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Creating an alternative platform could be interesting, though several of these exist already. Twitter remains, by Elon’s own admission, the de facto public town square. Despite its severe censorship, it is still the only major digital public space where anonymous accounts can interact with celebrities, journalists and business titans (including Elon), where world leaders engage in spirited public diplomacy, and where dominant cultural and political narratives incubate and spread.
The most exciting possibility is therefore the most obvious one: Musk should simply buy a controlling stake in Twitter itself. He could certainly afford it. At $31 billion, Twitter’s market cap is less than 15 percent of Musk’s current net worth. Even if one regards Twitter stock as entirely worthless, Musk could theoretically buy a controlling stake in it and still be the world’s richest man by fifty billion dollars, and free speech would be restored to the “land of the free.”
But in practice, it’s not that easy. In fact, one would be hard pressed to imagine a project more dangerous and difficult than restoring free speech to a major tech platform like Twitter. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine a more worthwhile project. Restoring genuine free speech would do more for patriotic Americans than the GOP taking back the White House in 2024, and it would pose a greater threat to the ruling Regime than anything Russia, China, or Iran might plausibly do.
Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016. If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection. Massive censorship and suppression are the tools needed to prop up Covid tyranny, the Ukraine war fever, and the idea that Lia Thomas is a “woman.” America’s decrepit and illegitimate ruling class intuitively understand this: Absolute freedom of speech, or even the speech norms that prevailed a mere decade ago, would instantly cause the American regime as we know it to crumble.
I agree. I don't see any good reason to object to Musk yet.
Mars is probably a mistake. There’s nothing there we can’t get elsewhere, there’s hardly any atmosphere, little water, and the soil is extensively contaminated with heavy metals and chromium. You can’t grow anything in it fit for human consumption. So you’d have to import all your soil and that would be prohibitively expensive. Mars is a trap. The next steps should be to establish a Moon base and start mining local asteroids for mineral, carbon, and water.
Shaman saysMars is probably a mistake. There’s nothing there we can’t get elsewhere, there’s hardly any atmosphere, little water, and the soil is extensively contaminated with heavy metals and chromium. You can’t grow anything in it fit for human consumption. So you’d have to import all your soil and that would be prohibitively expensive. Mars is a trap. The next steps should be to establish a Moon base and start mining local asteroids for mineral, carbon, and water.
Yeah - but if he was just targeting the moon or local asteroids, Musk would have no incentive to invent a massive interplanetary rocket like he is making with Starship.
Having such a big massive goal of Mars is driving innovation like I haven't seen in my entire lifetime.
Many asteroids are heavily water ice, others full of Precious Metals.
AmericanKulak saysMany asteroids are heavily water ice, others full of Precious Metals.
I always hear claims like this, but I have never seen any scientific data to support it.
Asteroids are mainly big balls of dust, that are loosely held together by a gravitational field. Why it's said "oh, they are filled with X" I have no idea. They are probably all light elements but who knows? I know it's speculated that gold is largely from asteroid bombardment, but that might be complete BS as well. The idea is that because it's so dense, that all the gold that was here when the Earth formed is in the core. Well, wouldn't uranium and lead be as well then?
Musk will also have a seat at the board and is looking forward to making "significant improvements" at Twitter.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/elon-musk-to-join-twitters-board-of-directors.html?source=patrick.net
He should move fast and the first thing he should get done is reinstating Trump and all of the doctors who questioned COVID policies.
I bet Musk is about to find out that 1/2 of twitter are government propagandists and PR trolls. I bet he has no idea how the company is funded either. If he reforms Twitter, it will crater because I think over 50% of the users, are fake and if there's a crackdown on that, the company will shrivel.
Like it or not. Twitter drives alot of the narrative and public discussion. So we need to reform or nuke it and can't just ignore it.
Musk is the perfect person for this mission as he is crazy smart, not woke and has enough F-U money to make this happen.
I always hear claims like this, but I have never seen any scientific data to support it.
it's just an over-priced electric car, which gets government subsidies and electric cars may not be a very good idea at all and he's just displacing NASA and defense contractors, but we really don't know what the actual budget is, or how much is really being spent.
it's just an over-priced electric car, which gets government subsidies
Once you’ve owned one, let us know if it’s over-priced.
By the way, no more government subsidies on Tesla for years now, and their sales haven’t slowed down. The wait for a new $115k starter Model X is over a year now. Apparently, others don’t think it’s over-priced.
These sales are even more impressive when you consider Tesla doesn't do a lick of advertising or marketing. All of these sales are the result of word of mouth from obnoxious fanboys like me. I have personally converted at least 3 people to order Teslas in the last 2 months by giving test rides in my Model Y.
Eman saysOnce you’ve owned one, let us know if it’s over-priced.
By the way, no more government subsidies on Tesla for years now, and their sales haven’t slowed down. The wait for a new $115k starter Model X is over a year now. Apparently, others don’t think it’s over-priced.
These sales are even more impressive when you consider Tesla doesn't do a lick of advertising or marketing. All of these sales are the result of word of mouth from obnoxious fanboys like me. I have personally converted at least 3 people to order Teslas in the last 2 months by giving test rides in my Model Y.
Model 3 is one of the best cars I’ve owned.
Eman says@HeadSet, I believe you meant 30 cents/kWh.
Nope, 30 cents per minute:
Then it really depends how fast it can charge. If it can give you 300 miles in an hour, then it’s not bad
Once you’ve owned one, let us know if it’s over-priced.
If Musk starts positively influencing twitter, especially in terms of platform free speech, the woke attacks on him will surge. I can see the "news" articles already:
"Should a billionaire who made their money making cars be able to use their money to buy influence over our democratic speech platforms?"
"Elon should stick to space"
"How Elon Musk is hindering and even reverting democratic progress"
"Why Elon Musk is problematic"
"Is Elon Musk racist? Ex-employees share their horror stories."
...
It's not green either. If you account for just the extraction of minerals for the lithium batteries, you've put more CO2 into the atmosphere for one battery than you would an ICE vehicle. That's before you've even charged it. Musk isn't a moron. He built a "cool" golf cart now that I'm researching batteries. I also don't trust Teslas safety. My wife and 3 kids were rear ended in our Sequoia. Totaled. It didn't look bad, but my kids and wife could literally be dead today if they drove a Tesla.
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Hopefully he uses this leverage to clean house of all the Commies and Groomers that run this site.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-04/musk-takes-9-2-stake-in-twitter-after-questioning-platform?source=patrick.net