Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors
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Twitter is a stagnant company. They have thousands of engineers that in the span of a decade don't seem to produce much at all, nothing visible or memorable anyway. Long-lasting Twitter problems (culture, spam, algorithm issues) never seem addressed. User growth is stagnating as Twitter fails to appeal to "normies" in a way Facebook and other networks can.
A perfect target for Musk to come in, do a few sweeping changes, and get out. Thereby proving once again that he gets shit done where others can't. Case closed.
It doesn't take much. People have been begging for an edit button for a decade. If he'd get only that feature implemented, it will be remembered forever.
Twitter WORKS. If it's profitable, it doesn't need more growth. Facebook got ruined because it thought everyone's parents and grandparents should be on it, and now that's the only people on it.
My parents and grandparents are scared of Twitter, and that's how I like it.
It also doesn't try to charge me for access to my own followers like Facebook does.
Twitter may have problems but I like the balance they've struck.
An edit button by the way would RUIN it because people who have gone viral with a bad take would simply edit it away.
Stakeholders will think otherwise.
> An edit button by the way would RUIN it because people who have gone viral with a bad take would simply edit it away.
Just add a change history like (I think) FB has. No big deal.
If the Hacker News crowd isn't even sure that the feature exists, there's no way the majority of users are actually checking it. That may solve the problem for the most careful of users, but the conversation is going to be driven by the people who just react to what's in front of them.
A note like this, with a changelog, should therefore be fine for twitter and counter all "I never posted sth. like that!" talk, as it would be easily to be debunked.
If you think you are getting 'unfiltered balance' from twitter, then you don't know twitter very well.
"Twitter WORKS. If it's profitable, it doesn't need more growth."
You don't get to decide that. It's a publicly traded company. Which means you do need more growth.
"My parents and grandparents are scared of Twitter, and that's how I like it."
Strange thing to be proud of. I guess your own family isn't "cool" enough.
Finally, an edit button can have a timer, as every edit button ever has had for decades.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he enjoys reading Pravda, er, Twitter.
If I was a communist, why would I self identify as a "commie"??
And not even consistently: Are you a lawn mower? A landscaper even?
When you're the richest man in the world, and your main companies are on track, what is it that motivates billionaires?
Prestige. Visibility. Legacy.
Whatever merit or lack thereof Musk on the Twitter board has, I would bet money this particular scenario does not happen. Musk is not a turnaround expert or corporate savior (and for the record he's not claiming to be).
He may be a visionary (whatever that means), but a excellent, renowned executive that revitalizes companies, heck, that really has never been the case.
I'm not at all a fan of him, but his power is in execution. A vision is worthless.
Never mind the fact that throughput would be limited to however many cars can fit in one lane of tunnel, that's just details.
Boring company tunnels are wider than London subway tunnels.
Both sell/sold products that hardly need any marketing.
Execution and result-driven like that giant coffin-box he tried to claim could be used to rescue boys from a cave where rescuers were swimming through spaces so narrow they couldn't wear their diving gear?
Result-driven, power-in-execution executive who took a decade to build a luxury car that had initial quality, paint, NVH, and interior quality equal to an economy sedan made by Ford or Honda. His cars often literally don't line up the same way on the right side as they do on the left. Oh, and also about a decade to get the motor/drivetrain unit on the Model S to not destroy itself every 10,000-20,000 miles. It still can't handle being driven through too large a puddle without ingesting water through the speedo sensor port...
Autopilot routinely "phantom brakes", and FSD "Beta" likes to drive at telephone poles, veer at cyclists, and pedestrians standing on street corners.
I wish I could find the article describing his efforts to get the model 3 production fixed. Endless issues because the robots weren't assembling the cars precisely enough. He was told they needed to go back to workers assembling the cars. Ran around screaming profanity at people, demanding they fix automation. Bunch of people got up and quit to his face.
Months more of delays and issues until he finally listened to someone who had been saying all along that they needed to grow capacity by having more people assembling the cars. Boom, production volume and quality issues gone.
Musk is a rich man-baby who has relied on shouting at people to get things done.
Musk invested in the company, became chairman of the board and quickly became active in their normal everyday operations.
It's weird that people made up a fake biography just because they don't like when he tweets on Ambien.
In particular I don't think this was an advantage, I think it was a disadvantage, and at most he started with no more privilege than any other Stanford grad. (Which is a lot!)
> I wish I could find the article describing his efforts to get the model 3 production fixed. Endless issues because the robots weren't assembling the cars precisely enough. He was told they needed to go back to workers assembling the cars. Ran around screaming profanity at people, demanding they fix automation. Bunch of people got up and quit to his face.
I read that article and it was obviously made up. It claimed people were being sent through the air by machinery exploding like they were DBZ characters.
The Musks lived in the biggest house in the richest neighborhood of segregated Pretoria, and Elon was able to avoid the draft from the same apartheid South African military that his father engineered for.
You'd definitely need to have a certain amount of privilege to do that, and to leave adolescence with anecdotes about selling pocketfuls of your dad's emeralds, like this[1]:
> A teenage Elon Musk once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket. His father, Errol Musk, had a casual attitude towards the family’s considerable wealth, including the stones that came from the Zambian emerald mine in which Errol owned a half share. Elon, by his father’s recollection then probably 16 years old, and his brother Kimbal, decided to sell emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York – one of the world's most famous jewellers – as his father lay sleeping. "They just walked into Tiffany’s and said, ‘Do you want to buy some emeralds?’
[1] https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family...
Btw, now that he's rich because Tesla investors keep on wanting to give him a lot of money for no reason, seizing/nationalizing the company and giving it to the poor wouldn't work, because those investors don't want to give _them_ money.
Who said anything about seizing the company? And what do easily duped retail investors have to do with anything I posted?
Zambia wasn't apartheid.
Notice that I said similar here, because Zambia did have laws that were similar to apartheid laws in South Africa.
Like it or not, Musk has a talent for attracting young talented engineers and giving them a huge playground to show what they can do. That is the main reason why SpaceX took off so massively, not any shouting to get things done (everyone can do that, but successful space startups are rare, so it isn't an obvious path to success). SpaceX engineers are allowed to have some initiative and aren't kept in a narrow corridor set up by typical corporate bureaucracy.
Contrast this to Bezos, arguably a very strict businessman who used to be much richer than Musk - several orders of magnitude, in fact. Bezos isn't any softer than Musk on his employees, arguably even harder; less shouting, but more pressure. But Blue Origin is a snail compared to SpaceX, even though it was founded 2 years earlier. They have enough money, but they have a problem attracting engineering talent and retaining it.
He has no problem throwing people/money/etc. at the problem to get the result he wants and if someone so much as says the opposite, they are removed from the equation (fired, publicly ridiculed, etc.).
I personally don't see what benefit he can bring to Twitter other than shaking up the culture. Who knows, he may even come in, take over, and claim to be a founder of Twitter, just like he did with Tesla.
Not just fired or ridiculed, Musk and Tesla have also tried to have a whistleblower murdered by accusing them of being a mass shooter and having them SWAT'd[1].
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
Jesus, what a megalomaniac.
He didn't "come in", in as much as he "made the company". The company was "two guys and some incorporation papers" before Musk's involvement. The company, for all intents and purposes, did not exist before Musk's involvement.
Whether that made him a founder is irrelevant, but it's important to not imply that he just "bought" a company that already had a product. There was no product.
Why must every company sustain boundless growth and 24-hour engagement? Change and growth for their own sake can be cancers.
Twitter does what it does and people like it (as seen by the fact that they all use it), yet armchair generals cry out that twitter's refusal to turn into "not twitter" is somehow a failure of engineering and management, or some form of incompetence.
So, I disagree, I guess.
Why the need for layoffs?
They did make Twitter Spaces and so far, that move alone has shadowed Clubhouse even though itself is not doing well. Also built discontinued Fleets.
...to keep the app running? New devices, new standards, a lot of things change that you need devs to keep up with.
Also, what's up with people saying twitter is stagnant? They've added Spaces, Twitter Blue and Crypto Profile Pictures - all 3 massive features added to their product. They're all trash, but that's besides the point.
Speaking out of experience, most engineers in big tech are bike shedding on internal tools that don't do anything useful. A small minority deliver the majority of the impact. On top of that at companies like Twitter and Google some of those useless employees spend their time complaining about social justice initiatives rather than doing work.
Instagram is still pretty lean from what I’ve heard.
Pre-revenue that is possible. Post revenue, you'd need at least lawyers and accountants in each country you operate in. Then you need systems to respond to subpeonas and legal requests, that is a hundred people right there.
IG was 13 employees when you had a fraction of the images and they didnt have to be profitable, rather just grow by burning $. Now consider scale and profitability and you need even more people to grow tech cost consciously.
This seems intuitively false. Adding more people to tech domains can actually decrease effectiveness with more expense, resulting in lower profits. Obviously, there is a sweet spot, but Twitter is a basic product regardless of how many countries it operates within.
Suppose you are Twitter and operating in, say, {Ghana, Russia, Korea, Mexico, and Pakistan}. You're served with subpoenas and legal IP requests in each country. If you dont respond in time, your license to operate may be revoked. Each request is in the native language. How do you "scale" this technically? Can one lawyer handle these across the world? How?
Furthermore, developing tech for managing this is likely to be unnecessary as there are existing software packages already out there. Doing business across the world and handling legal issues is not unique to Twitter.
I generally agree with your response, but note that you've just converted FTEs to contractors/outsourcers and "reduced" FTEs that way. You'd have to do the same with accountants and many other country-level positions. But w2-->1099 isnt really a "win".
Comparing to Instagram seems pretty unfair too as it's newer, it was even-more-featured-limited for a long time, is now part of a much larger behemoth and had much lower scale than today's twitter when it was acquired, and my guess would be that it's an easier scaling problem too (lower on post frequency, more read-heavy workload).
No, that's exactly the point. Just because you make something doesn't mean it was progress.
We're talking about a simple platform of people relaying updates of 140 characters with a comment section and a feed algorithm to aggregate the content to everyone with a focus on prolonging everyone's engagement time while also following guidelines on what's "politically correct". There's only so much you can do, unless you venture out into manipulating public discourse, or striving to become a nation-state (or at least its propaganda machinery) or taking over the world (with all the imaginable internet services provided by you - email, storage, encyclopedias, news etc).
At some point you should stop and think about your core business. And at some point you should realize that the law of diminishing returns applies. And at some point you should realize that it's fine to provide a stable service to a stable amount of users with a stable amount of features. Not that much R&D required.
Or, rather, this is how our society would have to work in order to stay healthy. Living on a planet with finite resources while using them up like they're not is a sure-fire way to doom. We already know enough about farming for example to make it sustainable. We just don't know how to do it in a way where we don't cut down production considerably and starving a lot of people in the process. Not a nice topic to bring up i your election speech.
But it's nice to ride the train since things seemingly move forward thanks to rising inflation (which is due to the problem in the first place) and the price of your product can go up.
Oh, I might've misunderstood you as well.
/remindme 20 years
Provide females around the world access to education, birth control, and opportunity in the job market and this problem will fix itself. To do that, however, would mean allowing the kind of discourse that Twitter is inclined suppress and many of its more vocal users would call "racist" i.e. being able to criticise cultures that don't give females these opportunities.
And we're back to Twitter and free speech.
like RSS?
Twitter does a fair amount of OSS, though I can't see a lot of contributions that probabilistically out of Spaces.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your take, but for tax accounting, a lot of “stupid” programming counts as R&D.
But more importantly, stupidity is in the eye of the beholder or hindsight, or both.
e.g. I would have called a streaming service for gamers to be watched by adoring fans utter stupidity. Maybe that’s also why I’m not rich.
Is Discord profitable yet? Reported revenue and users is up significantly post-covid, but that does not necessarily mean there are profits. Your instincts may be under-estimated.
However, releasing every half-baked misfeature that comes out of R&D is useless.
This is entirely anecdotal, but from the little I know from his couple months there, Twitter has no idea what to do with the huge amount of engineers they employ. This is by no means an endorsement of Musk, but the company could use some new direction I think.
To the GP: we all understand that your experience isn’t the same experience of everyone, but it is AN experience, and would be useful to us who don’t have any experience.
I feel like public discourse has increasingly been more and more polarizing and anecdotes and hearsay are being leveraged to create further divisions.
I wonder why I keep getting LinkedIn and email notifications about engineering jobs at Twitter.
I know he's controversial, but I wish more politicians would make themselves more accessible through Twitter (and I'm not a Trump fan, I just think he used it more effectively than other politicians).
But so does Instagram and Facebook and other socials. Politicians doing live QAs on facebook was happening a decade ago already, since live streams were a thing.
The downside is that we don't teach critical thinking to children in school.
So you end up with adults that believe whatever tv tells them or will buy any compelling argument without trying to debunk it first.
Better powers of discrimination, higher IQ, are illusory when it comes to inoculating yourself against propaganda.
In industrial economies money is credit and countries issue their own money by setting up a banking system to lend it into existence on security of domestic tangible capital to promote wealth formation and create liquidity for domestic employers to make payroll. Since the early 1700s western governments have known how to create stable money from nothing without any gold, private banks, or external investors by lending it into existence through land loan office system.
It looks like El Salvador didn't create its own money before and was just using US Dollars sent back by emigrants though.
I guess, and I imagine at their size they probably run pretty inefficiently. It just seems like a surprisingly big team. From all fronts really, not just development but design too, does it really take that much effort to keep Twitter "twittery"?
> Crypto Profile Pictures
Straight out of a satire piece, I had not heard about that.
I think your definition of "massive" is different to mine.
Spaces is at least a new medium. The other two are incremental features that a small (<10 person) team would ship in a few months at another FANG company.
Though, twitcasting has more monetization options and Twitter only has super followers which nobody actually uses yet.
In the real world, Twitter is a public company. It has existed for a long time and has barely every made a penny. It fails in comparison to other high growth networks (Facebook, Tiktok, Youtube).
And it's not an armchair comment. Twitter's own PMs have openly admitted to some of its flaws, it's failure to appeal to the masses. They're self-aware about their own incompetence.
Last I checked not even half the US population is on twitter, not even close to half. Who is this "all" in "they all use it?"
I'd love to know which variant of the English language treats "all" as analogous to not "insignificant".
We're not even over half in this case. If this person actually believes most people are already using twitter, it's clearly a problem when it comes to informing a judgement of stagnant growth.
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” - Edward Abbey
> Abbey also left instructions on what to do with his remains: Abbey wanted his body transported in the bed of a pickup truck and wished to be buried as soon as possible. He did not want to be embalmed or placed in a coffin. Instead, he preferred to be placed inside of an old sleeping bag and requested that his friends disregard all state laws concerning burial. "I want my body to help fertilize the growth of a cactus or cliff rose or sagebrush or tree," said the message. For his funeral, Abbey stated, "No formal speeches desired, though the deceased will not interfere if someone feels the urge. But keep it all simple and brief." He requested gunfire and bagpipe music, a cheerful and raucous wake, "[a]nd a flood of beer and booze! Lots of singing, dancing, talking, hollering, laughing, and lovemaking."
Putting Desert Solitaire on my reading list.
Be warned about his views of democracy and the US. He opposed the consumerism of the US and sees democracy as "me, me, me" politics, where people vote for what they want now (or what they're told they want) rather doing the uncomfortable thing today for the sake of tomorrow.
But Twitter and twitter employees want the company to grow. But they fail to do so.
However, in a competitive environment, and with proof that the market is expanding (Newer generation of kids are using social media), if it fails to capture the market, the company will die out.
So, there is this need to focus on user number growth.
I am sure that if the company was only adding older people, the stock would be punished inspite of growing numbers.
The stock has gone nowhere since its IPO and Twitter has never paid a dividend. It has revenue of $5bn but cannot seem to turn a meaningful profit and is not growing.
So far it has been a massive failure for shareholders, who are the stakeholders that the board and management are actually there to serve.
This is a terribly short-sighted and impoverished definition of stagnation. If Elon shakes things up and Twitter generates 2x the profit and 2x the social destruction as Facebook would you call them a vibrant and successful concern?
Is Twitter currently generating twice the profit of Facebook? No. Pretty straightforward.
I agree with you on this, but I think the parent commenter was implying that if you're going to be employing thousands of engineers, you ought to have something to show for it.
It's fine to move into a "steady state", but your engineering team should eventually reflect that reality.
Tesla: Sustainable transport
SpaceX: Becoming a multiplanetary species
Twitter: Free speech in the public square
IMO it's actually the most important mission of the 3 since it's the basis for societal progress.
Tesla: Gimmicky electric cars as a status symbol
SpaceX: Maximizing profits on government space contracts
Twitter: Tactical manipulation of stock prices
All of them are about increasing Musk's clout and net worth.
That would be the United Launch Alliance, Sir.
Facebook is for grandparents, twitter is for bots.
I never liked facebook (fake people bragging about their perfect fake lives for all the world to see).
I used to find value in twitter - but now I just can't wade thru the all noise to get to the value - gave up all major social media years ago, don't miss it.
The main issue is that all those diamonds are covered by an abundant amount of material of... let's just say lower quality, so the search can be long and tedious.
And they haven't implemented it because it's a truly horrible idea. If you messed up your tweet delete it. If it's already got traction, then it shouldn't be changed, especially because the edit feature would mostly be used maliciously to cancel retweeters.
Good. Let's stop pretending that meaning is contained in tweets.
Let me know how that crusade is going for you.
I'm pretty confident Twitter could manage "edit as new" for Tweets, and it would be useful with or without tweet editing.
[0] No idea how it works internally, but it would hardly surprise me if the lack of edit functionality caused early design decisions around stuff like this that would be pretty tough to unwind.
I think it's pathetic to say of a feature that it's too hard because there may be some complications or architecture changes. It's especially pathetic to say of a basic feature like edit which exists on other platforms and is obviously possible. This defeatist attitude is, no doubt, partially to blame for Twitter's inability to improve.
When I follow you and you like a tweet from someone I don’t follow, the Twitter algorithm may show the tweet to me in my timeline, marked as “X liked this”, even several days later.
There’s a lot of interaction models built into Twitter that assume immutability.
This could turn out to be a good thing in the long run: force the public to confront the fact that the commentary they are seeing may have, in fact, originally been on something entirely different than the context it is currently presented in.
How is this a good thing? I’d have 0 confidence that a reply was in fact to the tweet I’m currently seeing. Then how can I accurately reply to that initial reply?
And what’s to stop someone from selling the ‘edit’ on their viral tweet? If you edit a tweet does your like and RT count get reset so your tweet is no longer trending?
As you should already be doing every time you see screenshots.
It's almost like cancelling was always a garbage idea centered around lies ans deception from the start
I'm confused as to how any of this makes it stagnant.
Anyway I’m happy with Twitter’s direction. They’ve gone and made it less toxic, and in fact I’ve recently created an account because it has become a pleasure to use.
It also doesn't cover multiple accounts - and my side account, when it switches to the algorithmic timeline every other day, is convinced I want to know about pop musicians and inserts 1000 "suggested topics" about the Grammys and BTS I have to dismiss individually.
Why do you assume it's engineering problem? I think engineers at twitter are well capable to solve any problems, but it's just not a business need. The real problem are product owners/stakeholders/business people, incapable to transform, envision and lead at Twitter.
Funny you mention that: https://www.ign.com/articles/elon-musk-largest-twitter-share...
don't see how an edit button will change any of that!
Typical musk cult bullshit. I'm sorry, it sounds so wrong it makes me questions your honesty here.
He won't "do a few sweeping changes and get out". The only shit he will get done is abusing his influence over the top of the hierarchy to slowly but surely get more control over what gets fed to twitter users. Remember how Facebook has been crucial for election manipulation over the world? Now Musk gets to play this game too.
By the way, that's how he took over Tesla from its original founders. He invested an amount of money large enough so that he could force his way into becoming CEO. Then he fired the few remaining people who could oppose him.
So, no, he's not going to get out. Your post sounds more like "nothing to see here" than anything else. There's a big thing to see here. The richest US person calmly and openly taking over one of the largest social network in the world.
It's not over-analyzing, it's obvious. But in our troubled times such things are somehow happening in plain sight and nobody bats an eye.
As a Twitter user since 2019, I’ve seen improvements even in my short time on the platform. The most obvious example is that you can now restrict who can reply to your tweets.
You could make the same argument about HN, and it’d be equally mistaken.
How quickly we forget the front end redesign that lets you tweet photos when you quote tweet. The old one didn’t.
Or that they collapse new tweets into a button you can click, rather than interrupting your reading flow when it loads more. (Admittedly the old site already had this.)
HN probably has 0-1 devs actively working on it and is (likely still) running on two machines ("master" and "standby")[1]
Not sure about the comparison between Twitter and HN. I agree with the comment above yours - IMO Twitter has been stagnant in many regards. Why not spend time really nailing down video/image hosting/viewing etc? Why NFT profile pics?
Twtr: -5%
Fb: +488%
The only complications have always been situations where private enterprise dominates or impedes on public discourse.
> It means nobody is allowed to police public discourse
No, it means the government cannot restrict speech.
> Freedom of speech, also called free speech, means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government. [0]
Most people assume “free speech” means “nobody” can restrict it, but it is in fact only “by the government”.
For example, you do not have freedom of speech at my house. I am free to demand anyone who says the word “blue” on my property to immediately leave.
You also don’t have free speech on the public comment section of my blog. I can delete (or not approve) any comments that don’t adhere to a list of approved words, or are not sufficiently praiseful of my views.
There are some state and federal laws that protect free speech at private companies, but they are mostly around employment as you can read about in the article.
That’s why I think OC is stating that the definition of “free speech” is important. Are we talking about US law, or about an abstract concept that “nobody can restrict public discourse” that doesn’t exist in reality?
> The only complications have always been situations where private enterprise dominates or impedes on public discourse.
Not true. There are many, many complications to free speech.
> Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment include obscenity (as determined by the Miller test), fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, and regulation of commercial speech such as advertising. [1]
These types of speech can be legally restricted, punished and censored. This list was not created in 1776, it was created over time because the line isn’t clear. What’s always been clear though is that there have always been complicated edge cases concerning free speech.
The issue is so complicated it’s been litigated in the Supreme Court possibly hundreds of times [2].
Keep in mind that the Supreme Court only takes on a case if it presents a novel problem or if they thought a previous Supreme Court mad an egregious error in judgement. So the sheer volume of cases means that there continue to be many unique, complicated facets to “free speech”, not all of which involve private enterprise. Protesting, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom to petition, compelled speech, false speech, etc. all can be complicated issues concerning individuals or public institutions.
[0], [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Uni...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Suprem...
That’s by design.
The government creates a framework within which you can then create your own private experience.
The free market, freedom of choice, freedom of association, etc. is the balancing act to self-regulate private party practices.
If we start centralizing and standardizing free speech requirements from the government all the way down to your blog, we’d be putting all our eggs in 1 basket. The government does not restrict repetitive speech for example, yet you’d now be powerless to regulate spam. You’d also be powerless to moderate HN or any other topical social community, as off-topic speech is protected at the federal level.
The variety in free speech rules is a feature not a bug.
It won't happen, unfortunately, since "free speech" has become an article of faith in the US. Yet there are democracies where this works well; the choice isn't between freedom and slavery, the US or North Korea.
Yes, but there are very valid reasons to curtail speech at a private level that don’t make sense at a national level like curating content, creating unique social spaces, topical content, etc.
Constraints make things interesting sometimes. Like Twitter’s original character limit, or Google Shorts clip length, or HN’s moderation policies. They restricted speech in order to create a unique experience that people liked. My freedom to post pop culture gossip is restricted on HN and I’m OK with it.
With bottom-up free speech rules, you can create this interesting landscape of private content.
With top-down free speech rules, a government can’t react quickly enough to accommodate all of these entrepreneurial reasons for privately restricting speech.
If I want to create a positive social network where every post has to have a positive sentiment analysis as determined by an AI, then why do you need to have the ability to share your negative thoughts on my private platform that I pay for? You already have the ability to do that in a public square, or on your own private website.
What does society gain by forcing me to accept all legal speech on my private site? It sounds like a recipe for stifling innovation.
{tearfully removes Eiffel 65 from karaoke party playlist}
The second consideration is what recourse private owners have to disallowed speech. It's not jail or execution. Typically just dismissal.
I do not understand the argument that a platform is not allowed to police itself.
The problem is that in the real world you can't silo off dicks like that. Bad opinions (e.g. racial hatred) can spread through the society and cause tremendous damage.
If you're going to argue for zero content moderation, the only good faith way to do so is to first admit that this could be a problem, and secondly admit that you have no problem if Twitter became like 8chan. If you just pretend like these kinds of things aren't possible, I can only conclude you're arguing from a position of ideology.
I struggle to think of examples, and the worst ones are things that might be described as "sounds kinda racist but the person who wrote it is probably not the cross-burning type".
Sure, I could find it if I went looking. But I don't.
You could argue that this is because of some kind of benevolent filtering, and I'll grant that dang (of HN) does a great job. But I think it's mostly because I don't delve into the kinds of places where that would happen.
So I'm honestly just not sure what you mean when something will devolve into 8chan. I've heard of that but I don't know anyone on there, so I don't even really know what it is or how the devolution might happen. Mechanically, what would take place? Would I follow a friend, and then start getting weird flat-Earth stuff because of their second cousin?
> Mechanically, what would take place?
You would likely get three things:
- Informal networks of political extremists with a recruitment platform of global reach. Similar to r/genzedong in extremism, but far worse. Think ISIS, The Base.
- A tool that authoritarian regimes can use to exercise influence over open societies via coordinated misinformation and sowing division. This centralized effort to divide Western societies via coordinated social media manipulation is already being done.
- A society overtaken by conspiracy theories, with unpredictable consequences. Empirically, sunlight isn't the best disinfectant.
I make these claims by observing the local gradient and extrapolating.
Compare this to say the UK where neither corporations nor the government enshrine free speech, so these estuaries don't exist.
Tweets aren't forced upon anyone. Twitter isn't a megaphone in a library. It's a flexible medium that allows you to follow the people who write/retweet stuff you want to read, and ignore others.
Face it: if you interfere between Sally who writes something she wants Bob to read, and Bob who wants to read what Sally wrote, that's censorship.
(No, I am not making a legal argument. And no, I'm not interested in exploring extreme exceptions to the general principle.)
What about national security, NDAs, illegal content, etc.?
Two consenting parties doesn’t mean the speech is legal or good for society.
> And no, I'm not interested in exploring extreme exceptions to the general principle.
The Supreme Court is (to the count of hundreds of times) because the devil is in the details. “Free speech” sounds good on paper, but when you start trying to define it and enforce it it gets complicated with tons of edge cases.
Whataboutism tries to argue two unrelated things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving the argument.
“Tommy stole my lunch money.” “What about that time you stole Sally’s pencil?”
That would be whataboutism. It avoids debating the act of stealing someone's lunch money, by instead charging hypocrisy.
Just using the words “what about” doesn’t make it whataboutism.
I used the words “what about” to ask about a subsection of speech: NDAs, National security, illegal content, etc., that is covered by OC's definition of what it means to censor speech. I'm not charging hypocrisy or avoiding disproving the argument, I'm examining OC's claim. In this case "What about" is used to examine pertinent edge cases, and isn't whataboutism.
For example, in a scenario where Bob (US government) has nuclear launch codes he wants to talk about and Sally (domestic terrorist) wants to hear what he has to say, should someone intervene and restrict Bob's speech? By OC's definition, if they do, that is censorship. OC's only conditions are two consenting parties.
> Face it: if you interfere between Sally who writes something she wants Bob to read, and Bob who wants to read what Sally wrote, that's censorship.
Others, like the Supreme Court prefer to say that free speech has limitations that are not covered by the 1st amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
> The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized several categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment and has recognized that governments may enact reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on speech
> Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment include obscenity (as determined by the Miller test), fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, and regulation of commercial speech such as advertising
So, in the case of two consenting parties discussing nuclear launch codes, OC calls that "censorship", but the Supreme Court says that the speech wasn't protected in the first place.
Ha! You are drinking straight from the hose pipe and having a hangover. Not having a Edit button was a strategic decision from Twitter and not a competency one. For the longest time, Facebook did not have Dislike button and still don't; sometime back, they added few options instead. It was their product vision that drove the decision behind their feature selections.
I have always wondered. Are there "projects" adjascent the core product that I'm not aware of? I can understand the infrastructure side of the work is pretty busy, but feature development and bugfixing don't require that many people even in a fast paced product development phase. What's everyone doing?
People on HN are great at making irresponsible claims and they are the clueless ones. You can bet that thousands of engineers there are very very busy.
He is anything but conventional, he is not there to go for low hanging fruit I don't think
2) "do a few sweeping changes, and get out. Thereby proving once again that he gets shit done where others can't. " I'm doubtful as a board member he'll have the influence to make material changes. More like a series of publicly visible things.
Twitter doesn't have an 'edit button' because they're incompetent, it's just an odd choice they've made, and I think there are good reasons there. And 'edit button' is not any kind of material change.
3) I'll bet the speech issue is on his radar.
On the whole, I don't see how musk really changes the nature of what Twitter is, it's a mature product.
> He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on @Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term. Welcome Elon!
I personally would like companies to be less ideological in general.
EDIT: By less ideological I mean less interference on behalf of an ideology. Allowing all legally covered free speech would be the minimum interference possible by a company but not necessarily the maximally profitable position. Some interference may actually be a good thing - I think many companies have gone too far. My problem with companies being ideological is that they are signaling a willingness to interfere that invites substantial pressure from third parties to do so which can cut both ways.
Well musk seems to want Twitter to follow the principles of open and free discourses with less moderation.
So it seems like there will be less forced top down moderation.
For example, would you call it ideological that the government does not arrest people for criticizing it?
Imagine if we compare 2 governments, 1 which arrests people for criticizing it, and another that doesn't. In the context of this comparison, the one that censors less people, most would call less ideological.
By ideological, people usually are talking about enforced ideology. So if you censor more people, then that is enforcing your ideology more, and if you have less censorship then that is less enforcement of ideology.
The idea that freedom primarily exists as a lack of compulsion is libertarian or neoliberal ideology. Your total freedom from censorship is somebody else's freedom to harass and send death threats - obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere or twitter devolves into 8chan, and oftentimes people call for a nebulous "free speech" or "anti-censorship" instead of specifying what particular speech is being censored that they think is legitimate. Moderation is essential on the internet.
If people think something is being censored and it shouldn't be, they should point to specific examples.
That is an ideology
> For example, would you call it ideological that the government does not arrest people for criticizing it?
Um, yes
Yes, technically it’s an ideological choice to NOT gather up various books at the public library and burn them. But in practice, it’s not ideological at all compared to doing the opposite.
No, in practice it's very ideological, but it falls into a the blind spot most people have for broad consensus ideology. People tend to recognize something as “ideological“ only when a large group strongly opposes the ideology in question.
(The Musk case is different from the analogy you present, though, because of the ideologically loaded way rhetorical appeal to “the principles of open and free discourses with less moderation“ is used in regard to internet fora by a political faction that actually supports intensified censorship of lots of things, but also happens to want to promote lots of things that various large platforms have decided they don't want to be a megaphone for.)
How so? How is it “very ideological” to NOT be burning the third book from the left on the first shelf in the library? Or the ninth one on the right. I don’t even know what’s in either and I spend roughly zero time thinking about my local library. I’m not even sure where the first shelf from the door is situated.
How is my (ongoing) choice NOT to walk over there and start burning a non-empty set of books “very ideological”?
I suspect if you were to enter the same library and light various books on fire, nobody hearing about your arrest would agree that you were no more ideological with respect to that library than I (or the billions of others who also did not chose to engage in that behavior).
Speech rules exist on a spectrum from total free speech where you can threaten to murder someone or continually harass them, to total control where everything you say must pass inspection (say, letters out from a classified military base). Any position on that spectrum has tradeoffs. If you ban Nazis you are being censorious but at the same time, providing space for the people that Nazis hate where they won't have their existence constantly challenged. If you ban fake news and one side of the political spectrum puts out more fake news than the other, that side will accuse you of political bias. Where you draw the line is not an objective decision, it's one based on what you value. That's an ideological decision. Brian Armstrong banning "politics at work" is because he is probably a libertarian rather than a progressive and would rather shut up the political people at work so he can focus on making money without having his actions criticised. Twitter allows politics at work because it was founded by liberals and they allow staff to criticise the direction of the company. 8chan refused to censor their platform for ideological reasons, twitter does censor their platform for ideological reasons. Does that clear it up for you?
I find this bit deeply unhelpful for the discussion.
It’s clear from your numerous comments on this story, that you have an axe to grind. My comment above was to highlight how it was repetitive and annoying as a reader of the thread.
It was not a request for a longer expanded version of the same talking points with a condescending swipe at the end.
Elon is a deluded billionaire who cares only about himself
This isn't "The Good Place" where an objective arbiter of the net good or bad we put out into the universe through our entire existence can be measured
Twitter is very ban-anything-that-doesn’t-comport-with-our-woke-worldview-and-call-it-hate-speech-or-disinformation. Also they selectively apply TOS against people they don’t like while regularly ignoring blatant TOS violations from people they like.
That may be true, but if ideology in moderation is what's killing twitter, that already exists, so it will be just as bad as it is now, just a different flavor I would think. People might not like the new flavor though, but for many people, it's already ruined by having any flavor at all.
I guess what I'm trying to say is if Musk just changes the flavor, it will just continue to suck. If he removes the flavor, it will be better for public discourse.
For example, if he stopped banning users who "misgendered" people on Twitter, but instead started banning those who "took God's name in vain", I would qualify that has imposing his own brand of ideology (just for the sake of argument I have no idea if he is religious or what his stance is on "gendering").
If, on the other hand, he stopped banning of users who "misgendered" people, and didn't replace that behavior with a ban on something he frowned upon, I would qualify that as "less ideological". Obviously in this day and age many authoritarians will argue that the absence of censorship is an ideology in itself, but I think most reasonable people can agree that overall, less censorship = less ideology.
The irony here is laughable.
I think those are good ideologies for a social media platform to have.
Until now, I think Twitter's not-so-slight political lean has been viewed as detrimental to the company (and public discourse).
I hope the people who work at Twitter and think it is OK to bring your politics to work go elsewhere. We would all benefit from platform where telling jokes that offend only the wokest doesn't get you banned and silenced.
“the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What the hell is water?'”
EDIT: Seems like a lot of disagreement with this, but would love to hear some compelling arguments to justify activist moderation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIwMIrj5Ulo
>I already am eating from the trashcan all the time. The name of this trashcan is ideology. The material force of ideology - makes me not see what I'm effectively eating. It's not only our reality which enslaves us. The tragedy of our predicament - when we are within ideology, is that - when we think that we escape it into our dreams - at that point we are within ideology.
In other words, what you think of as moderate and not ideological is a result of your ideology itself.
For a more thorough, very academic examination of ideology, I can recommend the book The Sublime Object of Ideology.
Zizek is very ironically an ideologue himself (a "Hegelian" in his words) and as such his version of the story only contains half the lesson -- that culture, which he calls ideology because he seemingly refuses to truly understand what ideology is, lest admit he is an ideologue, can blind members of that culture to certain things, but without addressing that culture and ideology have positive aspects as well.
The man is a neverending font of faux insight and obscurantism posturing as wisdom and this quote is no different from any other.
(and it seems that includes you based on how you contrasted "status quo" and "ideology" in the other comment, as if the status quo were somehow unideological)
Invariably, topics involving "ideology" are a trap for pedants. They think they're going to get a good "gotcha!" in, but they find themselves hoisted on their own petards.
People who want Twitter to be non-ideological in reality just want it to represent some other ideology instead, they don't get to hide behind some veil of neutrality.
Or am I misunderstanding?
In Saudi Arabia, death penalty for homosexuals would be considered moderate. They would consider your attitude toward free speech around the prophet radical.
What you consider moderate is always a result of your ideology. There is no objective moderate, there is only moderate within your ideology.
That's exactly what ideology is: It determines what you perceive as "normal" or "moderate".
Relative to your ideology.
You'd be tall in Nigeria relative to the median height.
You'd be a moderate in the US and a radical in Saudi Arabia relative to the prevailing ideology.
Incorrect, not relative to one’s ideology, but relative to the implicit political context (such as “US politics” or “Saudi politics”. If it were relative to each person’s own ideology, then everyone would identify as a moderate: “My ideology is moderate relative to my ideology”.
> You'd be a moderate in the US and a radical in Saudi Arabia relative to the prevailing ideology.
This is correct, but it contradicts your earlier claim that the definition of “moderate” is itself ideological. It’s contextual but not ideological.
The ideology is the context.
To a devout Muslim, the amount of freedom of speech we have around the prophet is radical.
To a leftist, the exploitation of laborers by the capitalist class is radical.
To the religious right, LGBT rights are radical.
To racists, race mixing is radical.
The only thing that makes it seem moderate to you is your ideology.
> To a devout Muslim, the amount of freedom of speech we have around the prophet is radical. To a leftist, the exploitation of laborers by the capitalist class is radical. To the religious right, LGBT rights are radical. To racists, race mixing is radical.
Yep, you're observing that "moderate" is a relative term. Different groups have different Overton windows.
> The only thing that makes it seem moderate to you is your ideology.
No, it doesn't matter what my ideology is, it matters what context we're talking about. That context is often implicit, but that doesn't mean the notion of "moderate" is ideological. If someone says "Joe is of median height", do you leap out from behind the bushes and yell "gotcha! 'median' is an ideological term! In Nigeria Joe is tall!"? That doesn't mean "median" is an ideological term, it means that it's dependent on the context, in which case the context is probably something like "whatever country Joe lives in".
Correct. Which attribute of the population though? Their height? Their skin color? Their weight? No, their ideology.
> Different groups have different Overton windows.
What is an Overton window if not a measure of ideology?
> No, it doesn't matter what my ideology is, it matters what context we're talking about. That context is often implicit, but that doesn't mean the notion of "moderate" is ideological.
That's exactly what ideology is, "implicit context".
Right, “moderate” refers to ideology, but that doesn’t mean the meaning of the word is ideologically determined as you’ve variously claimed.
> What is an Overton window if not a measure of ideology?
Absolutely, but this supports my point against yours.
> That's exactly what ideology is, "implicit context".
Yes, correct. Again, this is all compatible with my points.
I'm not even sure what the point you're trying to make is at this point. You've agreed that "moderate" is a term relative to ideology already, so what even is it you're arguing now? If it's relative to ideology, of course it's ideological, because your definition of "moderate" will change based on ideology.
Right, that was my point from the start. "moderate" isn't an ideology by itself. When we are in a US context (irrespective of whether someone is a US progressive or a US conservative), "moderate" refers to the propensity to hew somewhat closely to the US status quo. On the other hand, you've argued that "moderate" depends on a person's ideology, and people with normative American ideologies can't talk about Saudi moderates because "moderate" would be relative to normative American ideology--of course this isn't true because I'm an American and I just referenced Saudi moderate ideologies. "moderate" doesn't depend on my ideology or normative American ideologies, but the context which I've explicitly designated as "Saudi" but it may also be implicit.
> You've agreed that "moderate" is a term relative to ideology already, so what even is it you're arguing now?
Hah, "moderate is a relative term" was my position from the start, you've changed tack from arguing that the definition of moderate ("occupying any mainstream position avoiding extreme views and major social change") is inherently ideological--it's not. It's an adjective which describes ideologies, and it's relative to some context (e.g., US politics, European politics, etc), but the definition doesn't vary based on anyone's ideology contra your claim.
Combine that with the culture that understands free speech issues in this way more generally: less from a regard for the value of liberal discourse and more for the privilege of indulgent speech, related to the idea “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” but extended into the realm of stewardship or even ownership of an entire platform. This indulgent and degraded view of free speech is required in order to understand twitter as a repressive forum as a consequence of limits on things like some trans jokes and deadnaming or even advocacy of identity-focused violence, which can only feel like repression to someone who fundamentally has nothing else of value to say.
If that seems tired to you, I’d be happy to inject more vigor.
> To be much more specific: the idea that Twitter has a free speech problem is itself immoderate and ideological.
It's ideological in the sense that "free speech is desirable" is ideological. Arguing that it's "immoderate" implies that arguing for stronger free speech protections is radical, which is untrue.
> There is an unquestionably huge range of ideas that can be not only freely but rather aggressively expressed on twitter. There is a very narrow range of speech that is disallowed and even a considerable amount of that actually gets through.
I'm not going to die on the hill of "Twitter needs to be less censorious", but free speech proponents can still legitimately find Twitter problematic even if the censors allow a lot of wrongthink through. For example, Twitter can sort replies by ideology such that wrongthink is much less likely to be seen. It could hide wrongthink from various users altogether. Whether or not it actually does any of these is difficult to assess because there's no transparency.
> Combine that with the culture that understands free speech issues in this way more generally: less from a regard for the value of liberal discourse and more for the privilege of indulgent speech, related to the idea “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” but extended into the realm of stewardship or even ownership of an entire platform.
Yes, we have a broken epistemology, but this is the result of the politicization of institutions (especially by the left wing). Specifically, the left wing argues that because perfect neutrality and objectivity are impossible thus we should wholesale abandon the pursuit thereof and instead be doggedly (and ideologically homogeneously) activist. This predictably damages trust in the institutions which in turn drives people toward other institutions, many of which are less savory.
I don't want to follow any politicians, but that seems pretty obviously one sided. I wish people would just recognize that, and recognize that it isn't "right-wing" to do so.
It twitter recommended new users to follow Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, and those were the only recommendations they saw without clicking "view more", would anyone question whether that was biased or not?
I don't know how the recommendation engine works, but Barack Obama is the most followed account on twitter I think, so can see how they'd suggest that...
But if the recommendation engine is anything like their recommended tweets, I think they intentionally show you the other side always. I see tons of garbage view points that I don't agree with almost exclusively when I view a tweet. Without knowing anything about your tracking cookies and however else they 'enrich' what they know about you, it's tough to say why you got the recommendations you did. If you signed up based on a tweet from a democrat so you could engage by telling them they're wrong, maybe they assumed you like other democrats.
If your complaint is that Twitter is an outrage inducing platform by design, I would absolutely agree. But that isn't an ideological bent. It just wants you to engage, and the fastest and easiest method is to make you mad.
It’s not a bad thing, the same way that Fox News being conservative isn’t a bad thing. It just is what it is.
These are major news sites. News always has a bias. It’s important to identify, for one’s own sake.
It’s not even particularly hard to bias an AI algorithm. It’s arguably the default.
I don't think we can say with any honesty that Twitter is a clone of Fox's Three talking heads, comprised of a good looking moderator with a leftwinger, and a rightwinger duking it out.
Twitter has been censoring, moderating, editorializing, and shadow-banning a large amount of conservatives, Libertarians, and also, moderates/centrists, and leftwingers that are posting contrary to the establishment narratives.
By turning into more of an ideological echo-chamber it initiated the birth of conservative and other competitors, of which gettr appears to be leading the race with competitors like parler, truthsocial, gab, and others falling behind. Am surprised there are not shareholder lawsuits yet against Twitter's Officers for violating fiduciary responsibilities.
Maybe they are prioritizing influence over eyeballs & economics?
Perhaps because you're on the fringe.
If it were 2009, and Twitter was pushing Al Gore and ignoring George Bush, I'd see it differently. But it's 2022, and the toxic & polarizing aspects of many individuals make a perceived endorsement problematic for mainstream consumers.
Do you believe that Twitter's Terms of Service have an ideological bent?
Do you believe that Twitter's Terms of Service are being applied when they shouldn't against conservative politicians in France?
Do you believe that Twitter's Terms of Service are only used against Conservative politicians - and do you have examples of Tweets that were actioned for conservatives and counterexamples that were not actioned for liberal politicians?
Either way, my intention was to say: you can disable these quality filters, Twitter isn't forcing you down an ideology with no opt-out. On that note -- many of these are based on user reports: if accounts get too spammy they get put in "other replies", if they're regularly inflammatory they (might) be put in "other replies" + sensitive content, etc. But again, you can turn this filter off and see all replies together, media normally, etc.
That's a general theme with these 'I got banned, how overly sensitive!' stories. 95% of the time you don't need to scroll long until you find some genuinely vile stuff. I honestly cannot figure out how anyone who behaves even half-civilized ends up being banned by any of these platforms, it's kind of wild how much garbage you can post.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/medias/twitter-plusieurs-comptes-lie...
"By mistake", that's twitter's version of the story, so, there goes some new information for you, sorry if it's crushing your beliefs.
As for the long story: EZ was convicted for saying that most insecurity comes from immigrants, which is actually true when you look at the Calonge file - you just have to be part of the police or work in defense to see it, and France forbids ethnical statistics so people can't be made aware publicly about that, except by syndicalist cops such as Bruno Attal. The conviction is purely political and EZ should have appealed but he was just a journalist at the time and preferred to consider this conviction a medal of honnor.
Nonetheless, he didn't have twitter at the time, he has twitter since he's a candidate, and his account is completely clean, so is the GZ party's, but those were closed "by mistake" by twitter according to twitter itself, and since then, their content is systematically marked sensitive, for absolutely no reason.
Also EZ have made it very clear that he doesn't have that much problems when immigrants are white and christian (even recently when discussing immigrants from Ukraine) so it's not like he is really hiding that everything he says about immigrants is really about non white and Muslim people.
* Not exactly sure what insecurity means exactly. I feel it's often used to mean "the feeling ignorant people have when they see foreigners" in which case you might be right :)
Targetting delinquants is often seen as straight up racist, which kind of proves the point.
EZ is the Muslims’ best opportunity to separate the good from the evils, because many Muslims in France would like the bad ones to be convicted, which the current system prevents. Macron has instaurated a system that can be summarized as “Let’s free all Muslim criminals”, which does a lot of torts to all of them.
It's not a feeling, we have the data, it's just illegal to publish them in France because ethnical statistics are forbidden:
https://youtu.be/2tCmyi62yH0?t=416
In 2021, 1659 anti-religious acts were recorded in France, including 857 anti-Christian acts (52%), 589 anti-Semitic acts (36%) and 213 anti-Muslim acts (13%)
https://www.vie-publique.fr/rapport/284641-les-actes-antirel...
But yeah, go ahead and say we have a "feeling of insecurity because we are racist", I won't blame you, I've been doing the same for 15 years or so. Meanwhile, let me know if you want more data because I have tons. What, you want to talk demographics now ? ;)
Criminals with double nationality must be removed from the country, that'll already be a great improvement.
Hey Americans! Did you know police and firemen are assaulted every day somewhere in France? Here's for today
https://twitter.com/mvalet_officiel/status/15114494657812111... https://twitter.com/sbovodaa/status/1511682808439312393
Well Mr statistics, since you are offering, maybe you also the percentage of Christian/Jew/Muslim in France and, probably there are less Muslim than Christians which means they are more likely to be victims of anti religious acts? Was that your point?
I'm not sure it's really worth discussing more, I'm not going to convince you you got brainwashed by populists, you are not going to make me become racist or xenophobic, so we are just losing time and energy :)
Have a great rest of your day. I wish you to become less hateful in the future and to start loving all humans <3
Maybe there's still more christians in France, but certainly not twice less muslims than jews, France have 2 200 mosques and 500 synagogues (2019), so, go ahead and find another explanation :/
> Have a great rest of your day.
The day is not over, but so far my daughter is safe, let's see how's life for my people (whom you obviously don't love) today:
- a Congolese migrant raped a minor, 1 month after his release from prison, where he was incarcerated for... similar facts https://www.ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/le-mans-72000/l...
- In Saint-Denis (93), the attempt to close down an illegal African street restaurant turned into a riot: a pot was thrown, 2 policemen were injured: https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/saint-denis_93066/videos-jet-d...
- Melun (77) : tenants deprived of mail in the mailbox for one year... because of the dealers at the foot of their building: https://www.leparisien.fr/seine-et-marne-77/prives-de-courri...
- Canteleu (76) : police officers surrounded and attacked by several "young people", while they were trying to arrest the author of an attack with a baseball bat, the police car damaged https://www.cnews.fr/france/2022-04-06/seine-maritime-des-po...
- Reims: two illegal North African migrants are convicted, in recidivism, for assaults, including a rape reclassified as "sexual assault". https://abonne.lunion.fr/id358557/article/2022-04-06/deux-ag...
- Saint-Lô: judged for an umpteenth aggression, Abdelaziz Bengana, 56 years old, defends himself as usual... by accusing his victims of being racist https://www.lamanchelibre.fr/actualite-988164-saint-lo-ivre-...
- Bricquebec-en-Cotentin (50): on the occasion of an umpteenth trial, for umpteenth offenses, a 60-year-old Turkish migrant exposes his grievances and demands to France: https://www.lamanchelibre.fr/actualite-987764-bricquebec-en-...
> I wish you to become less hateful in the future and to start loving all humans <3
I've been saying exactly the same thing for 15 years, anyway, you're saying that I'm hateful but you don't have any argument to back it up, you're just defaming me because your arguments aren't worth anything, while I haven't said a hateful word, I'm just stating facts, so, I'll take it as a medal of honnor because this is exactly what EZ has been going through.
I haven't done anything, I only have love for my people who are victims here, I wish one day you love the victims who haven't done anything neither because so far you're just closing your eyes and not giving a fuck.
> you are not going to make me become racist or xenophobic, so we are just losing time and energy :)
I'm french from north africa so you're not playing that card with me, and I know what's coming to you, and you have no idea. It's not about being racist because it's not about race, it's about culture, it's about protecting our people, our children, which you obviously hate.
Anyway, one day it'll be your turn too, or the turn of someone you love, then we'll talk again, and then maybe, like me, you'll be ashamed of having closed your eyes for so long.
America has great immigration standards, in France we have absolutely none, we even pay them even if they enter our territory illegally, it's insane.
Americans reading this, come spend some time to visit paris and we'll see if you think it's become a shithole or if it's still what it used to be like, keep in mind murder attempts have tripled in the past 10 years, this is called an explosion of criminality. But some people like this guy are too rich to see it, I guess there are still some people who haven't any victim in their circle, but that's definitely not going to last, criminality is rising everywhere in France as they are spreading immigrants including illegals which France doesn't throw out anymore, no matter if they were leading genocides in rwanda (see other comment) or whatnot
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPrH4JLXwAEGWOM?format=jpg&name=...
That's not even true.
Source, liberal media:
> Son avocat se plaît d’ailleurs à rappeler qu’il dénombre au total «seize dossiers de poursuites, dont une seule condamnation définitive» contre son client.
Deepl: His lawyer likes to point out that he has a total of "sixteen prosecutions, of which only one is a final conviction" against his client.
https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/combien-de-fois-eric-zem...
And for the first prosecution, he didn't appeal, see the other comment for the reason.
The only conservative candidate is Pécresse, and she is not “sensitive”, because she’s never been convicted for hate speech or inciting violence.
He’s an inconsistent hypocrite and there’s zero evidence that’s been presented to make me believe this move is coming from a sincerely held belief that isn’t “what’s best for Elon is the right thing”
Edit: fixed autocorrect of “and” back to “an”
While I am not claiming that you personally are guilty of this, musk stans always seem like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth whenever they defend musk’s comments on free speech and jump back and forth on whether they are using the “protection from government action” definition or the “protection from condemnation of other private individuals and companies” definition
Not that I entirely agree with him on this topic. IMHO Twitter has the right to delete whatever they want and ban whoever they want.
But he's not trying to force the change through law/government. He bought a stake and got on the board and wants to change the rules of the platform itself from there - that's a way I respect.
That means nothing to me. He says lots of things and then does the opposite.
Having come from a quasi socialist dictatorship and being a foreign born Hispanic ,I would fight for the right of the racist idiots to post there idiotic comments. You fight ignorance with education and rational debate, not with censorship.
It appears that Elon wants to treat Adults as Adults and let them make up their own minds. Unless you are bad at adulting this shouldn't be a negative, but a positive. Let me make up my own mind and don't have a Corporate Oligarch and a Gov't riddled with conflict of interest spoon feed me or use group think bullying to shape society based on Tech Oligarch morality and political believes.
If anyone has become radicalized its the tech oligarch, hollywood, MSM and BOTH the democrat and republican party.
They do nothing but promote hatred , intolerance, and violence among the people in order to keep them fighting with each other.
If humans were rational, that might be true, but humans aren't rational. Studies, and just looking at people's response to social media, have shown this.
Try changing someone's opinions with facts, and it will usually fail, but systematically post a bunch of fake content on social media, and many people will literally be willing to ruin their lives or even die over it.
But for me it's now clear he's not a good person by any mean. He's filthy rich and not anywhere close to satiation, now he's throwing his money at twitter "to defend freedom of speech". That's gross, he's obviously after more control over twitter to better push his personal agenda. I don't pretend to know what it is, but it's certainly not about human rights, freedom of speech or democracy...
Again with the mind reading. You might be right by the way. It’s not like I’m an Elon Musk fan boy or Trump fan boy. But you have no idea what’s going on in other people’s heads. They might be better people than your hallucinations, or they might be substantially worse people. Those of us outside of their brains simply don’t know.
I'm really concerned with that current mood of not "taking sides"... At some point you have to say what you stand for. And acknowledge that Trump is miles away from that, assuming you stand for human rights, democracy, honesty, ...
Or maybe he actually, somehow, stand for those values. Then he does a so bad job at promoting them that he's still harmful. Why are people so quick to say "we don't know" regarding Trump, and then "but Biden sure is doing a terrible job".
Something sounds off.
More hallucinations
Mind reading.
Strange post when Russia is currently committing genocides, something I don't think Tesla has ever done!
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-elon-musk-ruthlessly-f...
https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board...
Edit: not all of these are about employees. He has attempted to get an anonymous stock analyst fired from their job due to a negative evaluation of Tesla stock.
So your logic here is that because he fired subversive or insubordinate employees he will do the same on Twitter?
this is the behaviour of a free speech absolutist? https://www.fastcompany.com/90208132/elon-musk-allegedly-sil...
I don't doubt that if he thinks he can get away with it, he'll censor information on twitter that is harmful to the finely-crafted PR narratives he likes to make about himself and his companies. Like those battery fires and autopilot unforced/spontaneous crashes.
Because it’s just a catchy phrase that sounds good on paper.
What’s a “free speech absolutist” position on spam, NDAs, calls to violence, libel, national security, fraud, false advertising, copyright infringement, personal privacy, etc.?
I don’t know of any country, platform or person that follows an “absolutist” philosophy on free speech within any reasonable definition of the word “absolute”.
Everyone is a “free speech exceptionist”, it’s just varying degrees of exceptions.
++
Exceptions for me, but not for thee!
"What are your thoughts on false advertising laws?"
"That's fine, because fraud is a crime and therefore not speech"
People have bucketed "things I think should be legal" as "speech" and "things I think should be illegal" as "not speech" and then this makes it trivial to say that all speech should be legal because the definition is circular.
Conservative or liberal criticism, real or imagined, doesn't matter since they just want to keep pushing the stock price up.
during a factory visit over issues with the Model X's
window. When a worker on the assembly line proposed a
solution, Musk lit into the worker's manager.
"This is totally unacceptable that you had a person working
in your factory that knows the solution and you don't even
know that," Musk reportedly said before firing the head of
the factory.
Story I heard from a friend was of a CEO who asked a janitor if he used their store and if not why. He replied that he needed size Y of a product to efficiently store in his cupboard, size X was too small and Z too large. For months he hounded the department and forced negative performance reviews on them because there was no good way to provide Y with their current supplier. They ultimately switched to a different inferior supplier because of it (the brand the janitor normally brought) and lost several good employees in the process. They got a lot of negative feedback from customers from the switch and their revenue on the product went down.
If I'm in a meeting with some higher-ups above my boss and I have some suggestion to a process I think may help the company out and relay my thoughts, my boss should be fired because I can think for myself? Completely idiotic.
(Note this is assuming it doesn't involve anything controversial, office politics etc, just a suggestion based on my observations that I think could help the company overall).
Tho I've got very mixed assessment of Elon Musk, he's right in this case.
At the moment that you first think of the solution and mention it, your boss should not be fired.
However, this was not that situation.
But, from the above description alone, we know that there was a known problem, and that the employee had enough time to think about it and present it to Musk. One of two things happened. The manager had failed to put out a request like "we have problem X, please bring all ideas for solutions", and/or the employee had previously described the idea and been ignored up the chain of command.
Either of those are cause for a decision of "I now fail to see why we should allow you in our plant, nevermind paying you to be here.".
One of the most basic jobs as a manager is to identify problems, seek solutions and implement them. If the answer had been something like: "yes, he brought the solution to us yesterday, implementation will require P, D, and Q, and we expect to have it into production by next week", I'm sure Musk would have been fine with it.
"1. Email me back to explain why what I said was incorrect. Sometimes, I’m just plain wrong!
2. Request further clarification if what I said was ambiguous.
3. Execute the directions."
Failure to perform one of the three actions would result in termination, Musk noted.
That said, the twitter nonsense is getting a bit much. When he wanders into anything outside his zones of expertise, he's a disaster.
I don't know if someone should be fired over that, but then again, a firing is a pretty potent warning to others not to commit the same offense.
Had the employee even brought that up to the manager before? Had they had the idea for a long time and didn't bring it up? If so, why not - does the manager foster a culture where collaboration isn't encouraged? If that's the case, does the manager not do that simply out of ineptitude, or because that's the same culture coming down from above him/her? Maybe the individual just had the idea that morning? That week? The very moment it came out of their mouth, even? Has the manager had a stellar tenure up to that point, or a rocky one? How severe was the issue pre-fix that it warranted this termination? I could go on and on.
Point being, two sentences saying, "An employee had an idea and Musk fired his boss because he didn't know about that idea," is typically not going to be enough for us to say, "Oh yeah, that was a good/bad call".
To learn you need ‘contact with the ground’: Actually, you cannot separate anything from contact with the ground. And the contact with the real world is done via skin in the game-having an exposure to the real world, and paying a price for its consequences, good or bad.
I'd suggest reading one of the books by Sidney Dekker. The last thing you want to institute is a culture of fear surrounding surfacing problems. Every other manager in that factory just got a loud and clear signal to lock down their staff and suppress awareness of any problem that might get them axe'd.
There are things that justify firing on the spot, but these are generally malicious, criminal, etc acts. Short of that no matter the fuckup treating firing as something done by whim of the CEO is very corrosive.
The goal of liberty is freedom under common rules. Rules may exist but it need to apply and enforced equally. The trouble is that no one seems to want to have such rules when they themselves get effected, and so people want to carve out exceptions to common rules in order to return to Freedom for me, not for thee.
Let's not just throw up our hands and say that freedom is never sincere and there's nothing we can do.
For instance, the Constitution has been successful at maintaining many important rights, some of which are quite rare in the world.
Every time people suggest that social websites should operate on such rules, ie laws, people throw up our hands and say that laws don't work, or that there must be exceptions because the world is unfair and wrongs need to be addressed.
Its a very difficult problem to solve since in general people really do not want to be in a system where rules are common and get enforced equally. That it happens to be the only thing that actually work is just part of the problem.
Reconciliation should be the goal of any debate (at least in the political sphere)
He wants Twitters algorithms to be open, but his cars must stay closed.
Requesting anything of him is anti-freedom then he projects at others how they could do better in the same contexts.
He’s like a crazy TV Lenny salesman who has never actually invented anything net new. He’s playing the acquisitions of other people work game to prop up his preference to not work.
Normal humans should not be given extreme leverage over other normal humans. Lie to me about “free markets” but as one of the 13% with and advanced degree, mine being in math, the average person has no ability to smell through his BS in detail, but they have a gut sense he’s just another used car salesman.
Lol, literally nobody invented anything new by this metric.
Elon musk is more analogous to Stebe Jobs, primarily a businessman with some engineering backgrund.
Then there is the whole controversy of tesla being funded by two guys, him being an investor and forcing them out of the company.
I suspect he has achieved more than you ever will.
Musk isn't an engineer, he has no engineer credentials and isn't licensed to engineer in any country. Moreover, Musk has never engineered anything.
Given the fact that both companies hire hordes of real, licensed and credentialed engineers, says that, yes, the engineers at both companies are responsible for the hard engineering work.
I prefer to stick with actual facts and not feelings or insults. I'm not sure why stating the basic fact that Musk is not an engineer would upset you so much.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/elon-musk-ceo-is-made-up-tit...
He doesnt have an engineering degree, that doesnt mean a whole lot anyways.
Nothing you stated can be backed up by anything real - all of it is taken directly from leftists twitter headlines that are more concerned with moral grandstanding then facts.
It is not chear to me that this person is left wing, they sinply dislike Musk.
I do not recommend you go around accusing everyone of being left wing - otherwise peiple might start asking:
Is asking that you practice what you preach leftwing these days?
Is being a two-faced lyer a concervative value?
Really I just don’t think anyone should be above the real hands on work of supporting their existence.
Term limits for these roles should be explicit, not a game of they who can possess the most minds the longest wins.
The promise of human colonization of all of space time is still a high minded fantasy which makes this “hype/gossip my way to wealth” seemed designed to intentionally manipulate the same basal biology religion accidentally latched onto.
Who knows, maybe rockets to Mars are all wrong and we should be doing something completely different; information doesn’t need to just travel in a ship, but Star Trek seems to live long and prosper in his head.
>”Is asking that you practice what you preach leftwing these days? Is being a two-faced lyer a concervative value?”
Now this is just playing dirty. This is a rhetorical cheap shot combined with moral grandstanding while also being nakedly partisan at the same time.
For years I used to be a fan of both Elon and Steve jobs, but when I learn about how Jobs treated his child or the 'diver saving kids in a cave is a pedo' incident, I have to conclude that they are shitty people.
I can imagine how a man forces another man out of a company, offers him a rotten deal or even robs him at gunpoint.
I cannot understand how a man abandons his child in poverty. The degree of irresponsibility required to live with yourself, to me is incomprehensible.
Elon's 'pedo incident' is simpler - he tried to butt in into a rescue mission with a submarine PR project, made a fool of himself, and instead of admitting his mistake has displayed infantilism and self control of a moody teenager. He could have shown at least some respect to the diver that has saved many lives. So maybe not irredeemable, but does not sound like someone you'd invite over for dinner.
Maybe it's not their fault, maybe the flaw is in our society and when you become super rich and people line up in a mile long-queue to kiss your ass, it starts messing with your head and you really start to believe that the sun shines out of your arsehole and other people are lesser to you, the ubermench. Thats just a hypothesis.
I know right wing people who hate both of them, reasons vary: disrespecting family values, pushing green agenda, whatever.
But sometimes you dislike a person because they are a shitty person, and it has to do with their action, not political leanings.
From him not unionizing his companies.
From the officially documented history of his business acquisitions where he bought up business that already existed.
This approaching 1984 level double speak. It’s the lack of effort that speaks to his motives. Where is the code for his machines that can choose to plow into us? But somehow Twitters algorithm is super important.
Edit: tacking on his desire to burn up fossil fuels on rockets while the UN is announcing we’re firmly on track to an unlivable ecosystem. We are not optimizing human economics but Elon’s.
Musk has a very high IQ. Unionizing his company would be a very dumb decision.
Strawman.
I have a very high iq; in a past life I designed power switching machines and high performance boards for Nortel. Also that’s an appeal to higher authority.
Also these companies are pretty data driven through automation; big banks are run from 2GB excel sheets. It’s just people doing math and the ones doing best also happen to have political tradition on their side.
Musk is still just one man.
It’s almost as if humans will work to enrich each other and the numbers game is artificial political semantics; millionaires appear in both constructs!
At least I can vote and discuss openly union operations.
Not so with Papa Elon. The outputs of labor are his preferred targets.
Why does humanity keep doing this?
Oh and governments serve at the will of the people which seems fine with the status quo. I’m not expecting much movement there. Any improvement on Main Street has to occur within politics as usual which means deflating Elon for change.
It’s really sus to suggest his vision for the far future is possible given he sits right at the same edge of discovery we do. “Outlook uncertain” for that far down the road is the only honest answer. Especially when “build rockets to nowhere” and even EV production are exacerbating industrial feedback loops threatening the species.
Diversity in thought leadership is good, imo.
Given that the IP in question includes whatever solution Tesla adopts for the trolley problem, there certainly is a clear difference. Twitter's algorithm is for arguing about, Tesla's algorithm is going to be directly the cause of death for someone (arguably, it already has).
The truth is the opposite - not only will cars never make a "trolley problem" decision (because the only thing they should be doing is braking), it would be immoral to give them the capability, because it might decide it's in a trolley-problem scenario at the wrong time and randomly decide to sacrifice you.
In fact self-driving cars normally change lanes as part of their path finding. So a failure to change lanes in an emergency would be unusual.
Disagreement over the correct behavior will result in lawsuits of course. "It should have attempted to miss me!" vs "It should have stayed in it's lane!"
We'll need legislation to settle this, for insurance purposes at the very least.
If the brakes turn out not to work, that is quite the problem, but hopefully it'll notice in time to not accelerate in the first place. Maybe it can still engine brake.
Action A: kill N people, including occupant
Action B: kill M people, not including occupant
Both pathways are predictable. Which one do you choose?
ps. solve for: N == M, N > M, N < M
Your problem isn't real because the car doesn't exist in a logical world with N or M discrete things, it exists in a real world where it can be mistaken about what's happening outside it. Letting it make choices like that would have a bad outcome if it hallucinates (occupant+1) grandmas in front of it and decides to heroically sacrifice itself and you.
> But if any self-driving car out there steers to avoid collision, then it is already facing the 'trolley problem'.
Even the tweet you've cited says:
> there is nothing in the street which you want to collide with. the correct response in every case is to evade the thing that's in the street.
(emphasis mine)
So braking is clearly not the only option.
I truly hope that you do not work on software or hardware that is in any way close to areas like this. You seem completely blind to the real world issues that driving (among other things) forces onto a system. Cars have brakes and steering wheels. Any real world system will use a combination of the two of them to try to keep the occupants and those outside the vehicle safe. Pretending that there will never be situations where there are conflicting choices to be made is ... well, I just find it unbelievable that anyone reading HN could try to deny that there will be situations like this.
I should point out that the guy I linked is an AI lawyer, so the replies aren't actually as valuable input in this case… also, I think he uses "evade" to mean "not hitting something" so braking still counts.
I've had other discussions with literal self-driving car company engineers where they told me it's not a real problem as usually defined. Though I can't link those, here's one where someone asks the Aurora people about it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q1fsvz/we_are_chris_u...
> So braking is clearly not the only option.
It's the best option because you're not the only moving thing on the street. Braking in response to a car in front of you is normal, but evasive maneuvers at speed aren't. You don't know what other people are going to do in response to that.
Oh, but I will let you turn or reverse as long as you signal first. I just don't think you should do it at speed with no warning even in a "least bad option" situation.
> You seem completely blind to the real world issues that driving (among other things) forces onto a system.
Sorry for being a theoretical murderer, but you weren't talking about real world issues, you're talking about a trolley problem! That's defined as:
- there's 2+ discrete paths you can take. (semi-true for cars)
- there really is something on each path you'll hit. (semi-true, in reality they'd react to you in good and bad ways)
- your knowledge about this is correct. (not true, SDCs' world-knowledge is not perfect)
- you are going fast enough to be dangerous. (semi-true, SDCs will drive at safe speeds more often)
- you must go forward. (not true, SDCs can brake or reverse)
#3 and #5 being the big problems making this unrealistic.
Maybe a real world problem would be driving on a mountain road and there's a boulder about to fall on you? In that case, I agree braking would not be safe.
Maybe this will remind liberals to be, well, liberal. I've seen too many "liberals" who had credibility before lose it all by using illiberal tactics.
Now, see what happens when not-so-woke people start taking over the boardroom and using the same tactics. And then there's no more "but free expression is the heart of America" defense. It'll be "they are private companies and can do what they want on their platform... just like you said".
And it's all so predictable.
No comment on how much of a free speech warrior he is when he's dealing with employees or reporters or cavers that he dislikes.
The ideology in question is "Anything that is good for Elon Musk is good."
That's pretty much all there is to it. There's no rigour to it, there's no intellectually sound foundation, there are just things that serve his bottom line, and those that hurt it.
jokes which offend the Woke liberals is not a problem on the same scale, though it is certainly annoying. there is a censor-leaning thoughtcrime segment among some liberals but again, that is NOT an imminent danger to democracy, humanity, climate etc
Can you point out what is, in your personal opinion, the best example you have of Twitter's "not-so-slight political lean" and how you interpret it as "detrimental to the company (and public discourse)"?
Nobody spends $4 billion to create a public forum or to defend free speech. You spend that kind of money for influence or to push an agenda. What his agenda is, who knows. I'm a fan of elon and maybe he is an outlier, but I'm not holding my breath. There was a time when everyone from google to facebook to reddit and even twitter all supported free speech. People forget that twitter was once a very pro-free speech platform. Everything from war footage to politics of all sides was available on twitter at one point.
> I hope the people who work at Twitter and think it is OK to bring your politics to work go elsewhere.
It's generally not the employees. Most tech employees are apolitical at work or against the woke culture. It's just that C-suite/HR gives protection to the tiny vocal minority espousing politics at work.
> We would all benefit from platform where telling jokes that offend only the wokest doesn't get you banned and silenced.
We would all benefit if every platform allowed people to have their say. Regardless of how "offensive" you find them to be.
This is going in my childrens' book: "Why high paid employees need a union!"
sed -e 's/tech//' -e 's/or against/and could not begin to define what is meant by/' -e 's/woke culture/"woke culture"/g'Well, Twitter's stock price has already gone up, so in a way he hasn't spent anything. Getting the cash to buy the shares in the first place probably involved a lot of capital gains though.
> We would all benefit from platform where telling jokes that offend only the wokest doesn't get you banned and silenced.
Bring action items. Who was banned for "telling a joke". Bring something substantial to the conversation to discuss.
There’s a quite good podcast about this exact question, Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket.
That's an ideology. Whether or not it's a good one can be a topic of debate, but phrasing it as not being an ideology puts a finger on the scale of the debate right from the start.
There is similarly a non-ideological answer to "should I steal bread to feed my family?" It involves tradeoffs like:
* what will happen if I steal this bread? Could I get caught and therefore no longer be able to provide for my family? What effect will it have on myself and on society?
* what will happen if I don't steal the bread? Is there any other way to provide food for my family? Can I accept their death as a consequence for obeying a moral law?
You weigh the tradeoffs, risks, and expected outcomes, then make a decision for yourself, which may or may not be the right answer for your specific situation and may or may not generalize to other situations or other people.
As Jordan Peterson says: " Ideologues are the intellectual equivalent of fundamentalists, unyielding and rigid."
And also: "Beware, in more technical terms, of blanket univariate (single variable) causes for diverse, complex problems."
Your definition of ideology may differ from that, but in practice, I find that when we call someone an ideologue today, or refer to an ideology, it is always a false narrative-based over-simplification of the world.
Thomas Sowell is a fiscal conservative whose ideology boils down to "individual decisions are primarily responsible for divergent outcomes". Jordan Peterson is a Christian conservative, all his advice might as well be Bible citations. He also knows nothing except ideological positions when it comes to criticising the left wing; he loves the term "postmodern neomarxist" despite those terms being completely contradictory.
1) I didn't claim to be free of ideology. How's your reading comprehension?
2) There's nothing funny about quoting two people that are probably both smarter and wiser than you in order to make a good and valid point.
> There is similarly a non-ideological answer to "should I steal bread to feed my family?"
> proceeds to describe their own thought process
you didn't even engage with the ideological elements of the question. Is it right to redistribute property if the need is greater elsewhere? Does the right to survive override the right to property? What if violence is necessary to take the bread? You just treated it like a personal cost-benefit analysis of a single instance.
2: yes there is. The fact that you consider them to be authorities on non-ideological positions is the funny part.
I engaged with the question and responded, essentially, "there may not be a universally right answer to your question." I just didn't respond the way wished I would.
And, in general, I would say it's not ok to forcefully take property because you made the judgement that the property would be better used in your hands, but I won't say there are no exceptions to that. Again, life is complex. Abandon ideology.
2. I think you are overdue for some humble self-reflection.
2. humble self-reflection isn't going to lead me to think that Sowell and Peterson are authorities on non-ideology. But the tiniest bit of research into the criticism of them might lead you to understand the flaws in their positions. I would know: I used to think Jordan Peterson was great and his tirades against the postmodern neomarxists was him defending western liberalism against university indoctrination and crybullies or whatever. Then I grew up, read some books, actually thought about my internal unchallenged opinions.
> Again, life is complex. Abandon ideology.
Seems to be in direct conflict with this comment you made earlier:
> I find that when we call someone an ideologue today, or refer to an ideology, it is always a false narrative-based over-simplification of the world.
The idea of abandoning ideology is it's own ideology, no?
And again, I never claimed to be free of ideology. At the same time, you haven't done anything to pin down my ideological constraints.
Most of what you're parroting seems to be from JP anyways.
1) has major health problems
2) changes his diet and immediately sees those health problems go away.
3) gets mocked online by complete strangers.
Human bodies are so complex and variable. What works for one person's health may not work for another. If you are blessed to find something that works for you, be grateful and humble, and don't automatically assume what you know applies equally to everyone else. Also, "science" is not even close to settled on the subject of nutrition as it applies to individuals.
I think that would quality under beacon's idea of a more "nuanced" ideology, rather than something hard/fast (eg: a Marxist narrative dividing people into capital owners and non-owners).
At this point if anyone thinks that vaccine debate is ideological, I don't think we will change each others mind in either way, but I'm just curious if there are any examples.
As far as I can tell that is the one and only piece of controversy. They banned Trump.
I've never seen this suggested, certainly not in any official communication by the relevant parties.
It would be a weird evidentiary standard to construct highly complex, even far out defenses, for someone accused of dubious conduct that must be defeated when they won't even put their own credibility on the line in arguing them themselves.
> They're free to delete any emails they like
Absolutely, but that doesn't do anything to answer validated emails which are concerning on their own, in isolation.
Note before it was "found" there was already a pseudonymous report written about some of its contents.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/how-fake-persona-laid-...
…and a related party stole Ashley Biden's diary and published it with another fake backstory a bit later. But they've actually been indicted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-...
In these examples not only was the material hacked, its further disclosure is a crime. By comparison, the disclosure of the hunter biden material was completely lawful, as far as we're able to tell right now. The material was also easily verified to be legitimate, at least in part-- since the google DKIM on the messages passed. You won't find pretty much any other hacked material reporting that twitter allowed to spread that could be cryptographic authenticated.
It's why twitter shut down accounts sharing the dump of Epik (right wing wingnut friendly domain registrar), or personal information extracted from it... oh wait, they didn't (well they didn't shut down a few accounts calling for violence against people in it, just not one merely propagating the hacked information).
It's why they shut down Suddeutsche Zeitung when they published their reporting on the Panama Papers... oh right, yet again. They didn't.
I could keep going, -- there is a lot of journalism that comes from hacked documents.
Can you give a single prior example of high profile reporting on hacked materials where twitter suppressed the media outlet and discussion of the subject? -- I'm earnestly interested.
You can't hack something you own. The whole "hack" thing is such a stupid narrative yet people cling to it - probably because there is no other defense for what was on the laptop.
My point was that even if you accept that clearly false premise, the claim is still bogus: the media and members of the general public routinely share actual hacked information (as well as other material which is unlawful to distribute, such as people's tax returns) via twitter's platform without much fear of account suspension over it and did both before and after the hunter biden laptop incident.
If you try to express a dissenting opinion at that organization, even as an attempt to refine that opinion, you get kicked out. You made someone uncomfortable.
Taking a spiked metal baseball bat to that beehive is the way to deal with it. Whether it will be better? Unlikely, just different
https://investor.twitterinc.com/corporate-governance/board-o...
Can Musk keep his board seat? That is my question, being an unruly character when you don't have full control usually gets you turfed from a board for violating confidences pretty quickly, but IDK.
He is the largest shareholder.
Are you saying that the price bump will keep him on the board? The fear of a drop will keep him on the board? I can see that, but in the long run the valuation shouldn't be affected unless he is actually a good member of the board.
The short answer was that yes, because investors will believe he will add value and so will keep him on the board. And investors are the ones that decide.
Separately, it's possible this was done as part of a non-aggression pact.
If he kills the stupid pop-over login box that's supposed to force me to make an account I'll call that lasting value.
https://hbr.org/2016/04/if-theres-only-one-woman-in-your-can...
There are more CEOs of large U.S. companies who are named David (4.5%) than there are CEOs who are women (4.1%) — and David isn’t even the most common first name among CEOs. (That would be John, at 5.3%.)
If you have some links that prove otherwise I’d love to see them!
How to maneuver into this position? Maybe you could get hired to an important role at an organization with an unstable CEO, and make sure that you are friends with everyone and don't piss anyone off. Then wait for the CEO to lose their shit completely.
He probably won't have much of a choice in the matter
Could you be a bit more specific? What direction do you think the change will be in?
Nevertheless, he is still a minority shareholder. How much power can he really have at board level?
Will that account that tacks his plane continue tracking his plane?
> eh wow lol
or something to that effect
Why does a critic make Twitter stronger? And why is that needed?
Elon's business track record is hard to ignore though.
But I do not believe Elon in of himself can really resolve Twitter's ills (by my subjective assessment). Twitter and other social networks are ultimately reflections of parts of humanity. Us humans have our biases and our drives that don't just go away. You can obviously (and should) tweak the product to incentivize more productive dialog, but you can't overwrite our biases/drives/distribution of competencies by updating Twitter.
Personally, I view these social networks as mirrors, revealing parts of our humanity as it currently is. A lot of us don't like what we see, and we fixate strictly on the mirror, suggesting it's strictly the mirror's fault for displaying the unflattering image.
Social media is a mirror in the same way that baseball is a mirror. Individual personalities are tested and the fact we're playing it is because we're human, but the rules of baseball are not the rules of life. When we're playing baseball we're doing something very different from when we're relating to each other or spending time together.
Twitter is a social game, and distorts the behavior of its participants. Its a fun house mirror, not a reflecting pool.
Twitter is "relating to each other or spending time together" to a much larger extent, even though some people are using it as a game or (more commonly) a business.
I think people outside the SV bubble (I grew up there, don't live there anymore) don't realize how hated and despised their censorship policies really are. Musk has his pulse on that, so I'm happy to see him step in and shake up the group think.
The ideological complex has not allowed anyone to rise. That's the issue. Even neutrality is considered distasteful.
The furthest ~25% on the left and right have an increasingly extreme, partisan, borderline psychotic view of the world that you're either with us or against us. That polarization has become radically more aggressive over the past decade.
Just to use a simple example: someone might might say it's not enough to not oppose men becoming women and dominating female swimming/sports (neutrality), you must support it. Anything else and you're an "enemy" and not an "ally." The left in particular has created an increasingly large vocabulary designed to polarize and split the population and draw lines between people (either or lines).
(this is extreme sarcasm, for those that can't tell)
Someone in support of trans men and women being able to compete would take issue with:
* “men becoming women” — transitioning doesn’t change your gender, it only aligns your outward appearance to the gender you have always been.
* “dominating female sports” — the whole point of the opposing view is specifically that trans women don’t dominate sports.
You’ve twisted it in such a way that even accepting the premise of your “neutral” statement is already super political.
Here’s a real neutral stance that would be accepted by people on both sides of this particular issue.
“I’m not qualified to have an opinion on this matter, the decision is best left to the athletic clubs and people more knowledgeable about the effects of HRT.”
Is that really true? There's a growing body of evidence that "the gender you have always been" doesn't really apply as a general case. For example: detransitioners, autogynephiles, abusive parents attempting to 'trans the gay away' in their kids, and so on.
Of course there are people who also report having felt like their dissonant gender identity for as long as they remember, and will for the rest of their lives. But this is not universal.
Seems there are many reasons why one may decide on transitioning, and not all of them are positive.
I think at some point it becomes a little bit semantics. If you transition for reasons other than your dissonance or because you suffer from dysphoria then you’re probably gonna have a bad time. And if you’re forced to transition by abusive parents or government you’re gonna cause dissonance or dysphoria.
Detransitioners are an interesting case because while it’s absolutely possible for people to be wrong the majority of cases of people doing it are because of external factors like violence, discrimination, and unsupportive friends and family. However, there are lots of safeguards to keep people from making mistakes. You need the sign off from a doctor, two psychologists, and have to be living as your post-transition gender for at least a year to get reassignment surgery, HRT is broadly speaking reversible, nobody is giving HRT at all to kids, teens only get puberty blockers until they and their doctors are sure, and adults still have to go through an interview. This process is supposed to catch autogynephiliacs (although this terminology is really really dated) and I suppose someone could lie their way into getting reassignment but that’s on them then.
So yeah, I think we’re basically in agreement. I think a better way to say it so it’s universal is “transitioning doesn’t change your gender.” A gay woman forced to transition against her will is still a woman, a man who detransitions because it doesn’t alleviate problems misidentified as dysphoria is still a man, and a trans woman is and always has been a woman.
I do, however, have some family members that demand I actively oppose this, and get very mad when I profess neutrality.
- Claim that Twitter is a private corporation and its their rules (Btw, you can check my history in 2020 where I did support purge of Trump from social media, but I am now comtemplating).
- But, anyone who starts a new platform (let's assume similar to r/conservative which is absolutely not neo-nazi or fascist), gets intense pushback from the existing incumbents not with market forces, but rather with censorship, algorithms, political and misinformation driven opposition.
So now we have public square that enjoys monopolistic powers (yes, government officials exclusively publishing on Twitter. Your tax money cannot buy a platform where you can listen to the constitutuents that you voted for), but also prevents incumbents from rising through political proxies that I mentioned earlier.
This is scary.
>But, anyone who starts a new platform (let's assume similar to r/conservative which is absolutely not neo-nazi or fascist), gets intense pushback from the existing incumbents not with market forces,
Not with market forces? You mean to say that censorship is what is actually holding Gab back from mainstream adoption? This sentiment has always been incredibly myopic. I don't know why American conservatives are always surprised when their flavor of politics aren't popular. For some reason Europe and the rest of the West, who are farther left than Americans, cease to exist and the reasons why sites like Gab aren't huge is because of censorship.
I also just don't see the widespread censorship of conservative opinions that you do. JK Rowling is still there with her TERF views (which I actually largely agree with). Jordan Peterson is still there denying the predominant view on human-caused climate change. r/conservative; nobody wants to censor this or anything like it. Bret Weinstein is still there spreading his Covid vaccine misinformation. Donald Trump got kicked off after repeated ToS violations. Far-leftists also get kicked off (I know they recently shut down a bunch of far-left subreddits) and you don't see that because of your echo chamber.
Or Ukraine or many other countries. Not sure why you singled out Russia specifically.
However, if you are just watching corporate media you're not getting the full picture either. CNN and Fox News have very similar opinions on non-culture war issues.
"Elon will improve Twitter by expanding freedom of speech on the platform"
https://twitter.com/NarrativesProj/status/151139309757754574...
I will put $100 down right now that if you did a statistically significant, unbiased, controlled, representative sample of verified Twitter users - as in people you can provably show are actual human beings - you'll find the majority are left-leaning.
Oh wait, I don't have to, Pew Research Group already did it...
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
Facebook is a different animal because more than half the planet uses it, and what we consider "left" or "right" as Americans is dramatically different than what other nations would consider "left" or "right" or "liberal" or "conservative".
Verified means the account is authentic and of public interest. It doesn't guarantee that you are a person and further, the vast, vast majority of real people on twitter aren't verified.
as for the pew survey, it isn't controlling for many of the things that we know correlate with political affiliation, it is just reporting them as isolated facts. Just education and age would likely explain the delta in political affiliations within that survey. [1]
Sure this doesn't change the fact that the slight majority is Dem-Leaning, but it should raise serious doubt that its because of bias on the part of twitter instead of just plain old demographics of the internet.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-...
These concedes the point that Twitter users are liberal on average.
The true dialogue in America is happening amongst center-left vs. far-right ideologies.
Far left is the opposite of far right, for which we can all point to many of them that have been banned from twitter.
So, I'll refine my question with an example from the list: who is the Anders Breivik of the left?
People care because censorship does affect how they build their real lives.
This may be true, but how many people in those church groups, meetup groups, etc are actually concerned about censorship? In my experience far more of them are worried about harassment- I know far more women who can't use social media because of their stalkers than I do people who were kicked out of social media for having bad opinions.
Many, in my experience. To the point that I get sick of hearing about it, and I'm not an alt-right Q-anon type or anywhere near it.
I think what you're missing is that most people don't want to run into vitriolic hate speech while they're going about trying to organize their neighborhood parties (and so on). We can talk about the idealism of free speech all we want; the problem is any platform that stakes a claim as caring about Free Speech almost immediately gets overrun by that sort of vitriolic hate that most people don't want to be around in their daily lives.
I went on one of the "free speech" video platforms about a year ago because I was curious, and on my first visit, right on the front page, were videos about how the Jews rule the world and Holocaust denial. I'm not remotely Jewish and I was immediately put off from ever revisiting.
This is a core problem that people who legitimately care about censorship and free speech need to address. It's extremely unfortunate, but "anti-censorship" has well and truly become a dog whistle in the modern era.
Remember that free speech is about the 'market of ideas.' In even totally free markets, not every product sells. An anti-censorship social network startup cratering because its platform immediately got overrun with hate is not censorship, it's the market at work. The vast majority of 'regular' people I know do not consider Facebook's rules prohibiting hate speech to be censorship. They're just grateful they aren't running into it every time they open their phones to scroll their feed.
These people who hate Twitter probably don't even use Twitter. If you're not interesting or important, then nobody on Twitter cares what you have to say. It's not like Facebook, where you can argue politics with someone from high school. A nobody on Twitter is just screaming at the clouds.
Not everyone has a Twitter account, and I think you need to seriously reframe your perspective if you think it is the cure-all for delivering news to constituents.
NO! I am not saying that at all. I am saying that this is why Twitter is a de facto public square. I am not advocating that Twitter should be a public square. Frustrating to see a strawman of this sorts. You have completely and utterly misunderstood my points. Basically, 180 degrees opposite of what I was trying to say, may be a failure of mine to be less precise but jeez.
The observation that Twitter has become a public square is undenieable (this is different from advocating Twitter to be a public square. I actually wish it wasn't).
Please, provide some content besides just a broad declaration. I don’t understand why someone would come to this conclusion.
Unrelated but - Doesn't it bother anyone that it has become a necessity to use Twitter and they demand your phone number to login simply to view the Tweet?
I'd like to see reasons why Twitter is not a public square.
I believe federal, state and local institutions have reporting requirements that ensure the information is also publicized on their website or available in paper form upon request. I don’t think it’s legal to put important government info exclusively on Twitter.
Twitter is 1 method of quickly dispensing information, but that information then gets more widely distributed through traditional news networks. For example, I use Twitter almost every day but I never once read Trump’s tweets. I heard about them by watching TV or reading a news article.
When anyone from police to the President need their message heard, they put it on TV.
Also, a town square is for the public to communicate to the public. People seem to use FB, Reddit, Instagram, etc. all for that purpose. I’ll grant that it’s one of many virtual town squares, but it’s not a monopoly, so I think “the de facto town square” is a bit of a stretch.
You provide no evidence and then try to shut down other opinions? This is certainly not a self-evident fact.
Maybe the public square is still the public square? Or the Internet itself?
Isn’t “public” in “public square” important? Twitter is a private company. The public square became important to free discussion because it was owned by the public. Twitter isn’t.
And between FB, YT, Reddit, podcasting, Google search, etc. we’ve actually never had this many different, non-siloed ways of communicating publicly. If Twitter went bankrupt tomorrow there would still be many ways for the public to broadcast their thoughts to a wide audience.
I don’t understand how a website that the majority of my friends and family don’t use, isn’t public and isn’t in the top 10 visited sites can be the “de facto public square”.
Sure, it’s a major communication channel, but one of many.
In what market? What is the evidence of non-substitution/pricing power?
> When the only way for government officials to relay messages to their constituents is through a private platform such as Twitter
It’s...not the only way.
> it ceases to have the same privilege as a private corporation
First Amendment rights of private parties are not privileges.
> It is a de facto public square.
It is neither a de facto nor de jure public square.
> This is not up for debate.
Saying “This is not up for debate“ does not make your bare assertion into an actually unquestionable position.
If they think the information is censored by tech companies, they'll care a lot about that!
Majority of Americans (and most people I'd imagine) do not really care about their policies. They don't give two figs about it, and just go about their life just fine without being affected by it one bit. I'm sure you can find some people on both sides of the spectrum regarding their policies, but the vast majority don't. As someone who isn't from SV or has ever worked for in or for an SV company, my bubble is surrounded by farmers.
That's the problem with not giving a shit. When things finally do become bad enough that it affects you personally, it's too late. When it comes to standing up for what's right - and I define what's "right" as mostly what the Constitution of the United States lays forth as our inalienable rights, you better give a shit from the word "go" and you better oppose it stridently because once freedoms get stripped away from you, they're nearly impossible to recover.
I can't even imagine how the Founders would react to things like the PATRIOT Act.
And we can blather on all goddamn day about "muh private corporations!" but when these corporations are actively suppressing competitors and are working hand-in-hand with news outlets to label any new alterative as a Mos Eisley-esque shithole that no respectable person would frequent, the point is moot.
Facebook and Twitter are the modern day public square. Some people will want to claim it's "The Internet" itself; you can just go make your own public square and publish your own website, etc., but that's not actually how a public square works. Just because you hop on your tractor and box blade your front yard flat and pave it over with concrete and add some park benches to it, doesn't turn it into the public square. You actually have to have the public actively occupying it. The public square is where the people are. And the people are on Facebook and Twitter... at least in America.
I can't even take this seriously. These are the same folks that kept people as property. Didn't make sure everyone could vote (male land owners only). They founded the country on land stolen from folks already living here. It isn't like the founders were really beacons of freedom, at least not if you use today's standards and honestly, they'd not even have a grasp of the events leading up to it. Perhaps they'd back it up considering how glaringly the world has changed since then.
I'm sure it is supposed to make folks think the country is straying from its foundations, but look around: People that aren't straight, white land owners are walking around with all these rights and freedom and stuff. That's already happened long ago. Maybe straying is a really good thing.
That might not be the best argument. Remember that the First Amendment passed only a few years before the awful Sedition Act, which would never pass modern judicial review.
That's exactly where we are now? When twitter censors right of center ideas and de-platforms those who think them, we invariably seek refuge in alternatives that engender far more radical thinking than if we had stayed in a larger public discussion.
one can dream. as of now all corporations follow the same ideology of neoconservative imperialism because they are all owned by the same people (blackrock, etc)
Not ideal, but better than the status quo where there is 1 company catering to 1 group.
Or am I missing something major here?
But Twitter is not already a cesspool of those things, and I guess the feeling is that loosening up on the reigns a little bit won't suddenly cause Twitter to turn into a neo-nazi dominated platform. You'll just have things like not banning Donald Trump or not squashing factually correct NYPost articles – which of course are things that you can still debate the merits of but are different from Twitter becoming 4chan.
Conversely, because there are no identities, there's no way to follow specific people you agree with.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140809023548/http://www.forbes...
In South Africa, my father had a private plane we’d fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. I was 15 and really wanted to go with him but didn’t realize how dangerous it was. I couldn’t find my passport so I ended up grabbing my brother’s – which turned out to be six months overdue! So we had this planeload of contraband and an overdue passport from another person. There were AK-47s all over the place and I’m thinking, “Man, this could really go bad.”
His grandfather (Dr Joshua Haldeman) was head of Technocracy Inc:
https://www.technocracy.news/shock-elon-musks-grandfather-wa...
Thanks to those who appreciate the research.
Odds are zero things change about Twitter’s content policy, as it’s about as permissive as you can get while operating in the US.
There’s a lot less sinister intent than one might think at first blush; Twitter wants users to stick around, banning them is a really bad way to do that.
Any idiot with a WP site can "publish" a "news story".
Besides, if I reply to your tweet, "My child just died in a fire." with an article about how fire deaths are among the most painful ways to die, it doesn't really matter much how "published" that "news story" is, it's hateful and has no place on the Internet.
Well that’s where we (you and I, but also us collectively as a country, it seems) disagree.
I don’t care that it’s hateful, and I think it should have a place on the internet, and so long as we allow monopolies on the internet, then it needs to have a place on whatever monopoly platform there is.
Anyone who thinks they should be deciding what is “hateful and has no place on the internet” is EXACTLY who should NOT be deciding such things.
I should have said, "No place on Twitter." On the Internet? Yeah, totally in agreement.
On Twitter? Couldn't disagree more, and my one-two punch of a point was going to be that 1) it's up to Twitter to decide that, and 2) they've landed at about as free as American society will tolerate.
1) because Twitter has rights too. If we actually respect freedom of speech, we also have to respect Twitter's right to decide who to associate with and,
2) Twitter is completely tolerant to many things we'd probably consider offensive. My example probably isn't even enough to get banned on Twitter for, even though I think Twitter would be wise to avoid associating with people who get that mean in their trolling.
I think the only way to support free speech is to support Twitter's right to decide who it allows on its platform. I don't think they should let Trump on their platform, for example, but that's up to them, and they can change their minds. And now, apparently, (at least partially) up to Elon!
I don't see how anyone could seriously sustain an argument that twitter is as permissive as they could be lawfully. (Nor would I argue that they should be /that/ permissive in any case, the law in the US is a very very low bar, in part because we recognize that there are other ways to deal with bad speech than prohibiting it by law)
I think it's only fair we defend Twitter's right to freely associate as a form of free speech just as vigorously as we defend the right of people to be able to say whatever they like (with some exceptions around protected groups).
Or maybe you mean people who don’t live in those pesky flyover states?
There are not many of us here, it wouldn't make sense for some small percentage of the US population to dictate how the entire population is forced to engage with one another on a website run by a private (as in not-government run) organization.
Twitter should be able to seek profits, and if maximal profits exist by creating a set of rules that can be violated with non-illegal activity, they should be allowed to chase those dollars.
Wouldn't it be undemocratic for the government to force Twitter to publish content it doesn't want to publish, content that would, in Twitter's estimation, harm its ability to make money?
Well, you said it. If Twitter publishes content, then it should be responsible for that content. But Twitter does not want to do that, they want to have protections like they are a public square, but also heavily alter the discourse. It's like the phone company can disconnect you if you swear on the line - it should not be possible. I would be supportive with Twitter and Facebook taking on a full editorial role, and be responsible for everything on their platforms.
And let's be honest about it. It was never about Twitter making money, for example Trump was making money for Twitter hand over fist. And NYPost publishing about a potential viral news story was not going to make Twitter less money...
It was about shifting the political discourse, which is what it's making this an undemocratic bad move. And I was wrong, it's not really a banana republic move, it's more of a communist regime style move. It was the same back then: if you said the wrong things, the censorship will come in full swing and "cancel" you. It didn't have to be the state censorship, oh no, you were censored way before that: by your boss, by the company, by the public opinion etc. Communist Romania in the 1980s and what I see here today are eerily similar: you wouldn't go to jail for your opinions, but you would be "cancelled" from any good career and public voice.
This is the second line in the linked filing, and something a number of people have not read.
Not sure it's that it was left unread or if it just doesn't matter.
As best as I can tell, it just means he won't overtly threaten the company with a takeover or equivalent because he's been given soft power to influence.
My lay reading suggests that Twitter is now basically operating at his whims to keep him from leaving the board and executing a takeover plan 90 days thereafter.
Well, he can overtly threaten all he wants. He can begin the process. He can make all the money arrangements and make agreements with other shareholders. He just cannot complete the takeover by actually acquiring more stock (or other instruments) until after 90 days. Imho that isn't a practical limit on threats.
Honestly, it might be amusing if he does do that. Twitter stock looks to still flat from the IPO price, even after the spike after this announcement.
I say, let him tie up a significant portion of his net worth in a vanity project with no real growth potential.
So he doesn't down the stock with his decisions and buys it cheap later?
Ultimately if he does want to buy more he can resign from the board with one Tweet.
The big knock against it is that users and brands are afraid of spontaneous howling mobs. Fewer users means less reach and fewer brands means less $$$. My guess would be that he has some ideas about how to change this. Maybe (spitballing here) more tools for users who are QT'd?
Yes - slowing down the rate of Twitter pile ons would help a lot. Rate limiting QTs from non-followers would help a lot I think. You could even extend this to manual text quotations and screenshots, using either printer dots or OCR. Subtweeting is fine - the point should be to avoid making randos the "it" person on Twitter.
I got as far as "bot" <-> "the cloud is just someone else's computer" <-> "tree that owns itself" before my train of thought SEGVed loudly in complaint.
Want proof? Tell me how many people might read this comment and agree with it.
Humans are bad at large scale pattern recognition and suffer from extreme proximity bias. It’s why filter bubbles exist.
For the same reason, it seems dangerous to promote the idea that it’s even possible to “have a conversation as a society.” If any such conversation is taking place, surely its level of inherent selection bias would render any of its conclusions irrelevant. Only a participant or biased observer could claim otherwise.
Society has a filter-bubble deficiency. For a global population nearing ten billion humans, the number of distinct information channels is alarmingly low in comparison. It’s not possible to have an honest “conversation as a society” in such an asymmetrical information environment.
No such thing will ever happen. This is just political theater for the sake of appeasing the "sour grapes" faction on the left. There is no political will to tax unrealized gains, tax wealth, etc.
It is the fourth most visited site on the internet. It has well over three hundred million active users. It was one of the main methods of communication for the last sitting president of the united states. It is worth more than three billion dollars. It is currently what this subset of society in this thread is discussing because we find it relevant.
But in my opinion, Elon Musk is a very smart man who not only sees, but has reaped massive value from Twitter. He is notable for tweeting misleading information to affect the stock price of his companies. These actions resulted in a lawsuit from the SEC in 2018.
The ripple effects of stock manipulation are hard to directly tie to the concept of "awful for society". But it certainly feels like when money is given one place, it is taken from another. When that transfer of money is based on misinformation, it creates pain. I personally am doubtful that the billionaire feels any of it, but someone else will.
I also don't believe that Musk has learned any lesson from the lawsuit either. He is currently trying to fight the tweet pre-approval stipulation in the courts. Putting a financial investment into the company to me personally, looks like someone who has found, or is looking for a loophole.
I presume you're primarily referencing his "Funding secured" tweet - which arguably with Elon's pretty solid judgement, he may have well had funding secured - say through verbal agreement - just perhaps not through official legal channels?
It's also arguable as to whether what he's said is misleading or not, and which what he says, what the SEC wants him to do vs. what the Constitution gives him the foundational right to do seem to be at odds.
Because you didn't give any specific examples of his supposed misleading, it's hard to actually argue you further.
You also haven't tied anything you said back to how him buying ~10% of Twitter is awful for society though?
You must also dislike Bitcoin then because the vast majority of what people see, that hypes them up to buy into Bitcoin, is shallow propaganda/is highly misleading - and those people ultimately will lose their money once the blockchain designed to mimic MLM-Ponzi schemes collapses?
I'm sorry that I didn't base my argument on what "he may have well had". But when I think about it that way, sure, he may have well had never done anything wrong. The courts disagree, but they also might not being taking into account what he may have well had.
I tried my best to elaborate on why I felt that him purchasing a stake in twitter was awful for society in my last comment. I am sorry that you didn't find it meaty enough for you to argue on, but perhaps that is for the best.
and yes, I also believe bitcoin and MLM ponzi schemes are also awful.
Twitter went further down the ideological rabbit hole with Jack at the helm.
That’s why free speech policies shouldn’t be dictated by partisan concerns. You never know who will be in control of your social media platform in the future.
Thats an extreme example, but the point im illustrating is that in reality, as a society, we do not approve or endorse all speech, and it is obviously true that censorship is useful. You can see quite clearly that were the president to do this, it would have consequences.
Does that mean we should make certain speech illegal? Not necessarily. Does it mean we should curtail the reach of certain speech? I think it is good for Twitter to do this.
The distinction is that speech being possible is different than speech being emphasized or broadcasted.
Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.
Maybe.
> His reinstatement would make a Trump presidency less likely, IMO.
That's...an interesting opinion, but I don't see any strong reason to believe it is true, or even more likely to be true than the opposite effect.
> Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.
For people (at least, US voters) generally that appears to be less true of Trump than literally every other potential candidate, as Trump currently is both the strongest by far polling candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024 against other potential Republicans and the strongest against potential Democratic opponents, winning my most general election head to head polls.
I would speculate that part of the reason he’s polling so well (relatively speaking) right now is that he’s been off twitter for the last year.
That's true of literally every possible candidate; no candidate is preferred by the majority of people, and Trump is preferred by the largest minority.
> I would speculate that part of the reason he’s polling so well (relatively speaking) right now is that he’s been off twitter for the last year.
I would speculate that almost the entire reason is that he successfully took over the Republican brand and people are dissatisfied with the present conditions, largely due to economic conditions, particularly inflation.
Tesla had no money and was going nowhere without Musk.
Instead of creating his own company he agree to join forces and basically fund Tesla.
Seems like not just starting a competitor was the nice thing to do. As doing so would have 100% doomed Tesla.
I think he was referring to PayPal, a tech company. Even now all over the net you can see articles claiming Musk founded Paypal. Nothing further from the truth. Musk started X.com and designed a very simple page where you put two peoples email addresses and you "could" send them money. It was happening at the same time as PayPal had the same idea and similar website. Problem for PP was that back then no sane bank or financial institution would touch any company that is hooked up to the internet. Musk had a tremendous leverage because of the only bank who would go ahead and plug their gateway into the net (I believe it was Stanford Federal Credit Union, but I don't remember) was okay for doing it because personal leverage of Musk father, who owns multiple diamond mines in ZA, and put a huge collateral "just in case" something goes wrong. Musk didn't have to have a working website to have a $300,000,000 leverage over PayPal and PP knew it will be years before they get any bank to agree to work with them. It was smart for Thiel to offer large stake of PP for Musk just for ability to change which site will be using the bank's gateway. This story was somewhat easy to find and popular back in the old days of the internet, but - putting my conspiracy hat on - these days you find nothing about it at least not by Googling. So I don't really know - to me it doesn't sound he founded PayPal, they would eventually got their permission from some bank but at that point we would be X'ing each other money, not "Paypalling" it.
And I explained why it is really not that insane. It was basically him throwing them a bone, they should be grateful. And of course they were horrible and ran Tesla into the ground and hid facts from Elon.
> I think he was referring to PayPal
I don't think so.
> X.com and designed a very simple page where you put two peoples email addresses and you "could" send them money. It was happening at the same time as PayPal had the same idea and similar website
This is not true. X.com from the beginning was payment company. Confinity was originally a security company for Palm platform. From there they switched to payments.
From Wikipedia:
> In March 2000, Confinity merged with x.com, an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk.
The two companies merged so all the people of both companies are rightly called founders. And non of the others disagree with that.
> because personal leverage of Musk father, who owns multiple diamond mines in ZA
Please provide evdience. This 'dimond mine' nonsense has mostly been discredited. The best researched story about that basically showed that it was like a 30k investment sometime in the 80s. Certainty not enough to convince a bank to do anything.
Musk father was wealthy because he was an engineer.
> This story was somewhat easy to find and popular back in the old days of the internet
And well researched probably ...
He can get away with it at SpaceX because, well, spaaacccceeee!
I'm not sure how he gets away with it at Tesla.
Why is it Tesla's / SpaceX fault for being a cool company for many people to work at and they're willing to take a pay cut? It is 100% their choice.
There is absolutely no counter argument here that I can see. I am trying.
The implication being that if Twitter switched to that culture, then it'd generally be a really bad thing for most of those who currently work there, since they did not sign up for that.
My former boss went there, his whole team quit shortly after, he got promoted twice and made a boatload of money from stock grants, and now he's one of the higher ranked engineers and a few of his family members went to work there as well. But these guys are workaholics, brilliant but not humans of normal working capacity. I think it a lot depends on your expectations.
So would employees. So would any self-interested agents on an any open market.
A good CEO can of course provide value, but pretending they are alone responsible for success, and abusing staff is a good way to achieve that success is just wrong. Burning out passionate people is a good way to create short-term profit, it isn't "greatness".
If you can't think of a single example of a valuable thing being made by a company without an abusive auteur CEO, then I guess we see "value" very differently.
The rest of my post argues that there is no way to justify that harm given we know the work can be achieved without it.
You people are crazy. Since when is hard work and ambition something to be scorned?
It's pretty easy for you now, from your obvious position of wealth and privilege, to now ridicule those values which built the very civilization you are now inheriting and trashing. Talk about not having skin in the game.
Many do enjoy that very much, clearly. Amazing engineers, who can work anywhere they want, choose to work at SpaceX and Tesla. And we all benefit from the electrification of the grid and advances in space.
Musk's bad behavior includes things like forcing Tesla employees back into office, against local health restriction, mocking trans-folk because an ex started dating a trans-woman, pumping and dumping cryptocurrency, posting multiple tweets that violate laws (stock and union related), repeatedly lying about his products, etc.
The content creator can just move to Facebook/Instagram or /tiktok or wherever.
It is trivial to track a plane if you have its tail number and Elon only flies on a small number of jets.
And, no, by "shield himself from the consequences of his activities", I mean things like calling someone a pedophile on Twitter. He is one of the biggest Twitter drama quee s and it would be a lot easier to clean up his messes if he practically owns the company.
Additionally, a jet plane, whether private or public, does not have any rights. You cannot "doxx" an airplane. Aside from the practical benefits that ADS-B provides, the public nature of it holds everyone accountable.
> You cannot "doxx" an airplane. I think it's pretty obvious that Elon Musks plane will most likely have Elon Musk inside of it. So by doxxing the plane you're doxxing the person. Just think about the same example with a car of someone who may be receive a lot of negative attention, you can tweet out the location of their car and that may put them in harms way. The car has no rights either but revealing the information is still a safety issue. It's just that for planes the data is public because the idea of a plane identifying an individual location is not a common one since so few people own private planes. Another analogy is a bus vs a car. I think most people would be fine with a bus having live tracking and in fact many people depend on that, but for an individual car it doesn't make sense.
Those people are idiots though. The kid said he would turn off the bot for $50k. You think Elon bought 9% of Twitter to avoid paying $50k?
I won't go so far as to call you insane for not being able to imagine an edgy rich guy spending a lot of money for petty reasons, but I'll instead say that your refusal to even accept the idea as a possibility is a bit naive.
Musk clearly has much better other reason that make about 1000% more sense. He has been one of the biggest twitter accounts for a long time. He clearly cares about speech (whatever you may think about it) and he talks about that often in talks to governments around the world and so on. In your version that is all some elaborate front in order to take down some twitter bot?
If you think any non-insane person would spend 9 billion to ban a twitter account that just publishes public information I really don't know what to say anymore. Even if that bot was removed, anybody else could set up the same thing again.
Whatever you my think of Musk and calling 'edgy' or 'petty' or whatever, what you suggest is literally a 100% totally crazy thing to do. No human that is not insane would consider this a logic course of action.
If it was about that and he didn't want to pay the 50k publicly, there are about 1000 possible other ways that could have been achieved other becoming gigantic investor in twitter.
Many of them state sponsored like Saudi government which targeted him after kashtogi.
He also got hacked and his dick pics were maybe compromised.
Those hacks could have accelerated his divorce too.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-i...
The pro Elon crowd here is a minority. Something I’ll never understand, being that this is an entrepreneurial forum and Elon is the worlds best entrepreneur. Jealousy perhaps?
Maybe it is jealousy, maybe it's that he's a neurotic moron who's more than happy to try and ruin the careers of little people.
How many of the great entrepreneurs of history got embarrassed after their scheme doesn't work and call their competitor a paedophile? You can recognize his skills while also recognizing that he's not a very nice man.
People like to act like his pedo tweet was some kind of crime against humanity. Let’s have a look at your twitter if you’re so indignant. People are such shameless hypocrites.
Also I assume you’re British so it’s not the same. You people have a problem with pedophiles. You actually bleep out when people say the word and censor the word when people write it. It’s like some kind of big deal over there. That’s just you bro, nobody else is like that.
You're completely in the realms of fantasy. Seriously?
Like he bought twitter because of flight bot.
Or idiotic ideas about how everything he does is some 7D galaxy brain chess to achive some dubiously defined goals.
Some people really go close to conspiricy theory mode and still get upvoted.
- Haters who can't stand people more successful than them, and who is more successful than Elon Musk? So anything he does is terrible.
- Since Trump, HN mostly supports social media censorship of opposing political ideas, and Elon Musk has expressed that he doesn't like this censorship.
"Black Tesla employees describe a culture of racism: ‘I was at my breaking point’ " https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-25/black-tesl...
"California sues Tesla, alleging rampant racism at factory" https://www.npr.org/2022/02/15/1080884899/california-sues-te...
"Black workers accused Tesla of racism for years. Now California is stepping in" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/tesla-cal...
California's actions seems pretty consistent with this to me: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.31...
Do I think that people leverage their positions of power in the govt to strike blows when they are offended or threatened? Absolutely.
It's not that people in the government have a vendetta against him. He's just petulant and thinks himself above the law. So, while I'm sure it's enjoyable to to knock him down a peg, he's doing it to himself allowing blatantly illegal shit to happen in his companies.
I'm having a "The boy who cried wolf" moment right now.
https://www.insidehook.com/article/history/errol-musk-elon-f...
Looks like his fathers background is actually hard to pin down. A biographer of Musk believes his father made most of his wealth from his engineering business.
> Elon was born on June 28, 1971, to Errol and his wife Maye Musk when they were both in their 20s. This is important because the parents divorced in 1979, nine years after getting married, and it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the emerald mine in question came into the picture.
> The family owned one of the biggest houses in Pretoria thanks to the success of Errol’s engineering business,” a business that included “large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base.” Elon even admitted his father is “brilliant at engineering” despite being an overall “terrible human being.”
It's a primary source, not speculation. Here's some additional context: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-abou...
Judging people by skin color, not okay, we both agree.
But judging people by their ancestors seems to be the same kind of wrongdoing to me. Both are pretty arbitrary criteria that the target has no control over.
The information that Elon 'might' have a racist upbringing is not really relevant. Whats relevant is whether self-responsible Elon is doing (directly or indirectly) harm to others based on skin color or race or anything like that.
I've not heard Musk being accused of being personally racist - that was more one contractor used racist language in the presence of some other contractor stuff.
I am sure that happened, and it is awful, and Tesla should answer for it in court and through the proper channels. But to some degree, this seems like the type of thing that (unfortunately) can happen in an environment like that. It doesn't seem like there is much indication that is a part of Tesla at a high level or happening in Elon's other companies.
(Also all 3 of those articles refer to the same lawsuit.)
The man definitely seems to float from one controversy to another and quite a few of those controversies seem to involve Twitter. Buying a big share in Twitter is kind of a ballsy thing to do. But why not? Might I suggest shorting the stock if you disagree ;-).
This is acknowledging that he also shares awesome stuff, like technical SpaceX details, and that he often engages with people in a real cool way.
Making $1 billion by simply spending $3 billion is pretty sweet.
Some people have about $260.00 in their name and spend $6 at Starbucks on some caramel coffee.
Think Different might have more than one meaning.
I call this Rhetorical Mischief.
I can’t help but think this is sarcasm.
The story is always bigger than what plays out in the shadows. I wouldn't base my decision on what is being extensively reported.
I haven't seen analysis on whether it was illegal, but I wouldn't want somebody like him on my board even if it succeeded in keeping him from buying up more stock. With him on the outside, maybe he causes more trouble than on the inside but I would be wary of the association.
I'm not so sure about that. He doesn't have a lot of experience with running ad sales. His big breaks have been PayPal (kind of), Tesla and SpaceX. None of which were social, none of which were "free".
Also, I think Twitter was undervalued compared to its potential, and Elon wouldn’t be buying part of it if he didn’t think he could turn a good profit.
Unless he was buying a seat on the board so that he could help effect change that he desired.
There are fees when receiving money as a result of selling a product or service, which is where PayPal makes (likely most) of its money.
If a vendor makes PayPal purchases slightly more expensive, it can cause bad will with the customer (who is less likely to return and make more purchases). Exceptions are sometimes with one-off purchases (e.g. a conference ticket or course fee).
Separately, the original comment asserted that the PayPal account charges you each transaction (which is false). The new argument is different, which asserts that a vendor may charge you more due to PayPal fees.
You misunderstand me. I didn't say you got charged extra for paypal over Stripe, for instance.
Stripe which you mention is also expensive, and also factored in to the price. I don't know of any serious eccomerce company that is not acutely aware of card fees. Every payment gateway charges high fees and it is factored in to the price the consumer pays.
I personally would not invest in a company where I cannot trust claims being made by the board.
Edit: sorry, I mixed up public company and public good. Twitter is a public company, but not a public good.
All securities are under the SEC's jurisdiction, including those issued by unlisted companies, e.g. start-ups.
I wonder if people who say things like this actually use Twitter. Twitter has far less moderation than the other social media giants. It’s a high school popularity contest, and the cool kids didn’t need blue check marks from the teachers to be cool.
Wow that's very troubling. Can you show some examples of studies, or representative serious anecdotes?
The OP hasn't provided their answer but I'd be interested in your answer too!
> Free speech in this case is code for saying anything without consequence and weaponizing it at morons.
I was just curious if the government's guarantee not to censor political speech is just as ill-advised. A quick "yes" would take about 5 seconds to give, or of not, just a short sentence about what the motivation is for keeping the government out of policing political speech. e.g. "If the government can suppress political speech, then..."
Doesn't seem like a huge ask for the curious!
That doesn't mean you weren't.
The rest of your comment almost reads like stockholm syndrome - or mostly just rationalizing being misled.
There's nothing to rationalize. Elon had some nice visionary talks which I like, but mostly don't care about - and I'm not going to be mad just because he said something will be in 3 years and it's in 6 or 9 - even 12 is good in my eyes, so what. I like his optimism much more than the """realism""" (read: pessimism) of mostly any other public company's management. His optimism is one of the primary things pushing Tesla forward - kill that and you kill the company.
I mostly care about hard facts on the ground, and these go more than well enough. Along with my investment.
The fact that I made a little money on Elon's coattails doesn't make it OK for him to constantly lie to customers.
If you bought late in 2013 you probably paid ~$180, for only 30x.
Doesn't change my opinion of Musk's practices. If he's selling very expensive features that are actually donations into the hopes & dreams tip jar, it should be clearly marked as such.
That's not some kind of consumer protection escape hatch, though:
"Yeah, we sold them software that will never exist, but because it's actually impossible to implement on our hardware, it's their fault for buying it."
I think the software WILL eventually exist. Just not on the timeline Elon thinks it will.
"I would be shocked if we do not achieve full-self-driving safer than a human this year. I would be shocked." - Musk in a 2021 earnings call.
"I don't care what Elon does as long as it makes me money."
If you had a money printer, wouldn't you give it a lot of freedom? Personally I'd draw the line at killing a dog or cat. Other than that, well... If it wanted to knock out a few walls, I'd just sigh and put up with the noise for a few months.
(For context, I'm undecided about Elon. But none of the counterarguments to his behavior seem persuasive yet.)
Your money printer may print you money today, at the cost of putting you in jail for counterfitting tomorrow. It could result in the Mafia to come and break your legs to take it (and the money it printed) from you. Or greatly increase inflation (since mechanically, inflation is a result of more money being added than removed from circulation) in the future so your future earnings are worthless.
What I'm saying is
1) that I care about the merit of the company (the products) much more than I care about what their talking heads say
2) that I don't think Elon's that bad as some say/ IMHO he's a semi-autistic person (don't know what his exact diagnosis is) who fucking loves technology and sometimes gets over-excited. I cut him some slack because he delivers - even if late and something's missing, well so what - it's still revolutionary and that's more than enough for me, everything on top of that is a bonus
Like, I know he hasn't delivered on FSD (And I know he won't for a long time, which is why I didn't buy FSD when I bought my Model 3 in 2019), and the Cybertruck and Roadster have been very delayed, what has he lied about?
"Funding secured"
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/fsd-timeline-promise...
If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why. It may just be that you're an Ayn Rand villain.
You can argue that Tesla in particular is successful off the back of the taxpayer; are you advocating against government incentives for electric vehicles?
Who knows what costs we'll be exposed to as their somewhat suicidal 'self driving' functionality becomes exposed to more of the buysers they sold it to on the back of improbable promises (such as "your car will eventually pay for itself by acting as an antonymous taxi").
Musk is rich on paper but the stocks are massively overvalued for various reasons. The idea that "billionaires are evil people who exploit innocent laborers" is false and it comes from a place of resentment.
And yes, billionaires absolutely build their wealth on the backs of others. There's simply no way to become a billionaire without exploiting a system and taking advantage of others in some way. It may be legal, but legality took a sharp turn away from morality a long long time ago.
I agree with her that some very smart people are completely consumed by resentment.
> And yes, billionaires absolutely build their wealth on the backs of others. There's simply no way to become a billionaire without exploiting a system and taking advantage of others in some way. It may be legal, but legality took a sharp turn away from morality a long long time ago.
You're just resentful of people who have accomplished more than you. What's stopping Bob, who makes less money than you toiling in a factory, from saying the exactly same thing about you? You're an exploiter, it's how you earn a living without getting your hands dirty.
It may seem like an off-topic point, but I recently had a big wake-up call with the kinds of people you mention. The flip side of your flowery description is that they're often short-sighted, vicious people who can get worked up into a frenzy with little warning, or reason. Sometimes they want to for no reason.
You're trying to describe the nobility of people with no skills (valued by society). But imagine if the entire world were populated by them. Would you really want to live in it?
And if not, can they be called heroes of humanity?
I dont even think Rand would follow you there; I can't really think of any corollary to that sentiment other than fascist rhetoric. To know nothing of a group of people but how much they make at work, and to go that far in painting a picture of them... Its shocking! Haha
I'm sure you mean well, and are genuinely reflecting, but this is not a good look at all to anybody but the most rightwing people. What amounts Idiocracy lore is not a suitable or humane thing to ground political beliefs on.
> If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why.
I'm not a hater, but I can understand why others are. Like you said, he's obnoxious. And he lies. Which should be enough justification by itself. But he's also really fucking rich, which is a teeth-grindingly annoying combination.
I really admire what he's done for the Electric Vehicle industry, and the rocket industry, (and the satellite broadband industry) and I absolutely cannot wait for Starship to fly to orbit. That's gonna be amazing. He can execute on a vision like almost no-one else.
But he's a dick - I can't deny that. And for people who don't really care about EVs, or rockets, or satellite broadband (i.e. non-nerds), the "being a dick" part is what's going to stand out the most.
It's not because "they don't care about EVs or rockets," it's something deeper and uglier.
Tons of people care, an entire industry of celebrity gossip lives off of it.
Elon has just as much of a cult following as he has haters, the fact that you can’t see how perfectly this mirrors wider celebrity culture suggests that you are either very out of touch with pop culture, or are a part of the Elon cult.
You have a point. But what does it say about someone that they spend time hating celebrities? Do they think "this celebrity is a bad person, if I were rich and famous I would be a good good person!" Is that true? Or is it just childish resentment?
Do we defend the people who have a deranged hatred towards Anne Hathaway? No we find them bizarre and disturbed.
You seem to be under the impression that there is nothing legitimately off putting about Elon’s public persona.
> Elon Musk is kind of obnoxious. He lies (or "exaggerates"). But what Tesla has done is insane. It's happened so quickly, and that's leaving aside the rockets. The hard evidence that we can build new things, that we can progress and build a future that's better than the present is so important. If it takes a flawed man to show us that, I'll take it.
> If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why. It may just be that you're an Ayn Rand villain.
Please show me where I said "there is nothing legitimately off putting about Elon’s public persona".
You just come off as so aghast at criticism of the man.
Probably about the same thing as people that spend their time defending and dickriding celebrities on the internet.
Elon didn’t like how Twitter was being run, so he spent a relatively minor fraction of his overall wealth to buy a large stake in the company and get himself onto the board. This is beyond comprehension to the average person who is typically just a the will of these large corporations.
Elon is _extremely_ powerful, and as such he deserves to be held to a higher level of scrutiny, beyond even the level of some random celebrity.
Then stop hand waving with poor analogies and just say what it is then.
Musk is seen by many as a sociopathic narcissist who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Doing things like sending private investigators to try and dig up dirt on that rescue diver who criticized him hardly distances him from that image (and doesn't help his claims of being a "free speech absolutist" either). Those traits combined with tremendous power are generally not a good combination.
We don't owe him anything for his business ventures. He isn't running a charity. He isn't doing it for you and me. Electric cars and rockets are very cool, but are not moving humanity into some new dawn. The idea that he is some necessary component of "hard evidence that we can build new things" that deserves special treatment is borne straight out of a personality cult. Pointing this out is a far cry from "claiming his work isn't valuable."
So, I'm going to reply to your comment but really, this is relevant to most of this thread (and nearly every thread about him), because I'm just tired of these conversations.
Yes, by many measures, he has been incredibly successful at both running businesses and amassing wealth. There are a lot of metrics that you could cite that support that assertion.
At the same time, by many measures, you could successfully - and easily - argue that he's a pretty shitty person.
And guess what? Both are true. I don't know what my ultimate point here is besides saying that yeah - some people think he's awesome, some people think he's shitty, and neither view is technically incorrect. Move on.
So absurd that anyone takes that argument seriously.
And you know what? That's OK. :)
You hint that Elon Musk treats other people badly. Has he raped anyone? Murdered anyone? Waged any wars? Are there abuse allegations? No, he's a troll on twitter.
I truly don't know how else to make my previous post any clearer to you. The simple fact of the matter is that everyone has their own personal reasons for putting more importance on one thing over another. Nobody ever owes you an explanation for why they might put more importance on how someone treats someone over how many units of a product they sell. I could speculate as to any number of reasons why that may be, but for the sake of this conversation, that's not my place. I will, however, say that I'm incredibly surprised and perplexed by your inability to understand that there are people out there who "place people over profits".
>You hint that Elon Musk treats other people badly. Has he raped anyone? Murdered anyone? Waged any wars? Are there abuse allegations? No, he's a troll on twitter.
As I've made clear in this thread, I am not taking a position on Musk. All I can say is that what I've alluded to, in regards to how he treats people and his employees, are all things that have been very publicly discussed in the past and should be surprising to nobody who has paid even a modicum of attention.
You literally called him a "shitty preson", and you're saying you're not taking a position on him. Are you joking?
>Yes, by many measures, he has been incredibly successful at both running businesses and amassing wealth. There are a lot of metrics that you could cite that support that assertion.
>At the same time, by many measures, you could successfully - and easily - argue that he's a pretty shitty person.
I simply said that there are reasons people could successfully argue that he's shitty. What I did not do, however, was take a position on those arguments. The phrase, "You could successfully argue" does not mean, "This is what I believe".
Have a nice day man. I'm not replying to you anymore.
I truly hope you have a pleasant day as well. :)
No one owes me anything. I'm asking a question and you're not answering it, you're just restating "some people value different things and we can't say why".
My point is that people should value Elon's accomplishments more than his attitude. The fact that they don't is bizarre and demands an explanation.
To them, your attitude is bizarre and demands an explanation. To them, you should value someone who is a decent person over any money they make.
OP wasn't saying Elon Musk is a shithead. S/he was pointing out that both things can be true - he can be a shithead, and he can create wealth and innovation. Both can be true, and some people will place value on one over the other, much as you have done.
We can't talk to each other because you're coming from a value-relative perspective ("people value different things, no one is wrong, and we can't say why"). To me this is insane. If someone values 5 dollars more than their life, we can question that. When people say Elon Must being a mean person on twitter outweighs everything he's built, we can question that.
And I never said anything about money.
>Your post is perfectly clear. It's just not answering the question. Ditto this post.
It does answer the question, you just don't like the answer. Notice how I'm not questioning the why behind why you choose to value how many units of his product he has sold over how he treats others? The simple fact of the matter is that many people put "people over profits" for many reasons - I am but one person and cannot answer for them. This is no different from why you can't speak to why every single Musk fan supports him, because everyone's reasons are different.
>No one owes me anything.
And yet you have repeatedly said...
>The fact that they don't is bizarre and demands an explanation.
I'm not sure how you can say people don't owe you anything when you've demanded it repeatedly.
>... Elon Must being a mean person on twitter...
Actually, I've been speaking broadly this entire time. When I reference how Musk treats people, I am referencing everything he does, not just his actions on Twitter.
I think what this ultimately boils down to is akin to the question you first posed in this thread - "If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why." I would like to ask you, why is it so important to you what other people think about Elon Musk, and why do you seem to let it bother you so much if they don't like him? He doesn't seem to let the court of public opinion bother him or hold him back from doing nearly whatever he wants, so he's going to keep doing what he's been doing regardless of what other people think. With that in mind, what does it matter to you - you, who isn't Elon Musk - if an internet stranger isn't a fan of him?
I never said business success outweighs how you treat people. I said, in the specific case of Elon Musk, what he has built outweighs his obnoxious attitude. That's a specific, not a generality.
Anyway, we've arrived at a conclusion. To you, values are relative. That's an answer but it's not acceptable to me.
Leaving aside the stunt where he called a rescue diver a pedophile, there has been enough and substantially bad racism at Tesla under his leadership that the company was ordered to pay 137 million dollars [1].
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/tesla-must-pay-137-million-t...
And yet here you are, engaging in one of them. I echo the parents request of a deep meditation on why you are feeling this way.
Pointing out the futility of a conversation is different than engaging in it.
>I echo the parents request of a deep meditation on why you are feeling this way.
Please highlight where, in this thread, I've stated my own feelings about Elon Musk.
[...]
>At the same time, by many measures, you could successfully - and easily - argue that he's a pretty shitty person.
Right here.
Kind of like how this very comment chain is going, no?
Or in other words, the end justifies the means?
Not all of us share that philosphy.
To others, those things are in fact enough to say that Elon Musk is a shithead.
It's as if there are gradients of human behavior, and not everyone is always a cartoony villain or Dudley Do-right all the time.
> However, "being a troll, exaggerating, and sometimes lying" are not mortal sins.
Mortal sins are serious sins, venial sins are less serious sins. "Colloquial" doesn't mean you get to delete words you find inconvenient or don't understand.
In which alternate reality?
2. Tesla accounts for ~14% of EVs sold.
3. Passenger vehicles account for less than 7% of total CO2 emissions globally.
You just have to look at the pandemic to see what difference no combustion engine cars would make for the world. Cities that were covered in smog suddenly had clean air because of the stay at home directive.
Despite all of that, climate change itself has not been "significantly reduced" in any way, nor has there been any evidence that increased adoption of EVs has slowed down or altered climate change's progression.
Two years ago we needed to start reducing emissions by 4% every year. We didn't. We must now reach a whopping 50% emissions reduction by 2030 to limit temperature increases to 1.5C, because the current path we are on could increase temperatures by 4.4C by 2100.
Getting every nation to ditch their ICE vehicles has to happen, yes, but it's not that simple. You can't just ban the sale of new ICE vehicles and expect that 7% to drop to 0%, because everyone who already owns an ICE vehicle is going to keep driving it until they've decided they're done with it for whatever reason. So, the only way to get to 0% ICE vehicles by 2030 would be to make it illegal to operate one - today.
Politics is involved. Getting large swaths of America (or anyone in any nation with an affinity for an ICE vehicle, but this subset of folk is a great example) to give up their gasoline and their trucks and their mustangs is like asking someone to stop breathing. Asking developing nations with little money or ability to modify their infrastructure to support only ICE vehicles over the next eight years is an outstandingly daunting task. I could go on and on, and while I admire your hopefulness, what you're saying requires the entire world to accomplish the same goal in a far shorter amount of time than we actually have.
I want to view the future through rose-colored glasses. I want to have high hopes that EVs will save us.
They won't.
Something, something terrorists and freedom fighters.
0 - Again, Musk didn’t found tesla, he did a hostile takeover and has tried to rewrite history with him as the founder.
You can use this argument to say that no one deserves credit for doing anything. Seems like a dead-end way of thinking about the world to me.
All I see in this “we wouldn’t have EVs without Musk!” discussion is a rehash of the old “great man of history” theory, something that’s generally been discredited in the historical fields. The whims and decisions of individual actors matters, yes, but they also act in a context that molds and constrains them. The specific circumstance that made Musk and Tesla took both his initiative, and a specific cultural and policy environment to support his actions. We overweight the former.
First, one must acknowledge that Tesla would’ve died on the vine without the policies I mentioned above. They finally turned a profit excluding emissions credits in Q1 2021. A feat, yes, but also one that was wholly dependent on public policy to survive and grow. You can give credit to Musk for recognizing the opportunity here, but he didn’t make it.
Second, there’s really nothing to suggest that nobody else would have taken this path if Musk had not, albeit a bit later perhaps. History is full of “great men” who discover and create, but dig under the surface and one will find dozens of uncredited inventors who were either a close second, or less lucky in marketing. Heck, there is no real reason to believe that Musk was even critical for Tesla; remember that he took it over, and we have no idea where it might have gone absent his involvement.
To say that the idea of one person changing the world has been discredited is so wildly wrong I don't even know where to start. We can't neglect the background but we can't neglect individuals and the choices they make either.
What we can say is that Musk presided over the growth of a company that has sold 2 million EVs. We can't say "someone else would have done that if he had never been born," which is what you said. Unreal.
I was attempting to paraphrase a common sentiment, and should have been more clear about that. It’s pretty easy to find people stating a varient of this idea in sibling threads.
> To say that the idea of one person changing the world has been discredited is so wildly wrong I don't even know where to start.
You could start by actually reading what I said, rather than making up for yourself and then arguing against that. Everything you said here is unrelated to my point, and directly countermanded by my actual words.
I don't think we in any way need to lionize the mythology of John Galt like figures to make progress and build a future better than the present.
Commercial space flights were becoming rarer and rarer out of the US, and now it is the most common.
The price of space flight while still high, was reduced by a huge percentage.
I’m sure he told many lies to get there. But economics and physics don’t really lie.
I like him for the reasons I like Kanye, Bernie Sanders, and Trump (though I only voted for the first). Just says crazy things, but some of them are just truths that we’ve all chosen to ignore it don’t like to accept.
Elon, Bernie, Kanye, Trump - most things they say are just noise.
There was that time Tesla bought Musk's cousin's failing rooftop solar company.
So I would credit him with at least that accomplishment.
“Hands on” on the Jesus is King album is one of my favorites, and I do think he might have a messiah complex, but he isn’t saying follow me, but follow God.
Kanye is not a role model to imitate. But he does seem to play a large role in the cosmos (or think the story that will be told centuries from now). Like Elon I’d say.
I can appreciate Trump, and I can appreciate Bernie. I appreciate Kanye’s art and often his blunt words. My vote for him was purely symbolic. He wasn’t even on the ballot in my state.
The guy incited a deadly insurrection to subvert democracy to keep himself in power. He also extorted Ukraine by withholding weapons for his personal political gain. He was impeached for both.
You're not making any sense right now...
The crap economy is definitely all his fault. And gas prices, his fault. And he doesn’t even care about climate change.
With respect, this comment makes you sound like a contemptible, gullible fool that makes society actively worse. I really hope you’re being a bit facetious.
Seriously though this is my point. Kanye is absurd. A fool you might say. Like Trump and Bernie. Yet if you live in an upside down world, you might say some obvious truth, and it will further make you like a fool.
I like that back in 04 he was talking about the way blacks are treated in America, before all the woke fools decided it was popular.
And Beyonces video was better than Taylor’s.
The funny part to me is you actually think your vote for Joe means something.
Now if you say “I think Trump likes black people” you are lambasted like Kanye was for saying George bush didn’t.
>Sanders, in particular, suggested that the US could adopt a socialist system by emulating Scandinavia. “I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people,” said the US presidential candidate, who identifies himself as a “democratic socialist.”
But Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government this week, says Sanders got more than a few things wrong.
“I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
https://qz.com/538499/denmark-says-it-isnt-the-socialist-uto...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bernie-sanders-wrong-d...
"a contemptible, gullible fool that makes society actively worse", seems a little overwrought to me.
Screw the SEC, just another in a long list of government agencies that shouldn’t exist.
I would add 'in its current form' onto the end of that.
The problem is, we have these agencies, so we can say, "look, we're fixing the problem," but then we provide them neither the power nor funding to really do anything but be annoying. I am firmly convinced this is by design. One side gets to say, "look we fixed it" and the other gets to say, "look it doesn't work and never will," and nothing changes.
He and Twitter will pay the SEC a fine and be done with it. The SEC is a civil agency. And this doesn't seem to rise to the level of criminal negligence.
(Practically speaking, he's probably losing his Tesla tweet-review case as a result of this. If he can't figure out if he's an activist when considering a Board seat, he probably needs someone with domain experience looking over his public statements.)
This was almost certainly done by a lawyer working on his behalf. This strikes me as a technicality of paperwork that is being seized upon by the media as a way to portray Musk in the worst possible light.
> I wouldn't want somebody like him on my board
In this hypothetical, what is your role (i.e. fellow shareholder, CEO, employee)? I ask because shareholders (aka the owners of the company) choose the board. Musk owns nearly 1/10th of the company, and is now the largest shareholder, institutional or individual, by a good margin. In other words, whatever your hypothetical role, you wouldn't have much of a choice.
Setting the mechanics of boards aside, there is strong case for him being the most successful business person alive. He is right up there with Bezos, Gates, and Zuckerberg. Shareholders should be cheering this on. And there is some evidence, in the form of the stock price, that they are.
Are you arguing that when he signs his name and certifies that the (short) form is "true, complete and correct" that he is not responsible because the form was prepared by an attorney of his?
> being seized upon by the media
How did "the media" seize on this? When I last checked, there were zero articles. And even if they had, why wouldn't discussion be merited?
I have heard it several times already today, but so what a form was filled out wrong, is there any consequence to that that anybody would care about? (I doubt anybody complaining about it actually knows anything about how important it is, it’s just being latched on to because it’s a way to match events with preexisting opinions)
But why is that form there and what is the consequence of filing one way or the other? I mean besides being punished for doing it wrong, why does that rule exist and what are the effects of filling it out one way or the other?
Why is this anything more than an administrative mistake? Did he get some benefit from filing the form that way?
... or, what it seems, is this just a "gotcha!" for people to complain about on the Internet.
I'd almost say it was on purpose for whatever reason. You don't get rich like Elon by hiring incompetent lawyers.
Can I introduce you to Matt Levine? A very popular opinion columnist - you can get his column by email even without a subscription to Bloomberg, but he’s one of the reasons I subscribe.
His take on this was emailed out midday yesterday and I enjoyed every minute: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-04/elon-m...
You can find an archive of columns here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe... and the email sign up is at http://www.bloomberg.com/newsletters (it used to be a bit easier to find… but pick “Money Stuff” from the list)
Let me ask you this: how is it that you are aware of the form and how Musk (or, more likely, a lawyer) filled it out?
It is being reported [1]. Every word in an article for a major news outlet is meaningful in some way. Journalists are not provided limitless word count, so decisions have to be made about what is and is not included.
Now, one could definitely argue that journalists merely reported on it as they were trying to divine Musk's intentions. But to then interpret this, as the GP has done, as a sign of Musk's dishonesty and lack of integrity is too great a leap (in my opinion).
[1] https://news.google.com/search?q=elon+musk+twitter+passive
Edit: Also, I love your handle. "Wildcat. Wiiiiiild cat."
RE: handle, thanks!
Also, I have since-posting found one article kinda about this: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/elon-musk-thumbs-his-nose-at...
However, even that article is just about the lateness of the filing. It doesn't mention the debate over whether the filing itself was misleading. And this is the best example I could find!
Elon openly attacks and disregards SEC. He doesn’t have any benefit of the doubt left, when it comes to activities that SEC is suppose to be regulating.
This is a tempest in a teapot. People who don't like Musk are pointing to it and saying, "See? SEE!? He is a liar. He is bad."
But the reality is, this doesn't actually hurt anyone and its not really a big deal at all.
But let's take the least charitable interpretation and play it out: Musk filled out the form himself. He intentionally with malice aforethought lied. The day after the SEC form becomes public, he takes a board seat. What is the material damage done to the public?
Twitter shareholders got a huge 2-day pop. That would have happened regardless of Elon's intent.
That's entirely irrelevant. The point is that his past behavior shows a pattern of disregarding financial laws.
Yes, you do. Many crimes, like tax evasion, require “willful” violation, so blaming your tax attorney is a valid defense.
That makes it worse, not less bad. It makes the good-faith-mistake defense untenable.
This is like saying that you can’t be responsible for tax dodging because your accountant filed on your behalf.
> This strikes me as a technicality of paperwork that is being seized upon by the media as a way to portray Musk in the worst possible light.
Almost all of securities law is “technicalities”, it still has the force of law.
No he didn't.
There was discussion yesterday whether him polling his followers last week about twitter and social media was activism. Joining the board certainly is.
He has already signed a separate agreement with twitter that he won’t go over 14 % .
Twitter has always been ripe for being targeted for a takeover it is one of the smallest social media companies it is worth only 35-40B compared to say Facebook (900+B) or TikTok (400B) and it has enormous presence and daily active users. Snapchat is not very far in valuation, but has less reach, Reddit is growing and raised the last round at $10B post but is still private and not that easy take control of. The other attractive factor the founder is no longer actively involved.
Sooner or later someone was going to attempt take over and try to improve its monetizing strategy and generate more value. 3x-5x their MCap is well within the realm of possibility for twitter if executed to a good vision.
I dont see how filing a 13G is better than the above
It's amazing how jumpy the hackernews crowd gets without even reading the document in question. As if Elon's team of lawyers that did this paperwork for him overlooked such a trivial detail.
I appreciate that you take your own advice. You don't understand how these forms work. Both passive and active investors can file a 13G. Why are you just making stuff up?
It's his board.
You wouldn't want the CEO of two of the most innovative, most successful companies of all time on your board? Why?
Suppose he comes in saying "hey, I'm going to be a passive investor" and the subtext is "funny you didn't notice me amassing so much of your stock", meaning "I could yet become an active investor and do a hostile takeover".
It's not farfetched that management might react to that by saying "we'd rather you become an active investor, and here, you can take a seat on the board if you promise you won't mount a takeover".
His intent could have been "passive for now" and mgmt maybe immediately changed his mind. Would that be a crime, or a violation of any kind, or misleading? Would saying "passive" commit him to being passive even if mgmt preferred him to be active? How would other investors get misled by any of this? Couldn't he just as quickly have decided to get out of TWTR and sold his shares, and if so, wouldn't that possibly have done more harm to other investors? What's the law say about this?
BabylonBee is a recent example, and apparently Musk had a call with them prior to him making the free speech poll/twitter purchase: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1511325246967660547 (Note: Musk has been on their podcast).
Likely BabylonBee still can't tweet (?), the offending tweet is still down: https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1505288002746175494, also this one is word-for-word the same and up: https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1503825449285300228.
Makes no sense.
That's just a going rule but I just checked. 80% of twitter is held by institutions. Only 2.5% is owned by insiders.
No dorsey to be seen here? No elliot management? https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/02/29/twitters-...
Unless I'm missing something... Elon owns Twitter. This was a super easy hostile takeover... he doesn't need 14%
Elon probably doesnt want any sort of key position because afterall he's in constant fight over tesla and sec.
De voormalige eigenaar en mede-oprichter Jack Dorsey bezit 2,25 procent van de aandelen. [1]
[1] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/04/04/elon-musk-koopt-aandele...
Twitter will get more attention for sure, but possibly not the kind of attention they want. But apparently there's no such thing as bad publicity.
I think of of the interesting things to watch for is if he starts pressuring for the guy who tracks the movements of his private jet to have his account terminated.
If you ignore the 89 deaths from Toyota vehicle acceleration issues, 271 deaths from Ford's faulty tires in the 90s, 303 dead from GM's faulty ignition switches, 478 deaths from Fiat's engines exploding, and 823 deaths from Ford's Bronco tipping over at speeds as slow as 20MPH.
Ok, a few guys had a buissness plan and then used Musk money to totally run the buissness into the ground.
Tesla without Musk is just another footnote in the histoy of EV.
Re (a) achievements, the man has basically bootstrapped space travel and electric vehicles. Seems like a big deal. Yes, I know it's more nuanced than that, but you get the point. Can you name someone else who broke through two fundamentally stalled/deadlocked industries on such scale? Now here he is putting his plow to the field of one of the most difficult problems of our age: information and social media.
Re (b) his mind, I have been very impressed by his interviews on podcasts as well as his willingness to go on various long-form podcasts. He seems to be somebody who is very eager to learn about a great variety of fields (history, software, hardware, physics). He also seems to take great care in extrapolating side-effects down a chain of events in order to think in a complex way of "what would happen if we do X". The world is not black & white and Elon seems to operate very comfortably in known & unknowns.
I don't agree with everything Elon says or does. But it's so bloody stupid that I have to even say that. What sort of bubble do you live in where you actually have various people who you fully agree with across all spectrums? Get out in the real world for goodness sake.
We need more Elon Musks.
Addendum:
(he also posts dank memes while on the pot, which is another plus)
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYOI8h9-uXs
I cannot find the complete interview on YouTube unfortunately.
In this other interview, I am disappointed at how she didn't even push on some of his answers, for example when talking about his "rabid fan base". You just need to look at this thread for proof.
[2]:https://youtu.be/sM9RyZT0Rrg?t=219
Also, she is not as technically informed about the mistakes his companies made. Would love someone to challenge him on the obvious mistakes he has made with Tesla that everyone else in the industry were adamant would be failures. Things such as the "Alien Dreadnaught" were repeats of documented mistakes that GM and Ford made back in the 80s. Even technical interviewers always gush over him about how amazing he is and never challenge him. They all just don't want to lose access.
1) Twitter doesn't ban people for wrong think! That's a myth!
2) Musk was accused of racism!
3) Musk isn't doing this for freedom of speech, he's only doing it for his own interests!
I want to see the Venn Diagram of people who said one of these things, and were glibly sharing XKCD #1357 whenever someone got banned from Twitter that they disagree with.
The tides have started to slowly turn, and all they can do is play the same three cards over and over: "that's not true, this is racism, capitalism bad!"
Surprise! Nobody believes this anymore. They're sick and tired of being told what to believe by "experts". They're tired of you crying wolf. And they're tired of being gaslit that none of this is happening.
> Elon Musk: buys ~10% and lays out intension to make changes
> No, not like that
Maybe it's worth a board seat to not get boxed out, esp if the media owned by your opponents has been demonstrably unfriendly and you're ramping up your goals.
https://twitter.com/davidpowellbham/status/15113983601372774...
Elon is being forced (or heavily incentivized at least) to liquify Tesla stocks, so he's going to be looking for alternate places to put that money to avoid the consequences of holding on to liquid capital, this limits him from putting too much of it into Twitter, and being more than just a board member.
Gives stockholders & existing board members what they want (retaining control of the business, and makes it harder for Elon to build a competitor), while giving Elon what he wants (influence in the business). This sounds like a win-win.
So how you go about this? As a mere mortal you are damned to create a new thing, create a PR-campaign from the outside to pressure Twitter ... the usual things. But as the richest person on the planet you don't only possess the resources to do all the above way better, additionally you can simply just buy up "Twitter". Which is kind of crazy like buying up a restaurant after not being satisfied with the service.
Well, the stock price did go up significantly and yeah, in order to make things "more fun" for Twitter users again (the most active being obviously not underclass) one can relax some "out of control" censorship practices.
How does this happen though? When someone is "cancelled on Twitter" what does that mean? Is it Jack Dorsey going in a banning your account? Twitter suspensions, by the actual company, are relatively well reasoned. What most people don't like is the Twitter mob, who does not work for Twitter. Despite people saying they want "more free speech" what they actually want is to suppress the free speech of others so they can say what they want.
But also quite frightening given how much I see it here in a forum of self-diagnosed geniuses[0].
[0]do your own research, have being poor
"He's not going to join the board" said the smart set.
I am undone.
I mean, you say that. But the literal former president of the USA got de-platformed from twitter, and we don't hear about him nearly as much as when he had a twitter.
Maybe it is actually worth that amount of money, if entire elections can be influenced like that.
What was the influence Trump's banning had over the election?
Especially since it occurred after the election, that's a good question.
You can agree or disagree that Trump being banned from the platform that he was most known for, will effect his future election chances, and you can disagree with if you want that to happen or not, but that is completely unrelated to the point.
But I think it is unfortunate that people on HN sometimes are so jumpy to find a disagreement, that they mis-understand the point so easily.
Instead of thinking "This person didn't know that Trump was banned after the 2020 election, what an idiot!", instead you could have thought "Maybe he is talking about future elections, instead of the one that happened previously to his ban, which would obviously be really stupid!"
He didn't stop getting wall-to-wall coverage in all media when he was banned for Twitter.
It did start fading shortly after he left office.
I mean, it could be coincidence, but it does seem to suggest an obvious alternative explanation for why attention to him dropped.
If there's declining interest in him among the public, maybe it's because he isn't president anymore.
the question, is it worth investment?
He already has a very questionable reputation as an "example to all humans".
Extremely powerful people do extremely stupid things. Examples:
- Trump ("Charge the White house!")
- Putin ("Invade Ukraine")
- Musk ("Make Twitter an absolute free speech platform!")
It's going to be fun to watch this over the next couple of months. And when I say "fun" I actually mean the exact opposite.
The problem is actually the unevenness of policies.
An example that annoyed me recently: the video ad for /JeremysRazors is hidden behind a "potentially sensitive content" warning (it's not), but Twitter search "razors" and be prepared to see (without any warning) disgusting images of people cutting themselves.
The Kremlin (and CCP) are verified and tweeting, whilst the BabylonBee (and Trump) are banned. Lunacy.
A truth is that this guy is irrelevant. It's just your ideas that make him relevant. Just face the reality of your daily lives, and look away from some random stimulant on the net that try to rub your rough corners one way or another. Either you like him or hate him, you're just wasting your energy, people...
I'm wary of Musk because he comes from the same "memelord shitposter" tradition that has served the right wing so well in the past few years, but I don't think he's angling for the return of Trump?
Imagine Trump will be brought back on Twitter, he’ll radicalize 40% of Americans into QAnon disciples and try to topple the United States government again. He’ll have thousands like him joining in in spreading mass amounts of fake news exactly like the Russian propaganda machine.
You’ll see extreme science denial, a boatload of new Covid myths, drinking bleach, Ivermectin, Covid is just the flu propaganda all over again, just 5 times worse.
I assumed he would optimize how he spends his time.
He mentioned once that he sometimes sleeps/slept at the factory.
I had a similar thought on Putin: as long as the war is ongoing he has less time to do other things.
When Biden took over trump I also thought that bidens team might be able to do more change than the trump team because he fired so many and golfed often.
I posted it though to share my thoughts. This made me realize that Elon musk takes twitter much more serious than I thought.
A newspaper I get. Forming opinions is easy with a newspaper.
But with twitter? Manipulating Twitter trends? Who cares?
>I sympathize but very rich people owning the media never ends well
How does the history of the ultra-wealthy controlling the narrative in media for their own gain change that statement?
At least Elon Musk is a very rich person who believes in free speech. Which is good for us poors. Twitter and the national discourse will be objectively better for working class voices as a result. Less so for the gatekeepers and media elite commentariat.
Yes thats exactly why he was willing to shell out 50,000$ to a kid to remove his flight tracking bot.
Stop licking his boot.
1. Those who back authoritarian style censorship conducted in opaque fashion
2. Those who back free speech and transparency
There is no such thing as absolute free speech and I have no idea where you all are coming up with this idea. By definition, absolute free speech cannot exist because your speech ends where mine begins. Free speech does not mean free from moderation or consequences and criticisms, both are forms of speech themselves. There is no authoritarian censorship going on here.
As with so many plagues on American society and current political discourse, this came from Trump supporters, specifically angry at being banned from social media platforms for hate speech and disinformation, and suddenly deciding that rules and social consequences for their behavior were a violation of their civil rights. The attempt to redefine free speech is part of a movement to impugn social media platforms as engaging in widespread politically motivated suppression of free speech, with the implication they need to be forced by law to host the kind of content they would otherwise refuse to.
This is a strawman argument, that nobody seriously proposed.
Advocating Totalitarian controls via Terms of Service, and/or Government !== Free Association
Come back when it attempts to have Twitter ban this persons account, then you may have a case, offering an monetary incentive for someone to change their behavior is not censorship in any form.
Stop being a tool
He believes in his free speech. Maybe. Definitely not when it comes to people who work for him or people that criticize him.
Honestly this thread has been pushing me more towards the Musk camp, which I didn't think was possible. But not one person seems to be able to point to specific, concrete criticisms with references.
e.g.: https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-...
His reactions towards criticism (like harassing or banning journalist criticizing Tesla, or that whole fiasco with his submarine) are always well covered too. And while it's not exactly suppressing free speech, that level of pettiness doesn't look too good.
Also, how is this pushing you towards the Musk camp? (The fact that there's such thing, and there is, is troubling on its own)
Tell that to the people who released valid short research on Tesla.
Also liquid assets for investment are harder for people that rich so still likely a major decision.
Either he used proceeds from last year stock sales or he leveraged some Tesla stock for this .
Twitter trading volumes are not so high that anyone can just come in make a 4 billion buy order .
Acquiring 10% stock of any public company without upsetting the price to much takes time and effort [1]
It is not some whimsical impluse buy, no matter how much money he has , this was calculated buy he must have considered for a while.
Jack Dorsey stepping down probably helped him to decide to make a move, a hostile founder CEO can make it ugly. Especially somebody like Jack who has another very high value startup and doesn't derive his wealth from just Twitter can make it expensive and ugly if he choose to.
[1]- unless someone is selling you a block trade outside of the market. No institutional investors have left or reduced their stake that much in the last quarter so Elon couldn't have used this route
The people I disagree with are divisive.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was never described as divisive, though she was objectively more divisive than a rich guy who makes cars and rocket ships and flamethrowers. Antonin Scalia was described as divisive, so the argument can't be made that SC justices are somehow different.
It's a rhetorical trick that's been used for many decades. It's obvious, and it's tiresome.
I don't think most people would argue that Musk isn't a visionary. I also don't think most people would argue that Musk isn't divisive.
It seems a little contrary to the - Have curious conversation; .... Please don't sneer... guidelines. A lot of sneering going on when Musk gets a mention.
I don't believe much in canceling and like what SpaceX is doing, I just don't like Musk making fun of people like me and so I'd sooner work for his competitors than for him.
My impression is that he uses his wealth mostly to invest in other ventures that he feels are important causes to him.
The problem here isn’t that Musk is necessarily greedier than any other majority shareholder, it’s that Musk is greedy in a peculiar way that is at odds with so many other people in the world. It’s important to embrace and understand differences, but put too much leverage behind one voice or vision and there will be consequences. And there’s a lot of criticism and evidence that Musk does not use his leverage over others responsibly.
I don't understand why so many people seem to hold the attitude that the only acceptable response to someone having money is to pressure them to squander it by giving it all away to atrociously inefficient systems (government, charities, etc). Making money is not immoral. And neither is using money to make investments to make more money.
1) He exploits his workers with typical tech bro enthusiasm, working them to the bone. I hear terrible things about the work culture at his companies. 2) He claims the throne of innovator but many of his successes came from acquisitions which came from his rich parents who ran an exploitative emerald mine. 3) He manipulates the stock market openly. 4) He rarely keeps his promises.
That being said I think he's alright. But it's not just the fact that he uses his money that people complain about him.
First the bill applies to kindergarten to 3rd grade. Very clear who it applies to. If you teach fourth grade or above this does not apply.
Second, the bill basically prevents three things.
1. The withholding of information "affecting a student's mental, emotional, or physical well-being" from a parent. It also requires no prohibitions on parents "accessing any of their student's education and health records created, maintained, or used by the school district".
2. Banning teachers of kindergartens through 3rd grade from "discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students"
3. Prevents a school from "administering a student well-being questionnaire or health screening form to a student in kindergarten through grade 3" without providing "the questionnaire or health screening form to the parent and obtain[ing] the permission of the parent"
The law also requires the school districts to "notify parents of each healthcare service offered at their student's school and the option to withhold consent or decline any specific service."
It is quite clear and less than 10 pages long. It is not chilling speech to not talk to a 5 year old about sex. Also, this bill also literally would apply to all sexual orientations including straight. If this is a don't say gay bill then it is also don't say straight.
Additionally puberty generally starts in 2nd-3rd grade so these children aren't allowed to learn about themselves until after onset, including potentially asking their teachers questions privately.
This is of course the least clear part of the bill. I believe I saw one if the Florida representatives supporting this bill basically say the existing sex ed / health classes are fine and students should be in at least middle school.
Very few people are complaining about general sex ed.
>Additionally puberty generally starts in 2nd-3rd grade so these children aren't allowed to learn about themselves until after onset
I've seen conflicting numbers on the age of puberty. I think the youngest is 8 for girls and 9 for boys. If that is the case that would be 3rd grade. Would you be OK with a ban on K-2 on this then?
Just because a kid starts puberty does not mean they suddenly have sexual preferences. It takes time to grow so even if they start puberty at 8 they will take a while to understand.
Also, there have been some hypotheses regarding the declining age for puberty such as the increase in sexual content at a younger and younger age. I think the average age kids first see porn is now 10 or so. That means quite a few kids are seeing it earlier than that (and probably earlier than puberty). If that is the case then maybe we should try to lower the sexual content instead of increasing it.
Kids also aren't banned from learning about themselves. Not sure where you got that idea from? How would such a thing even be enforced?
>including potentially asking their teachers questions privately.
I am dubious this is banned. The law is explicitly says classroom instruction. Asking a teacher a question privately doesn't seem to fall under it.
Regardless, I don't think English or math teachers or whatever subject should be teaching sex related things. If it is going to be be taught in schools it should be taught by a health teacher. Maybe we should be advocating for health classes in elementary school instead of middle school.
This is far too late in my experience. If you wait this long the trans and gay kids are already being picked on and everyone else has learned how sex works from internet porn.
> I've seen conflicting numbers on the age of puberty. I think the youngest is 8 for girls and 9 for boys. If that is the case that would be 3rd grade. Would you be OK with a ban on K-2 on this then?
I think this is an interesting point, and I'd agree that if the problem was just puberty then moving things back a year would solve the issue.
However...
>Also, there have been some hypotheses regarding the declining age for puberty
Obviously real data would be needed for this beyond just a hypothesis, but even if we accept this, there's another facet to this problem. Gender identity isn't a sexual issue at this age (obviously it's inherently sexual but not in the way this point is addressing it). There seems to be some consensus that gender dysphoria is first experienced at age 3 to 7 and personally I witnessed kids I went to school with displaying signs of this prior to 3rd grade. There isn't any harm in explaining to children that gender dysphoria exists and that while some of them may question their gender, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them and that they shouldn't pick on people who don't fit cleanly into gender categories.
A lot of the lefts outrage over this bill is based on the premise that there wasn't harm happening as a result of education before this was proposed, but now there definitely will be, as a result of a lack thereof.
It is not in my experience.
>If you wait this long the trans and gay kids are already being picked on
I think the better thing to do would be to work on fixing bullying overall. Even if kids understood different sexual orientations better they would still make fun of people who are different. If somebody talks different or looks different they will be made fun of.
>everyone else has learned how sex works from internet porn.
I don't think sex ed will fix this. It quite possibly peak kids interest and cause them to view porn even earlier when they look up information about sex.
>I think this is an interesting point, and I'd agree that if the problem was just puberty then moving things back a year would solve the issue.
You are the one who brought up puberty.
>Obviously real data would be needed for this beyond just a hypothesis,
Fully agree. I think the problem is testing this. Introducing porn and other sexual content to a 5 year old doesn't seem like the greatest thing to do.
>Gender identity isn't a sexual issue at this age (obviously it's inherently sexual but not in the way this point is addressing it). There seems to be some consensus that gender dysphoria is first experienced at age 3 to 7 and personally I witnessed kids I went to school with displaying signs of this prior to 3rd grade.
How many actually are showing signs of this? There is a growing number of people who think if a boy plays with a Barbie or likes pink that means he is showing signs of gender dysphoria.
>There isn't any harm in explaining to children that gender dysphoria exists and that while some of them may question their gender, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them and that they shouldn't pick on people who don't fit cleanly into gender categories.
There is a harm. 80% of kids who display gender dysphoria at this age grow out of it. Those 80% may become more certain in their incorrect gender identity and start treatments over conversations you are proposing. The longer kids are on medications (and if they get surgery) the harder it is to detransition, which as I mentioned already is at 80%.
No it doesn't. Third graders are 8-9.
The idea of third graders learning about sex and puberty is very strange. We (public school) had health class in 8th and 9th grade where we learned about puberty, sex, and similar topics.
Additionally, it's odd to me that you include mention of "asking teachers questions privately". Why don't 8-9 year olds ask their parents privately? The assumption is that the parents are the enemy. That's exactly what led to this bill.
Idk, I'd definitely be forced to talk to a teacher if you were my parent
You wrote:
> puberty generally starts in 2nd-3rd grade
That's wrong. Replace "generally" with "very, very rarely" and it's right.
> Idk, I'd definitely be forced to talk to a teacher if you were my parent
Why? Why wouldn't you be able to talk to a parent about going through puberty at 8 years old? Any parent is going to notice. Why is it better to talk to a virtual stranger?
[0]: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/Fil...
A teacher shouldn't have to risk legal action by saying "Timmy's parents are both men who love each other, and that's okay." This bill introduces that risk because the teacher doesn't know who is going to decide what is age appropriate. A parent could decide it was inappropriate and initiate a suit. Will that happen often? No, but what teacher is going to risk it?
It's very difficult to find a reason that the wording "age appropriate or developmentally appropriate" is so vague, expect that the bill's intent is to silence the subject as much as possible.
2. You want to ban gossip?
Both of those are nonsense. And neither address my point. The bill is vague on purpose, and the purpose is to scare teachers into silence.
You said:
>A teacher shouldn't have to risk legal action by saying "Timmy's parents are both men who love each other, and that's okay."
If a teacher is telling other students about Timmy's home life that is very much gossip.
The other students have no reason or right to know what Timmy's home situation is. If Timmy wants to tell other students about his situation he can. The teacher should not be doing that.
Would you hold the same standard if a teacher said Timmy only has one parent if one of his parents died? It is gossip and the teacher should not be talking to other students about it.
If someone is okay with being out (like a married-with-children couple) then it's okay to acknowledge they are gay. Just like saying Timmy's dad is a doctor is okay. A teacher shouldn't risk legal action for saying so.
The fact you think I am trying to say homosexuality is the same as death is quite telling isn't it?
I don't care if somebody is OK with being out. It is not the place of a teacher to tell other students the home life of another student. I don't think a teacher should tell other students what the profession of a student's parents are either.
There is no reason for a teacher to do this.
I didn't say that. I said you compared them. You did so again in this comment, again putting them on the same level as taboo discussion subjects for children, which is just plain wrong. The fact that people of the same gender can love each other is not hard to understand, it's really quite simple to explain, but your last comment attempted to make it sound difficult to explain, seemingly to justify speaking in hushed tones about it or not at all if children are nearby, as if you were talking about their deceased parent. But it's an easy-to-understand, neutral subject, so your point is invalid.
And really? One kid tells another kid that his dad is an architect, the second kid asks the teacher to explain what the first kid's dad does. And the teacher says "No, I can't talk about anyone's parents." That's what you're going with?
This isn't necessarily about a student's parents anyway. That's just one example of where a child might be triggered to ask about it. Kids are curious, they will ask, and with this new legislation teachers will avoid it as if the kid asked about death. And when something gets treated as if it's taboo, it becomes taboo.
Why not let the parents who know the child better explain these things?
In terms of a parent's profession there is nothing age inappropriate about an architect. There is certain age inappropriate things about sex. A teacher does not know if a kid has hit puberty, how mature they are, etc. This is why a parent should be involved with this not teachers.
How many 5 year olds are paying attention to laws being passed? None. The only reason they would know is if their parents or teachers tell them. I think kids should be kids. You shouldn't be telling kids about cultural / legal things that are going on if you can avoid it. I have no idea why so many people want kids to get involved with legal discussions. Just let kids be unaware of the strife, conflict and other things that don't matter to them in the world.
I don't want to talk to 5 year olds about taxes. Does that mean I want conversations about taxes to be taboo? I just think there is a time and place for things like this and teaching 5 year olds about this stuff is too early.
Also, I would note that the law only bans classroom instruction. If a student asks a teacher outside of that context the teacher could answer.
There is no reason why a young kids needs to be instructed about such things. Any author or historical figure who is gay could still be taught.
Second, this only applies to classroom instruction. If a student stays after class they could ask their teacher about sexual orientation if they are wondering why a student has two dads or something. Some may try to extend the law to cover that, but as far as I can tell it wouldn't apply to that.
If the law functionally prevents X without explicitly stating that they are intending to prevent X, does that make a difference to you?
If they were intending to ban X (and presumably promote Y) they shouldn't write a bill that also bans Y. (Y being straight).
If you want to infer some assumptions without answering some basic axioms so we can make sure we’re on the same page and not arguing past each other, I’ll just dive in.
Since I’m seeing many supporters of the bill get incensed at the fact that Y is also functionally banned, and been told that I should know what the bill is “really about”, and that the bill does not define “age appropriate”, I reject your rejection of the premise. There’s a chilling effect of the government saying you could be in legal trouble for this, but they won’t let you know what the line is until you’ve crossed it. That causes people to pull their behavior far back from wherever they think the nebulous line might be.
To answer your question, despite its irrelevance, I don't mind if a bill functionally blocks something so long as it would be constitutional / legal if they were to explicitly block that thing. I tend to prefer explicit to prevent any confusion. If you think this bill functionally blocks talking about gay people existing then it also functionally blocks talking about straight people existing.
I agree there is no age appropriate definition, but I don't really mind.
I don't think any teacher who is teaching 3rd grade and younger should instruct about any sexual orientation or gender identity regardless if they do it in an age appropriate manner so I don't particularly care if teachers are afraid of talking about sexual orientation to 5 year olds. I wish the bill went further and just outright banned any instruction on the topic to kids in 3rd grade and younger without the age appropriate portion.
Unfortunately due to the age appropriate wording a teacher may be able to instruct about sexual orientation to kids who are too young to be hearing it.
You don’t have to get into sexually explicit conversation but even the concept of having a mom and a dad is a functional consequence of sexual orientation and children are aware of the fact that they have parents from much younger than third grade. Given the impossibility of removing all discussion on the topic I have no reason to believe that the Florida state government is going to enforce this law equally, and instead expect selective enforcement against their political enemies. Their base expects this too based on my conversations with supporters of the law who don’t think that any discussion of heterosexually linked topics will be banned and only homosexual ones will.
That gets back to my point about the functional blocking in the law, which youve stated you’re fine with if it’s constitutional. As the SCOTUS already ruled that sexuality can’t be used as a determinate in discriminatory laws during the gay marriage case due to the fact that it relies on gender information which is a protected class, I can’t see how anyone who’s pro constitution is cool with this bill
That is an issue with the enforcement of the law not the law itself.
>There’s no way to completely excise this sort of topic from conversation even with young children.
Sure there is. Literally don't talk about it. I don't think a single teacher told us they were married until we were in middle school. None of the teachers mentioned any of the other student's parents. It is pretty easy to do by not talking about it.
>You don’t have to get into sexually explicit conversation but even the concept of having a mom and a dad is a functional consequence of sexual orientation and children are aware of the fact that they have parents from much younger than third grade
And? Just because children understand they have parents and one is male and the other is female doesn't mean teachers need to talk about it.
>Given the impossibility of removing all discussion on the topic I have no reason to believe that the Florida state government is going to enforce this law equally, and instead expect selective enforcement against their political enemies
Not a given.
>Their base expects this too based on my conversations with supporters of the law who don’t think that any discussion of heterosexually linked topics will be banned and only homosexual ones will.
I don't think you talk to a lot of conservatives. Every conservative I know (and the media ones I have heard) do not want teachers talking about heterosexual relationships either. I think they all would be glad if everything related to sexual orientation and gender identity was banned (at least at this age).
>As the SCOTUS already ruled that sexuality can’t be used as a determinate in discriminatory laws during the gay marriage case due to the fact that it relies on gender information which is a protected class, I can’t see how anyone who’s pro constitution is cool with this bill
Fortunately for proponents of this bill, there is nothing about sexual orientation discrimination. The bill bans all instruction of sexual orientation regardless if it is straight, gay or anything else.
A gay teacher quite probably could even say he was gay and married to a guy so long as it is not classroom instruction.
Were you actually unaware of people being married until middle school? This sounds incredibly bizarre/dystopian to me. People aren't soulless automatons who don't socialize and parents and teachers would be aware of each others social lives at least at an acquaintance level at every school I attended. Even in kindergarten we knew that teachers were married or not simply by whether they were called Ms. or Mrs. There's also your own parents or your friends parents. I really can't fathom this concept that we've always wanted children to not know about sexuality in any aspect and need to hide it now other than through the lens that people are willing to accept collateral damage to hide homosexuality.
>I don't think you talk to a lot of conservatives. Every conservative I know (and the media ones I have heard) do not want teachers talking about heterosexual relationships either.
I literally grew up in a uber conservative, Confederate flag waving farm town in the middle of New England. Everyone was always excited to talk about new marriages and involve actual toddlers as part of the wedding ceremonies whenever people got married. Parents were always pushing their kids to give gifts or sign cards congratulating young teachers when they got married. Unless I see vast information to the contrary, all this looks like is a continuation of modern US conservative culture that will lie to your face about their past actions, as long as it hurts the right people
>That is an issue with the enforcement of the law not the law itself. >Fortunately for proponents of this bill, there is nothing about sexual orientation discrimination. The bill bans all instruction of sexual orientation regardless if it is straight, gay or anything else.
If a law is created by a group of law makers with open biases, and then only enforced in a discriminatory way, then the problem _is_ with the law, unless you thought poll tests under Jim Crow were fine on their own and the enforcement was the only issue. I'll reserve the right to be surprised if this law is enforced uniformly, but I have been given no reason by the Florida state government to expect that
Of course I knew about marriage, but I didn't ask my teachers and none of my fellow students asked. My teachers in elementary school didn't tell us if they were married. Maybe they understood kids don't actually care about the social lives of their teachers so they didn't tell us.
>This sounds incredibly bizarre/dystopian to me.
It is dystopian for teachers to not tell students about their personal life?
>People aren't soulless automatons who don't socialize and parents and teachers would be aware of each others social lives at least at an acquaintance level at every school I attended.
This law has nothing to do with parents and teachers knowing about each others lives, but young kids.
>Even in kindergarten we knew that teachers were married or not simply by whether they were called Ms. or Mrs.
Good for you. Many of my teachers just went by Ms even if they were married. I remember when I was in maybe first or second grade one teacher used Mrs but didn't explain the difference. I just assumed it was for older woman since the teacher was quite a bit older than the previous teachers I had. Kids are quite naive and will just assume things. You don't need to explain everything to them.
Even if a student knew the woman was married they wouldn't have to tell their students if they are gay or straight.
It also doesn't work for men so they wouldn't have a reason to bring it up.
>There's also your own parents or your friends parents.
No clue what you are trying to say here.
>I really can't fathom this concept that we've always wanted children to not know about sexuality in any aspect and need to hide it now other than through the lens that people are willing to accept collateral damage to hide homosexuality.
We need things to be age appropriate. If you had a 5 year old kid and he asked about sex would you show him a gang bang video? I would assume not. I don't think 5 year olds should know about such things regardless if it is straight or gay.
>I literally grew up in a uber conservative, Confederate flag waving farm town in the middle of New England. Everyone was always excited to talk about new marriages and involve actual toddlers as part of the wedding ceremonies whenever people got married. Parents were always pushing their kids to give gifts or sign cards congratulating young teachers when they got married. Unless I see vast information to the contrary, all this looks like is a continuation of modern US conservative culture that will lie to your face about their past actions, as long as it hurts the right people
You are talking about decades ago I assume. Regardless, if a parent wants to have their kid celebrate a marriage they can.
This law is saying teachers shouldn't be teaching this stuff.
The law strictly speaking doesn't even ban a teacher telling their students they are gay so it wouldn't even have an impact.
>If a law is created by a group of law makers with open biases, and then only enforced in a discriminatory way, then the problem _is_ with the law
Which law was made by people without open biases? I am going out on a limb and saying none.
The law has never been enforced so how could it be enforced in a discriminatory way?
>unless you thought poll tests under Jim Crow were fine on their own and the enforcement was the only issue.
Of course not.
>I'll reserve the right to be surprised if this law is enforced uniformly, but I have been given no reason by the Florida state government to expect that
You are jumping to a conclusion probably because you didn't like your childhood you described. You think all conservatives are like the ones you grew up with. You think they are filled with hatred and can't move on. Conservatives appear to have become a boogie man for you, where you think the worst of them.
It is clear you hold deep seated biases and it is not going to be a fruitful dialogue.
I grew up conservative. Theyre my family, not boogie men. But you do you. Gonna have to agree to disagree on this all then. You are describing a reality I do not believe exists
> Due to the "Don't Say Gay" nickname some commentators and social media users thought the bill banned mentioning the word "gay" in school classrooms, though the bill does not actually mention the word "gay" or explicitly prohibit its use.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Florida#HB_1557...
The point of the bill is that nobody will talk about anything because: "It also allows parents and teachers to sue any school district if they believe this policy is violated"
Teachers and school districts don't have the money to fuck around in court to learn what this means. This is basically the same strategy as the Texas abortion bill as it allows random evangelical busybody assholes to be morality police with the threat of crippling court costs.
UPDATE: I just read a news case which is somewhat related to the law: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article2601061...
The title makes it was about the message on the board, while it was not. The music teacher talked about sex orientation and trans issue in the classroom.
QUOTE:
“The issue at hand is the conversations that took place during class. I firmly believe that students and their parents expect teachers to teach content about their assigned curriculum in a subject area,“ Saylor said. “Of course, there are times that conversations may vary from that day’s lesson plan, but these conversations went far beyond the music curriculum. It is my job to make sure that parents are not surprised by these types of situations.”
Saylor said he believes that all teachers have a responsibility to be supportive of their students, “but when students share difficult situations and circumstances with them, the student should be referred to a certified school counselor.”
The thing we have to realize is the would is a bit different now. Before we just assumed these people didn't exist and that became a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Now we better understand this reality and the consequences of ignoring them as well as the options available for helping them.
I wonder how many of the male population understand periods, the cost contributed to them, and other female health issues that affect 50% of the population.
People arguing for the bill believe those against it want to give 5yo kids a lecture on sex positions but in reality there's a lot of material to cover in the window they're banning that isn't the heavy sexual content they have in mind.
I think the more compelling rebuttal is that the fear of indoctrination is overblown, that there aren't many cases of this happening. That said, I think it's perfectly fine to preemptively legislate against something when there's no real downside to the legislation. To this point, I would be curious to hear what legitimate material you think this legislation imperils. I would also like to hear proponents of the legislation give examples which show that this could become a problem in Florida (are there many examples of teachers proselytizing to students, especially sexual and gender identity ideologies?).
That's the obvious concern with the law, especially if you add such a "parents can sue" mechanism and with the political environment around. Any parent that sues over discussing families with one mom and one dad will look like a nutjob and loose, but parents suing over two dads appearing in a childrens book will have very legitimate concerns that have to be taken seriously.
Time will tell if that concern is wrong, but I'm not giving that scenario much chance.
You and I seem to inhabit very different realities. Pushing boundaries (especially in the name of equality) is glorified in American culture, and has been since the 60s and 70s. "Subversiveness" is a virtue. Moreover, the left dominates cultural institutions (media, entertainment, academia, etc)--the idea that any speech is going to be quelled over this seems ridiculous. Anything that one attempts to suppress gets amplified (Streisand Effect).
If conservative parents sue to block the discussion of homosexual content, liberal parents can sue to block the discussion of normatively heterosexual content. The ACLU and other progressive organizations exist for exactly these kinds of cases.
> Any parent that sues over discussing families with one mom and one dad will look like a nutjob and loose,
1. Again, you and I seem to live in very different Americas if you think suing for equality is unpopular. Such a suit would be national news, and the plaintiffs would enjoy unfailingly favorable treatment by the national press (save for Fox News) which famously skews left on precisely these kinds of social issues.
2. IANAL, but I would think it would be relatively straightforward to point to all of the cases where the courts interpreted discussing same sex parents as "teaching sexual orientation". Seems like a slam dunk, and I wouldn't be surprised if lawyers would take the case pro bono just to make a name for themselves with all of the national press coverage.
The change here is that the bill is enforcing that some kind of framework is followed in public schools when it comes to teaching 5 to 8 year olds about sexual orientation and gender identities. What the Florida Department of Education comes up with here remains to be seen, but the vagueness of the bill actually seems reasonable here as the appropriateness of such topics likely varies depending on the age of the child.
The meat of the bill is reenforcing parental rights in public schools, such as being able to access their child's mental health records, to be notified of any medical procedures with the option to opt out, access to their child's curriculum, etc.
[0]: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/Fil...
Instead I believe in being a decent person.
We can talk until we’re green in the face but I welcome the day Twitter stops being a leftist authoritarian echo chamber.
Perhaps take some time to reflect as to whether that label is really true for you, and focus more on that latter belief. Being a decent person is admirable.
Without looking it up, do you think the CIA supported the Iraq War?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30921167.
Never would have bothered before but I'm long TWTR now, worth a gamble since everything Elon touches turns to gold, even if only because of cult of personality...
Internet and social media use use track closely with education level, which correlate to position on the political spectrum.
If that's true, then an attempt to make social media more "neutral" would in fact be giving rightists an unfair advantage.
Educated people, professors, lawyers, doctors, programmers, and others with desk jobs are more likely to participate heavily in social media than the uneducated and, working class, and menial laborers.
Just because most people have a Facebook account doesn't mean that representation is equal, and there is no reason to expect that a preponderance of lefty posts necessarily implies systemic bias.
I am sure that people on the left will do just fine, if there happens to be 1 major neutral platform that doesn't do as strict moderation.
I am not arguing against more strict moderation. I am saying that the apparent leftist tilt of, for example, Twitter, is not in fact a consequence of biased moderation, but rather a consequence of a bias in the underlying population: internet users tend to be more left.
From Maricopa county (Phoenix): https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/why-is-...
That's 2,239 people (16 percent of all surveyed shelter-visitors) that cited "economic reasons" as the cause of their homelessness, and there's a separate entry for unemployment.
lol, maybe for "us" they are most people have serious trouble just living and near zero retirement funds
I'm beyond tired of the hyperbole and hysteria any time <personal internet doesn't like> <does thing>. And I can back my assertion up with an example: you.
Not even Elon could save that dumpster fire. Android is so bad that even Google doesn't want to use it anymore (see: Fuchsia).
Maintaining privacy against a state level actor is essentially a nerd fan fiction daydream. If the US government is after you, you're fucked no matter what.
https://www.reuters.com/business/us-sec-says-teslas-musk-sho...