me to be the deeper and more ancient deception.
Some are more malleable than others. The biological imperatives are survival and comfort. The weak are easier to overwrite than the strong. Some people just don't belong here. Darwin was right.
Twitter is influencing the world in the same way fast food companies are. Quick, super convenient, contains nothing but junk and rots our body and brain.
Slow down, cook a healthy home made meal, and read some thoughtful content on Substack.
Sadly, the demographic that is attracted to twitter and junk food won’t change, so I don’t subscribe to that camp.
We, in the USA, are still blessed to have individuals whose creative gifts have birthed alternate platforms for discourse. Preservation of that right is essential. Many thanks to those whose minds provide the rest of us a more complete picture of the world we are exposed to today. God bless you all.
I have to philosophically disagree with: "I think that social media – and Twitter in particular – is enormously important." precisely because of intelligent people like you; your insights, context and nuance do nt get the play nor the consideration in an ever contracting world of words and sound bite communication....people fall for the convenience thinking they can capture something in a Tweet or other SM vehicle for manipulating the masses.....but it is reality thus we need to have discussion and action to deal with it in a way which maximizes the utility while mitigating the unintended consequences which seems to continually spiral out of control as the Head Girls seek ever greater control. . . thought provoking post as usual and, as you can see from my response, rather than going along, I am trying to add to the discussion in a productive fashion which is the intent and sort of thing we need more than ever.
Musk is a red flag. World's richest, controls: space travel (space station deliveries ++ top secret US stuff), controls social media (Twitter being a big slice, he may have vested interests elsewhere), controls self-driving cars which can go offline or rogue at his whim, controls ever-increasing numerous satellites surrounding Planet Earth (astronomers complain about these ruining night photos). In all, Musk is BIG AI. Not comfortable with that, given his ability to supersede international agreements (Ukraine satdat). He was borne from a weird father (married his step-daughter a la Woody Allen, mother is a model at 70 something - not ageist but what is the purpose). Oh and the Neurolink. Probably why Zuckerberg cashed in his chips on Meta. A bigger, better New World is being put in place. And the critical thinkers believe in him. This is a behavioral psychology experiment on a global scale. Or maybe it's not an experiment. After Covid Fear 1.0.
I was suspended from Twitter for life last March. I appealed the decision for the third time last week, hoping the new management would see things differently. I was told today the decision stands. My alleged violations of Twitter policy had to do with tweets about early treatment with Ivermectin.
Elon Musk is one of the most overrated people on earth (Michelle Obama being the most overrated person on earth btw). Because of this fact people had unrealistic expectations and are now disappointed.
Musk is a slightly above average guy with alot of money. That is not enough to take on any of these horrible money-burning tech companies. Eventually I think it will improve, he just needs to get some people that know what has to be done on board.
Honestly wish somebody would buy all social media companies with the sole purpose of shutting them down.
He lived in the same office he used to code Paypal. He slept on the factory floor where he reinvented automobile manufacturing. He launched a space exploration company where he served as the chief engineer. He bought Twitter. "Slightly above average"?
He's WEF. He gets free money from the Federal Reserve and is subsidized by the Dept of Defense. His grandpa was the founder of technocracy. He is a front. https://www.corbettreport.com/musk/
Oooh, thanks for this. I’ll watch it with interest.
Don’t you think Corbett and Eugy would get along? 😀
I would love to meet Corbett
Designated the Tech Messiah - he will deliver us from the evils of fossil fuels hahaha
Yes! Like he is really running all these companies and has time to do Twitter.
The opening of that video 😂🤣
Haha..... is this meant to be sarcasm?
Basically he's playing a role - and the PR Team is providing him with tens of billions in subsidies and MSM support -- to ensure he succeeds in that role
If this is not sarcasm then you are captured.
No I won't bother to argue this with you -- just as I won't argue with a CovIDIOT who believes the injections are safe and effective. Nothing I can say to you would change your mind.
Pious nonsense... I'd love to see the designs he drew up as "Chief engineer."
He was massively funded since the day he was born, and only owes his solvency to a $400M loan that bailed his bankrupt ass out of big trouble. (Connections matter). He's a human face on the CIA; not stupid, and obviously ambitious -- but not a genius, either. See James Corbett's presentation, for many more details. https://www.corbettreport.com/musk/
'I could have designed re-landable rocket boosters, I just didn't feel it.'
Musk-haters are so lowly and unimaginative. I feel bad for them.
Oh, my bad. I thought SpaceX hired engineers. I didn't realize Musk did the designs himself. I stand corrected. He really is just like Tony Stark.
"I didn't realize Musk did the designs himself."
Most people don't.
"I asked SpaceX’s VP of Software Engineering, Jinnah Hosein, about Musk’s nanomanagement. He said:
"The biggest surprise for anyone first joining the company—SpaceX throws around term 'nanomanager,' and you’re like, 'Okay he likes to go down in the weeds, that’s cool'—but you have no idea. For the CEO of the company, he has an incredibly deep stack—he has all that info available to him, and he can drill down on any one thing, and often does. He’s making very low-level decisions and very low-level course directions for the company, with high fidelity, and I can’t imagine it working with anyone else at any other company. The thought of one person being a key decision point for so many things is remarkable to me—he can hold it all it in his head and recall it on demand in real time, as necessary, in order to be able to make good decisions."
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/3#phase1
EDIT: Watched the first 7 minutes of that Corbett video.
"The cult of Elon Musk is strong. I mean, 'Hey, he's gonna save Twitter!' Again... as if that's something we should need or want in the first place."
Amazing. I share Mr. Corbett's pessimism about Musk 'saving Twitter,' ie restoring it to a platform where satirical Tweets about Rachel Levine are permitted. But to say we shouldn't want that? Whose side is this guy on?
probably means, intelligent slightly above average. You can hardly call the richtest man in the world slightly above average LOL. He makes more in a day than I in my whole life I presume.
Yes, intellectually slightly above average. He certainly has some kind of skill many people don't (could be just acting or knowing who to manipulate).
Money means nothing to me, most rich people are stupid as hell.
he is acting ... no different than a hollywood star... and he's well compensated..
he plays a very important role - we need a Tech Messiah to convince us that the future is filled with hope - and not a Dystopian version of The Road
And he is the most heavily government subsidized "entrepreneur" in the history of the planet. I don't know exactly how smart he is, but he is certainly clever. Not many people can build that kind of fortune on government grift and have so few people notice. He makes Harry Reid look like a piker.
i hope you exclude substack. it is the only social media I am on !
And he started to censor it...
I think your assessment of his being “slightly above average “ is incorrect. The “slightly above average “ individual rarely becomes a serial entrepreneur never mind inventing solutions to existing problems in the business and manufacturing arenas and making them profitable. He’s not a trust fund baby.
Apart from Paypal (which he didn't start) his projects are fully depending on government funding.
I still have half a mind to think the guy is an actor working for some government. Why else would they throw so much money at him ...
I listened to a few long podcasts with him and got the feeling he very much believes he is an intellectual. In reality he failed to say anything interesting in over six hours.
Have you ever applied for a government grant to do anything? That process alone qualifies him for more than “slightly above average” and if he’s funded more than one project that way, he might be boring but that doesn’t mean he’s intellectually deficient.
What if the government (the PR Team) approached him and offered him the money -- and asked if he wanted to play the role of Tech Messiah?
Can anyone explain how he gets away with what he does e.g. remember the 'taking it private' comment - the SFC let him off... anyone else and they'd be ground to a pulp.
He has immunity from everything .. because he's fake .. he's playing a role ... and he's been designated by the highest power to play this role.
They give him tens of billions - he is above the law
'............his projects are fully depending on government funding. '
And you don't think that's smart?
Watch the Corbett video, and see if you feel the same way. Musk is as connected as they come, which is the only reason he didn't go broke along the way.
"Honestly wish somebody would buy all social media companies with the sole purpose of shutting them down."
There's still hope that is precisely what we're seeing, in my opinion.
https://markbisone.substack.com/p/murder-by-acquisition
Musk has been designated Techno Messiah - he gets tens of billions in subsidies to run is fake businesses.
But this is money well spent --- the masses need to be convinced that there is hope for a brigther more prosperous future!
They cannot be allowed to know that the cheap energy that powers our prosperity will ever be a problem... so we get Elon's renewable energy push + his EV's --- and of course when we completely trash the planet and pave it over --- he will fly us to another planet!!!
Climate change - well that's just the bogey man - they can't mention depletion of cheap energy as the motive for the Great Transition (oh no - that would spook the herd) so we get this proxy...
It's all fake. It's all total nonsense.
Of course it is - 400+ jets just landed at another climate conference hahaha.. Elon has a fleet of jets for himself... hahaha
He has been anointed by the PR Team as the new Jesus... the miracle-maker... and he's been given unlimited funding to keep his fake businesses alive. He has the full support of the MSM who have been told to support him ... to elevate him to cult hero status.
Another outstanding project brought to you by The PR Team.
The masses have bought in - they remain hopeful - they are not panicking even though they can see the energy issues have gone critical.
Come now -- did anyone actually think that CNNBBC would run front page headlines:
We are Out of Cheap Energy - The World is Ending.
Hahaha... imagine a giant asteroid was definitely going to hit Earth on Jan 1 2024. Do you think CNNBBC would inform us? Of course not - if they did civilization would collapse in a week.
Who would go to work? Study? Invest?
Jean Claude Juncker 'when it's really bad you have to lie'
Fast Eddy 'when it's really really bad - you lie, you censor, and you do whatever it takes to ensure the masses are not made aware of the wolves coming through the hole in the fence'
I don’t suffer from any delusions about Musk or his handlers; they are intent on a global reset with or without cooperation from the sheeple. Regardless, it’s nothing that surprises the sovereign God of the universe from whom we should all be crying out for mercy.
Except that "the sovereign God of the universe" is in fact, the universe - and it doesn't give a (expletive deleted) about us.
I am so sorry that you believe that lie. God is love and everything that is taking place in the world is happening with His full knowledge - even orchestration. He has purpose in all that is occurring, whether we understand it or not - that's where faith comes into play. God uses everything , even sinful man, to accomplish His purposes.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1John 4:7
I don't think it's been any great secret since the 1970s at least that the fossil fuel everything runs on was going to come to an end. When and if it happens abruptly, the impact will be huge.
It doesn't have to be quite that bad if we are regularly warned ahead of time, so that it goes into people's consciousness that in so-and-so many years gas will be too expensive for a fifty-mile daily commute. That would allow each person to self-ration, and spend the cheap fossil fuel they have now to build permanent homes that they can live in comfortably and economically when the cheap engines, light, and heat they have become accustomed to in the past century are gone.
If we agree that cheap fossil fuel is coming to an end, then we need to be planning now how we can modify our lifestyles and modes of income and commerce so that we can still survive when we can no longer drive. Our ancestors lived without fossil fuels, and with some forethought, so can we.
It's not clear to me that fear of panicking the herd is sufficient reason for TPTB to lie to us about endless green energy or climate change. I don't see an obvious benefit to them. In this case, I should think the kind of honesty that allows them to lead the landing would be their best policy.
Ration?
Let's examine that.
Rationing means less economic activity ... so for example we ban or dramatically reduce travel. Let's say we restrict it to one trip less than 1000km every 2 yrs.
The travel industry collapses... millions of jobs are lost.
Far few aircraft are required. That industry collapses with huge job losses.
Economic growth and our energy burn are very closely correlated - if you reduce the energy burn growth stops - and goes negative.
Ever heard of a recession? That's when you fear for your job because companies cut back and layoff people to survive. Generally the government steps in with stimulus to encourage growth (and energy burn) to increase... otherwise a recession turns into a collapse.
You are suggesting an endless recession --- a unchecked recession means jobs losses... people without jobs can't service debt - they don't buy much -- that leads to more job losses... more people unable to pay bills unable to buy much --- and more job losses follow...
Endless recession = collapse of the global economy
I don't disagree with much of that. But I said self-ration, not government mandated rationing.
I understood that our premise was that we were actually running out of fossil fuels/cheap energy. If that happens, we can't travel so much anyway. Much of the current tourist industry will have to come to an end, either by gradually throttling things down in a prepared landing, or by suddenly finding ourselves out of gas.
If we run out of cheap energy, all the jobs that depend on procuring, processing, or consuming that energy, are gone. If that happens suddenly, it will be a life-destroying catastrophe much worse than a recession. If it can be tapered down gradually, there is room for replacing those jobs with others that do not depend on fossil fuels.
One way or another, we will be returning to a nineteenth-century level of energy consumption. People lived then, and had happy lives. We can do it again. How many of us survive the transition depends on whether we can glide into it gradually over a number of years, or whether we hit the end with a thump.
If there is no growth the financial system will collapse - the global economy will collapse --- and 8 billion people will starve.
Food production is nearly 100% industrial-reliant - from the machinery to the fertilizer and pesticides to the delivery systems... you collapse the global economy and all of that stops - and you have 8B hungry - angry people taking to the streets.
Of course the PTB are aware of this - therefore they are pre-empting the mass murder rape and cannibalism https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=220
You're describing what happens if we hit with a thump, without preparing and gliding into it. It may go down that way, but it isn't technically inevitable, and if it happens it will be largely because of those PTB.
Food production being 100% industrial-reliant is optional. Until about a century or so ago, it wasn't industrial-reliant at all. If we run out of fossil-fuel energy, then we'll have to replace the tractors with our current glut of marketing and gender-studies majors pulling plows.
Normal people need a reasonably reliable base of renewable resources to live. People running Ponzi schemes, such as our current "financial system," need unlimited growth, else their schemes crash. Endless growth is an impossibility-- the "global economy" that they suck their wealth from will collapse, but the real economy of human life will continue.
I think we agree that the PTB are trying to exterminate us. We differ on what we think their motivation is. Your theory is that they are kindly trying to put us down, to save us from the misery of mass starvation and all the unpleasantness that would entail. Mine is that they are trying to land happily in their own way, retaining all their own wealth and power by killing off all rival consumers that are not themselves and their own servants, so as to keep the fossil fuels and industrial system going longer with only a fraction as many people drawing from it.
The third possibility I am suggesting for people that want to live, and not in servitude, is to start devoting thought and practice to figuring out how to live when the fossil fuels are gone and the financial Ponzi schemes collapse. It can be done, but it will take craft, work, thrift, and community.
Come on, I think your hatred for Elon is clouding your judgment. I'm not a fan either, but to say he is second to Michelle, well that's a stretch.
Why would anyone hate him?
He's just an actor --- do people hate actors who play the role of villain?
It's all fake... he serves a purpose though...
He deserves a public service medal ---I suppose he can live without that though - he gets all sorts of other rewards that make up for it ... highest paid actor of all time!
I wonder what it's like living in a fake world - at least with Hollywood stars their actual life is not the continuation of a movie role... for Musk he is living in a movie 24/7 hahaha...
But he gets to nail hot chicks and take lots of drugs (while running massive companies hahaha right)... so not such a bad gig.
The most amazing thing about Musk is that lefty-normie media and NPCs have proclaimed he is the New(est) Hitler and memory-holed that he was for a couple years the biggest lefty-normie celebrity. How long before his appearances in The Simpsons, Rick & Morty and The Big Bang Theory (!) are 1984-ed for inciting violence?
A couple of years ago, I was seriously considering shorting Tesla, since it was ridiculously over-valued according to every metric I could think of. It was obvious that they weren't even close to becoming profitable, and were committing accounting mayhem on their SEC filings. Tesla was also losing big on some sizable side-ventures, a manufacturing plant for completely un-feasible rooftop solar shingles being one.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not because I believed any of Musk's fantasyland predictions, or even because I thought he was a good business executive. It was because the man is most gifted bullshit artist ever, and has a proven ability to raise infinity amount of capital. No matter how much money his enterprises lost, he could always find ways to cover it. Between endless government subsidies and magic-wand stock offerings that the public snapped up, Elon Musk demonstrated the uncanny ability to print money almost as fast as the Federal Reserve. My instincts were correct, and I saved a shit-ton of money while watching his skeptics get a haircut. Never bet against Elon Musk.
It took that bullshit artist going all-in with his PayPal cash to save Tesla. Turns out investors pay attention to where you put your own capital.
Including shutting down this one too of course
The worst take (after the best Eugyppius ever).
Just one sentence spot on, guess which one
Honestly wish somebody...
Would be amazing. What shall we replace them with tho? Truly asking. Human nature is so often selfish, competitive and prone to self-serving actions. How do we make it work?
"The US Constitution requires a softer, asymmetrical approach in America."
There still are challenges to censorship here in the U.S., but our constitution relies upon the system of checks and balances between the branches of government (replicated at the state level), and that system appears to have fallen. With none of the branches defending them (in spite of all branches being sworn to do so), constitutional "requirements" become less and less meaningful.
This is a worst-case scenario for which the founders had no remedy. Their design required a certain prevalence of conscience and morality that we collectively lack today.
Their remedy was the USPS, the only form of democratic communication at the time. The Internet is the new postal road. We deserve protected privacy and free speech on a public online town square.
There are very few people drawn to serve on the federal bench for life (Article III judges) who believe in limited government -- even the "conservatives." By definition wanting to serve in the federal judiciary tends to select for people who want to exercise the power to correct perceived wrongs. As with all bureaucracy, the job attracts those who think they can create good by controlling people, limiting their choices because individuals don't make good choices. Our judiciary, executive and legislative branches attract statists. It will be that way forever.
I know a couple of those folks -- current or former federal judges -- and I enjoyed meeting and talking with them (personally, not officially!). And then 2020 happened, and 2021. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. I think I see what you mean.
"This is a worst-case scenario for which the founders had no remedy."
They had a remedy but along with lacking conscience and morality, we also lack the fortitude to pursue the remedy.
A great balanced read as usual. I two had great hopes that Musk would make the right changes. Still early days let's wait and see.
After scrolling through a bunch of personal attacks on Musk, whether that has anything to do with the fact he now owns Twiiter is moot. We shall see if he gets captured or is able to make Twitter more than it's past. Twitter is a public square and often filters information in obscure ways. It's subset of users do matter and it's reach is greater than SubStack.
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings".
Heinrich Heine
Karl Marx was a distant cousin FYI
Whether or not Twitter is "real life," it is lame. It always has been. Who would send a text message to the world? Who would believe that it would matter, and more than yelling at clouds does?
whatever we think, it plainly does matter. twitter got trump elected to the presidency, twitter is huge – probably the most important forum in the world right now.
I agree about twitter being instrumental for Trump's 2016 election. The Dems weren't using it, and he was able to bypass the mainstream media filters by using it and speak directly to his potential voters, and that took the Dems by surprise. It was a brilliant strategy at the time, but that fleeting moment is now over. However, twitter has become a major tool worldwide, and often or even mostly not for the better. I thought twitter was dopey when it first emerged, useful for Trump a bit later on, and fairly destructive at this point. Obviously useful in some ways, but darkly destructive and deceptive in others. Reader beware with it.
YouTube probably played a bigger role in Trump's election than did Twitter. While Twitter gave Trump a platform to speak to the voters, the facts are that he rarely stated anything of any import, and that he had plenty of exposure in traditional media. What he thought and believed weren't secrets. Thus, Twitter at most, was a mere redundancy.
YouTube, on the other hand, was a forum which provided for the germination of genuine hatred for Hillary Clinton, who on her own provokes tremendous antipathy, and of dread of her potential election. All the stuff about her corruption, the countless Arkancides, and her health, which she called "fake news," galvanized about five million people who wouldn't ordinarily have voted to vote against her.
It was a strange event. Hillary is probably the only person Trump could have beaten, and Trump is the only person Hillary could have beaten. Two terrible candidates in a country of 300 million. You could fairly infer that the whole thing was staged.
In this vein, Orange Man vs Evil Witch was a smash, as such things are measured: While the public was distracted, the rich became obscenely rich. This makes Orange Man vs Evil Witch II inevitable. The only open question is who gets the Evil Witch part in the sequel. Indeed, we may actually be at Orange Man vs Evil Witch III, with Episode II having been the four years in office fake fighting with Nancy Pelosi, an Evil Witch, if ever there were one.
the major social media platforms have important cross interactions, and it's very difficult to disentangle the importance of any one by itself, but i think you're just massively underestimating the importance of twitter for 2016.
trump himself is only a small part of it; twitter was the major platform where a trumpist movement first emerged, with major pro-trump accounts gaining readerships that rivalled or exceeded that of major journalists, and pushing highly sophisticated, coordinated indy ad campaigns on the part of their candidate. all the later grousing in the media about "russian interference" on twitter and facebook was how establishment politicians processed and rationalised their defeat at the hands of social media-assisted viral messaging campaigns.
I think you fail to account for the real dynamics of bonding between people and within movements: just the fact that Trump could, and very much did, carry on a dialogue with “the people” on Twitter was profoundly different and enormously charismatic in attracting them to his base, regardless of what he ever said.
Most important doesn't mean most informative, most accurate, most interesting, or even most influential over time. Twitter is to public forums what television is to the dissemination of information. It's success is due to it's appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I'm not on Twitter but I remember when it first started, people were making fun of it because users were detailing every little detail of their daily life as it happened, as though others would find their every activity as compelling as riveting documentary.
Oh, for the good old days when there were only three means of communication: telegraph; telephone; and tell a woman.
And it is no coincidence that Twitter banned Trump.
Oh, it matters all right.
Look what they did to Orange Man Bad when he realized that he could circumvent the filters at the "news" agencies and speak directly to the American people.
(They shut him down; the Propagandaministerium can't allow people to get a message past them.)
I always laughed when I first saw tweets being quoted in supposedly serious news reports. I laughed because it's lame. But the lame has become influential and therefore important.
That's a thoughtful essay. Thank you.
Good first thoughts.
PS: You're an exceptional writer. I read your most recent piece in The Asylum. I haven't the breadth of knowledge to determine how much of your analysis is truly plausible, but I was left very troubled, wondering how much, at your core, you might have a general loathing for people like me.
kind words. and: don't be troubled, these are for me historical questions, and i think related gentile rites are equally plausible, as I tried to suggest.
Can we ever have a first amendment platform? We used to..
Yes.
I for one am glad that you wrote that piece. It's always good to expand your horizon. As for the subject of it, very few Catholics/Christians are willing to touch his story with a ten-foot pole.
I was able to read the full article at Amazon as a preview and thought it was excellent. Ironically, it speaks to what is going on all around us today, since history is being rewritten continuously to accommodate current sensibilities/narratives.
https://www.amazon.com/Asylum-I-Issue-IV/dp/B0BLG5LR2T?asin=B0BLG5LR2T&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
Yes, I said Eugyppius is an exceptional writer.
Where is said piece?
https://asylummagazine.ca/
And it is indeed a spectacular piece of writing. We can be very grateful for Eugyppius! 🙏🏻
I'm always grateful for intellect and education used elegantly.
I love that picture. It's not very representative but incredibly evocative. Any details about it?
ha thanks, glad you like. I'm experimenting with AI art, I generated this from nightcafe. i started with a prompt from the piece (musk free speech etc.) but then tweaked and evolved it from there, so it no longer really represents anything I started with.
I’ve tweeted your substack a handful of times, BTW. Idk if it was to no avail or…
Personally, I've never liked social media, even though I've had periods where I was using it heavily for promotional reasons.
The reason is because I never found it very social. Certainly few followers or those I followed would be welcomed in my home. Some would, yet I still don't know them well enough other than their writing style or opinions. They probably feel them same of me. (I am not including Substack here, I would genuinely have most I engage with here over for a chat).
I generally believe social media has caused more division than social connection. It divides using snippets of thoughts with no deeper understanding. It creates talking points that need no further understanding. It generally dumbs down the user, and dulls the thinking synaptic systems of the brain.
Alas, this is what digital does to us in general. The heavy hand of algorithms doing our primary thinking.
A practice lost but still around in small towns of group breakfasts still exist. Usually it is farming communities where real discussion is had, this is real connecting. And, it's gone, now centered into a little plastic box having a sentence or two. This is why I like this platform, at least there is more intelligent human intercourse (the use of intercourse always cracks me up, it's an old Victorian way of saying conversation).
A far as its importance? I'm 50/50. I believe we have crossed the line where technology creates more negative than positive results. All tech has downsides, now it seems it has taken over.
Keep in mind this IS social media. Good post, btw.
Well, maybe, I see it more of a blog. To me social media is whores taking selfies for their imagined fame as influences. At its very beginning SM was great, but quickly was ruined by self promotion.
My son sets up events for music venues. All kinds from country , rap. R and B, Rock, you name it, including corporate events. He usually sees the end of the show because they immediacy take all down to load on trucks for the next stop.
The reason I mention it is this: he take videos of the females around him who are not watching the show, they are clicking selfies the whole time. He tells me he never realized one could make so many poses. Ive seen a few they are hilarious. They are posting to their influences pages the totality of the show.
I spend some time in financial media sites. Posters are seldom banned there, since validity is easily determined in tomorrow's tape, and "misinformation" results in financial losses. We have a practical measurement for determining what information is right or wrong. Some people try to manipulate that system by lying about things where they have a financial interest in the lie. If they are caught, they can have legal penalties. But it's up to each investor to decide whether what they read or hear from others is valid. Success comes from understanding reality well enough to recognize deception. Deception is everywhere. It's our nature.
The solution for non-financial media can be the same. Readers need to learn to understand reality well enough to recognize deception. That is a rare skill these days due to the failed education system having indoctrinated several generations in artificial realities. Anyone who accepts that gender is optional will believe any other deception. Many people still don't fall for the deception. We need to teach the others.
That culture trumps biology and that humans are blank slates to made into whatever the social reformer will, seems to me to be the deeper and more ancient deception.
Some are more malleable than others. The biological imperatives are survival and comfort. The weak are easier to overwrite than the strong. Some people just don't belong here. Darwin was right.
Twitter is influencing the world in the same way fast food companies are. Quick, super convenient, contains nothing but junk and rots our body and brain.
Slow down, cook a healthy home made meal, and read some thoughtful content on Substack.
Sadly, the demographic that is attracted to twitter and junk food won’t change, so I don’t subscribe to that camp.
We, in the USA, are still blessed to have individuals whose creative gifts have birthed alternate platforms for discourse. Preservation of that right is essential. Many thanks to those whose minds provide the rest of us a more complete picture of the world we are exposed to today. God bless you all.
Indeed!
I have to philosophically disagree with: "I think that social media – and Twitter in particular – is enormously important." precisely because of intelligent people like you; your insights, context and nuance do nt get the play nor the consideration in an ever contracting world of words and sound bite communication....people fall for the convenience thinking they can capture something in a Tweet or other SM vehicle for manipulating the masses.....but it is reality thus we need to have discussion and action to deal with it in a way which maximizes the utility while mitigating the unintended consequences which seems to continually spiral out of control as the Head Girls seek ever greater control. . . thought provoking post as usual and, as you can see from my response, rather than going along, I am trying to add to the discussion in a productive fashion which is the intent and sort of thing we need more than ever.
Musk is a red flag. World's richest, controls: space travel (space station deliveries ++ top secret US stuff), controls social media (Twitter being a big slice, he may have vested interests elsewhere), controls self-driving cars which can go offline or rogue at his whim, controls ever-increasing numerous satellites surrounding Planet Earth (astronomers complain about these ruining night photos). In all, Musk is BIG AI. Not comfortable with that, given his ability to supersede international agreements (Ukraine satdat). He was borne from a weird father (married his step-daughter a la Woody Allen, mother is a model at 70 something - not ageist but what is the purpose). Oh and the Neurolink. Probably why Zuckerberg cashed in his chips on Meta. A bigger, better New World is being put in place. And the critical thinkers believe in him. This is a behavioral psychology experiment on a global scale. Or maybe it's not an experiment. After Covid Fear 1.0.
It's so obvious. Why don't others see this? Just because he plays the rebel on Twitter? Good lord! Of course, he's WEF.
Yep, he's as transparent as pond water.
Beware false prophets....
I’m just sitting back enjoying the wrecking ball to their sacred institution.
Maybe KFC can throw a misguided promo celebrating it.
I was suspended from Twitter for life last March. I appealed the decision for the third time last week, hoping the new management would see things differently. I was told today the decision stands. My alleged violations of Twitter policy had to do with tweets about early treatment with Ivermectin.
Maybe you should try a name change and replace the eiffer with izer and try again. You’d be back on nanoseconds after you hit the send button.
Twitter is worthless and you are better off without it.