# Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** elon-musk\ **Created:** [August 13, 2024, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634 "2024-08-13T00:48:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 172
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2026, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3442 "2026-07-19T02:46:21Z")
Then what’s the deal with “reionization”, when later the first stars began shining? Was that an era of cosmic transparency or opaqeness? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2026, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3443 "2026-07-19T03:22:31Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Then what’s the deal with “reionization”, when later the first stars began shining? Was that an era of cosmic transparency or opaqeness? Cosmic transparency began with the last scattering an estimated 380,000 years after the BB. Over a period of hundreds of millions of years after that, the first generation supermassive stars began to shine, and the intense radiation once again ionized hydrogen atoms. But by this time the universe had expanded immensely, and was less dense by more than four orders of magnitude, so the free electrons had little effect in once again scattering photons, and the universe remained transparent. ETA: I hate it when Discourse, in its infinite wisdom, edits out a quote to a preceding post so that I have to edit it back in! ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3444 "2026-07-19T15:53:19Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > ETA: I hate it when Discourse, in its infinite wisdom, edits out a quote to a preceding post so that I have to edit it back in! There’s a workaround: If instead of “Reply” you select what you want to quote and click “Quote” once the option appears, the quote gets added to your post. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2026, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3445 "2026-07-20T19:37:48Z")
In the “+” menu in the post editor there’s the option to “Quote whole post”. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3446 "2026-07-21T10:08:51Z")
There is. I used it on your post that this post is in direct reply to. And although your post text appeared inside my edit box, Discourse automatically deleted it when I hit [save]. That auto-deletion is the issue being side-whined about. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3447 "2026-07-21T14:52:02Z")
Discourse can be snotty about posts that are more quote than new comment. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3448 "2026-07-21T14:55:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > There is. I used it on your post that this post is in direct reply to. > > And although your post text appeared inside my edit box, Discourse automatically deleted it when I hit [save]. > > That auto-deletion is the issue being side-whined about. test ETA: my system seems to work, select all the post and choose “quote”. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3449 "2026-07-21T14:57:49Z")
It doesn’t work if you’re quoting the most recent post. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3450 "2026-07-21T14:59:00Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3451 "2026-07-21T14:59:31Z")
test2 @Pleonast is right, it doesn’t work for the most recent post ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3452 "2026-07-21T15:07:05Z")
The workaround is to delete the last punctuation in the quote or add a non-breaking space. As long as the quote isn’t exactly the entire post, it will keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3453 "2026-07-21T15:08:09Z")
Yup, that’s what I used to do but I thought it was no longer necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3454 "2026-07-21T17:08:11Z")
Just ran across a YouTube that offers a pretty good explanation of what SpaceX is hoping to do with Starship and orbital data centers. Basically _if_ Starship works and _if_ orbital data is a valid concept (which the presenter acknowledges isn’t a given yet) SpaceX hopes to become the 21st century space equivalent of 19th century railroads or 20th century container shipping. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/DlXb3zSLdFY/maxresdefault.jpg "Why Elon Musk is Building Starship") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlXb3zSLdFY) ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3455 "2026-07-21T18:25:56Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > SpaceX hopes to become the 21st century space equivalent of 19th century railroads It’s interesting to note that some of the most egregious robber barons of the original Industrial Age were railroad magnates. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3456 "2026-07-21T19:20:54Z")
I haven’t watched the video, but is this based on anything other than Elon Musk’s current say-so? I ask because Starship has been in development for something like 20 years, and officially was named in 2018 around the same time the first transformer-based LLMs were getting off the ground. It seems evident, then, that the original purpose of Starship had nothing to do with datacenters in space, since nobody was predicting the LLM boom that would come 4 years later with GPT 3.5. And if they had been predicting it, companies would have started locking down GPUs in 2018. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3457 "2026-07-21T20:04:57Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I haven’t watched the video, but is this based on anything other than Elon Musk’s current say-so? That seems like a silly question. I think it’s safe to assume that what Elon Musk’s company _wants_ to do is based at least partially (if not fully) on what Elon Musk says. That doesn’t mean that it’s in any way feasible, or that it isn’t something that changed in the last few years after its original purpose failed, and it’s trying to justify its existence and not scare off investors by admitting that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. It’s about as meaningful as a kid with a lemonade stand who wants to be a billionaire someday. Okay, that might be your dream, but I’m not interested until there’s a chance it could actually happen. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3458 "2026-07-21T21:36:40Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > > [@Lumpy](#): > > > > SpaceX hopes to become the 21st century space equivalent of 19th century railroads > > It’s interesting to note that some of the most egregious robber barons of the original Industrial Age were railroad magnates. On brand since an Elmo go-to is trying to reinvent the train, only much shittier (Hyperloop, Boring Company). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3459 "2026-07-21T22:33:19Z")
The railroads were a set of local monopolies that had the economy of the day by the 'nads. Which is how their tycoon owners became insanely rich & powerful relative to the GDP of the day. A tycoon & company w a monopoly on low cost orbital access, on high speed global satellite internet, and has mostly won the AI wars will make Vanderbilt or Rockefeller look like peons. That is musk’s dream. I can’t quite dignify it with the label “plan”. But he sure hopes he can pull it off. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2026, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3460 "2026-07-21T22:55:58Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That is musk’s dream. I can’t quite dignify it with the label “plan”. But he sure hopes he can pull it off. If only he had something he could use as leverage, like a bunch of data for people and organizations all over the country. Too bad for him he has never had that opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634/3461 "2026-07-22T01:13:17Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If you take some wacky Libertarian belief that orbit is beyond the reach of Earthly governments it all makes sense. He’s stuck on [“I Remember Babylon”](https://everything2.com/title/I+Remember+Babylon) by Arthur C. Clarke." Wiki synopsis: > The story takes the form of a non-fiction article by Clarke in which he warns the United States that the [People’s Republic of China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China "China") is planning to, using a Russian rocket, launch a [communications satellite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_satellite "Communications satellite") in [geostationary orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit "Geostationary orbit") to broadcast directly to Americans. The satellite will offer an uncensorable mix of heterosexual and homosexual [pornography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography "Pornography") (using the [Kinsey Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Report "Kinsey Report") as market research), gore (such as details of [bullfights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfights "Bullfights") and photographic evidence from the [Nuremberg trials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials "Nuremberg trials")), and [communist propaganda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_propaganda "Communist propaganda"). The American ex-ad man and Communist sympathizer that reveals the plan to Clarke thanks his influential 1945 article on satellite transmission for giving China the idea, and boasts that “History is on our side. We’ll be using America’s own decadence as a weapon against her, and it’s a weapon for which there’s no defence”. > > One of the pornographic films in the story is described as depicting the erotic sculptures of the [Konark Sun Temple](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konark_Sun_Temple "Konark Sun Temple") in [Odisha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odisha "Odisha") (Clarke uses the variant spelling of “Konarak”). One thing not mentioned is that the American ad-man is doing it for the money. One of the Konark temple sculptures that will destroy America: > **.jpg file** > > [This text will be hidden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Konark_Sun_Temple_JEG_DSCN4995.jpg/960px-Konark_Sun_Temple_JEG_DSCN4995.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634.md?page=171) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-2/1005634.md?page=173)