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You can deeply care about the country and where things are headed and still find humor in the absurdity of a lot of his actions. This is quite literally what e

You can deeply care about the country and where things are headed and still find humor in the absurdity of a lot of his actions. This is quite literally what every late night talk show host does every single day - Trevor Noah, Colbert, Kimmel, etc. If we are on the express to hell, I am at the very least going to enjoy the ride. Just as I will make sure I vote.

dragontamer 8y ago
And I'm beginning to have doubts that laughing at other people and making fun of them has any useful purpose in the greater political discourse. Colbert in particular is incredibly caustic, and almost exclusively caters towards making fun of the other side and "how stupid / hypocritical they are". As far as I'm concerned, this kind of trolling and sarcasm is part of the problem. And while Colbert himself is relatively tame, the twitter / internet goons who worship him are just as bad as Musk's online Twitter goons and trolls. But this is getting quite far away from Mr. Musk and the point of the article. Bringing it all together: the general problem in today's discourse are the hero-worshiping trolls who take a personality (be it Trump, Colbert, or Musk), and take their fight to the internet to harass others. And btw, Mr. Colbert was one of the first users of this methodology. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-word---wikiality http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-... This was Colbert in 2006, so 12-years can change a person. I don't see Colbert really unleashing the troll armies upon anyone else anymore. But it is good to remember that Colbert was one of the first to launch a "media invasion" on the online space. In a very similar manner to what Mr. Musk is doing in the article.
- turc1656 8y ago
  Oh, I agree that it's contributing to the problem. Or at the absolute minimum, it's not helping. But it's funny. And that was all I was saying, really. As for your larger point - yes, the online trolling is bad. People unleashing their dogs, so to speak, is also very bad. But the real problem is social media itself. I'm sure you've seen over the past year all the Silicon Valley insiders coming out saying they knew what they were doing when creating Facebook and things like that. This funnels into the whole "echo chamber" concept. The real issue sitting on top of all of this is that social media isn't designed at all, whatsoever, to increase communication, connectivity, or "togetherness". It is designed entirely to engage and retain eyeballs on screens, sucking up ad-revenue. Exposing oneself to opposing viewpoints is rarely something people find entertaining enough to keep them clicking for more. Just as the things that go viral are virtually never well-reasoned debate - they are insult wars and snark for snark retorts that must be contained within the 280 character limit.

dragontamer 8y ago

And I'm beginning to have doubts that laughing at other people and making fun of them has any useful purpose in the greater political discourse. Colbert in particular is incredibly caustic, and almost exclusively caters towards making fun of the other side and "how stupid / hypocritical they are". As far as I'm concerned, this kind of trolling and sarcasm is part of the problem. And while Colbert himself is relatively tame, the twitter / internet goons who worship him are just as bad as Musk's online Twitter goons and trolls. But this is getting quite far away from Mr. Musk and the point of the article. Bringing it all together: the general problem in today's discourse are the hero-worshiping trolls who take a personality (be it Trump, Colbert, or Musk), and take their fight to the internet to harass others. And btw, Mr. Colbert was one of the first users of this methodology. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-word---wikiality http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-... This was Colbert in 2006, so 12-years can change a person. I don't see Colbert really unleashing the troll armies upon anyone else anymore. But it is good to remember that Colbert was one of the first to launch a "media invasion" on the online space. In a very similar manner to what Mr. Musk is doing in the article.

turc1656 8y ago
Oh, I agree that it's contributing to the problem. Or at the absolute minimum, it's not helping. But it's funny. And that was all I was saying, really. As for your larger point - yes, the online trolling is bad. People unleashing their dogs, so to speak, is also very bad. But the real problem is social media itself. I'm sure you've seen over the past year all the Silicon Valley insiders coming out saying they knew what they were doing when creating Facebook and things like that. This funnels into the whole "echo chamber" concept. The real issue sitting on top of all of this is that social media isn't designed at all, whatsoever, to increase communication, connectivity, or "togetherness". It is designed entirely to engage and retain eyeballs on screens, sucking up ad-revenue. Exposing oneself to opposing viewpoints is rarely something people find entertaining enough to keep them clicking for more. Just as the things that go viral are virtually never well-reasoned debate - they are insult wars and snark for snark retorts that must be contained within the 280 character limit.