America - take over

[littlebilliie]

There is a LOT going on in America today

From Washington Post

"Billionaire Elon Musk’s deputies have gained access to a sensitive Treasury Department system responsible for trillions of dollars in U.S. government payments after the administration ousted a top career official at the departmentt_, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe government deliberations."

I posted here in tentative defence of Musk when the thread was newly open. Just dropping back in to say that you were right and I was wrong in a huge way. I don’t know if Musk has had some kind of mental break or if he was always a closet whacko of massive proportions or if my first guess (Max Zorin minus the genetic modifications by the KGB), before I was won over by listening to him talk, apparently sanely, about rockets and politics in some interviews, was actually right. Except only minus the GM — KGB looks like it’s in there in force, honestly. I’m really sad about it. In those interviews he sounded so intelligent and idealistic and — believe it or not — decent and concerned about the future of the human race (not any one skin colour either, but all - even interviewing Trump pre-election he talked about believing that the majority of illegal immigrants were good people with real contributions to make to the countries they entered). I hoped he would moderate Trump and make this administration useful and intelligent (if brusque and always at risk of causing harm along the way). But as it turns out he’s either a Russian asset or a madman and he owns a company that makes top-tier weapons as well as thousands of satellites I have seen passing through the night sky over my house in a ribbon of tiny lights and I think it is terrifying.
Anyway: I don’t think discussions like this get to see Damascene conversions wrought by facts often enough, so I came to eat humble pie publicly. Oh, and I’m deleting my Twitter account.

I watched Musk at Cpac. He was rambling and seemed unable to process and answer coherently the questions put to him.

Didn't he have a chainsaw?

Yes, he was wielding a chainsaw on entrance and exit from the stage!

I'm very interested in politics and current affairs. How interested are you in the government in China? Or India? Or anywhere else? My guess is you're not. So why the interest in the US? It's no more important than these other countries, yet everyone is being fed a diet of US news every day as though it's UK politics. It's not.

But as it turns out he’s either a Russian asset or a madman

Both

@MoodySky my job ensures I need to take a global interest in work affairs.

The butterfly effect is an interesting thought on world affairs.

Saying you aren't interested in global affairs is fine

Thank you for coming back to say this @Ohgodohgod. It can be hard in these polarised times to hold our hands up when we're wrong. I went through something similar over Biden's mental competence, having previously defended it. I will say, that some people do change over time, and Musk certainly has.

Kara Swisher, who I think is brilliant, is really interesting on the topic of Musk and his evolution.

Thank you for this. I’ll look forward to watching it. You know, Biden’s decline was a big issue for me too. I had a lot of conversations with friends early on about how it was Trumpian propaganda and so on. I think it’s hard to underestimate the extent to which the efforts to disguise the fact that he was senile have undermined trust in both the Democrats and the media that participated. And you’re right that the polarity of political debates is having an awful effect both on the ability of people to change their minds and back down, but also the extent to which people are prepared to trust what they read. I know I take a lot of what I see on certain issues with a whole bucketful of salt in some publications because my experience is that when you dig down into the bare facts you find that the ‘report’ was actually pretty misleading (the transgender debate has been a doozy on this one, but it’s been an issue for some time on party political matters too). I will freely admit that this scepticism on my part made me less inclined to accept initial reports about DOGE at face value unless they came heavily weighted with facts, figures and specifics. And as I say, wrong on that one.