6 ms·
Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication can only make things worse, though.
by BeKindAndLearn 4y ago
Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication can only make things worse, though.
- jesusofnazarath 4y ago
- SteveDR 4y agoIsn’t that the current state of things? If musk makes this purchase it won’t centralize power any more, but it will draw attention to how centralized that power is. Which is a good thing
- sohdas 4y agoYou're saying that oligarchs taking control is good because it will cause more people to realize that oligarchs are taking control?
- addingnumbers 4y agoHe's saying that ownership by a loud, conspicuous oligarch generates more public scrutiny than a quiet, inconspicuous one.
- quickthrower2 4y ago2016 called and wants it’s loud conspicuous oligarch back.
- dragonwriter 4y agoNo, I think he is saying an oligarch that has a lot of focus on the rest of the oligarchically controlled media taking control of this piece of media already controlled by the haut bourgeois oligarchy will draw more public attention to the oligarchic control of the media without actually changing the fact of that control one bit. Which is still, IMO, foolish, given, among other things, the degree to which large swathes of the public have parasocial relationships with the particular celebrity oligarch in question, but it's not saying that making the problem worse will draw attention.
- rajin444 4y agoFor whatever reason people think we live in a democracy and not an oligarchy. I guess it’s in the oligarchs best interest to keep that facade up.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- adamrezich 4y agosearch news.google.com for "oligarch" and see the pattern of how the media has propagandistically twisted this word to only mean a specific kind of person now, conveniently excluding those that control our (Western) societies.
- res0nat0r 4y ago
- mdoms 4y agoPeople I don't like are racist!
- res0nat0r 4y agoActually no, all of the racist and sexist rightwing memes he keeps shitposting on Twitter are in fact the issue.
- k1ko 4y agoHave heard a lot of criticisms of Musk but first time I'm seeing racist. Congrats you win the reddit award.
- res0nat0r 4y agoHave you paid attention to his Twitter feed at all in the last few years?
- cryptonector 4y agoIs that like a level below Godwin's Law?
- jquery 4y ago
- mdoms 4y agoCan you post some examples of "all of the racist and sexist rightwing memes he keeps shitposting on Twitter"?
- Jotra7 4y ago[dead]
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication can only make things worse, though How can it make things worse when it has literally always been the case as long as there has been “mass communication”?
- RustyConsul 4y ago'Oligarchs' historically have gained influence and fielty to a nationstate. We are at a new form of Oligarchy, where the business magnates are able to operate internationally on a scale never seen before. Historically, taxation has been the most profitable form of revenue generation. But thats no longer the case. With globalism and multi-national product creation, a single person in a nation can be many times richer than any nationstate, with technology above and beyond any nationstate. What happens when musk has electric jets and fully-reusable ICBM's, has remade the world power grid in his image, is one of few entitys even able to get to mars let alone command and control the resources of the astroid belt.
- tiahura 4y agoMy new personal pet peeve has been the torturing of the word oligarch. It’s now come to mean “rich person I don’t like.” From my vantage point, it’s hard to see how Elon Musk is making any governmental policy decisions - and thus isn’t an oligarch. But maybe you have some examples? Musk is extremely rich and can buy a lot of stuff. That’s entirely different than determining agricultural policy, or putting people in jail, or conducting the census, or maintaining the border, or doing anything else that a ruler does.
- justinpowers 4y agoYou’re right in the sense that people often use the term imprecisely and hyperbolically, but in this discussion they are more right than wrong, at least by this measure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#Putative_oligarchies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#Putative_oligarchies > That’s entirely different than determining agricultural policy, or putting people in jail, or conducting the census, or maintaining the border, or doing anything else that a ruler does You’re making a mistake of your own by conflating oligarchy with tyranny. They often go hand in hand, with the former generally preceding the latter. So it’s probably better to cry oligarchy before it’s a given rather than afterwards.
- LaurieKoudstaal 4y agoA better term for what people are trying to articulate is plutocracy.
- linguistbreaker 4y agoA media company having a legal obligation to maximize profits seems at least as bad for journalism as private ownership as there's zero room for any sort of integrity.