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I always find it strange when he positions himself as pro-democratic and pro-freedom when his actions say pretty much the opposite: He is pushing for a politic

I always find it strange when he positions himself as pro-democratic and pro-freedom when his actions say pretty much the opposite: He is pushing for a political system/values which: - doubles down on money == power, to a point where only money is power - uses pretext of "freedom" to remove protections which limit in how much companies can abuse people, mainly in forms which move money from them to the companies. But if you systematically make it easier to wide spread systematically move money from the demos (populace) to a selected few and make sure only money is power that is pretty clear cut anti-democratic. (I mean it basically remove the demo from democraty). And sure this is somewhat true for all democratic states, but the question is how much and if you push for it getting worse. Which AFIK Musk does. (It's also why a lot of people which had looked into such power dynamics will look at you strangely when you tell them the US is a beacon of democracy, it isn't and never was. It is a beacon for capitalism combined with wealth, western culture, military might (in some order) and only then democracy. At least in my opinion.) So what does that have to do with Twitter? One of the main complains Musk has with it is how it did restrict "freedom of speech", except it mainly did so when that freedom was abused for spread hatred and misinformation, often with the intend to manipulate democracy to elect people pushing for less democracy. And he wants to remove that. Now without question Twitter did a bad job at moderation, still I would be really surprised if Musk would improve that. I would love being surprised. Another problem is that Musk has shown to be a petty person and has shown to abuse the power he has over his companies, e.g. to cancel a Tesla pre-order because of someone saying something he took offense with. Putting such a person in charge of a platform like Twitter looks like a recopy for disaster. Especially given that it's also used a lot by some minorities Musk seems to personally have a rather strong dislike for... Now I would love to be wrong about this assessment. I personally might not be the biggest fan of Musk but what does that matter if he does manage to create a better twitter. And even if he fails it might have positive effects, by e.g. enabling a better alternative platform to take it's place.

xwowsersx 4y ago
> doubles down on money power, to a point where only money is power What has he said or done that indicates he is pushing for such a system? Are you suggesting the mere fact of his purchasing a company and being a billionaire means he is pushing for such a system or was there something else he said or did? I'm asking genuinely because I may very well have missed some important news item or other piece of information. What's your basis for this assertion?
- RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
  Looks like you were downvoted ... no response. You know what that means.
  - xwowsersx 4y ago
    Hehe indeed
    - dathinab 4y ago
      Wtf, how fast am I supposed to respond to you and why should I bother down-voting you? Anyway, no it has nothing to do with him buying Twitter. It about the thinks he himself has tweeted in the past, and how he acted in the past especially wrt politics. Should be obvious if you had followed him in the past with an objective mind and don't just blindly assume things, but I guess that's to much to ask (EDIT: the blindly assuming things, the other part is opinionated)
      - xwowsersx 4y ago
        Oh I was only confirming the downvote, not the lack of reply. But "it should be obvious.." is the Proof by Assertion fallacy. It's not obvious to me so I asked you what your basis is for saying this. Since I haven't followed Musk to the degree you apparently have or come to your conclusion based on the amount I have followed him, can you point me to some specific tweets or actions of his that substantiate your assertion?
        dathinab 4y ago
        Yes, it's not supper obvious and that was a bad choice of words. But it's also not hidden. I which I had the time to point out a (long) list of twitter tweets which paint the picture, but I don't have that. And there is also the problem that he (understandable) deleted some of his tweets. But pointing out a specific tweet is pointless as someone could always come up with some arbitrary reason why this specific tweet means something else. It's about the broader picture. To name some examples: - He is currently actively trying to undermine labor protection law (as well as contractual clauses he agreed to when buying twitter) by masquerading mass firings at twitter to be supposedly all based on failed performance reviews. But if you take a closer look at 1) `the method used for the reviews` and 2) `who is let of` (especially in context of him being a petty person and had personal beef with some of the people on twitter due to how he (verbally) attacked twitter in the past) it is very clearly that it's not related to performance. (But US labor protection law is at best bad joke, so...) - His repeated stance against labor and/or buyer protection in other cases, too. Like wrt. Tesla factories. - Him repeatedly abusing his influence to hinder improvements to public transportation, often buy pushing red hearing projects which do only improve the situation for a few wealthy people but can be used as an excuse to kill/hinder other public transportation projects. One of the examples would be his boring tunnel company promising fixing the traffic situation but instead build fast lanes for a few wealthy people while making is majorly harder to fix the traffic situation for the general public. (He knew what he was doing.) It might not be obvious how this example matter. this But they increase how companies can take advantage of the general population both in ways which reduce the money they effectively have and reduce other ways they can take political influence. And they are just some random examples I can drop of my hat before going to bed which I remember good enough to write down, there are many more.
Veedrac 4y ago
This is just, like, normal economic liberalism? The think to keep in mind is that such liberals tend not to share your priors, and hold beliefs like ‘free trade is positive sum’ and ‘optionality is good.’

xwowsersx 4y ago

> doubles down on money power, to a point where only money is power What has he said or done that indicates he is pushing for such a system? Are you suggesting the mere fact of his purchasing a company and being a billionaire means he is pushing for such a system or was there something else he said or did? I'm asking genuinely because I may very well have missed some important news item or other piece of information. What's your basis for this assertion?

RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
Looks like you were downvoted ... no response. You know what that means.
- xwowsersx 4y ago
  Hehe indeed
  - dathinab 4y ago
    Wtf, how fast am I supposed to respond to you and why should I bother down-voting you? Anyway, no it has nothing to do with him buying Twitter. It about the thinks he himself has tweeted in the past, and how he acted in the past especially wrt politics. Should be obvious if you had followed him in the past with an objective mind and don't just blindly assume things, but I guess that's to much to ask (EDIT: the blindly assuming things, the other part is opinionated)
    - xwowsersx 4y ago
      Oh I was only confirming the downvote, not the lack of reply. But "it should be obvious.." is the Proof by Assertion fallacy. It's not obvious to me so I asked you what your basis is for saying this. Since I haven't followed Musk to the degree you apparently have or come to your conclusion based on the amount I have followed him, can you point me to some specific tweets or actions of his that substantiate your assertion?
      - dathinab 4y ago
        Yes, it's not supper obvious and that was a bad choice of words. But it's also not hidden. I which I had the time to point out a (long) list of twitter tweets which paint the picture, but I don't have that. And there is also the problem that he (understandable) deleted some of his tweets. But pointing out a specific tweet is pointless as someone could always come up with some arbitrary reason why this specific tweet means something else. It's about the broader picture. To name some examples: - He is currently actively trying to undermine labor protection law (as well as contractual clauses he agreed to when buying twitter) by masquerading mass firings at twitter to be supposedly all based on failed performance reviews. But if you take a closer look at 1) `the method used for the reviews` and 2) `who is let of` (especially in context of him being a petty person and had personal beef with some of the people on twitter due to how he (verbally) attacked twitter in the past) it is very clearly that it's not related to performance. (But US labor protection law is at best bad joke, so...) - His repeated stance against labor and/or buyer protection in other cases, too. Like wrt. Tesla factories. - Him repeatedly abusing his influence to hinder improvements to public transportation, often buy pushing red hearing projects which do only improve the situation for a few wealthy people but can be used as an excuse to kill/hinder other public transportation projects. One of the examples would be his boring tunnel company promising fixing the traffic situation but instead build fast lanes for a few wealthy people while making is majorly harder to fix the traffic situation for the general public. (He knew what he was doing.) It might not be obvious how this example matter. this But they increase how companies can take advantage of the general population both in ways which reduce the money they effectively have and reduce other ways they can take political influence. And they are just some random examples I can drop of my hat before going to bed which I remember good enough to write down, there are many more.

Veedrac 4y ago

This is just, like, normal economic liberalism? The think to keep in mind is that such liberals tend not to share your priors, and hold beliefs like ‘free trade is positive sum’ and ‘optionality is good.’