One possibility that hadn't occurred to me - but should have, is Musk is trying to shot the stock he already owns. One way to do that - drive the price down (it's dropped 5% in two days):
Elon Musk is raising the pressure on Twitter management ahead of the social media group’s earnings on Thursday.
The billionaire CEO of Tesla (ticker: TSLA) tweeted out a picture of charts from Apple ’s (AAPL) App Store that showed Truth Social was ranking higher than other social media platforms including Twitter (TWTR) and ByteDance’s TikTok.
“Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,” said Musk, who reached a deal to buy Twitter for around $44 billion this week.
SO you will notice this thread STARTS with me admitting I got it wrong. I still say at the time, with available evidence, that it appeared to be a major Elon Musk troll. The man shot a car with a dummy into space for crying out loud.
That's all you are going to get out of me however. Unless you want to ask cogent well formed questions I can respond to.
Redlining may be illegal but it's effects are still measurable.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redlining/
That aside, much of what you call cultural choices (like marriage rates) have historical roots as well as economic drivers; both of which exist independent of culture, but with critical influence over it. Pretending its just culture is at best myopic.
These books were already in use in approved curricula. They are being actively removed after teachers started teaching from them. With few if any coherent examples, and a lot of hand waving. The few examples shown publicly - which have been linked to here - are of SEL passages, which are now being described by Republican politicians and pundits as the manifestation of CRT in the schools.
A decade ago it was values education. The point is Republican politicians are looking for excuses to remove textbooks and other books from educational and public settings because they believe the books teach things that threaten their political power.
Bezos has made his billion at Amazon on the value of customer data, not the physical goods that show up on people's doorsteps. Data is THE game for most of these companies.
The principle we come from is that when only books discussing a minority of the population, written by only certain kinds of authors are being removed only by school boards of one political ideology - and that removal is wrapped in pernicious lies both about what's appropriate for kids educationally and whether the books in question sexualizes things - then that removal is wrong. Parental discomfort with a topic is understandable, but that's no reason to either pull the book from the curriculum (especially a curriculum developed by people with training in that subject) or to advocate for its removal from school or public libraries. frankly I don't see how one can claim to be a free speech absolutists (as many here do) and believe removing books is ok . . .
Democracy is change through the long, slow, boring of hardwood. It is also tedious and requires compromise.
Long boring and tedious requiring compromise is out the window. You can't compromise with fascists bent on destroying democracy so they can retain power. They have repeatedly shocked the system, and it has lurched in their direction because there's no shock back.
Piss and whine all you want about how bad that is, but show me a fascist oligarchy that was allowed by the fascists and oligarchs to vote itself back to democracy, especially in the 20th or 21st centuries. We don't have many more chances to right the ship, and wistful pining for bipartisan kumbyya won't get us there.
"As Congress continues to examine Big Tech and how to best protect Americans’ free speech rights, this letter serves as a formal request that you preserve all records and materials relating to Musk’s offer to purchase Twitter, including Twitter’s consideration and response to this offer, and Twitter’s evaluation of its shareholder interests with respect to Musk’s offer," said the letter signed by the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, and others on the committee.
Slavery and all its attendant derivative impacts are original sin. I have no qualms saying so, and trying to put it in a Christian context as well.
CRT is dissected all the time on professional literature, but most people won't really get to that - in no small measure because its badly and dryly written.
My ire is for a Party that thinks either of them is the best they can do in those states, because said Party has had too much focus on a single national office which they think was supposed to be transformational somehow. Had democrats focused hard on governorships and state legislatures, and even the House we'd be in a different place.
Its like my continued and public distaste for the Greens Party and the DSA. In all but a very, very few places they keep trying to get on the Presidential campaign ballot without doing ANYTHING to get elected to local or state offices, and then wondering why they can't win elections, much less get enough votes to matter.
You can't do national level policy leadership from a single source. Republicans have proved this over and over since at least Reagan. And its why they are poised like never before to dismantle our democracy.
I don’t understand “I don’t see how someone else could look at something and come to a different conclusion than the one I’ve come to.”
That is the most transparently bad faith trollish thing you've ever written. That's your whole schitck. But hey, way to be consistent I guess.
See, lots of people look at the same things I do - even people here - and reach differing conclusions. I think those conclusions are badly reasoned, but they think the same about me.
And now one guy is going to control one part of the Internet where that happens - albeit a part I don't interact with because I use my time here. One guy controlling an information stream like that is never good. But a lot of people like the idea because they think it will shut people like me up. Which it won't. Not here. Not there.
It means I believe, based on Musk's own Twitter use record, that he will direct the company to deplatform anyone he doesn't like. He's no more a free speech absolutist then our own Russel Michaels is.
On “Elon Musk makes offer to purchase Twitter outright”
One possibility that hadn't occurred to me - but should have, is Musk is trying to shot the stock he already owns. One way to do that - drive the price down (it's dropped 5% in two days):
https://www.barrons.com/articles/twitter-stock-price-elon-musk-pressure-51651050941?tesla=y
"
SO you will notice this thread STARTS with me admitting I got it wrong. I still say at the time, with available evidence, that it appeared to be a major Elon Musk troll. The man shot a car with a dummy into space for crying out loud.
That's all you are going to get out of me however. Unless you want to ask cogent well formed questions I can respond to.
"
so he did his job. Hooray?
On “From Jackasses to Sad Sacks: Democrats Struggle in The Culture War”
Redlining may be illegal but it's effects are still measurable.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redlining/
That aside, much of what you call cultural choices (like marriage rates) have historical roots as well as economic drivers; both of which exist independent of culture, but with critical influence over it. Pretending its just culture is at best myopic.
"
It took me two clicks to get to the data. Quit being lazy:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMBtNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit#gid=1380530296
On “Elon Musk Buys Twitter”
Emperor. Kings are too nice.
On “From Jackasses to Sad Sacks: Democrats Struggle in The Culture War”
These books were already in use in approved curricula. They are being actively removed after teachers started teaching from them. With few if any coherent examples, and a lot of hand waving. The few examples shown publicly - which have been linked to here - are of SEL passages, which are now being described by Republican politicians and pundits as the manifestation of CRT in the schools.
"
A decade ago it was values education. The point is Republican politicians are looking for excuses to remove textbooks and other books from educational and public settings because they believe the books teach things that threaten their political power.
On “Elon Musk Buys Twitter”
Amazon does both.
"
I suspect there's a lot of that to this.
"
Agreed 100%.
"
Bezos has made his billion at Amazon on the value of customer data, not the physical goods that show up on people's doorsteps. Data is THE game for most of these companies.
On “From Jackasses to Sad Sacks: Democrats Struggle in The Culture War”
The principle we come from is that when only books discussing a minority of the population, written by only certain kinds of authors are being removed only by school boards of one political ideology - and that removal is wrapped in pernicious lies both about what's appropriate for kids educationally and whether the books in question sexualizes things - then that removal is wrong. Parental discomfort with a topic is understandable, but that's no reason to either pull the book from the curriculum (especially a curriculum developed by people with training in that subject) or to advocate for its removal from school or public libraries. frankly I don't see how one can claim to be a free speech absolutists (as many here do) and believe removing books is ok . . .
"
Long boring and tedious requiring compromise is out the window. You can't compromise with fascists bent on destroying democracy so they can retain power. They have repeatedly shocked the system, and it has lurched in their direction because there's no shock back.
Piss and whine all you want about how bad that is, but show me a fascist oligarchy that was allowed by the fascists and oligarchs to vote itself back to democracy, especially in the 20th or 21st centuries. We don't have many more chances to right the ship, and wistful pining for bipartisan kumbyya won't get us there.
"
I assume they are purposefully avoiding the irony of being funded by le bourgeois?
"
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-banned-books-in-conservative-school-districts-lgbtq-race-gender-2022-4
On “Elon Musk Buys Twitter”
Its going to be easier to hunt liberals that way
"
I'm sure this had no impact either:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/house-republicans-ask-twitter-board-retain-records-tied-musk-offer-2022-04-22/
On “From Jackasses to Sad Sacks: Democrats Struggle in The Culture War”
Slavery and all its attendant derivative impacts are original sin. I have no qualms saying so, and trying to put it in a Christian context as well.
CRT is dissected all the time on professional literature, but most people won't really get to that - in no small measure because its badly and dryly written.
"
My ire is for a Party that thinks either of them is the best they can do in those states, because said Party has had too much focus on a single national office which they think was supposed to be transformational somehow. Had democrats focused hard on governorships and state legislatures, and even the House we'd be in a different place.
Its like my continued and public distaste for the Greens Party and the DSA. In all but a very, very few places they keep trying to get on the Presidential campaign ballot without doing ANYTHING to get elected to local or state offices, and then wondering why they can't win elections, much less get enough votes to matter.
You can't do national level policy leadership from a single source. Republicans have proved this over and over since at least Reagan. And its why they are poised like never before to dismantle our democracy.
"
And for those of us on the hard left who are literally screaming about just that outcome . . .?
On “Elon Musk makes offer to purchase Twitter outright”
That is the most transparently bad faith trollish thing you've ever written. That's your whole schitck. But hey, way to be consistent I guess.
See, lots of people look at the same things I do - even people here - and reach differing conclusions. I think those conclusions are badly reasoned, but they think the same about me.
And now one guy is going to control one part of the Internet where that happens - albeit a part I don't interact with because I use my time here. One guy controlling an information stream like that is never good. But a lot of people like the idea because they think it will shut people like me up. Which it won't. Not here. Not there.
Again, though, C+ for trolling effort.
"
A great many thinking people reached that conclusion, biases and all. Clearly we got it wrong. What else, exactly do you want from me?
On “From Jackasses to Sad Sacks: Democrats Struggle in The Culture War”
yes well, you've had that claim in writing from me for a LONG time. But yay for you getting me to repeat myself I guess.
On “Elon Musk makes offer to purchase Twitter outright”
It means I believe, based on Musk's own Twitter use record, that he will direct the company to deplatform anyone he doesn't like. He's no more a free speech absolutist then our own Russel Michaels is.