Trump, Musk and Kanye Are Twitter Poisoned | Hacker News Reader

Trump, Musk and Kanye Are Twitter Poisoned

nytimes.com

12 points5amdotis6 comments

I can't imagine what it's like being in the public eye constantly and having millions of followers to attend to, but I'm sure I wouldn't like it. I know it would change me in ways that are unpredictable.

> I’ll suggest a hypothesis about the childishness that comes to the surface in social media addicts. When we were children, we all had to negotiate our way through the jungle of human power relationships at the playground. When we feel those old humiliations, anxieties and sadisms again as adults — over and over, because the algorithm has settled on that pattern as a powerful way to engage us — habit formation restimulates old patterns that had been dormant. We become children again, not in a positive, imaginative sense, but in a pathetic way.

Very interesting take, it is the only explanation I've seen so far which makes sense.

I do agree that I cannot understand what happened to Musk? He had three hits to his name, so it is unlikely that he just got lucky. And contrary to a common criticism, he didn't have much money to start with, as far as I know, since he broke with his father and had to work quite hard to get to the US via Canada and to study.

But then... man. It's like he had stroke? Peter Thiel, far more mean-spirited, is at least smart about getting revenge, financing someone else's trial to bankrupt you. Musk? Calls you a pedophile on Twitter! It's so pedestrian, unworthy of someone with supervillain potential.

Counter-point. Musk has never been a genius manager or a businessman. His dreams of electric cars and space travel go back to his teenage years, and they happen to align with the vision of those who work for him overtime.

These are passionate and driven people, but they are still subject to Musk's antiquated management style - pull a deadline out of your ass and a feature, and watch the ants scurry around to please the boss. Does it always work? Wasn't CyberTruck supposed to happen years ago?

We can see how this strategy just stopped cold at Twitter. This is not a sympathetic, thoughtful boss that people might imagine him as. It is famously a solid way to get fired on the spot if you mention a word that is a remote synonym of "no" in Musk's presence. The petulant child is coming out in force under pressure.

I think it is more likely living in a bubble of people who affirm whatever you do.

It seems like it may require opening an account with NYT to read it.

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