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Is Elon Musk the greatest visionary or the greatest snake oil salesman of our age?

It’s depressing to realise how many racist right wing “commentators” have been dragged from relative obscurity to the mainstream culture wars by this cesspit of a social media platform. Like Douglas ‘I just hate brown people’ Murray.

Musk had to make people pay to use twitter - his acolytes - and become their spokesperson because he knew brands and big money would be completely alienated.
 
It’s depressing to realise how many racist right wing “commentators” have been dragged from relative obscurity to the mainstream culture wars by this cesspit of a social media platform. Like Douglas ‘I just hate brown people’ Murray.
I always give the example of qanon annonymous podcast (excellent btw), a small niche left wing ish podcast, and how it racks in a cool £50k a month on patreon. That’s not to be sniffed at, esp with such small overheads. There’s big money to be made from grifting.
 
I always give the example of qanon annonymous podcast (excellent btw), a small niche left wing ish podcast, and how it racks in a cool £50k a month on patreon. That’s not to be sniffed at, esp with such small overheads. There’s big money to be made from grifting.
That's why Russell Brand's gone for the far right/fundie audience. As I said elsewhere, it's so tediously predictable how these people always go on the same podcasts with the same views, talking to the same people.
 
It even gets kinda beyond 4chan territory doesn’t it.
And Tice retweeted it and commented favourably on it, I'm astounded, tbh, how he thinks this is a reasonable way to behave as grown up and an MP.

My aunt used to sit on employment tribunals. One I recall she said there was an email with an as offensive meme attached and going round the office. The worker who sent it ended up at this tribunal fighting to keep their job. So what about Tice? Slap on the wrist?
 
The scary thing is that millions of people don't understand that Musk has 0 insight into anything about the United Kingdom, just a set of prejudices about what he sees. Maybe he's clever about some things (though I'm not convinced), but he is utterly ignorant of what is going on or any political, social or historical context of the UK or the feelings of most of its citizens.
 
The scary thing is that millions of people don't understand that Musk has 0 insight into anything about the United Kingdom, just a set of prejudices about what he sees. Maybe he's clever about some things (though I'm not convinced), but he is utterly ignorant of what is going on or any political, social or historical context of the UK or the feelings of most of its citizens.
That was sort of true of twitter pre Musk as well though...the whole world filtered through the values of California tech.
 
The scary thing is that millions of people don't understand that Musk has 0 insight into anything about the United Kingdom, just a set of prejudices about what he sees. Maybe he's clever about some things (though I'm not convinced), but he is utterly ignorant of what is going on or any political, social or historical context of the UK or the feelings of most of its citizens.

TBH, I have doubts that he has a good grasp of South African history, given some of his views and background.
 
The scary thing is that millions of people don't understand that Musk has 0 insight into anything about the United Kingdom, just a set of prejudices about what he sees. Maybe he's clever about some things (though I'm not convinced), but he is utterly ignorant of what is going on or any political, social or historical context of the UK or the feelings of most of its citizens.
Yeah this is an important point.

What is most infuriating about Musk's interventions into the UK is just how confidently incorrect he is. Most of the things he has said have just been factually incorrect (like two tier policing) and he also seems to be projecting a US / South African racial politics that doesn't really apply to the UK in the same way. (E.g. his framing seems to be middle class whites versus semi-criminal dark skinned underclass, but it doesn't really work in UK when the people rioting were actually mostly part of a semi-criminal underclass, which in the UK isn't really racialised in the way he thinks it is - the bulk of immigration is skilled workers so race and class don't map here the way he assumes they do).
 
Well there's this whole idea in the rightwing US, and we've seen this from some of gsv's cousins there as well, that Muslims are like this major political force in the UK - I find it ironic and sad that so many Jewish people cling to this one - hello, where have we heard this before?!

If you ask them for proof they'll just go 'Uh... Sadiq Khan he's a Muslim extremist'
 
The scary thing is that millions of people don't understand that Musk has 0 insight into anything about the United Kingdom, just a set of prejudices about what he sees. Maybe he's clever about some things (though I'm not convinced), but he is utterly ignorant of what is going on or any political, social or historical context of the UK or the feelings of most of its citizens.
Someone elsewhere said this about Musk, and I think they're right:
He doesn't care about the UK as a normal boring place where real people actually live and work: he thinks of it as a setting for stories and drama. All this stuff is sensational and exciting and gets shared and discussed, and that is what Twitter needs if it's going to continue to exist.
 
Well there's this whole idea in the rightwing US, and we've seen this from some of gsv's cousins there as well, that Muslims are like this major political force in the UK - I find it ironic and sad that so many Jewish people cling to this one - hello, where have we heard this before?!

If you ask them for proof they'll just go 'Uh... Sadiq Khan he's a Muslim extremist'
Me too. A lot of Jews are very quick to forget that we were treated the same several decades ago. As for Khan being an extremist, as if. He doesn't even have a beard, he is the most mild-mannered Muslim guy ever (except maybe N'golo Kanté), but these people act like he's in fucking ISIS. They spout rubbish about people praying in the streets and women being forced to wear burqas in London even though it's very obviously not true.
 
It blows my mind that some Jews seem to believe there is some kind of safety in siding with Islamophobes. It is never a move that will end well for us.
There are Jews who team up with actual Nazis. I wish I was joking, but Bronze Age Zionists are a thing - they see Nazis as fellow fighters against wokeness, degeneracy and all that far right crap, and they're big into manliness. They're the kind of people who sneered at Jews who stayed behind in Germany and called them 'soap' and 'lampshades'. Naturally, Nazis hate them. Just because Islamophobes hate Muslims more than us does not make them our friends, and they're pro-Israel because they hate Muslims and not because they love Jews. Look at how Julie Burchill treats Jews who AREN'T pro-Israel, for instance.
 
Have we had this yet?
Pilita Clark in the FT:
Musk's outbursts may be afffecting Tesla sales. Consideration rates (ie 'thinking about buying') have been falling
from about 40 per cent in November down to 30 per cent in February — after a series of controversies including the antisemitism uproar.

Tellingly, the falls were steeper among Democrats, who are generally bigger electric car fans, and this was before Musk endorsed Republican presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, in July. Caliber’s preliminary August figures suggest Tesla’s scores among Democrats have plunged further. It’s impossible to say if Musk’s outbursts are causing these shifts. Tesla has suffered a raft of other pressures, from higher interest rates to supply chain glitches... at a time when Tesla faces all those headwinds, plus growing competition from other carmakers, Musk is giving his “natural buyers” in the US a good reason to shun his cars. As of last week, I would say the same applies in the UK. In spades.

Why I no longer crave a Tesla​

Elon Musk’s antics are turning off the most obvious customers for his cars

paywall busted
 
Have we had this yet?
Pilita Clark in the FT:
Musk's outbursts may be afffecting Tesla sales. Consideration rates (ie 'thinking about buying') have been falling




Why I no longer crave a Tesla​

Elon Musk’s antics are turning off the most obvious customers for his cars

paywall busted
Cue class action lawsuit from Musk against democrat voters for alleged RICO boycott against Tesla… “This is war!!”
 
Have we had this yet?
Pilita Clark in the FT:
Musk's outbursts may be afffecting Tesla sales. Consideration rates (ie 'thinking about buying') have been falling




Why I no longer crave a Tesla​

Elon Musk’s antics are turning off the most obvious customers for his cars

paywall busted
By co-incidence, I was watching the 2015-ish episode of The Simpsons with his Muskiness guest starring. And wherein Lisa believes he has all the answers to the world's problems. I think that has to represent Peak Musk, and it's just been a little bit of a slide into pure insanity from there on... To think it was not even 10 years ago that even I thought, "Well he's a bit weird but his head seems to be going the right way..." Ah, the naivety.
 
Saw an article that remaining advertisers are reconsidering twitter after his action against the ones who are unfairly boycotting him. Quite likely I'd have thought, but it didn't seem to be quoting any of them.
 
With his current trajectory, I wonder how many years before he goes full Howard Hughes?
This is going almost exactly as I predicted, except I didn't think he'd be so instrumental in xhitter's demise, and I thought Tesla would be sufficiently firewalled from xhitter, and would only be brought down by its own shitness a couple of years later. But it seems Musk is far more capable than I gave him credit for, and I reckon he's only a matter of months away from pissing in bottles.
 
This is going almost exactly as I predicted, except I didn't think he'd be so instrumental in xhitter's demise, and I thought Tesla would be sufficiently firewalled from xhitter, and would only be brought down by its own shitness a couple of years later. But it seems Musk is far more capable than I gave him credit for, and I reckon he's only a matter of months away from pissing in bottles.
I think that's just wishfull thinking, he is far from crazy
 
I dunno, Tesla's stock price seems to bear no relation to its actual situation. I keep expecting it to be Emperor's New Clothes when things like falling sales figures, rivals emerging, or just the plain old "these wild tech promises aren't happening" bit comes to a head, but it seems to be able to survive on pure speculation.
 
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