It's disheartening to watch someone who has built up some impressive companies pursuing physical engineering problems turn into, at least imho, someone aggrieved and using that to guide his decision making.
I'd love to hear some other peoples take - particularly something that can see this going in a positive direction.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that dopamine feedback loop is more powerful for older people especially those who are isolated.
You think it's fixable?
Elon seems to be veering off building/positive worldview in his public comments and more about aggrieved and picking fights.
He's at about the right age for a midlife crisis which can cause somebody to act pretty bent even if otherwise their mental health is pretty good.
He's also fading out of the news cycle. Sam Bankman-Fried is an "evil CEO" on an entirely different level than Musk.
I think Musk is going to notice that he hasn't been on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek for a few weeks and try to do something to get attention but he might find it hard. Those "Twitter Files" might have been exciting to subscribers to the Bari Weiss Substack but are boring to most people.
What evidence is there of a meltdown other than him saying some stuff that is extremely contrary to the worldview of some people?
Is it because he's posting a bit more than usual? Why not label that more akin to "persuasion technique" rather than calling it a meltdown?
PS: I admire some things and detest some things about Musk, but probably different things than the Zeitgeist on HN.
I don't typically follow Musk, but agreeing to buy a company for a price that was based on a sophomoric weed joke instead of listening to his accountants, and then attempting to welsh (sorry, Cymru!) instead of listening to his lawyers, finally to consummate the transaction just before the court would've ordered it?
That's not exactly unmolten, and took place months ago.
The reason I went with meltdown is that it does feel that there is a tangible change in his presence being more aggrieved than in the past.
Who is he bullying? If you're talking about his Fauci comments, well, I'd have 2 responses.
1) We usually say that "punching down" is the wrong thing to do and a characteristic of bullying. And despite Musk being among the world's richest and most influential men, isn't it still reasonably debatable if he's been more powerful than Fauci? Musk just makes some products and does some weird humor online. Fauci had basically had many peoples' life/death, the global economy, the world health apparatus, the media, and peoples' livelihoods wrapped around his fingers. Who is punching down here? I'm not sure it's clearcut.
2) Regardless if you like/dislike Fauci, isn't disparaging the conduct of government officials by citizens always fair game?
And to be fair he has a bully pulpit similar to POTUS - he can force a large group of his followers upon someone who disagrees with him.
Just a small point; if you want to make that argument, force is a very imprecise word to use to describe his actions.
Fauci is an 81 year old retiree now, he wields absolutely no statutory power and he certainly never had any wealth to wield.
Musk isn't punching down, he's engaging in stochastic terrorism by jumping in front of a mob of deluded conspiracy theorists and throwing them red meat.
I wouldn't really call this "bullying" though. Being repeatedly accused of pedophilia by a top-tier celebrity is very dangerous.
There are already plenty of people on all sides focused on posting about cultural grievances. It's sad to have lost a talented person to that negative-sum rabbit hole.
"In German oder English
I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese!"
says Wernher von Braun.[citation needed]
I know it's surprising from within our bubble of contrarianism, but no, actually the vast majority of people are very conventional and find the outlets you listed pretty conventional and ho hum, even if they disagree with some portion of the content. But not at all "complete insanity and severe disconnections from reality".
Here's the current top headline at NYT: "Inflation Forecasts Were Wrong Last Year. Should We Believe Them Now?"[0]
Whatever you think about the answer to that question about inflation forecasts, that's just a boring newsy article. And that is what > 95% of the articles there are like. If you think most people find this sort of thing to be "complete insanity and severe disconnections from reality" ... well you might need to look in a mirror.
0: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/business/economy/inflatio...
At the FBI and Whitehouse behest.