People keep reframing this thing in terms of Musk and not what the Twitter files exposed. Seems like a deflection to me. You don’t have to like musk or Matt Taibbi but is the story true?

Why not just attack the story if untrue?

I mean Matt is a reporter who was given access to source material via musk. It’s not like he worked for him or had a long standing relationship. People can align for a time and then go separate ways. It’s not a self own or whatever people are making it out to be.

I know it's a little bad. I feel a little guilty about it. It's a reminder that I am no perfect paragon of morality. But I feel a little bit of schadenfreude for Matt Taibbi right now. And seeing the people who carried water for Musk's obviously bullshit free speech crusade (he praises the Chinese Communist Party for god's sake) waking up to the realization they've been duped is amusing.

Too many people have given Elon a pass. Don't give him a pass.

He's a marketer, not a founder or an engineer. He didn't found PayPal or Tesla; he bought into them early. He's good at selling narratives and equity valuation for perpetually unprofitable companies.

Everything for him is a narrative. His green revolution was a narrative to sell more cars and get more subsidies. His bitcoin purchase was to gain appeal among bitcoin/crypto people in a bull market. And he shilled doge like a dumbass. His SpaceX narrative is to get money from the government.

His rooftop solar thing was an outright scam; the technology isn't ready and went nowhere because of that. His full-self-driving-in-an-intermediate-term timeline was a scam, and is going nowhere because of that. He makes scams to draw people and capital in, because for him it's all about narratives and equity valuation.

And then he dug unproductive holes, suggested unproductive hyper-tubes, built meme flamethrowers, for what? It's a narrative, not a business. None of this is real productive shit to make peoples' lives better.

His latest "we need free speech" narrative was a scam too. He tapped into something real, which is what marketers do and why it kind of worked. Yes, we need free speech. Yes, Twitter had censorship issues. He saw that and jumped on it maliciously rather than productively.

But what did he replace it with? He replaced it with arbitrary journalist censorship about his private jet, arbitrary censorship of Substack, selective Twitter Files release, won't talk seriously about any of his China connections because Xi Jinping fucking owns him economically there like Jack Ma, has his balls firmly in his grasp, etc.

Elon's playing the narrative, the anti-woke meme of the day. He's a master meme-momentum-player. Don't fall for it.

the whitepaper is on your apple devices because CSW put it there when he invented the macOS

I must confess, if you asked me twenty years ago, if I thought admitting China in the WTO and deepening economic ties was a good idea, I would have enthusiastically argued yes. I was one of the naive people who thought freer markets would lead to freer people. I no longer believe this, and I now understand just how dangerous that thinking can be.

I am not afraid of the evil CCP, because I am an "orphan" now. I dare to criticize the evil CCP's anti-human policies. My parents are dead, nothing to be afraid of.

I’ve never been to Japan so is anywhere in Tokyo ok to stay for this Nostr conference?

I’m saddened by your loss. It’s imperative that you leave SF - not in a while, not over time, not when the committee picks a new HQ based on local politics and tax incentives. Pack and leave tonight and never look back.

This is true for the most part, but it doesn’t undo the consequences of one’s actions. There are many people in unelected positions of authority “trying their best” and ruining the lives and families of innocent people.

Online discussion makes it easy to hate. People are far more respectful in person when you actually have to look someone else in the eye.