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Look beyond this local issue, and you'll see how we're in the middle of a huge power shift. It used to be that businessmen like Musk had to lobby, pressure and

Look beyond this local issue, and you'll see how we're in the middle of a huge power shift. It used to be that businessmen like Musk had to lobby, pressure and bribe, now they just need to appeal directly to the public, completely bypassing the political system in the process. It hasn't started with Musk, of course. The most obvious display of such power was the website blackout that led to the SOPA repeal. That showed politicians who really holds the power. These companies barely flex their muscles either; just imagine what would happen if Google decided to get into public shaming in its homepage for entities trying to block its Fiber initiative. The public no longer believes politicians, but they all believe Zuckerberg, Page and Musk. That makes for an interesting future.

stcredzero 13y ago
The public no longer believes politicians, but they all believe Zuckerberg, Page and Musk. I suspect they really only have a portion of the public -- including Musk.
tonyhb 13y ago
> The public no longer believes politicians, but they all believe Zuckerberg, Page and Musk People are given a lot of information from a lot of sources nowadays, which means they're better at analysing it and weeding out the bullshit(typically). Your point assumes we're blindly following what they have to say without analysing it. I can imagine a lot of people aren't. A lot of people may be annoyed with their rights or privacy taken away (SOPA), or laws being changed when it doesn't benefit them (this). At which point, people complain. If any tech company tried to push a law that didn't benefit the public in an obvious way, I bet most people wouldn't like it.
- npizzolato 13y ago
  >People are given a lot of information from a lot of sources nowadays, which means they're better at analysing it and weeding out the bullshit(typically). Or people find the version of the "truth" they most agree with and just go with that. Given the huge industry of politically-charged "news" organizations, I think there's a significant amount of people that are doing this instead (sadly).
  - tonyhb 13y ago
    Right, exactly. People would probably do this whether their "truth" is coming from Musk or a politician, unfortunately.

stcredzero 13y ago

The public no longer believes politicians, but they all believe Zuckerberg, Page and Musk. I suspect they really only have a portion of the public -- including Musk.

tonyhb 13y ago

> The public no longer believes politicians, but they all believe Zuckerberg, Page and Musk People are given a lot of information from a lot of sources nowadays, which means they're better at analysing it and weeding out the bullshit(typically). Your point assumes we're blindly following what they have to say without analysing it. I can imagine a lot of people aren't. A lot of people may be annoyed with their rights or privacy taken away (SOPA), or laws being changed when it doesn't benefit them (this). At which point, people complain. If any tech company tried to push a law that didn't benefit the public in an obvious way, I bet most people wouldn't like it.

npizzolato 13y ago
>People are given a lot of information from a lot of sources nowadays, which means they're better at analysing it and weeding out the bullshit(typically). Or people find the version of the "truth" they most agree with and just go with that. Given the huge industry of politically-charged "news" organizations, I think there's a significant amount of people that are doing this instead (sadly).
- tonyhb 13y ago
  Right, exactly. People would probably do this whether their "truth" is coming from Musk or a politician, unfortunately.