The most surreal thing was knowing in advance he’d turn it into a right wing propaganda factory but watching mainstream media not have a single clue of what was obviously coming.
Haven't read all the pieces, but Ezra Klein's seems a little different. (He was arguing that Twitter is bad, and would become worse under Musk, which he hoped encourage everyone to log off. Unfortunate first line though: "Can Elon Musk break Twitter? I hope so.")
I recall being relieved when it looked like he was trying to back out of buying it and then horrified when it ended up happening and he walked in there with that stupid sink. It has all been downhill since then.
Yep, you were right. Not sure mad does much good, but I understand.
I'd say their "no one knows" is cover for "You're likely right, but I'm afraid to admit it." These people don't understand why they think or feel a thing.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Very prescient of you to see the truth. The whole, “backing out” nonsense was just negotiation. Now it all makes sense.
"Free speech" is a topic that makes lots otherwise center left people lose all thinking ability.
It was obvious Musk buying it would be bad if you knew anything about Musk yet I know lots of people (who hate Trump) who thought it would be some amazing thing
So much newspaper commentary (on this and many other issues) suffers from status quo bias/insufficiency of imagination. Just a basic failure to think through what is possible and probable, given the character/motivations of the various actors involved and the (lack of) constraints they face.
More of a Cassandra, his was the loudest earliest voice saying Biden must step down due to age. Or in the above article telling people to leave Twitter early. The dude is a national treasure.
I mostly found the surrounding financial embarrassments funny, because I, unfortunately incorrectly, assumed that Twitter would have very little influence on real world politics.
Admittedly, I didn't see these articles at the time, but I knew he sucked because he was awful to his ex wife and partners. The guy tweeted while his ex was hemorrhaging during a difficult delivery.
What's even more damning is these 4 specific liberals are always comfortable among the Marginal Revolution or Less Wrong crowd. They could not not have known.
Did they pretend not to see, for what purpose?
Are just plain stupid and nod brainlessly to anyone talking with a sooth comforting voice
I left Twitter the minute he bought it. It was pretty obvious what would happen from the beginning. Musk is not a deep thinker and didn’t really try to hide his motivations.
In fairness, if 8 people make 8 different predictions that are little more than guesses, and 1 of them turns out to be right, that doesn't prove that the one person was actually more knowledgeable. Luck could be a factor.
I was an early leaver. By the time he bought it, it was clear what he wanted to do with it, people were either slow to pick up on it or in denial about it.
"Red pilled person wants to be in charge of your Internet forum to defend free speech. What's going to happen?" is not some grand mystery. Nor is, "how will information sources be impacted if they undergo a broad reactionary takeover?" That's what made this frustrating then and makes it now.
Maybe this is similar to something like the LSAT where the questions *seem* like they're easy, but we have actual data on how well people do with them and it turns out they're not. Idk. But this was someone dressed like Snidely Whiplash tip toeing into your house.
No one is going to ever give me a fancy column to write about politics. So I tweeted out my reaction to Musk buying Twitter, instead. Tell me: was any part of this wrong? Was any part alarmist?
in hindsight i think that's the worst part, he thought twitter is a bad investment so the only way for it to become valuable to him is by using it to influence politics
I keep telling people "if you want to understand Musk, just go read a few days of his Twitter timeline, in chronological order. Don't cherry pick any particular tweets for outrage. Just READ it."
Nobody sane who reads that man's feed can miss the yawning abyss he's desperately trying to fill.
And once you understand THAT the rest is blindingly obvious. He's been searching for an infinite amount of adulation to fill that void for his entire adult life. Lefties gave him some for the whole save the planet thing, but lefties give CONDITIONAL praise, which may be withheld or come with advice.
Brownshirts, on the other hand, will give you a MUCH more consistent and easy to maintain string of praise and slobbering adulation. Theirs is conditional too, but the conditions are MUCH simpler to meet, as long as you have no soul to get in the way of meeting them.
Ha yeah, even recently a renowned newspaper in my country was seriously like "Elon Musk has gone crazy, who could've seen this coming?".
Like... dude, we literally warned about him so... so much. So specifically. Years ago. But y'all at the paper were like 'ooh rockets Tesla's vroom vroom shiny!'.🤦♂️
There are too many good writers in the world to finish reading in a lifetime; you should pick ones that are less contemptuous of both good faith analysis and of their audience's intelligence.
People don't have to have opinions about everything. I mean, I guess some people get paid for their opinions, but still, they could exercise some judgement and not choose to write about it.
Those of us with real jobs would instantly be fired for ever being this wrong about anything, but the punditocracy can just do this shit every week forever and never face any consequences.
Comments
Barro's writing is a waste of the electrons that delivered it to my eyes. Every time.
I'd say their "no one knows" is cover for "You're likely right, but I'm afraid to admit it." These people don't understand why they think or feel a thing.
It was obvious Musk buying it would be bad if you knew anything about Musk yet I know lots of people (who hate Trump) who thought it would be some amazing thing
At the time I remember reading you and agreeing. Thus realizing the potential catastrophe
Remember that when people are trying to talk about what a great 69420D Chess player he is.
Did they pretend not to see, for what purpose?
Are just plain stupid and nod brainlessly to anyone talking with a sooth comforting voice
But just last year you suffered from a vicious pile-on based on some very reasonable things you said.
Hasn't that taught you about the dangers of being angry at people for having wrong takes?
Nobody sane who reads that man's feed can miss the yawning abyss he's desperately trying to fill.
It is not foundational. It does relies on other foundations to not be moot
Like... dude, we literally warned about him so... so much. So specifically. Years ago. But y'all at the paper were like 'ooh rockets Tesla's vroom vroom shiny!'.🤦♂️
I DO remember about 12 months ago a bunch of bskyers were calling Will Stancil a loser for basically saying "the economys not that bad"
It was a complex issue and the opinions we have are always partly mediated by our surroundings