"You should be at least allowed to have that thought — right? — like: shit, I don't know if that's the right thing to do. You know what I mean? If you saw a very charismatic dude in a park making a very convincing argument for why everyone on the planet should kill themselves, you wouldn't be like: hey, man, do you mind if I project you into the homes of everyone on the planet, so they hear your message?"
"So, if you have no censorship, that is what's possible."
"So, from compassion — from wanting our kids to be safe and us to be safe — there's this this thing that sounds like censorship — which it is — but the problem is just what you're saying, which is: Okay, let's do it. You're right! I don't want that weirdo, who's so charismatic, that if I listen to him just for a few minutes, I'll be like: You know what, maybe I should cut my dick off. Whatever the fuck. I don't want that guy talking to everybody."
"That was the Heaven's Gate guy that castrated those dudes."
"They sure did. They did. That was part of the thing. You gotta cut your dick off to get on the spaceship."
"Just your balls. I think you've just got to cut off your balls."
"Oh, just your balls. Whew. I misheard him. That's good news."
***
That's from the Joe Rogan podcast, Episode #1806 — with Duncan Trussell. I did the transcription of the discussion that begins at 1:26:56. As you can infer, they've been talking about the problem of censorship on Twitter. The one doing most of the talking is Trussell. I've put Joe's contributions in italics.
Here's a video to sharpen your memory of Heaven's Gate:
"So take a closer look... Do you notice anything about them? Their haircuts, exactly alike. Baggy clothes. No gender. And with every move, they fix their adoring gaze on one man in the room. They call him Do...."
To what extent do we want free speech when the speech shoots instantly everywhere? Joe and Duncan don't mention this, but Elon Musk is a charismatic guy. With a spaceship.
Posts
97 comments:
There actually are a lot of people being convinced on the internet to cut off their sex organs and none of that is not being censored. In fact, the people saying, "Wait, don't do it" are the ones being censored.
I think we all know who the suicide cultists are in modern America, and their voices already get heard.
Every Tesla comes with suicide software.
I sense the Fallacy of Limited Choice nearby.
One man's self-negation is another man's self-actualization.
Let's not loose focus on the core issues, which are "who gets to decide?", and "why should they/you be the one deciding?
Stock ownership? Correct thinking? Good intentions? Pedigree? CV? None of those are good reasons in my mind. Lots of people seek power to do good. How many people do you know who are good enough to trust with absolute power?
In a free and functioning democracy, people vote in the voting-booth, with their money, and with their attention span and followership. The only way to solve the above problem, is that each person decided who they want to listen to, who they want to follow, and who's suggestions or recommendations they want to inculcate into their lives.
Once in a while, freedom allows things to happen that we would rather not have happen. Cult psychosis, like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown (both of which, by the way, pre-dated Twitter and the internet, as a mass phenomenon.)
But it would be a mistake to assume that eliminating freedom, so as to avoid these horrors, would improve things. Freedom is how the rest of us learn about the awful things that psychotics like Jim Jones can do, which helps most of us avoid that sort of situation. Freedom assumes that most people can process information and make judgments of what's in their best interest, without having big brother looking over their shoulders.
Sure, there are some who can't cope on their own. Some of those will meet a tragic end. Still, on balance, the greater good is served by freedom.
Lack of freedom is even uglier. Think of the Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, China today with slavery, Cambodia's killing fields. These are the failures of anti-freedom.
Maybe it's better if someone who is that gullible when a charismatic person speaks on a street corner opts out of the gene pool.
Who decides who to censor?
Do the censors just allow the boring to post? The boring person who might have a secret agenda funded by Zuckerberg?
I’ve seen firsthand with the whole covid debacle how easy it is to dupe and scare people. We were, however, allowed to debate it, more or less. We aren’t China, yet.
I don't want that guy talking to everybody.
And then you find out, Oh shit! We just gave the power to censor to a bunch of true believers who make Do's cult look like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
"Maybe we shouldn't give charismatic people recommending various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever — maybe you shouldn't give them a bullhorn that can reach the entire planet in a second."
Isn't that exactly what 98% of the media did (and is still doing, come to think of it) with Barack Obama?
Boy it really seems like Ann is trolling the commentariat with that last graf. Yes, Musk is charismatic, and has a spaceship, but the issue isn't really whether he should be banned from Twitter, is it? The problem is that he might not suppress the speech of others in the ways Ann wants -- and Ann knows better than most of us because she has to moderate comments on her blog.
And that free speech shooting everywhere is the way the internet works. I'm not on twitter so no speech there magically shoots into my living room; but when I voluntarily navigate to this blog, the posts and comments shoot to my screen.
Of course, from the more narrow, FIrst Amendment point of view it should be trivially obvious that freedom of speech and of the press means freedom to speak as persuasively as possible, through the most broadly disseminated media available, without government interference.
The principle of free speech, when applied in contexts not limited to state action, should, in the minds of some, embrace a smaller scope of speech, huh?
As long as charismatic cults are only harming themselves...let Darwinism be Darwinism. Cults are nothing new, nor are they a product of social media. Good luck stopping them.
If cults are also terroristic, such Aleph (previously Aum Shinrikyo) in Japan or various global suicide bombers, then it becomes an overtly political discussion. Control requires firm state media and totalitarianism as seen in China and Iran. Then one soon asks whether the charismatic cult leaders and rebels are superior to the official government methods.
The post-WW2 western strategy was to engage with the extremists, expose, and debunk. This was even seen with the German/Nazi symbols and humor of Hogan's Heroes, as fully mainstream on prime time network TV.
The counterproductive media control shift happened when censorship of swastikas as offensive in the 1990s, and to comply with German and other international regulations. In turn, rebellious Hollywood voluntarily censored itself purely for financial gain (China) and exposed its supreme hypocrisy.
Western censorship got a toehold with the rise of hate speech laws in this period, but it just drove the crazies underground. They don't hate so much as misperceive the world. Who cares what label is applied to a crazy person?
Expose insanity for what it is by ending hate speech laws.
I wrote a poem about this event right aafter it happened.
KINGS AND THINGS
Hail, Caesar! Hale-Bopp!
Rising stars sometimes drop.
One’s stabbed; one burns.
Circles tighten, taking turns.
Caesar dies; Bopp defies.
Burning bright above it flies.
Comet’s tails. Higher planes.
Hail, Bopp! No more pains.
Higher planes? Maybe not.
Buried deep, bodies rot.
Hail, Caesar! Hale-Bopp!
Rising dreams sometimes flop.
Hale-Bopp stays its course;
in its blaze a mighty force.
Kings and others now await
Judgment Day at Heaven’s Gate.
It doesn't look like they are promoting censorship so much as they are promoting thinking freely about censorship.
"You should be at least allowed to have that thought — right? — like: shit, I don't know if that's the right thing to do.
The idea that the current censorship is designed to stop maniacs or crazy people from causing us all to commit suicide is so absurd. For example, Hamas and the Taliban and Iran all have twitter accounts that are uncensored. They can issue actual death threats, no problem. People here can call for whites to be exterminated and it stays up. This is the same old "trump is actual hitler" argument applied to Musk. The best response to crazies is to let people respond to their posts. If you do that, the absurd people get roasted pretty good. Censorship allows a favored politician to avoid scandal (Hunters laptop) and even criticism at all. In Thailand criticism of the king is an actual crime with jail time.
I don't want that weirdo, who's so charismatic, that if I listen to him just for a few minutes, I'll be like: You know what, maybe I should cut my dick off. Whatever the fuck. I don't want that guy talking to everybody."
Of Course, Nowadays;
THAT GUY is in your schools Teaching your children
THAT GUY is on YouTube influencing your children
THAT GUY is a a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
THAT GUY is a Billionaire, and cousin of the Governor of Illinois
SOME people that are weirdos, aren't allowed on mass media..
OTHER people that are weirdos, OWN mass media
When and where did censorship lead to good outcomes?
Do and every other cult leader censored his followers very strictly. I bet the guys who cut their balls off didn't listen to arguments from both sides before they made their decision.
The problem with Heaven's Gate was a lack of free speech. Thanks to that never-blinking freak censoring everyone but himself, there was no one doing a Don Rickles job on his flabby ass.
Culling of the herd can be helpful.
They say the fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. So there’s that.
Thankfully this "bullhorn" doesn't exist...and if it is being created someone please queue up the clip of Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park...
Heaven's Gate is just a hypothetical problem.
The real and immediate problem is that Musk would make Twitter end its ban on Babylon Bee.
PS:
What modern-day 'cult' is promoting castration these days, certainly on a much bigger scale than the isolated Heaven's Gate folks?
Hint: they're one of the crowd that's trying (with some considerable success) to shut down free expression, if they think the expression is 'phobic' with regards to their surgical/medical practices.
People all over the internet talking guys into cutting their balls off and its encouraged. Their called trans rights activists.
That's where humorists come in, with disarming jokes instantly spread to the entire planet.
To the contrary, Musk is saying our biggest existential threat is population implosion. We’re not reproducing enough to ensure the survival of our specie.
👉🏽 https://youtu.be/q0oaE9LLQN8
There’s a good chance most Musk critics don’t bother to listen to the big guy.
"…Elon Musk is a charismatic guy. With a spaceship."
I saw Musk's last public presentation at Boca Chica a few months ago. Maybe he was just having a bad night, but charismatic he was not. And I'm beginning to believe that the government is not going to let him have his spaceship, either.
TWitter was mostly "Free Speech" until Trump won. I don't remember anyone practicing Genocide because they read a tweet.
All this blah, blah, about "Wow, we need censorship because otherwise we'll have Cannibalism" is just so absurd. The issue is whether Musk can takeover Twitter and allow political free speech for those who disagee with the WaPo-NYT-DNC-liberal elite concensus. That's it.
The rest is just ridiculous scaremongering to support the status quo.
They call him Do, Joe...
"I don't want that guy talking to everybody."
Fine. But, as always, the question is, quis custodiet etc. There aren't enough Althouses to do it right. And it's not clear that Musk could overcome prog power.
People are rightly concerned about a cult of personality manipulated by social media neurotransmitter stimulus that results in driving a huge wedge into the NATO alliance for the benefit of the Neo-Stalin ambitions of Vlad Putin.
Keep crying about masks and inventing fabulous conspiracies around vaccine side effects and promote the efficacy of horse pills and fish tank cleaner.
Five hundred thousand dead anti vaxers and the destruction of Ukraine are the price of the Trump death cult's free speech.
To be fair, cult member balls are low hanging fruit.
This is the kind of thinking and talking people do when they're smoking dope. It's like a late-night convo in a freshman dorm.
It's like: Hey! If we could just tap into the power of the planet itself, we could save the planet. The planet is offering us the answer, it's offering us the greatest gift, but we're not listening. It's like we'd rather kill the planet that loves us, kill ourselves, than accept it's gift of endless free energy. I'm talking about the volcanoes, man! The volcanoes! Why don't we just get our energy from the volcanoes? Because the fucking corporations probably bought the rights to the tech and are keeping it secret so they can keep making all this money. Fucking greedy white capitalists and shit.
Asking for censorship from your "leaders" to protect yourself from your own thoughts is not that different from cutting your own balls off so you'll never leave the cult.
No, Howard. You did that. You are a true believer. A humanist cultist who believes that you are the measure of all things and that rights are a zero sum game.
Elon Musk is a charismatic guy. With a spaceship.
And his girlfriend has this haircut.
"Every Tesla comes with suicide software."
Joe and Duncan talk about how Tesla could turn off all their cars in Russia... or anywhere... and go on to speculate about Tesla's deliberately killing.
"Boy it really seems like Ann is trolling the commentariat with that last graf. Yes, Musk is charismatic, and has a spaceship, but the issue isn't really whether he should be banned from Twitter, is it?"
It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn.
It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn.
Who's controlling it now?
Queue Bob doing his best Tony Bennett impression:
I left my balls in Mar a Lago...
"Heaven's Gate is just a hypothetical problem. The real and immediate problem is that Musk would make Twitter end its ban on Babylon Bee."
You're just imagining that Musk will do the one thing you believe is good and not anything that might be bad. It's funny that you're worried about "hypothetical" problems, when you're talking about what might happen in one version of the future. That's also hypothetical. You want Musk to win vast power because you want something you imagine. You don't even know what's in his mind. He has a very strange mind! But why not take a chance? Sometimes a crap shoot gets what you want. Even if you did know what he intends, there's such a thing as unintended consequences.
The Climate Change people are doing exactly that and they are not being censored by any of the platforms.
“It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn.“
A Saudi prince could do better I guess… Not.
Is focusing on balls an Althouse oblique criticism of the US lacking the cojones to eject Putin out of Kuwait?
“Five hundred thousand dead anti vaxers and the destruction of Ukraine are the price of the Trump death cult's free speech.”
You are so far off-
Good Lord. You make no sense.
Bezos has a major newspaper, distributor of books, and a rocket ship. Is he just not charismatic?
Rogan is conflating free speech with captive audiences. The corollary of freedom of speech is freedom to listen or not listen. And if someone wishes to listen to some very charismatic dude making arguments for genocide -- like I have done watching shows on the history channels about Hitler -- they should not be prohibited from doing so.
Realize that from the perspective of the progressive left, everyone on the right is a genocidal Hitler who should be muzzled, including Rogan.
It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn.
Who should be, then? I'm certain I'd rather he control it than the current group. In any case, it's only "unique" in the narrow sense that there's nothing exactly like it. There are alternatives, and if Musk had his wealth tied to its success he'd have a lot of incentive to keep it strong and relevant, which would include allowing the Bee and Trump back on.
Life is full of unintended consequences.
Albert Einstein found that one out the hard way.
But… constantly trying to prevent people from thinking, speaking… living- w/out permission from the smart people is such over the top control. Who gets that power? Is is bought? Earned? Won? Designated? Designed?
It’s beginning to look like equality is dead.
'Do you notice anything about them? Their haircuts, exactly alike. Baggy clothes. No gender.'
Pat? Is that you?
Look, this isn't complicated. The argument for freedom of speech is that there is no one who can be trusted to be the censor. And all the arguments made by those who favor censorship are simply further proof of that self-evident fact.
It’s a One World Order thing anyway.
Or is it New World? In the end.
'It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn.'
Somebody's in control now...why not Musk?
Btw, cults have a bad reputation.
I've always thought it would be cool to be a cult leader.
"Maybe we shouldn't give charismatic people recommending various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever — maybe you shouldn't give them a bullhorn that can reach the entire planet in a second."
And in the typical fashion of all modern thinkers Trussell doesn't seem to realize that in a situation with minimal restrictions on speech it's not just the charismatic whackos that have a bullhorn.
But, hey, if we do what Trussell wants we'll be free from the scourge of mean tweets!
"Joe and Duncan talk about how Tesla could turn off all their cars in Russia... or anywhere... and go on to speculate about Tesla's deliberately killing."
The democrat congress passed, and Biden signed, a kill switch in all US cars to begin in the not too distant future. I don't remember the exact date, but it's only a few years down the road.
I expect our current two vehicles are that last we will ever purchase. Good thing I like them.
Keep crying about masks and inventing fabulous conspiracies around vaccine side effects and promote the efficacy of horse pills and fish tank cleaner.
Five hundred thousand dead anti vaxers and the destruction of Ukraine are the price of the Trump death cult's free speech.
Howard, get help. You sound more crazy every week.
Elon's spaceship is real, and he has the charisma of a CEO, not a cult leader.
If one cannot tell the difference between a cult leader and a CEO, the problem doesn't start with the CEO.
It's cue, Howard.
Howard, get help. You sound more crazy every week.
You can really tell WHEN Howard is on his meds or not.. Seems like his prescription has expired
"I bet the guys who cut their balls off didn't listen to arguments from both sides before they made their decision."
Perhaps we should ask someone with experience in the matter. Howard, did you listen to both sides?
Prof A @ 9:44: "Joe and Duncan talk..." I had not known that. Great minds think alike, fools seldom differ...
"And I'm beginning to believe that the government is not going to let him have his spaceship, either."
I think this touches on something that is being overlooked in this entire drama- the fact that Bezos owns the WaPoo and is using it to attack Musk's rocketry business. Musk is looking for a counterattack.
"It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn."
Who is controlling it right now?
https://youtu.be/hl0iNRXcUbE
One may think this Rogan/Shapiro episode of the JR Experience is OT. I think it expands further the topic at hand. JR is such a good conversationalist b/c he listens- even to people he may not agree w/.
And common ground is found.
Joe Smith asks, "Pat, is that you?"
No, it's me, Chris.
We can't have free speech because someone bad might use it. This time, censorship is in everyone's best interest whether they know it or not. Especially, if they don't know it. Times have changed, you see, so taking people's freedom to speak on whatever topic they want prevents BadStuff(TM). Limiting people's freedom actually makes them MORE FREE. Now, they don't have to worry about hearing opinions we don't like, er, I mean, they don't like. And, naturally, the question arises as to who gets to decide what is to be censored. That's a good question, and the answer, of course, is we do. You don't need to worry about that. It's taken care of.
I have mixed feelings on Musk, he's done amazing things, but I don't see him as the least bit charismatic on a personal level.
Keep choking dat chicken, Howee!
What you think you feel is not avian, it’s only the swine flu you are afflicted with.
There’s no doubt that the cult members were all Dimocrats.
No doubt, whatsoever…
And here I thought the current Twitter censorship guidelines were there to prevent bullying
Cults seem to be self-limiting ventures. As for "anti-vaxer" sanity, I'll offer that it is an extremely complex choice. There's this to consider...
https://www.hardtowrite.com/pathogens/ and the fact that it is really too early to tell what the protocols have accomplished. Also, who censors the analysis of those protocols. We already know the numbers are FUBAR. In Michigan it's not even known how many Whitmer killed off, nor will it be.
If Musk successfully purchases Twitter I will celebrate by continuing to not be on Twitter...got to love this "bullhorn" technology that I can choose not to hear. It's almost as if it really isn't a bullhorn...
As far a projecting Musk's interest in & subsequent actions (or inactions) on Twitter...aren't both sides doing it? Why is it right for one side but not the other? Personally, I'm tired of the story already. I had a social media phase, I even believed they were actual friends...I now only rarely view and almost never post...I don't miss it.
Howard: Keep crying about masks and inventing fabulous conspiracies around vaccine side effects and promote the efficacy of horse pills and fish tank cleaner.
Five hundred thousand dead anti vaxers and the destruction of Ukraine are the price of the Trump death cult's free speech.
Is this a parody of overwrought libtard stupidity and hysterics?
If so, it's brilliant.
"Freedom assumes that most people can process information and make judgments of what's in their best interest, without having big brother looking over their shoulders."
The people currently "moderating" Twitter do not believe that.
"
"It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn."
The people with that control are already a monolithic group who viciously censor that which does not fit their world view. This unique worldwide bullhorn already speaks with one voice. The excuse is always because people can't be trusted to hear things they don't want people to hear. If people talked freely about their skepticism of the Covid vaccine, they might convince others not to take it. If people talked freely about Hunter's laptop before the election, they might convince others to vote the wrong way. If you allow a satire website access to your platform, people might laugh at the "wrong" things.
I don't know how Musk would do things, but I know how they are being done now. I also know that Twitter is so resistant to any kind of change, that they are willing to self destruct to prevent it. So it's already a dangerous cult.
Keep crying about masks and inventing fabulous conspiracies around vaccine side effects and promote the efficacy of horse pills and fish tank cleaner.
This is pure progressive propaganda. All the empirical data* show masks and shutdowns don't "stop the spread" but they do wreck economies and have other detrimental effects. You will in the future disavow any knowledge of the many adverse reactions to the experimental mRNA "vaccine" just as you do now, but that doesn't stop the very real harm done already: try rectifying your viewpoint with the cold hard fact that more fully vaccinated individuals are testing positive and being hospitalized than non-C-19 vaccinated people. Still spinning the off-label issue which led directly to more than half the deaths you claim to care about. Early intervention would have saved over 200,000 deaths from COVID, but suddenly the FDA and AMA muzzled any doctor who wanted to treat the virus proactively. You cheer this fact. It is worse than NAZI death camp medicine to cheer such a thing, but you do you Howard. No one would have been driven by panic to try horse dewormers or fish tank cleaner (which is actually unrelated to the drug at issue) if clear and true medical advice were freely available during the panic of 2020. Shame on you for cheering the end of the Hippocratic Oath. Trust between patient and doctor has been eroded, and you cheer it because it arrogates power to the State and that not good health is the outcome you appreciate.
*Link: https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/04/4.17.22-All-States.png?ssl=1
If you can understand graphs look at this comparison showing absolutely no difference in outcomes between masked and unmasked populations in USA. A similar map comparing Germany (heavy high-quality mask compliance) and Sweden (very few masks) looks exactly the same.
"Maybe we shouldn't give charismatic people recommending various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever — maybe you shouldn't give them a bullhorn that can reach the entire planet in a second."
"Or whatever"
Maybe we SHOULD have charismatic people on Social Media, where others are allowed to immediately respond to them, and no one gets to censor anyone, so no one can blot out the voices pointing out the "charismatic people's" evil
Are you going to kick every single racist pig pushing CRT off of social media?
Are you going to kick off of social media every single person pushing the destructive "trans" ideology?
Are you going to kick off of social media every single person pushing the destructive marxist ideology?
Are you going to ban from social media everyone who pushed the fraudulent "Trump - Russia collusion" hoax? Who calls photoID laws "voter suppression"? Who defends poll workers blocking poll watchers from doing their job?
How about the muder supporting "defund the police" people? Are they all going to be kicked off?
No?
Then you're already letting wholesale murder, lies, disinformation, and misinformation on the site. And your goal isn't about protecting people from evil, it's about supporting evil by suppressing the good people who you don't like.
Socialism and Communism have killed more people, and caused more misery, than any other mode of belief in human history. until you're ready to kick those off your site, you can have no justification "moderating" anything else
"That was the Heaven's Gate guy that castrated those dudes."
Michael Cimino?
"'Maybe we shouldn't give charismatic people recommending various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever — maybe you shouldn't give them a bullhorn that can reach the entire planet in a second.'
"Isn't that exactly what 98% of the media did (and is still doing, come to think of it) with Barack Obama?"
Did Obama "recommend various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever...?" When? What did he recommend? Is he still-"come to think of it"--doing so today? How? When? What does he recommend?
"'Maybe we shouldn't give charismatic people recommending various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever — maybe you shouldn't give them a bullhorn that can reach the entire planet in a second.'
"Isn't that exactly what 98% of the media did (and is still doing, come to think of it) with Barack Obama?"
Did Obama "recommend various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever...?" When? What did he recommend? Is he still-"come to think of it"--doing so today? How? When? What does he recommend?
At least Fox dialed back the RT talking points, so not all of you geniuses are completely mesmerized.
It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn.
What disqualifies him worse than the current crowd, besides the fact he is Libertarian instead of Progressive?
I'm sure a post about the dangers of Bezos owning Amazon and the Washington Post are coming soon...right?
You clutched your pearls when Turner created CNN...right?
Self-abortion.
Self-abortion by choice, Choice, and force.
I just can't get my head around the idea that someone who relies on the NYT and the WaPo for their news is worried about the accuracy of Twitter.
Did Obama "recommend various forms of genocide or apocalypse or self-negation or whatever...?" When? What did he recommend? Is he still-"come to think of it"--doing so today? How? When? What does he recommend?
No, he just set off the current wave of racism, which is a surprise to many who voted for him.
Blogger Howard said...
At least Fox dialed back the RT talking points, so not all of you geniuses are completely mesmerized.
Take your meds, Howard. You need a few more days of the anti-psychotic.
Control F gave me one Obama mention in comments. That was immediately what came to my mind.
there's this this thing that sounds like censorship — which it is — but the problem is just what you're saying, which is: Okay, let's do it. You're right! I don't want that weirdo, who's so charismatic, that if I listen to him just for a few minutes, I'll be like:...
Obama came on the scene, an empty vessel. A nobody that had done exactly nothing. Not a thing.
But he promised to "fundamentally change the United States" Look up the definition of fundamental.
serving as, or being an essential part of, a foundation or basis; basic; underlying:
That's enough to be disqualifying for me. But we need to censor this charismatic person right?
A have a modest proposal. Why don’t we just lobotomize everyone so that they are not able to think wrong thoughts. That will solve the problem of a billionaire owning twitter.
"It's whether he should be in sole control of the planet's unique worldwide bullhorn."
Free speech is better than unfree speech.
Better one identifiable person in command of Twitter than a hidden cabal.
Better an open and debatable set of conduct rules than Twitter's top-secret, ever-changing, never revealed community standards.
Better Musk in charge than the Left.
I'm truly shocked (and amused) by Althouse trying to occupy the neutral ground between Elon Musk and Big Brother. That border is not merely an uncomfortable picket fence. It's a razor blade. I think we've all grown to realize what a craven little equivocator she can be, but that's how allegedly smart people can believe freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and war is peace.
“Bezos has a major newspaper, distributor of books, and a rocket ship. Is he just not charismatic?”
It’s all part of the Left’s “okay for me, but not for thee” delusional mindset.
Normally, what THEY have, what THEY want, and what they value is nothing I’d ever aspire to. In fact, sentient folks would run in the opposite direction. To avoid the taint.
And of course (as I shouldn't have to remind anyone who's ever looked at a history book) the cult that remains the champ at producing body counts remains the Cult of the State, which has some member among regular commenters on this blog.
I miss Obama.
Blogger Readering said...
I miss Obama.
I don't blame you. He looked unthreatening and semi-competent. Underneath he was malevolent but he did have a nice pants crease. The lunatics running Biden were sort of the junior varsity and could not do as much harm as they are doing now.
I wouldn't give some guy who wanted everyone to commit suicide a forum. That's because of the handful of people he might convince. It may also be a little because of how the rest of the internet would treat the guy. It might be a nice "art project" showing that the really crazy guy was less of a pain than the average internet poster though.
Twitter services the world, not just the US. And the world doesn't have a 1st amendment or bill of rights. So the woke censors at Twitter are probably more in tune with with their international users.
The free speech advocates here are probably the minority opinion worldwide. Musk could put those billions to better use and let Twitter wither away over time. Something better will eventually come along to replace it.
Twitter currently has 396.5 million users worldwide
In the US, 92% of tweets come from the top 10% of users
8.85% of the worldwide social media users access Twitter
On average, Twitter US users spend 158.2 minutes per month on the app
The whole thing doesn't seem like such a big deal after finding those statistics above.
Blogger Readering said..."I miss Obama."
He's got how many (gonna be flooded by sea level rise any year now; yeah right) seaside mansions now? Two?
Bet he doesn't miss you.
Most people who join cults are just mad at their parents. Suicide is their ultimate revenge. Not Jonestown, though.
Some of the inner circle mass murderers who helped Jim Jones force hundreds to kill their children, then themselves, or gunned them down if they resisted, are now tenured professors at Santa Cruz rewriting that cult's real ties to politicians from the Carter family to Harvey Milk. Milk kept the federal and state welfare checks flowing to Jones, who chose mostly minority people on public benefits for his cult and then starved them and wouldn't let them leave as he took their social security and other government checks. It was more enslavement than cultish.
Free speech might have saved them, almost did, but Milk, Rosalyn, and other Democrat politicians and family members long helped suppress the facts about Jonestown and still do. Jimmy Carter has written fifty books about himself but won't answer to his role in Jonestown. Santa Cruz shelters the mass murderers, and taxpayers fund their official denialism.
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