"But if you believe in the power of Musk’s 'hardcore' few, it’s an unprecedented opportunity to show the world the power that’s been repressed by a sclerotic liberal establishment — a dynamic that’s defining this era of politics just as much as this wild moment in the business world."
Writes Derek Robertson in "Elon Musk’s Twist On Tech Libertarianism Is Blowing Up On Twitter/Silicon Valley’s 'cult of the founder' meets modern Republicans’ anti-'woke' culture-warring" (Politico).
Is this a "philosophy"? You'll have to wade through the article.
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Musk's and his fans' philosophy is that speech should be free for everyone, and not just the Left. This does freak the Left out because they have no answers for the Right's arguments and depend on "shut up you hater" to protect them.
The Left are the baddies.
"show the world the power that’s been repressed by a sclerotic liberal establishment"
But that establishment is hardly "liberal," and it has deep-state power at its disposal to squash any "philosophy" that is insufficiently progressive. Which makes Musk's relative success up to this point all the more remarkable. Not making any long-term bets on Twitter though.
The Philosophical war Here is between Meritocracy and collectivism.
The collectivists want excellence punished Because it makes them look bad and feel bad.
The people who actually get things done and want to work hard just want to be left alone.
Or you could recognize that a change in ownership is not a big deal. There will be less top-down censorship, but you have the option of becoming a censor yourself through your mute and block settings. The only thing Musk has changed is he has limited the left's ability to simply remove their opponents from the public sphere.
That is, they have just as much ability as ever to limit what they see, the just can't limit what others get to see. That this has them so upset is revealing of who and what they are.
Elon Musk’s Twist On Tech Libertarianism Is Blowing Up On Twitter/Silicon Valley’s 'cult of the founder' meets modern Republicans’ anti-'woke' culture-warring
Just the article's headline is too scrambled for me to understand.
It's funny how when the liberals owned it, it was a private business, and bannings were not a free speech issue, and now that they have lost control, it's "the public square," same as we on the right have been saying all along.
That is, they have just as much ability as ever to limit what they see, the just can't limit what others get to see. That this has them so upset is revealing of who and what they are.
@tim maguire, +1. Censorship is what people do when they have something to hide.
You'll have to wade through the article.
No I don’t! The only things an honest person can trust in the New York Times or the Washington Post are the box scores, and Politico doesn’t even have those.
Silicon Valley has a feudal attitude toward society and they expect to be the lords and ladies, everyone else to beg their leave. Musk's actions at Twitter are giving the "peasants" the idea they can have unapproved opinions and say the truth out loud.
"I found crucial to what is distinct between libertarians and valley folk that Silicon Valley’s ideology is pro-market but it is not pro-liberty. Liberty is not a value. They are highly, highly, collectivist. They believe that every single person has a positive obligation to society and the government can help people or coerce people or incentive into making a unique contribution."
Why Does Silicon Valley Seem to Love Democrats and Dismiss the GOP? A Long-read Q&A with Journalist Greg Ferenstein
https://www.aei.org/economics/what-does-silicon-valley-seem-to-love-democrats-and-dimiss-the-gop-a-qa-with-journalist-greg-ferenstein/
Read a Politico article? No thanks.
The people who actually get things done and want to work hard just want to be left alone.
This used to be the Libertarian motto until they went left or into a drug haze.
I also could barely wade through the headline. It seems like a lot of buzzwords strung together to bolster an attitude that the author and his audience already share.
It’s a window into a distinct mindset, common to Silicon Valley but not exclusively of it, that glorifies individual dynamism over group consensus-building; frontier-like, suck-it-up-buttercup speech norms over crowd-pleasing moderation; and out-of-fashion ideas about the “wisdom of crowds” over the prescriptions of “experts.”
Seriously? Silicon Valley is full woke, and then some: devoted to political correctness and the Official Truth as handed down by authorities. It's a large part of the rest of the country that is rightly skeptical of experts and "moderation" by censorship. And really, is moderation really "crowd-pleasing"? The writer's assumption seems to be that free speech is some anarcho-libertarian Wild West cult.
Antonio García Martínez, an author and tech entrepreneur, summed up this mindset and its grievances well in a Twitter thread that declared Musk’s takeover a “revolt by entrepreneurial capital against the professional-managerial class regime that otherwise everywhere dominates (including and especially large tech companies).” In other words: A revolt by billionaires against ... their own employees.
Elsewhere in the world, many billionaires are pushing the new wokeness on their workers and society. You don't have to be a billionaire or a fan of billionaires to resent what the "professional-managerial class regime" is forcing on society. There appear to be ambivalences and subtleties in García Martínez that the Politico writer doesn't see. Robertson is looking for easy enemies so he weds the attitudes of the official regime to a simplistic class war perspective. García Martínez mentions "the professional-managerial class regime that otherwise everywhere dominates (including and especially large tech companies)" but Robertson misses that. You could draw a parallel between a figure like Musk and a king who could be a tyrant, but who could also counteract the power of the nobility to force their will on the people.
Mike Sylwester said ..."headline is too scrambled".
Yes.
Regarding the hardcore few being "repressed", impeded would be more accurate. Red Queen's Race comes to mind. The non hard core are anti-productive. The damage done to the previous shareholders was borderline criminal.
Writes Derek Robertson in "Elon Musk’s Twist On Tech Libertarianism Is Blowing Up On Twitter/Silicon Valley’s 'cult of the founder' meets modern Republicans’ anti-'woke' culture-warring" (Politico).
Even Hollywood pitchmen seem to have forgotten the "meets" idiom is drawn from low budget "monster rallies," movies where one monster "meets" another culminating in eventual mortal combat.
Now even in Hollywood it's come to mean some kind of synergistic blending of storylines and genres, outside of piquing the interest of a potential spectator in eventual conflict between any individual protagonist and antagonist?
Here, Derek Robertson seems to be saying Frankenstein and the Wolf Man are hugging it out.
"Free Speech Maximalism"
Is there any other kind? We live in a heightened era of propaganda and lies. Musk is simply calling out bullshit for being...bullshit.
Who's freaking out? The truth seekers or the liars? It's the left openly freaking out, now that their ideas have to be debated in an open market. In an open forum, their indefensible, morally bankrupt ideas can't stand on their own merits. They know this.
Funny. Musk has made it a top priority, publicly, to go after child pornography that was allowed to lurk around under the former liberal censorship machine.
Wonder why they were ok with kiddie porn under the old liberal Twitter management? Why aren't liberals are applauding Musk's attempt to censor child pornography on Twitter?
Most libertarians aren't Libertarians.
This is just another in the series of foolish journalists beclowning themselves with terms they don't understand in order to look relevant and profound. File with "Year of the Angry White Male" and other boogiemen.
Yesterday Musk promised to make public all of the internal Twitter conversations that lead to the censoring of the NY Post's Hunter Biden laptop story. Should be interesting, wouldn't you say?
CBS News has now verified the laptop in real...two years later...how rich. Leslie Stahl owes Donald Trump an apology.
What about those 50 plus former US intelligence officers that swore it was just Russian disinformation, and the rest of the media the promoted that lie.
Is it any wonder why the left and our lying, censoring establishment is freaking out about the return of free speech, and free flowing information on Twitter?
Twitter’s virtual signaling inspired SBF and probably many others like SFB yet undiscovered.
Musk taking over reorders virtual signaling to a more realistic position in the blue check hierarchy.
The grieving over the death of the old guard is understandable because people will no longer be allowed to reap so much benefit with so little a contribution.
The Twitter take over may have helped bring to light a big fraud.
It is a historical pattern for a small number of extremely hard working and talented people to build up value and wealth only to be followed around by a bunch of mediocre, lazy and talentless mediocre people who complain about income inequality and a lack of fairness.
This second much larger group of people infest successful ventures and create jobs in HR and Legal and other useless departments that bloat the company with useless bureaucracy and in Twitters case they needed to keep the whine fridge stocked and censor Regime opponents.
Just take a wild guess what the demographics of most HR departments are also.
The grieving is over a devalued currency.
“ If you don’t share Musk and his fans’ philosophy, and you thought Twitter was an imperfect but important “digital public square” as it was, that’s cause enough for “freaking out.” But if you believe in the power of Musk’s “hardcore” few, it’s an unprecedented opportunity to show the world the power that’s been repressed by a sclerotic liberal establishment — a dynamic that’s defining this era of politics just as much as this wild moment in the business world”
It officially ceased being a public square when Twitter banned then President Trump. In our 1st Amdt jurisprudence and history, the sort of censorship here of the supposed majority that is being pushed here would never survive. It envisions the crazy guy on his soapbox, and Trumps mega rally’s as all being at the center of Free Speech in the public square. Esp pernicious here, the FJB Administration had sufficient high level contacts that that they could pick up the phone, and Twitter (etc) could and would ban any speech or speaker they wanted banned. Talk about Hunter Biden’s laptop (esp right before the election)? Banned as disinformation! Can’t give away enough COVID-19 experimental artificial mRNA gene therapy product jabs? Call the critics as vaccine denialists, and ban them as dissidents, spouting disinformation? Notice that the primary target of this censorship is coming from the top of the Dem Party regime. We aren’t talking public square Free Speech here, but Brown Shirts attacking and beating up those in the public square who dare challenge or criticize the Führer.
“Read a Politico article? No thanks.”
Actually was a lot better than the NYT articles Ann has been posting on Twitter - and it was FREE. (At least to me this time, since I so rarely read their stuff).
If Twitter coders were producing a better product sold directly to consumers (e.g. Teslas) or a product that made other producers more efficient (e.g., Microsoft Office), Musk's vision of a stripped down hard core programmer culture would succeed.
Unfortunately, Twitter is social media, like Facebook et al, and the only revenue is derived from advertising and/or data sharing. Thus, its true customer base is every other Woke Capital corporation and its managerial class. Even if most blue checks stay and pay the monthly fee, all it takes is one "he said WHAT?" on Twitter to trigger an outrage cascade of advertiser boycotts that will bankrupt the company. It is decidedly in the interest of the professional managerial caste that Musk suffer such a loss, and thus I would bet that it will happen, sooner than later.
I did read through the article. It was a little hard to follow, but I haven't had my morning caffeine yet. It's always tricky to try and insert political philosophies into the running of a private business. After all, there is no electorate to vote on things.
Because I don't like either the Democrat or the Republican parties, I'm a registered Libertarian, but the word, libertarian, is very difficult to define these days. In fact, a lot of the Libertarian candidates I see on the ballot are kind of nutty. I had hoped that the Libertarian party could define itself as a party of fiscal conservatives and social liberals, but it developed into a party of anarchy and chaos. (And election losers)
I really liked Gary Johnson when he was the Libertarian candidate for President, but the media took him out with a "gotcha" question about Aleppo in Syria. Most Libertarians are not big fans of American involvement in foreign affairs and even though everyone knew that there was a humanitarian crisis in Syria at the time, most people didn't know the name, Aleppo. I know that I hadn't heard specifically about Aleppo at that point in history, even though I had heard about the humanitarian crisis in Syria. But it was funny how, the very next day, everyone in the media was suddenly an expert on Aleppo.
When I tell people that I'm a Libertarian, I always qualify that by saying that I'm not a good Libertarian. If I were a good Libertarian, I'd be in jail.
So is this Pretend to ID a Philosophy Day? Or do hack writers keep calling ad hoc positions they disapprove of a “philosophy” in order to label and apparently straw-man argue against? Do they not realize how much work Aristotle put into Philosophy?
Achilles: "It is a historical pattern for a small number of extremely hard working and talented people to build up value and wealth only to be followed around by a bunch of mediocre, lazy and talentless mediocre people who complain about income inequality and a lack of fairness."
Qohelet (Ecclesiastes 20:20-22 ESV): "I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil."
Jesus (Luke 12:19-21): "'I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
Still, I'm thankful for the ways these hardworking and talented people have enriched our lives, however temporarily.
Blogger Achilles said...
“It is a historical pattern for a small number of extremely hard working and talented people to build up value and wealth only to be followed around by a bunch of mediocre, lazy and talentless mediocre people who complain about income inequality and a lack of fairness.”
Face it. Silicon Valley has been far too successful, for too long. The wine bars, 5 star cafeterias, Yoga classes, etc, that have become obligatory there, are seen as ludicrous indulgences by most of the country. Sure, many of the coders, the engineers, etc are top notch. But that supports an army of marginally competent grifters. They may pretend that they contribute vale to the company. They mostly are just a drag on it’s profitability. The rapaciousness of the billionaires running the companies is hidden by the social consciousness of this army of socially aware hangers on that they support.
As I mentioned last night, the excrement is piling up, and starting to hit the rotating propeller. The economy is heading towards the excrement receptacle at an accelerating rate. The policies that their Dem masters have imposed are destroying our economy, and many others around the world. The container ship problem hasn’t really improved, even with Sec Buttplug off maternity leave. We continue towards WW III, thanks possibly to some well placed Ukrainian bribes to the Biden family years ago. The Dems squandered many $Trillions$ in useless graft, much of it to line their own, and their cronies’, pockets, which, thanks to their geopolitical moves, drove down the demand for our sovereign, resulting in inflation to fund the cost. Millions of illegals, many of them criminals are streaming into this country, just as we are entering a recession, often accompanied by dangerous drugs. No matter. The regime is getting their vigorish. All is well.
Everyone is going to suffer the consequences. But I think that some of these new wave, Silicon Valley type, companies are in real danger. If I had stock in Apple, I would sell yesterday. They have a crashing world wide supplier network, much of which was, until very recently, in China. Amazon, on the flip side, appears to be significantly slimming down in advance of the crash. I am pretty sure that Twitter will survive this just fine. They apparently lease their computer systems, and have reasonably low capital costs as a result. That means that cutting their payroll by up to 75% is going to position them well for the coming economic adversities. But how many of these other high tech companies see the coming freight train clearly enough, and have the will to do what they need to, early enough, to survive?
“ If you don’t share Musk and his fans’ philosophy, and you thought Twitter was an imperfect but important “digital public square” as it was, that’s cause enough for “freaking out.” But if you believe in the power of Musk’s “hardcore” few, it’s an unprecedented opportunity to show the world the power that’s been repressed by a sclerotic liberal establishment — a dynamic that’s defining this era of politics just as much as this wild moment in the business world”
It officially ceased being a public square when Twitter banned then President Trump. In our 1st Amdt jurisprudence and history, the sort of censorship here of the supposed majority that is being pushed here would never survive. It envisions the crazy guy on his soapbox, and Trumps mega rally’s as all being at the center of Free Speech in the public square. Esp pernicious here, the FJB Administration had sufficient high level contacts that that they could pick up the phone, and Twitter (etc) could and would ban any speech or speaker they wanted banned. Talk about Hunter Biden’s laptop (esp right before the election)? Banned as disinformation! Can’t give away enough COVID-19 experimental artificial mRNA gene therapy product jabs? Call the critics as vaccine denialists, and ban them as dissidents, spouting disinformation? Notice that the primary target of this censorship is coming from the top of the Dem Party regime. We aren’t talking public square Free Speech here, but Brown Shirts attacking and beating up those in the public square who dare challenge or criticize the Führer.
Couldn't get through the article and its absolute statements about what Musk and his side are thinking. Musk has been pretty clear: This is important, and it probably isn't going to work, but he has to try. The Eaters have been pretty clear that they want him to fail.
Gusty mentioned CBS finally confirming the laptop story after 2 years. That story has been all over the media lately.
Something else that hit the media at the same time was the release of the computer repair techs tell all book about the laptop.
Published by a CBS subsidiary.
Pure coincidence I am sure.
Not important enough to mention (not you, gusty. You probably would have mentioned if you knewl
John Henry
Trump mentioned in 5th sentence.
I work so you don't have to.
Some related articles from ZeroHedge:
Fired Twitter Moderator Reveals "Worries" Over Platform's Free Speech Future
Take one look at some of the employees fired from Twitter the past two weeks by Elon Musk and it's easy to understand why the company operated as a far-left echo chamber for so long. Though company executives claimed that the platform was "politically neutral" for many years, evidence is coming to light which confirms what we already knew - There was a severe leftist bias that permeated every aspect of the social media site which specifically targeted and censored any viewpoints or facts that did not fit with their narrative.
Hilariously, Musk posted on the discovery of a supply closet at Twitter HQ containing activist swag including stacks of t-shirts which have "#StayWoke" printed on them. A neutral company? Not a chance.
Anti-Twitter Advertisers Have Been Under-Performing The Market For Months: Here Is Your Chance To Short Them
The last few months have seen a growing number of companies choosing to exercise their freedom of speech by choosing to abandon any advertising platforms that dare allow freedom of speech to virulently spread among its users.
The companies (supposedly) pulling their advertising from Twitter cumulatively are underperforming the market. Is their pulling of their advertising for political reasons, or is it just an economy move on their part, and they are trying to get moral credit for cutting their advertising budgets?
Musk ran a poll on whether he should declare General amnesty on all banned accounts. Except for illegal or "egregious spam" activity
70%+ said yes.
He just announced it will start next week. Curious to see if he let's Alex Jones back in. Guessing yes. I hope so. No interest in following him but free speech is free speech
John Henry
The Left are openly promoting censorship by opposing Musk. They openly favor porn in school libraries. They openly defend criminals. And yet people still vote for them.
Old Twitter lost an average of $100 million/year over the last ten years. It was doomed one way or another.
Free speech is a useful flag of convenience for the financial motives of "firing all these moderators" and "let many accounts that drove user engagement back in".
"Sure, many of the coders, the engineers, etc are top notch. But that supports an army of marginally competent grifters. They may pretend that they contribute vale to the company. They mostly are just a drag on it’s profitability. "
Waiting for the B-Movie screening, "I was a teenage Censor!", "The Red (tweet) Banner", "Terms of Service- Hit the Beeches".
So, the quote from Heinlein,
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.” Or in today's form, known as "the government is not responsible for the consequences of it's actions."
"Free speech is a useful flag of convenience for the financial motives of "firing all these moderators" and "let many accounts that drove user engagement back in"."
It's also one of the founding principles of this country.
It is increasingly clear that Elon Musk did not buy Twitter to make money. And it's a good thing for him that he didn't.
I consider myself libertarian simply because I believe in markets and small government. Lord knows, the Republicans don't believe in these things.
"It is increasingly clear that Elon Musk did not buy Twitter to make money."
He said so from the beginning. But it seems to be important to some to ignore/deny that.
Have been seeing tweets the last few days to the effect that a new EM policy has suppressed tags having to do with (what most everyone considers to be) child pornography. Which is a good thing. To my knowledge I've never seen anything to do with any sort of pornography (apart from political debates about the subject) on Twitter so I don't really know what those people are on about, although I read Gusty Winds (Parody) at 10:29 supra. The ardent libertarian sorts can't be happy about this: good.
The septic tank is overflowing and a bunch of folks are discovering they are the effluent. Good for them to learn a lesson, but probably won’t be enough to change their politics. It will have to happen again. A nail never goes in with the first strike of the hammer.
For some reason, I don't think a tell-all book titled "I was a Twitter Chair-Moistener" will get a huge advance from a publisher.
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