-the previous twitter regime was only “compassionate” if you were a woke lib, otherwise it was hostile and exclusionary.
-I don’t think it’s some outlandish notion to say that this administration has it out for Elon. Biased and vindictive government behavior has happened often enough that it’s naive to dismiss it, and the current White House staffers (who are really running things) are absolutely the kind of people who had a mental breakdown when Elon forced them to share their favorite toy.
Elon Musk is actually a pretty standard liberal (old-school liberal) who supported Obama and Hillary. However, he is not ‘woke’ (unlike Jack Dorsey). Indeed (along with Bill Maher), he has denounced the ‘woke mind virus’. As a consequence, he is a hate figure on the left (the identity politics elite). Since the ‘woke’ control essentially everything (the media, Hollywood, academia, K-12 Education, NGOs, SV, Tech, Wall Street, the FBI/CIA/military, corporate America, etc.), that’s a really big deal.
What stood out in this interview was not Musk’s cruelty towards other people, but the cruelty of the interviewers towards him.
It was literally a straight shot from “he had some bad things happen to him as a child” to “do you think his business decisions are influenced by them?”. The idea that there might have been a human being who had an emotional experience in between doesn’t even seem to have entered the consciousness of either his biographer or his biographer’s interviewer.
Likewise, the whole notion that someone who is obsessed with space and the future of the human race but can’t be bothered to keep track of his children is supposed to be some kind of a bad thing is just bizarre. Hope for the future is an emotion. Anger at being targeted by the federal government is an emotion. Ambition is emotive as well. The idea that this is a guy who struggles with emotions belies the drive that he possesses. The definition they seem to be using of emotional health is what, exactly? Someone who comes home to the same house every night, says “honey I’m home” to one wife with nowhere near his talents and disappears into the vagaries of history?
The guy is a strange personality, but that’s what makes the world move. He has flaws, but the things they’re trying to get him on seem like his strengths, not his flaws. His flaws include that he wastes time on culture war BS and reads Twitter too much.
I love Elon Musk. There I said it. What's his IQ upwards of 160...? I feel lucky to be living on this planet on the same time as him. He's innovative, exciting, he actually can hold conversations. If I were playing you can only invite one person to dinner dead or alive game, I'd invite him... and Bari to report on it... hehehe
Elon Musk suffers from the conceit of eccentricity, and he and Isaacson care little for the accuracy of diagnostic nosology. Musk is a narcissistic polymath who is self-absorbed and capable of incredible intensity when focusing on his great endeavors. There is significant debate within psychiatric academia as to validity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and how it is used. While we all need a common parlance for describing the scope of human behavior and psychiatric illness, the use of DSM has become commonplace for explaining bad and eccentric behavior. For some, it is a badge of specialness to devote their TikTok to their “autism”. And for others, a bad temper and bad manners is excused with the bipolar label. What you see is people explaining themselves with personality disorders, such as borderline, antisocial, and narcissistic, which are overrepresented in the cohorts of high achievement in government. Also, we should recognize that euphoriant substances will also cause some to appear to have any number of biological psychiatric illnesses.
Perhaps it was a proviso of the agreement to have Walter Isaacson write Musk’s biography that Isaacson would not ponder or pursue formal consultation from psychiatrists on Musk’s possible diagnoses.
I have worked with many people at the very top of their professions. What I observed is that our society requires an almost mono maniacal narcissism in order to achieve these posts. Impervious to criticism and hell-bent on future outcomes, unfortunately the people working for them often become commodities... I did not see that here with Musk. This is the problem we have with the presidency as of late. . . In order to achieve that kind of power position, you would need to be thick skinned to the point of DSM diagnosis. I loved what Walter I. said in the interview about the duplicitous nature of human beings and our societies incapability of mirroring that back to us since Shakespeare. In the Sociopath Next Door - worth the read BTW.... She quotes the statistic that 1 in 5 people could be diagnosed as such. 1 in 5.... Who's the Sociopath in this dialogue? I'm not sure I believe that, but I do believe that if I was launching rockets, had read the entirety of the Encycolpedia Britannica and believed in Free Speech in a country that was heading toward a 1984 kind of Socialism, I might snap sometimes and curl up in a ball on the floor too.
I enjoyed this interview of Isaacson more than the Kara Swisher interview where she attacked him for being a Musk fan. I don't think Kara sees what people like Musk, Isaacson, Andreessen, myself and others see. We used to be a country of builders and makers who shaped the future. We are in danger of becoming a nation of rent seekers who will someday look at the many achievements of our grandparents and wonder naively how it was all done. I think this decline in ambition and agency is what alarms people like Musk the most.
I’m not marrying Elon Musk, so I’ll take the mercurial personality against all the wealth he’s created for himself and others and the good he’s trying to do for the world and has done for free speech.
Fuck the media, Soros, Gates, Bezos, and the left. They’re all enemies of the people.
I greatly enjoy the continued leftist gnashing of teeth. The leftist propaganda outlets masquerading as objective journalists are especially amusing to me.
I voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but abandoned the party when it fell into social justice woke progressivism. I felt the parts of the podcast that were a variation of "Elon Musk must have mental health issues because he changed his opinions" were a little grating.
The question of "Does Elon Musk have too much power" is something we should ask, but we have to make sure we're not asking the question only because he allows the "wrong people" to speak.
Too much power? In terms of media, Elon doesn't have enough power. At least he took Twitter/X out of the hands of the Marxists. Before that, the unwoke really had no place to go on social media.
It is the radical left that (still) has way too much power in our media. Google especially.
Musk has achieved his power and influence through competence, not public relations. And the power he exerts in the public square comes from people's recognition that he is worth listening to. Because Musk is competent doesn't make him infallible. But power based on competence deserves our ear. As soon as Musk acts a fool, his influence will diminish. Until then, his point of view is, and should be, welcome in the marketplace of ideas and social commentary. Why aren't you asking "Does Jeff Bezos have too much power?" after all he owns the Washington Post. Or "Does George Soros have too much power?" as he funds the election of individuals destroying our legal system and immigration collapsing the social safety net in many states. Neither individual puts themselves before the public for scrutiny but rather hide in their mansions and do their work behind the scenes.
I enjoyed this interview, it was well done and I nice sneak peek at the book which I'll read soon. I admire BW tremendously but must disagree (and we can agree to disagree) with your implying that X is too free with the speech that is allowed. Free speech by definition means people will feel offended by what is said - but it is through free speech that we get to challenge offensive conversation and over time persuade people to the wisdom of our position - if its indeed the correct position. I would have it no other way. Connected with this thought is that people need to re-learn the concept of challenging the idea and not the person. I will pay closer attention to whether or not Musk has been "tipping the scale" - I have found him to be bringing ideas to the fore that would otherwise be suppressed by our highly biased MSM.
I may or may nor read Isaacson's book because he comes from a political mindset that I mostly abhor. If you want to get a better sense of Musk, watch his long interview with Joe Rogan. He's smart, funny, self-effacing and genuinely fun to be around. And when he gave Rogan the chance to try to put an arrow through this truck, and Rogan took him up on it, you just know that, for all his wealth and genius, Musk is one of us. A guy who loves the United States and is helping the good guys win.
Listen very carefully; I shall say this only once. When the newspaper headline is a question the answer is ALWAYS: "No!".
It has been since The New York Times immemorial. This is the new media. Can we giveover with the journalistic stupid of yesteryear, please? It is, always was, and always will be, among the laziest and lameist of journalistic tropes.
Late listener, a couple of things stood out:
-the previous twitter regime was only “compassionate” if you were a woke lib, otherwise it was hostile and exclusionary.
-I don’t think it’s some outlandish notion to say that this administration has it out for Elon. Biased and vindictive government behavior has happened often enough that it’s naive to dismiss it, and the current White House staffers (who are really running things) are absolutely the kind of people who had a mental breakdown when Elon forced them to share their favorite toy.
Elon Musk is actually a pretty standard liberal (old-school liberal) who supported Obama and Hillary. However, he is not ‘woke’ (unlike Jack Dorsey). Indeed (along with Bill Maher), he has denounced the ‘woke mind virus’. As a consequence, he is a hate figure on the left (the identity politics elite). Since the ‘woke’ control essentially everything (the media, Hollywood, academia, K-12 Education, NGOs, SV, Tech, Wall Street, the FBI/CIA/military, corporate America, etc.), that’s a really big deal.
What stood out in this interview was not Musk’s cruelty towards other people, but the cruelty of the interviewers towards him.
It was literally a straight shot from “he had some bad things happen to him as a child” to “do you think his business decisions are influenced by them?”. The idea that there might have been a human being who had an emotional experience in between doesn’t even seem to have entered the consciousness of either his biographer or his biographer’s interviewer.
Likewise, the whole notion that someone who is obsessed with space and the future of the human race but can’t be bothered to keep track of his children is supposed to be some kind of a bad thing is just bizarre. Hope for the future is an emotion. Anger at being targeted by the federal government is an emotion. Ambition is emotive as well. The idea that this is a guy who struggles with emotions belies the drive that he possesses. The definition they seem to be using of emotional health is what, exactly? Someone who comes home to the same house every night, says “honey I’m home” to one wife with nowhere near his talents and disappears into the vagaries of history?
The guy is a strange personality, but that’s what makes the world move. He has flaws, but the things they’re trying to get him on seem like his strengths, not his flaws. His flaws include that he wastes time on culture war BS and reads Twitter too much.
I love Elon Musk. There I said it. What's his IQ upwards of 160...? I feel lucky to be living on this planet on the same time as him. He's innovative, exciting, he actually can hold conversations. If I were playing you can only invite one person to dinner dead or alive game, I'd invite him... and Bari to report on it... hehehe
His life is inspiring.
Elon Musk suffers from the conceit of eccentricity, and he and Isaacson care little for the accuracy of diagnostic nosology. Musk is a narcissistic polymath who is self-absorbed and capable of incredible intensity when focusing on his great endeavors. There is significant debate within psychiatric academia as to validity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and how it is used. While we all need a common parlance for describing the scope of human behavior and psychiatric illness, the use of DSM has become commonplace for explaining bad and eccentric behavior. For some, it is a badge of specialness to devote their TikTok to their “autism”. And for others, a bad temper and bad manners is excused with the bipolar label. What you see is people explaining themselves with personality disorders, such as borderline, antisocial, and narcissistic, which are overrepresented in the cohorts of high achievement in government. Also, we should recognize that euphoriant substances will also cause some to appear to have any number of biological psychiatric illnesses.
Perhaps it was a proviso of the agreement to have Walter Isaacson write Musk’s biography that Isaacson would not ponder or pursue formal consultation from psychiatrists on Musk’s possible diagnoses.
I have worked with many people at the very top of their professions. What I observed is that our society requires an almost mono maniacal narcissism in order to achieve these posts. Impervious to criticism and hell-bent on future outcomes, unfortunately the people working for them often become commodities... I did not see that here with Musk. This is the problem we have with the presidency as of late. . . In order to achieve that kind of power position, you would need to be thick skinned to the point of DSM diagnosis. I loved what Walter I. said in the interview about the duplicitous nature of human beings and our societies incapability of mirroring that back to us since Shakespeare. In the Sociopath Next Door - worth the read BTW.... She quotes the statistic that 1 in 5 people could be diagnosed as such. 1 in 5.... Who's the Sociopath in this dialogue? I'm not sure I believe that, but I do believe that if I was launching rockets, had read the entirety of the Encycolpedia Britannica and believed in Free Speech in a country that was heading toward a 1984 kind of Socialism, I might snap sometimes and curl up in a ball on the floor too.
I enjoyed this interview of Isaacson more than the Kara Swisher interview where she attacked him for being a Musk fan. I don't think Kara sees what people like Musk, Isaacson, Andreessen, myself and others see. We used to be a country of builders and makers who shaped the future. We are in danger of becoming a nation of rent seekers who will someday look at the many achievements of our grandparents and wonder naively how it was all done. I think this decline in ambition and agency is what alarms people like Musk the most.
Musk is practically powerless compared to Google's overlords.
I’m not marrying Elon Musk, so I’ll take the mercurial personality against all the wealth he’s created for himself and others and the good he’s trying to do for the world and has done for free speech.
Fuck the media, Soros, Gates, Bezos, and the left. They’re all enemies of the people.
I greatly enjoy the continued leftist gnashing of teeth. The leftist propaganda outlets masquerading as objective journalists are especially amusing to me.
I voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but abandoned the party when it fell into social justice woke progressivism. I felt the parts of the podcast that were a variation of "Elon Musk must have mental health issues because he changed his opinions" were a little grating.
The question of "Does Elon Musk have too much power" is something we should ask, but we have to make sure we're not asking the question only because he allows the "wrong people" to speak.
I don't believe I'll consider any leftists point of view as valid.
Too much power? In terms of media, Elon doesn't have enough power. At least he took Twitter/X out of the hands of the Marxists. Before that, the unwoke really had no place to go on social media.
It is the radical left that (still) has way too much power in our media. Google especially.
Musk has achieved his power and influence through competence, not public relations. And the power he exerts in the public square comes from people's recognition that he is worth listening to. Because Musk is competent doesn't make him infallible. But power based on competence deserves our ear. As soon as Musk acts a fool, his influence will diminish. Until then, his point of view is, and should be, welcome in the marketplace of ideas and social commentary. Why aren't you asking "Does Jeff Bezos have too much power?" after all he owns the Washington Post. Or "Does George Soros have too much power?" as he funds the election of individuals destroying our legal system and immigration collapsing the social safety net in many states. Neither individual puts themselves before the public for scrutiny but rather hide in their mansions and do their work behind the scenes.
I enjoyed this interview, it was well done and I nice sneak peek at the book which I'll read soon. I admire BW tremendously but must disagree (and we can agree to disagree) with your implying that X is too free with the speech that is allowed. Free speech by definition means people will feel offended by what is said - but it is through free speech that we get to challenge offensive conversation and over time persuade people to the wisdom of our position - if its indeed the correct position. I would have it no other way. Connected with this thought is that people need to re-learn the concept of challenging the idea and not the person. I will pay closer attention to whether or not Musk has been "tipping the scale" - I have found him to be bringing ideas to the fore that would otherwise be suppressed by our highly biased MSM.
I may or may nor read Isaacson's book because he comes from a political mindset that I mostly abhor. If you want to get a better sense of Musk, watch his long interview with Joe Rogan. He's smart, funny, self-effacing and genuinely fun to be around. And when he gave Rogan the chance to try to put an arrow through this truck, and Rogan took him up on it, you just know that, for all his wealth and genius, Musk is one of us. A guy who loves the United States and is helping the good guys win.
"Does Elon Musk Have Too Much Power?"
Yawn.
Listen very carefully; I shall say this only once. When the newspaper headline is a question the answer is ALWAYS: "No!".
It has been since The New York Times immemorial. This is the new media. Can we giveover with the journalistic stupid of yesteryear, please? It is, always was, and always will be, among the laziest and lameist of journalistic tropes.