Image by Elon Musk Parody via Autoevolution. I don’t know, I’m at that point in the news cycle where I want to describe it as “unsustainable”, or refer to the Shepard tone illusion of a chord where the notes seem to be continuously, infinitely, rising in pitch, though in fact they’re just repeating the same octave.
I spent the first 40 years of my life loving space exploration, from crayoning pictures of astronauts on the moon, through watching any piece of junk movie if it had a spaceship in it -- but the past 5 years I have lost almost all enthusiasm for space. I did get actual chills from the recent NASA-JPL Martian lander (maybe 2019) -- I watched and rewatched video of Mission Control celebrating. All these kids who worked so hard and pulled it off -- it felt amazing to witness a peak of human talent. But the private missions feel different. I don't care for more than a few minutes, even about Musk's rockets that can land vertically, or I end up actively repulsed by video of Bezos spraying champagne over his rich-kid passengers like going into space isn't anything bigger than initiation night at Beta Chi.
I have asked myself why it feels so different. I think because I really am a patriot, I like to see the USA do amazing things, and when it does -- those things are done with my contribution too, at least insofar as I pay taxes, and I genuinely feel they are done to represent me, and all of us, to ourselves and to the world. The achievements of NASA feel like the result of great aspiration on behalf of the community and enlightenment idealism. Whereas these billionaires... they seem to be doing it, as they do everything, to escape community. Their success fills me with a kind of dread, as if it signifies the USA is faltering as a great institution trying to lift us all up, instead functioning as a confederacy unleashing specific individuals whose goal is to find ways to leave most of us behind.
Just like how Trump suddenly realized, upon finally encountering its actual mechanics, that health care is "really hard" (even though it was one of a long list of problems that only he could fix; he just had to "figure out" how to solve them), Musk came into this Twitter deal with an elementary-school-level understanding of how you could perfect the 21st Century virtual town square — you could silence everyone's objections — simply by following a principle of "freedom" and removing all "censorship."
Musk never realized (as with Trump and healthcare, or Trump and anything) that other people have tried very hard to make those first-level obvious solutions work, but they don't, which is why the situation is now so complicated.
Ross Perot had the same conceptual problem: he was — unlike Trump — a legitimately successful entrepreneur (whom I genuinely admire for that part of his career), who had grandiose ideas about predatory capitalism and thought that the apparent "gridlock" in Washington could be fixed simply by "finding the best people" (something nobody had ever thought of?) and "putting them to work."
Musk really is that dumb — dumb enough to think that he's smart; that his adoption of the dubious Right Wing bromides about "freedom" can solve real-world problems.
I think you've got Perot down. It's interesting to look back at his personal history while thinking about Musk--he got rich when government started buying his product while all the entrepreneurs (unimaginatively) turned him down; Musk seems to to have blundered into his own dependence on government after a Trumpy history of using patrons (starting with his father) to create an appearance of genius entrepreneurality. Maybe he actually is smart in some way, I don't know.
He's a type. Social capital, burning ambition, able to be charming on command, very "bright" (able to scan and retain information well enough to impress non-experts and not embarrass themselves with experts) and most importantly a massive towering ego. Describes every Silicon Valley Master of the Universe. The common observation that Musk seems to be super-needy (needs approval more than acclaim) is his great weakness.
Back when Musk was acting like one of the saner billionaires, the risk of his positions in SpaceX and Starlink probably looked manageable. I would be very unhappy if there weren't project teams at NASA and the Pentagon gaming out how to unwind that decision.
His whole Twitter performance is extremely weird. The 2 logical explanations are him letting his Afrikkaner freak flag fly, or a deliberate plan to destroy Twitter as a functional platform. These are fragile, but more plausible than this all being unintentional. I've met many very intelligent people (engineers, mostly) who were completely unaware of their social performance, but the man likely knows how to read a balance sheet. He probably is happy in his fascist bubble, and happy to keep losing money as long as he can be king of that leaky raft, so I leak toward the freak flag explanation.
Nov 18, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023Liked by Yastreblyansky
Leave us not forget that there's a whole big buncha christifascisti* who would love to see Jews kill all the Palestinians 'cause that's just another sign o' the endtimes, when all the Jews will die thanks to Haysoos returning.
*Like as much as 60% of fundychristian people in the US anticipate this within the next 25 years, according to a Pew poll.
I just find it amusing that cowboy geneticists are crankin' out commie red cows to hasten the end times. I mean, if all we really need is a sign, why not just slop some paint on posterboard and staple it to a stick?
The Israel love amoung the christifasciti has nothing to do with the Book of Revelation. By no coincidence, christofascism has nothing to do with Christianity. Christifascisti love Israel because Israel is an unapologetic ethnonationalist wog-basher, just like they wanna be when they grow up.
My wife and I dissected that 'dialectical hatred' bit, too, trying to figure out from the dictionary definitions of 'dialectical' until I ran into the now for 'Dialectical Marxism', at which point we both said "Ding! Ding! Ding!" out loud.
It's another one of theur magic incantation cargo-cult words they use to make themselves sound smart, but do not understand.
My fear is that this is all the mildest preview and that we are going to learn why Musk really bought Twitter and dissolved all the guardrails, in about 8 months or so, when he begins to flood it with wild attacks of Biden and every other Democratic Party candidate and with massive support of Trump (or if he's in jail or some such, the most prominent autocratic fascist on the ballot.) and the stupidest racist bigoted Congressional candidates imaginable. The outright open manipulation of an American election far beyond anything we've seen, through his unregulated media, has to be a toy that gives a billionaire quite the thrill, one that dwarfs a thousand small failures, and makes its price a huge bargain. Anyhow, I keep thinking this is why he bought the thing. For the election.
Channel your paranoia. Turning Twitter into an upgraded Gettr doesn't make it more powerful. The ad buyers know--it's basically dead already. I don't think Musk went in with a plan of any kind, but even if it's become his plan, it's a shitty plan and it won't work.
Thanks for the counsel. The vermin talk has me pretty scared, I'll admit. I did look vermin up in the dictionary (knowing the precision of his speech) and the etymology is a whole history. At one time vermin were anything that destroyed crops or livestock, so our bald eagle would be among the hawks and other birds of prey. Perhaps the greatest consolation for me is that the otter was considered vermin, an animal which is in the top ten of my reincarnation requests. Perhaps I qualify.
Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023Liked by Yastreblyansky
"I can't understand how a company like Starlink can be allowed to dominate satellite communications worldwide outside US control (it's a serious threat to national security, not just Ukraine's)"
It's de rigueur to de-risk, but the risks have been glaringly obvious the whole time, Starlink being a recent and very troubling example. Musk's interference re: Ukraine should. have. been. impossible. And it was barely a sidenote in a news cycle?!
"Moral hazard" comes to mind (I may not be using the best term). Let's say a poor person has enough dough and freedom to buy a pack of cigarettes, say, instead of putting $5 in a savings account. We hear grave concerns, action must be taken immediately lest society crumble. Okay fine, it's stupid but I'll have that conversation yet again if we can talk about Musk and moral hazards too. What the living hell, it's like being trapped in a perverted funhouse.
Every SpaceX failure draws us closer to concluding private sector space travel is at best premature? Well, that’s my wish at least. I’m probably too optimistic.
Re the racial slur, the Shazam! question ~ it depends on whither or no the fate of the other seven or nine billion people depends upon it. It's just a word that may well be applicable
Sigh. ADL heaping praise on a raving antisemite (who insults and threatens the organization on a regular basis, natch) for demonstrating allyship in the fight against wokespeech is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen.
Couldn't believe I was in a situation where I wanted to defend them--they're the kings of confusing antisemitism with criticizing the Israeli government--but their instant sucking up to Elmo made it unnecessary.
Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023Liked by Yastreblyansky
There's a facile argument that an organization based on rooting out defamation is incentivized to find defamation. Between that and the iron law of institutions is a lot of room for mischief. There's a getting the band back together vibe to the accusations of antisemitism for criticizing the Israel response to the Gaza attack. The defense is an odd fit, when they can honestly(?) claim they are attacking where Hamas is. Urban warfare is a nasty business at best, and this is a far from best scenario. That question mark is almost completely an artifact of Netanyahu being in charge. The man really is a cancer on Israel. Only he could turn a suicide attack on Israeli citizens into Israeli war crimes.
I spent the first 40 years of my life loving space exploration, from crayoning pictures of astronauts on the moon, through watching any piece of junk movie if it had a spaceship in it -- but the past 5 years I have lost almost all enthusiasm for space. I did get actual chills from the recent NASA-JPL Martian lander (maybe 2019) -- I watched and rewatched video of Mission Control celebrating. All these kids who worked so hard and pulled it off -- it felt amazing to witness a peak of human talent. But the private missions feel different. I don't care for more than a few minutes, even about Musk's rockets that can land vertically, or I end up actively repulsed by video of Bezos spraying champagne over his rich-kid passengers like going into space isn't anything bigger than initiation night at Beta Chi.
I have asked myself why it feels so different. I think because I really am a patriot, I like to see the USA do amazing things, and when it does -- those things are done with my contribution too, at least insofar as I pay taxes, and I genuinely feel they are done to represent me, and all of us, to ourselves and to the world. The achievements of NASA feel like the result of great aspiration on behalf of the community and enlightenment idealism. Whereas these billionaires... they seem to be doing it, as they do everything, to escape community. Their success fills me with a kind of dread, as if it signifies the USA is faltering as a great institution trying to lift us all up, instead functioning as a confederacy unleashing specific individuals whose goal is to find ways to leave most of us behind.
Just like how Trump suddenly realized, upon finally encountering its actual mechanics, that health care is "really hard" (even though it was one of a long list of problems that only he could fix; he just had to "figure out" how to solve them), Musk came into this Twitter deal with an elementary-school-level understanding of how you could perfect the 21st Century virtual town square — you could silence everyone's objections — simply by following a principle of "freedom" and removing all "censorship."
Musk never realized (as with Trump and healthcare, or Trump and anything) that other people have tried very hard to make those first-level obvious solutions work, but they don't, which is why the situation is now so complicated.
Ross Perot had the same conceptual problem: he was — unlike Trump — a legitimately successful entrepreneur (whom I genuinely admire for that part of his career), who had grandiose ideas about predatory capitalism and thought that the apparent "gridlock" in Washington could be fixed simply by "finding the best people" (something nobody had ever thought of?) and "putting them to work."
Musk really is that dumb — dumb enough to think that he's smart; that his adoption of the dubious Right Wing bromides about "freedom" can solve real-world problems.
I think you've got Perot down. It's interesting to look back at his personal history while thinking about Musk--he got rich when government started buying his product while all the entrepreneurs (unimaginatively) turned him down; Musk seems to to have blundered into his own dependence on government after a Trumpy history of using patrons (starting with his father) to create an appearance of genius entrepreneurality. Maybe he actually is smart in some way, I don't know.
He's a type. Social capital, burning ambition, able to be charming on command, very "bright" (able to scan and retain information well enough to impress non-experts and not embarrass themselves with experts) and most importantly a massive towering ego. Describes every Silicon Valley Master of the Universe. The common observation that Musk seems to be super-needy (needs approval more than acclaim) is his great weakness.
I'll take Dunning Kruger for forty-four billion dollars Alex.
Henry Ford reborn as farce.
Back when Musk was acting like one of the saner billionaires, the risk of his positions in SpaceX and Starlink probably looked manageable. I would be very unhappy if there weren't project teams at NASA and the Pentagon gaming out how to unwind that decision.
His whole Twitter performance is extremely weird. The 2 logical explanations are him letting his Afrikkaner freak flag fly, or a deliberate plan to destroy Twitter as a functional platform. These are fragile, but more plausible than this all being unintentional. I've met many very intelligent people (engineers, mostly) who were completely unaware of their social performance, but the man likely knows how to read a balance sheet. He probably is happy in his fascist bubble, and happy to keep losing money as long as he can be king of that leaky raft, so I leak toward the freak flag explanation.
Leave us not forget that there's a whole big buncha christifascisti* who would love to see Jews kill all the Palestinians 'cause that's just another sign o' the endtimes, when all the Jews will die thanks to Haysoos returning.
*Like as much as 60% of fundychristian people in the US anticipate this within the next 25 years, according to a Pew poll.
See also the red heifer initiative.
I saw it. Good grief! I guess there weren't enough wacko religious projects to satisfy
G-d; or did I mean to say Eris?
I just find it amusing that cowboy geneticists are crankin' out commie red cows to hasten the end times. I mean, if all we really need is a sign, why not just slop some paint on posterboard and staple it to a stick?
The Israel love amoung the christifasciti has nothing to do with the Book of Revelation. By no coincidence, christofascism has nothing to do with Christianity. Christifascisti love Israel because Israel is an unapologetic ethnonationalist wog-basher, just like they wanna be when they grow up.
Hearted, but...the christifascisti need no learnin' from anybody...
My wife and I dissected that 'dialectical hatred' bit, too, trying to figure out from the dictionary definitions of 'dialectical' until I ran into the now for 'Dialectical Marxism', at which point we both said "Ding! Ding! Ding!" out loud.
It's another one of theur magic incantation cargo-cult words they use to make themselves sound smart, but do not understand.
My fear is that this is all the mildest preview and that we are going to learn why Musk really bought Twitter and dissolved all the guardrails, in about 8 months or so, when he begins to flood it with wild attacks of Biden and every other Democratic Party candidate and with massive support of Trump (or if he's in jail or some such, the most prominent autocratic fascist on the ballot.) and the stupidest racist bigoted Congressional candidates imaginable. The outright open manipulation of an American election far beyond anything we've seen, through his unregulated media, has to be a toy that gives a billionaire quite the thrill, one that dwarfs a thousand small failures, and makes its price a huge bargain. Anyhow, I keep thinking this is why he bought the thing. For the election.
Channel your paranoia. Turning Twitter into an upgraded Gettr doesn't make it more powerful. The ad buyers know--it's basically dead already. I don't think Musk went in with a plan of any kind, but even if it's become his plan, it's a shitty plan and it won't work.
Thanks for the counsel. The vermin talk has me pretty scared, I'll admit. I did look vermin up in the dictionary (knowing the precision of his speech) and the etymology is a whole history. At one time vermin were anything that destroyed crops or livestock, so our bald eagle would be among the hawks and other birds of prey. Perhaps the greatest consolation for me is that the otter was considered vermin, an animal which is in the top ten of my reincarnation requests. Perhaps I qualify.
"I can't understand how a company like Starlink can be allowed to dominate satellite communications worldwide outside US control (it's a serious threat to national security, not just Ukraine's)"
It's de rigueur to de-risk, but the risks have been glaringly obvious the whole time, Starlink being a recent and very troubling example. Musk's interference re: Ukraine should. have. been. impossible. And it was barely a sidenote in a news cycle?!
"Moral hazard" comes to mind (I may not be using the best term). Let's say a poor person has enough dough and freedom to buy a pack of cigarettes, say, instead of putting $5 in a savings account. We hear grave concerns, action must be taken immediately lest society crumble. Okay fine, it's stupid but I'll have that conversation yet again if we can talk about Musk and moral hazards too. What the living hell, it's like being trapped in a perverted funhouse.
Dialectic is one of L Ron Hubbard's Scientology buzzwords ...
Aha! And (googling it https://www.scientology.org/fot/lesson-1/the-cycle-of-action.html) what a jerkoff he was!
Oh, yeah.
I managed to talk a family member down from the LRon. Sometimes it works.
Every SpaceX failure draws us closer to concluding private sector space travel is at best premature? Well, that’s my wish at least. I’m probably too optimistic.
Re the racial slur, the Shazam! question ~ it depends on whither or no the fate of the other seven or nine billion people depends upon it. It's just a word that may well be applicable
He's just a child acting out ...
Sigh. ADL heaping praise on a raving antisemite (who insults and threatens the organization on a regular basis, natch) for demonstrating allyship in the fight against wokespeech is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen.
Couldn't believe I was in a situation where I wanted to defend them--they're the kings of confusing antisemitism with criticizing the Israeli government--but their instant sucking up to Elmo made it unnecessary.
There's a facile argument that an organization based on rooting out defamation is incentivized to find defamation. Between that and the iron law of institutions is a lot of room for mischief. There's a getting the band back together vibe to the accusations of antisemitism for criticizing the Israel response to the Gaza attack. The defense is an odd fit, when they can honestly(?) claim they are attacking where Hamas is. Urban warfare is a nasty business at best, and this is a far from best scenario. That question mark is almost completely an artifact of Netanyahu being in charge. The man really is a cancer on Israel. Only he could turn a suicide attack on Israeli citizens into Israeli war crimes.
ADL is the kings of confusing antisemitism with criticism of Israel? Uh, AIPAC sez: "Hold my beer." And ZoA sez …
That's the thing about the righteous – they are never wrong.
I for one am resigned to the alternative. Who's with me? Lift the scales from your eyes and embrace wrongteousness!