Welcome to The Pit! The cookies and milk are over there on the table.
I’m trying to find it now, but I misplaced a report where the writer noticed that lately Musk is not pressing much his past defense of climate science. I’m afraid the right wing grooming is moving Musk to the less scientific side.
[searches again for that article]
Found it, Musk is becoming too simpatico with the lukewarmers, that is the ones that don’t deny climate change, but that they are deniers of the best ways to deal with climate change
In 2018, Elon Musk sounded like an ardent champion of the environment when he declared “climate change is the biggest threat that humanity faces this century.” He had already backed up that concern by building two very successful companies capable of directly reducing carbon emissions: Tesla and Solar City. And a year ago it was the same Musk who was “super fired up that the new administration is focused on climate.”
But in a recent Wall Street Journal video interview, Musk made surprising comments about efforts to combat climate change. On the shop floor of his new Tesla Giga Texas factory, Musk repeatedly declared that he didn’t support President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation - or government incentives generally. The government, he said, should just “play referee.”
So, not sure that he will try to persuade people about that issue nowadays.
/ moron “but that’s against the Constitution!” / moron
…in any normal, rational, functional society Twitter would already be over. Just like how in any normal, rational, functional society Donald Trump wouldn’t have won the Republican primary, let alone becoming the most powerful person on the planet.
But Elon Musk is being celebrated by his fellow robber barons and they are all invested in making sure that he succeeds. And they are all rich enough and powerful enough to make it happen.
It all comes down to who blinks. Will the EU act on the threats that it made today, or will they simply bend the knee? Its the same for everyone else. There is no way that almost anybody else would get away with the shit that Musk has been pulling.
So I’m in two minds on this. Twitter is in a terrible position, it already isn’t in compliance with GDPR or the FTC consent decree, it won’t be in compliance with the EU rules on disinformation, it is bleeding advertisers and the systems they use largely no longer work, Twitter is billions in the hole with no realistic path to profitability. Any single one of these would be enough to be the death knell for the company involved.
And yet…this is no guarantee that this is the end of Twitter. Because that’s just the way the world works now.
This is what I’m certain will be the case.
Twitter won’t go away but it will cease to be relevant.
Paraphasing: Musk accepts climate change the extent that it convinces people to buy his wacky new ideas to fight it, or failing that pay him money to get off planet, but draws the line at any solution that might involve money coming out of his pocket.
I believe the Build Back Better legislation only provided tax incentives for electric vehicles produced in unionized American plants, which would exclude Teslas. That may be why Musk didn’t support the legislation.
If you’d googled, you’d have seen that you did nothing wrong.
Staunch is a perfectly cromulent word.
I wonder if the revelations about Musk’s cavalier approach to developing technology illuminated by the unfolding Twitter debacle will make even Musk cultists hesitate at the prospect of giving his people permission to do invasive brain surgery when human trials for his Neuralink venture start in six months:
Oh, who am I kidding, Musk cultists already aren’t using their brains, so they’ll be lining up around the block.
“In six months”, he says.
He may as well say it’ll be happening “in the next two weeks”.
Staunch is also valid, at least in some English dialects
Pedantry like this is for not.
Yeah, Elon wants the government to “just play referee”… as in a WWE referee 
… and just let him do his thing.
What the hell ya want? A In-graved in-VIE-tation?
.
Sorry, we’re tired and cranky too.
Wine, beer, and cocktails are on the sideboard, along with bowls of Chex Mix and Circus Peanuts.
Stay away from the popcorn though. We reserve that for when a real pissin’ match breaks out.
Welcome to one of my favourite not-so-secret secret pleasures. You’ll like it down here amidst the mud and muck and the flaming hellfires 
This could get interesting. The contrast between Elmo’s unrestrained libertarian lunacy and European sensibilities is absolutely massive. And I’m sure Elmo’s first instinct will be to defy them.
First rule of Pit thread
The first rule of Pit thread is literally:
Rants should be suitable for the Pit
Yes, this is the critical factor. The reason I’m on Twitter is to follow content creators: People and organizations who I find interesting. If they leave, there’s no point for me to remain.
However, so far it hasn’t happened to a significant degree. The celebrities, companies, and organizations I follow are, for the most part, all still there. As long as that’s true I see no reason to leave.