He predicted the financial crisis. And predicting is hard, especially, if you have a "creative" government. The underlying problem was postponed, not fixed, and it got bigger in the mean time. I do not agree with him on everything, but he has many apt observations and convincing explanations. And at least he looks at fundamental mechanisms, which I like to interpret as a hard reality. I believe we now live in a soft reality, where the sweet falsehoods are preached to and believed by masses.
Some counter perspective laid out by Peter Schiff, while I do not agree with everything said, I find it valuable and entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6k0QEnYpSQ
These are all arbitrary numbers. Besides, I am not convinced that a democracy is better than a republic. Additional layers of competent people and detachment from the current will of majority has benefits and mitigates the rule of the mob. It is like a filter on the underlying volatility, which we benefit.
There is a risk of radicalization of masses. And banning people will not help with reversing it. They will find another way to communicate and the tech giants will no longer be able to challenge the flawed message. And the ideas should be challenged, especially the bad ones. Why the tech giants act this way and decrease their reach/base? It would be naive to think it is out of a good will. I suspect they want to show the new government that there is no need to regulate them, because they can do it themselves.
Or is it really? I am honestly curious what are the arguments? I can find one to the opposite, like humans did not evolve in the arc welding environment, while the cruelty was not unknown to our ancestors. I would expect that there are many people well equipped to deal with the latter.
The resources are limited. What is better, employ more people with a smaller pay or less people with a higher pay. I understand that this kind of job is not for everyone. And I assume the potential employees are well informed about it. And if it is worse than they expected they may look for another job? I just think there is enough people able to do that kind of job without experiencing any significant mental ill effects.
"and give you piece of mind that what you own is yours and no one is going to take it by force" except for the government that takes stuff by force eg by collecting taxes etc.
Well exactly, it is a borrowed money and everyone will have to pay it back in some way, for example through taxation or more likely via inflation (things will get more expensive, so people will be able to afford less). The weakest, poorest will experience the problem the most, but it will affect everyone. As I mentioned, maybe there will be some great advancement in productivity and it will not be as severe. But it is a gamble and not a wise strategy for the nation.
The debt can be written off. But it will have consequences. It means no more living on debt, because no lender will be willing to lend anymore. It will be very bad for the economy, at least in the short term (who knows how many years). However, it may lead to a more sound economy in the long term, assuming the capitalism survives.
I am not sure, if it is agreement or disagreement with my observation. And while I assume some people may genuinely be scared of the infection... It is hard not to notice that while the lockdown started the beaches were flooded with people. And I will not blame someone flipping burgers for preferring free money to their job. Having a low paid, boring job I would definitively prefer the free money and the free time. And I would probably even actively support the status quo. But it is nonetheless in the long term very harmful to the society and to the economic perspectives of normal people. The free money will be paid for in the years to come and it will be a long lasting burden. Maybe there will be some technological revolution, a great advancement in productivity that will help us mitigate this cost. But if not, the future looks painful.
In the same article: "Even as new cases and hospitalizations soar, the number of daily deaths in Texas has remained relatively low.".
There may or may not be an increase of cases when the economy opens. While the former is more likely the latter is not out of the question, depending on whether the community will take precautions like wearing masks.
However, if the economy stays closed, without a doubt, many lives will be negatively affected.
There are more and more reasons to open back the economy. Does it make sense to keep stalling? Most likely some people will avoid the infection this way, but at what cost to others.
Yes, trolls are a problem when one wants to promote free speech. It means you cannot censor them, but you should find a mechanism to discourage such destructive behaviour. Maybe a similar system that exists in real life and real personal relations. Maybe some form of hierachy. Unfortunately I do not know. However, I would look into establishing a meritocratic system or a representative system (much like the political system), where like-minded groups promote their representatives that have greater reach. And the anti social behaviour is punished at the social level and not by central purging.
Regarding your comment about ditching free speech and allowing only what I think is good. It would imply that I know what is good. I do not have such perfect knowledge and I do not believe anyone else has.
Well, but did they really ban more accounts than Twitter? I highly doubt it, just for the reason that Twitter is older and has more users overall. But if there are any stats that you can point us to, I can be convinced.
I did not know about the implicit rules. I do not use Parler yet. However the problem with trolls is a hard one to solve on any platform, especially on the platform that wants to promote free speech.
If they turn out to be a right wing version of Twitter it would be a shame. We need a platform that could accommodate both left and right wing people so that they can exchange thoughts with each other.
For example there is Parler, an alternative to Twitter. While it is not a state company, it promotes free speech. They claim "Our content is moderated based off the FCC and the Supreme court of the United States which enables free expression without violence and a lack of censorship.".
Well, objectively the Twitter is biased against conservatives. See a talk on Joe Rogan with Tim Pool and CEO of Twitter. So, the most obvious example is, if you are conservative and assert that there are only two sexes and happen to refer to someone according to your stance - you can get banned for misgendering.
Does not that mean the mainstream media is no longer mainstream?
It is important to get info from multiple sources including left, right, because they all have their biases diverting from the truth and often reality. You cannot simply trust that one side is presenting all the relevant facts.
Elon is right it is insane. We do not want monopolies. And especially monopolies on information, books. I am not convinced that splitting a company by a government is the best solution, however in this case I do not see any other quick way to restore a balance, well maybe Amazon choosing to immediately stop its censorship policy.
Just because they legally can does not mean they should censor the official representatives of the voters. The bigger the audience the more important it gets to show all points of views. The sun is the best disinfectant. The wrong ideas should be publicly challenged, otherwise they may silently spread unchecked and surface when it is too late to stop them. You do not need majority to make quick and radical social changes.
Yeah, but it has a downside. You can be recorded so you have to act as if what you are saying is going to be publicly available in the Internet forever.
Yes, exactly. Sun is the best disinfectant. We should not allow speech to be banned, because then we do not know what people think anymore. If we suppress the free expression we may find that really bad ideas are silently spreading without being challenged. And it may end up really badly for all of us when people holding these ideas suddenly surface. You do not need majority to make quick and radical changes.
Is this news or opinion piece? Incendiary is clearly an opinion. "(...)not to take action on incendiary comments posted to the social network by U.S. President Donald Trump."
While not perfect free market/capitalism pulled up more people from poverty than any other system. It is usually about who you compare yourself to. If you compare yourself to 1% of the most wealthy country in the world then you are most likely going to look poor. But if you compare yourself to the bottom 1% of the poorest country you most likely going to turn out sickly rich. And when you do the same comparison to the poor in the far past then it gets even more crazy.