October 28, 2022

Elon Musk and his Twitter free-for-all hellscape

Elon Musk and his Twitter free-for-all hellscape 
by Hal Brown

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Update 2 PM Pacific Time: 

and my response:

Going back to this morning here's my story:

Elon Musk will almost immediately reopen Donald Trump's Twitter account and has no compunctions about allowing people to post lies about the election, racist tweets, and he might even be a secret pal of Putin (see  Musk denies report he spoke with Putin, then echoed his war ‘resolution’ on Twitter.)

Who the frack knows what's in the Musk mind? We can make informed guesses but nobody can tell for certain.

If he got to talk to Vlad he probably felt he was talking to him as an equal. I think he thought, if the story is true, he was engaging in a tête-à-tête with someone who, while Putin commands a nuclear arsenal Musk does have spacefaring rockets, and with Putin having an estimated worth of $200 billion he isn't quite as rich as Musk. 

Musk managed to top off the websites for The New York Times and The Washington Post this morning and his takeover of Twitter is all over the media, Google New here for example.

Chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, were let go, according to the people. Sean Edgett, the company’s general counsel, was also pushed out, one of the people said. The top executives were hastily escorted out of the company’s San Francisco headquarters. 

Racist tweets quickly surface after Musk closes Twitter deal

Musk’s moves late Thursday signal his intentions to firmly put his stamp on Twitter. Musk has publicly criticized the company’s outgoing management over product decisions and content moderation, as well as saying he would restore former president Donald Trump’s account.

Here's what the tech website The Verge had to say:

Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself, and there is no possible way to grow users and revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies.

I say this with utter confidence because the problems with Twitter are not engineering problems. They are political problems. Twitter, the company, makes very little interesting technology; the tech stack is not the valuable asset. The asset is the user base: hopelessly addicted politicians, reporters, celebrities, and other people who should know better but keep posting anyway. You! You, Elon Musk, are addicted to Twitter. You’re the asset. You just bought yourself for $44 billion dollars.

The problem when the asset is people is that people are intensely complicated, and trying to regulate how people behave is historically a miserable experience, especially when that authority is vested in a single powerful individual.

What I mean is that you are now the King of Twitter, and people think that you, personally, are responsible for everything that happens on Twitter now. It also turns out that absolute monarchs usually get murdered when shit goes sideways.


I've had my own Twitter account since 2013. I don't remember why I opened it.

By coincidence after having very few people, usually under 50, even engage with a tweet of mine let alone click on a link (sometimes between 2 and 5) I posted yesterday's tweet was by far a record for me thanks to David Rothkopf retweeting it:
Because there is no viable alternative to Twitter for me, the obscure blogger, people of note, and others like some ordinary guy mired in delusional conspiracy theories or racial animus tweeting from the fever swamp of his brain to have a large reach Twitter will continue to be the dominant easy to use way to get a message out to the world. Case in point is the utter failure of Trump's Truth Social to become his personal Twitter.

I don't really care why Musk has decided to make this investment. Sure he is a media hog and loves to be in the spotlight and being the world's richest man probably doesn't make him feel loved just for being Elon, at least it doesn't come with a prenuptial agreement.

It's not like he has to mortgage his split-level in the burbs to cobble together the money. When one is worth $233 billion the $44 billion isn't exactly chump-change, but he still has $189 billion to play with.

Musk has vowed not to allow Twitter to become a "free-for-all hellscape" but really, Elon, hellscapes can be interesting and compelling. Check out a Google Image search for Hellscape art:
Here are some examples.

 Part of Jan van Eyck's Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Harrowing Of Hell — Jacob van Swanenburg


Nobody in their right mind (granted there are an appalling number of people who are not in their right mind and short of massive doses of Throrazine will never be) want to be trapped in a Hellscape. But if Twitter becomes a free-for-all Hellscape except for the most addicted nobody will be trapped there. You can escape with a click.

I predict a few things will happen when Musk goes full throttle, pedal to the metal, in his latest toy. The fastest Tesla as of 2021 was the Model S Plaid, which has a 0 to 60 mph time of about 1.9 seconds. That also makes it the fastest production car in the world. Consider merging onto the expressway from a standing start and count one one thousand, two one thousand, and that is all it would take to hit 60 mph. The fastest Tesla may be able to hit it's top speed of 250 mph in around 20 seconds.


I am sure of one thing. Musk's ambition knows no bounds. I don't know if Musk has a favorite poem, but if he does it would not surprise me if this was it:

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, 
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

by John Gillespie Magee Jr., a World War II-era sonnet, written by a 19-year-old American airman who had volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force.


Back to Musk's Hellscape. I think he does really want to make Twitter into a free-for-all Hellscape. Why else would he even say the following?

Still, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk tweeted Thursday, in a post offering assurances to advertisers.

I envision his fingers being firmly crossed behind his back when he make this claim. 



Clicking above only enlarges image, does not link to Twitter

With what seems to be an attempt at humor he now calls himself the Chief Twit, changing the common word for someone who posts there from Tweeter to a word that means a silly or annoying person. I am loath to admit, I find this mildly amusing.

Likewise, on the 26th his carrying a sink into Twitter headquarters and tweeting a video of it might be amusing if it didn't mean he was planning on firing most of the staff. It was a truly insensitive thing to do and shows what might be a clinical deficit in the ability to experience empathy.




I try not to analyze Musk's psychology (not too much at least) but perhaps this is a way to put his thumb in the eye of all the snotty losers who made fun of him when he was a child, or when he was a doofus in college. He has revealed he suffered from Asperger's and this may have led to his developing deep insecurities which he has been trying to compensate for.


At age 23 at The University of Pennsylvania 

My prediction is that Twitter will lose a significant number of advertisers as major companies won't want to be associated with a company that allows racist diatribes and election lies to be posted. Their revenue will go down though this will be offset to some extent by firing most of its staff and using automation as much as possible. Musk may ultimately lose some money, perhaps a lot, but since it is going private and won't be listed on the stock market, it may be difficult to tell how much.

I wonder how many people are having buyers remorse over buying a Tesla now. I live in progressive Portland, Oregon and I can't drive more than a few miles without seeing at least one of them. My hunch is that the loneliest place on the auto mile may become a used Tesla lot.

Another thought that occurred to me about why the man with the near Einstein level IQ has had his creative brain go dry and he couldn't come up with another revolutionary innovation. Just saying...

Regardless of what happens economically, owing Twitter gives Musk as big a megaphone as he's ever had, and this may be all is he wants, at least for now. Perhaps down the road he envisions being president. Of The United States that is, since only in fiction is there an Office of President of the United Federation of Planets.

Update:



If you have an account help me by liking it and retweeting it. I'll update later in the day with stats on how many people are looking at it.

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