Image created with AI Stable Diffusion
Prior to Elon Musk buying Twitter. it was the standard answer to anybody complaining that they were censored by mods that “it’s a private company, they can do what they want”. Or, “If you don’t like it, make your own platform.” Or, “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences.”
Never mind the implicit assumption, very much meant to go unexamined, that what the consequences will be (and for which crimes) should be decided according to their own set of values and not yours. Despite this line coming from the same people who insist you never assume or impose your values as if they were universal.
These are the same people now complaining that Elon Musk is going to suspend accounts for pretending to be him, saying foul or foolish things. Presumably to illustrate by example why some level of censorship is necessary, but also to inflict upon him some of the pain they felt over losing control of the narrative on Twitter.
These same people, who celebrated the censorship of people defending biological facts prior to the buyout, now posture as if they’re champions of free speech. It is but to laugh. Likewise, at their concerns that Twitter will become a propaganda outlet used to sway elections under the new ownership…as if it wasn’t before.
What a spectacle it was, seeing them vascillate between panicked bitter outburst and smug, snarky certitude, then back again as the deal was negotiated. When the latest news was that Elon would withdraw from the deal, the chorus went “I knew he would from the start”, and “He can’t finish anything”, with thousands of upvotes supporting this narrative.
Then, when it looked like he would buy it after all, cracks appeared in the smug facade. The Twitterati lashed out with dramatic declarations that they would surely leave for some other platform (they didn’t) and that this is how our democracy ends, when a week prior, they knew all along that this outcome was impossible. Eurasia, it would seem, has always been at war with Eastasia.
I sure wish I could scrape up an ounce of sympathy. But these are the knuckle dragging, shit flinging apes of the peanut gallery who accuse anybody who wants reusable rockets of being a cultist, an Elon dick rider and various other things that would violate the Medium TOS if I were to repeat them here.
I’m ashamed to say I did bother attempting to explain myself to one of these creatures, once upon a time. Someone who told me Elon would never take me to Mars, as if I or anyone else ever imagined otherwise. I tried to have a human level conversation with them, explaining that civilizations grow great when we plant the seeds of trees we’ll never enjoy the shade of. That they only couldn’t understand this perspective because they think in purely selfish terms and thus couldn’t conceptualize self sacrifice for the sake of generations yet to be born.
My mistake. It is of course true that Elon is an unfortunately immature personality who, it’s now clear, is addicted to Twitter and cares far too much what strangers think of him. But if Bozo the Clown was the CEO of SpaceX, even if he ran over my cat and laughed about it, I would get behind Bozo and push.
Not for myself, and not for the love of Bozo, which the peanut gallery struggles to comprehend. It’s said that great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people. It’s the latter sort who make everything about Elon, the man, rather than what he can do for our species.
Every human will disappoint you eventually. Nobody is perfect, but powerful people don’t have to be our enemies. They can be a means to an end if, despite their many shortcomings, they have in them the desire to spend their wealth on constructive projects that benefit all of us. No law obligates them to do that, and indeed most don’t, instead snorting coke out of the ass cracks of Instagram models they invited out for a weekend on their yacht.
It is a small miracle, not to be taken for granted, that any billionaires whatsoever exist who are willing to spend their fortunes on something other than relentless self-gratification. If overlooking cringe boomer memes is the price we pay for that, it’s a small one.
It is true of course that Elon bought Tesla, he didn’t found it, nor did he design any of the cars. He did found SpaceX but did not personally design Starship. So, what is his contribution?
The answer is that there exists no shortage of engineers in the world. That was never the reason for human space exploration stagnating as it has. There is, however, a shortage of wealthy CEOs who sign engineer paychecks, willing to take the monumental personal risks inherent to the commercialization of spaceflight. Or mainstreaming electric cars for that matter. There are far safer ways to build wealth.
I do desperately wish he hadn’t bought Twitter though. It is clear he is an addict, and that Twitter will do to him what it does to all its users; sap time and energy away from projects more deserving of their attention.
In a hundred years, everyone will remember Starship. Nobody will remember Twitter. Starship is by far the most important contribution Musk can make with his life. Endangering it to get high off his own supply is alarmingly irresponsible. But then, he would not be the first wealthy, eccentric titan of industry to make important contributions to aerospace, only to then self destruct in a delusional fit. Howard Hughes and Alfred Lawson did it before him. Truly, there is no great man who doesn’t eventually let you down.
I also wonder, since the acquisition, if this isn’t something of a devil’s bargain. I mostly agreed with old Twitter’s decisions about whose account to suspend, and for what. They were only wrong about “learn to code”, gender ideology, the Rittenhouse court case, and a few other instances where they censored people for saying verifiably true things, for political reasons. Well, they can no longer force me to lie. But the downside is, now anybody can lie about anything.
Part of me is inclined to simply fiddle as Rome burns. Twitter was, and still is, filled with people living in glass houses made of views that aren’t defensible in argument, their maintenance reliant entirely upon the censorship of all dissent. Glass houses, in fact, turn out to be surprisingly durable in neighborhoods where all the rocks have been removed.
This probably isn’t a positive development overall for Tesla, SpaceX, America, or the world. It’s also sort of a microcosm of the political dynamics at play in this country between 2008 and 2016. If you marginalize, ridicule and ignore the will of half the country for long enough, they will flip the chessboard and spray diarrhea all over the table.
Democrats probably would’ve won in 2016 had they not thrown their most popular candidate under the bus so that Hillary could take her shot, or if at least they were still mainly about unions and healthcare rather than weird sex stuff. Trump’s electoral victory, and Musk’s Twitter buyout both could’ve been prevented, had the ruling party been willing to compromise.
But compromise always feels unnecessary when you’re sitting pretty, holding all the power, assuming nothing will ever change. The political equivalent of the “irrational exuberance” observed in the world of investment. The wishful thinking that because things are going well for you now, they always will be. But such a mindset only sets you up for a harder fall when the wave you’ve been riding high on comes crashing down.