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Mike Brock
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Unfashionable.

Tesla and SpaceX are fucking great. I cheer for their success. But yes, Elon has some ... personality flaws.

I don't have a robust working theory of Elon's motivations. But if I was forced to put chips down somewhere on the table, it would be on the "captured by his audience" square.

Let's say he's right, and remote work is much less productive than in-person office work. I might even be convincible in some cases, for certain kinds of work and the potential for driving consensus faster. I'm not sure net-net it's less productive overall. But we can wring-hands about it for hours.

Whether he's right about that or not does not nexus on a moral claim. Why is something that is "less productive" equate to something that is immoral? By that measure, people should go to jail for taking vacations.

I didn't say it's nothing. But the way people talk about it sometimes is just batshit crazy dystopian fan fiction.

I'm not convinced that Elon Musk has a firm grasp on what the word "moral" means at this point. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/elon-musk-calls-remote-work-bullsht-and-morally-wrong/

The WEF is a confab of self-congratulatory, self-important people, who demonstrate a detached relationship with the concerns of ordinary people. But it's not a global conspiracy. Everything is ten times more boring than you think it is.

Unless you're into reading a giant thought experiment, built atop foundational misunderstandings of human motivations that have been over-fitted into the author's normative views. In that case, go nuts.

It's just intellectual empty calories. Like, I get why it appeals to some people. But it's detached from anything resembling a robust empirical understanding of human nature. Basally, it just takes its own narrow understanding of human nature for granted, even though it's obviously wrong, plants the axioms and then builds a story from there.

Balaji's book, The Network State, is just utopian nonsense. Sorrynotsorry.

Also, does anyone think if Xi Jinping asked him to take down a tweet, he wouldn't comply, given that 50% of Tesla's business comes from China now?

While I am opposed to CBDCs, I am stickler for reality. And as a stickler for reality, I would point out that this Florida legislation almost certainly unconstitutional. Both the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and the Interstate Commerce Clause, both provide solid foundations for the federal government to render this legislation ultra vires. So one should recognize this is mostly symbolic, for all intents and purposes.

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