His desperation to impress a bunch of dweebs on the internet is as bizarre as it is pathetic.

Maybe he was always this way and not public about it, but things changed for the worse right around when his trans daughter came out.

Between that and covid I think he went down a rabbit hole further entrenching things and turned into a MAGA type as that rabbit hole does to those that go down it.

And now he won’t even listen when his brother and the chair of the board of Tesla tells him he’s hurting the brand.

Edit: just to clarify, “the woke mind virus” is what thinks took his daughter away, and now he is hellbent on destroying it, not realizing it’s him who’s been infected.

So once he wouldn’t get in trouble for openly being a bigot, he openly became a bigot?

He owes his entire life to apartheid and slavery in all senses that matter. And even when he was everyone’s hero and a real life Tony Stark, he threw a temper tantrum when divers chose to rescue children and not stroke his ego. To the point he accused one of the divers of pedophilia, ran an investigation, and used a team of lawyers to protect himself from any consequences.

Musk has always been a dipshit

And why democracy is important as a form of error correction. People can have their opinions, and inevitably we all get things wrong (magnitude of things we get wrong varies a lot). But when someone has a large concentration of power we all have to deal with the fallout from their malfunction. Companies the size and import of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit should be democratically controlled, some kind of cooperative.

I can’t tell which is the bigger influence but he has certainly gone down the right wing rabbit hole and also insulated himself from all critique as a billionaire who has everyone he talks to regularly on his payroll or otherwise benefitting from him. A bad mix.

Zambia. That’s where the mine was.

but I imagine one of these days the top is going to pop on South Africa

What do you mean by this?

Enough money helps you have the time, energy, and nutrition to craft happiness. You can pay someone to do the lawn, clean the house, and handle some day to day tasks. You can sleep without worrying if you’ll afford food and a roof tomorrow. You can get healthcare.

After that it’s up to you. If you put the money in charge you’ll be miserable. If you spend all that extra time going down conspiracy rabbit holes you’ll be miserable and try to make everyone else miserable. If you craft some hobbies that you enjoy, get in shape, maybe learn to play an instrument, go rock climbing, travel to see the sights, and generally don’t worry about what loud people on the Internet do or think of you then you’ll have a pretty good shot at happiness.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can give you the opportunity to find it.

We have to assume all this pleases him

MySpace Tom comes to mind. Bless that guy.

This is the line of thinking that gets me to listen to the “no such thing as an ethical/moral/good billionaire” types. These are people who had $50 million, $100 million, $500 million, and decided they had to keep working, acquiring, and exploiting.

Creative liberties may be taken when designing a statue of yourself, so don’t worry, you can take any pose you want

If you’re squatting, it comes straight down instead of in an arc where the wind can blow it around. Easier to fill your cup that way. I endorse this plan!

Thanks for the breakdown

You could suggest to connect their Xitter to a mastodon server so it automaticaly forward posts (crosspost), could be a good thing for a first move!

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Commenters will be seething against Elon Musk while simultaneously using his platform for 4+ hours a day and still pretend they’re good people.

Like buying a Tesla at this point. You’re a Nazi cunt if you do so 🤷

My Mom told me I couldn’t have a second helping of ice cream, she’s LITERALLY Hitler!

Damn, TIL I became a Nazi when I first visited my grandparents as a child. Thanks for letting me know, at least I can lean into it now. /s

Um…hate to say it, but Steve was the bad guy in Civil War, not Tony.

There are other better choices than No-More-Shame.

LGBTQ Honor / Dignity / Glory (on second thought, this one may conjure images of bathroom stalls, so maybe not this one)

I was sitting here thinking it’s pretty silly to be proud of things you have no control over, even if you appreciate it over other possible variations of a given attribute. Using it as a means of personal or societal deprogramming is valuable, though, so long as it doesn’t extend to denigrating people who are ‘other’, otherwise you end up with the same problem but different people suffering.

That’s a great writeup

This has always bugged me. It’s strange how labeling someone as “racist” actually works in the racists favour; you’re partially validating their point by implying there’s a greater biological gap than actually exists.

Bigot works well as a replacement if this bugs you, and it’s probably more accurate, people with “racist” views are more likely to be homophobic too.

Biologically we’re the same species, not the same race. There’s no concept of race in humans

I mean I’m mostly German but don’t really celebrate it. A: I don’t feel at all German. B: there’s a bit of history surrounding Germans even though none of my ancestors were in the country for any of that. C: I’m already the dominant culture/race where I was born. What would I be celebrating? That I’m the same as everyone else? We could have a big cookout where we celebrate our culture by eating the same food we eat every day, wearing the same clothes we wear every day, etc. Oh wait this is already every get together…

This opens a whole new can of worms for me.

Can a gay person who has never experienced homophobia rightfully celebrate Pride Month?

Can a black person who was adopted by white parents and has no black cultural influence be proud of being black?

In any case, I understand the sentiment, I’m not saying “I don’t understand why black people want to be recognised and celebrate the victories afforded to them by their ancestors”.

What I don’t understand is the specific vernacular of the word “pride” in these cases. Rosa Parks was a BAMF, but why would I be proud of her? I didn’t put the idea in her head, I didn’t give her the courage to sit at the back of the bus.

Whether I’m black or white has no bearing on whether I should be proud of anything outside of my own influence; I’m convinced identity politics gets us nowhere.

Just to clarify, I’m not asking about the implication of “white pride”, just the semantics of pride in general.

It reminds me of “Black Lives Matter” - of course they do, but too many people heard “only black lives matter”, when what they’re trying to say is “black lives matter too”.

These twits responded with “All Lives Matter”, which, of course, is also true, but the implication is the discreditation of the suffering of black people.

I think a lot of these issues, unfortunately, are a failure of the Left. There are so many slogans which are either poorly thought out, or intentionally inflammatory. For example, “defund the police”, “all cops are bastards”, “math is racist”.

We can’t expect the Right to read between the lines, it’s up to the Left to use better language so we don’t give them more ammo.

Absolutely. Tribalism is toxic.

At least Linux is a choice.

I use Arch BTW.

The irony of claiming I’M the selective one by quoting me, but missing the next line which reads “I think the language is kind of wrong”.

The implication is I support the idea of a time to celebrate marginalised communities and to raise awareness for their current battles, but I think the word “pride” is the wrong word.

I’m pretty sure by white he means white, non-jewish europeans which also includes white americans since they’re from europe aswell but wether jews are considered white depends on who you ask. I believe that most jews don’t think of themselves as that either, though some do. I’m guessing it has something to do with being an oppressed minority. Then again white supermacists for example don’t consider them white either because they’re not “pure” or something.

I don’t think there’s any conclusive answer to this. In my opinion focusing on skin color is a stupid question to begin with. Asians aren’t generally considered white either though they seem pretty white to me. Friend’s wife is black but her skin is barely darker than mine. Go figure.

You would have to measure your head to convince him that you’re white enough for Elon.

Draws a lot of attention to the fact that “white” is a construct that is tied up intimately in supremacy narratives. Irish and Italian people were at times not considered “white” because they were discriminated against as immigrant populations. To the supremacist, whiteness defines an “us” so whether Jewish people are considered “white” is really depends on the level of anti semitic sentiments present.

It’s part of why “White Pride” is a really bad idea. Part of the experience of being white is tied up in the legacy of exclusion based on class or othering and how genocides, murders and exploitation based on the ideas of white supremacy shaped the world through empire and those systems haven’t exactly been dismantled. Until whiteness is basically “fixed” so that this is a factor of the distant past the correct way to interact with one’s own whiteness is more to reflect on the complexities of the history and modern application of it and realize that while being light skinned isn’t something to be ashamed of throwing a party about it is still in poor taste.

They mean normal. Non-ethnic. You know how there are aisles in the grocery store for foods from various cultures? Think of the potato chip aisle. Default human, with basic features and simple ideologies. Christian, western, self-determining, literate but not erudite, proud and apathetic, powerful and resigned, and thoroughly egocentric.

That’s how they see the world. It’s a special level of narcissism borne from generational privilege. When they talk about “whites,” that’s what they mean, because they don’t have any sort of self awareness or concern for how they are perceived by others.

Jewish people have never been “white” to antisemites. (Real antisemites, I mean, as opposed to people who have the gall to say Palestinians are human.)

“are Jewish people white” is one of those questions where the answer seems to ebb and flow with the tides.

Jewish people generally receive the same treatment as Anglo-Saxon/Caucasian people from society, as they have similar skin tones, but they are minorities in the sense that Judaism has been famously historically discriminated against.

Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites

Translation: Jews are woke anti-white “cultural Marxists” pushing “reverse racism”.

that they claim to want people to stop using against them.

Translation: antisemitism and woke stuff are literally the same

I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.

Translation: I don’t care about Jews recognizing antisemitism in minority populations.

I honestly have no clue which minorities he’s talking about here, or if it’s just some generic conflation of all non white groups.

Always a good distinction. Ever see presentations from the actual founders of Tesla? They are impressive.

what has he created

One of the best PR campaigns in modern history. Just five years ago people on both sides of the political spectrum were seeing this guy as one of the smartest humans alive, who would actually put man on another planet.

He could have gotten away with it too. I never drank the Kool aid with that guy. I know the charismatic sales tech evangelical type too well. I deal with them daily at work. When they stay in their lane they are fine, they bring in the business.