Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[The Minsky Moment]

Some awesome corruption at work from Musk.
He's recruiting for his efficiency department - applications only via Twitter and only open to blue check marks.

Again joke is on us as the first jobs to be cut will be all the inspector's generals and ethics offices in every government department. 

[Syt]

https://www.dw.com/en/musk-met-iran-ambassador-to-un-to-defuse-tensions-report/a-70784919

Musk met Iran ambassador to defuse tensions: report

The New York Times has reported a meeting between Elon Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani took place on Monday. The Tesla and X owner's influence within the future Donald Trump administration is gathering pace.

Elon Musk has met with Iran's ambassador to the UN in what was billed as an effort to defuse tensions between Tehran and Washington, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

Citing two Iranian officials, the US newspaper described the encounter between the tech billionaire and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani as "positive."

After vehemently supporting Donald Trump's campaign for the White House, it would appear the world's richest man has received an even more elevated position within the corridors of power than being tasked with cutting federal waste, as was announced earlier this week.

Musk and the ambassador met for more than an hour at a secret location on Monday, according to the report in The New York Times. Neither the Trump team nor Iran's mission to the UN confirmed the encounter.

The two Iranian officials told the US paper that the meeting with Musk provided a workaround for Iran, allowing it to avoid directly meeting an American official as Mush does not yet have a position in the incoming administration.

Trump gives mixed signals over Iran stance
The reported meeting could suggest that Trump is serious about diplomacy with Iran.

In his last stint in office, Trump ripped up a deal on Iran's nuclear program negotiated under his presidential predecessor, Barack Obama, and instead pursued a policy of "maximum pressure" by ramping up sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Where Israel stands in all of this remains to be seen, with Trump close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has ordered military strikes on Iran in tandem with maintaining its war on Hamas.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, seen as a moderate, told the visiting head of the UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday that Tehran wanted to clear up doubts about the country's "peaceful" nuclear program.

Side note - what do you do when you have a super-rich person (regardless of political affiliation) decides to use their immense wealth to throw behind a government of their choice and provide them with bottomless coffers? Political financing in the US seems pretty lax now, so how do you fight against that if they decide to use their resources to shape the political landscape in their favor? Sure, this is always something that happens to some degree or other - campaign donations, lobbying, inviting Supreme Court Justices on cruises or buying them nice RVs etc. I guess what I'm wondering is, what if you push the lever all the way and take it to the extreme? Oligarch rule? Battle of the Billionaires?

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, Elon's role in politics is the result of the 2010 Citizens United case. It doesn't get discussed much anymore. But it significantly changed American politics for both the Democratic and Republican parties.

[The Minsky Moment]

Lots of movement to Bluesky over the past month.  I checked in there and about 80% of the stuff I followed on Twitter/X is there now.

X account deactivated.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I stopped using Twitter several months ago because it's become a worthless cesspool.  I haven't been on Bluesky much, either, but that's more of a time thing.

[Grey Fox]

I had stopped using twitter when Musk took Tweetdeck away. I had, up to that point, always used twitter using the deck and I just couldn't do without it.

[Syt]

Lots of movement to Bluesky over the past month.  I checked in there and about 80% of the stuff I followed on Twitter/X is there now.

X account deactivated.

It's definitely starting to reach a certain critical mass.

I had stopped with Twitter when the blue-checks were always flushed to the top of threads. Made it pretty much useless to look at any discussion because Musk-fanbois would crowd out actual content.

[Valmy]

It looks like Bluesky was made by Twitter for some reason. Why did they make a competitor? What does Bluesky do that is different from Twitter?

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't know the backstory, but the look and feel is exactly like pre-Musk twitter.  The user base is still a lot smaller and thus there is a lot fewer replies, but that's a positive in my book.  No bots, no blue-check blah blah blah, no racist fratboyz and their endless tiresome pepe memes.

[Syt]

It looks like Bluesky was made by Twitter for some reason. Why did they make a competitor? What does Bluesky do that is different from Twitter?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky

Bluesky[a] is a decentralized microblogging social media service primarily operated by Bluesky Social, PBC.[8] It was created as a proof of concept for the AT Protocol, a communication protocol for decentralized social networking.[9][10] Similar to Twitter, users can share short text messages, images, and videos in short posts colloquially known as "skeets".[11][12]

Bluesky Social claims the social app was "designed to not be controlled by a single company" through the use of the AT Protocol as its foundation, promoting a composable user experience and "algorithmic choice" as core features of Bluesky.[13][14] The platform offers a "marketplace of algorithms" where users can choose or create algorithmic feeds, user-managed moderation and labelling services, and user-made "starter packs" which allow users to quickly follow a large number of related accounts.[14][15][16] Bluesky offers a domain name-based handle system via the AT Protocol, allowing users to self-verify an account's legitimacy and identity by proving ownership of a domain name through a DNS text record or HTTPS page.[17]

Bluesky was originally created as a research initiative in 2019 by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to investigate the possibility of decentralizing the platform.[18] This initiative resulted in the hiring of Jay Graber in August 2021 to lead the Bluesky project and the development of what is now the AT Protocol, with initial funding provided by Twitter.[19] Dorsey has not been a member of Bluesky's board since May 2024.[20] After the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, Twitter severed all legal and financial ties with Bluesky Social. This led to the rapid development of the Bluesky social app and the AT Protocol as a minimum viable product, launching as an invite-only beta in February 2023.[21][22][23] The social app opened registrations to the general public in February 2024, at which point it had ~3 million users.[24] It became publicly federated later that month.[25][26] Bluesky is considered a major competitor to Twitter, alongside Threads and Mastodon.[27][28]

[Valmy]

So what does being decentralized do for you? The end user I mean.

[Syt]

https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/12/what-is-bluesky-everything-to-know-about-the-x-competitor/

For one, the protocols (as far as I understand it) are open source, so more transparency. Also, it's working towards users being able to create their own communities within the network.

Bluesky's team is developing the decentralized AT Protocol, which Bluesky was built atop. In its beta phase, users can only join the bsky.social network, but Bluesky plans to be federated, meaning that endless individually operated communities can exist within the open source network. So, if a developer outside of Bluesky built their own new social app using the AT Protocol, Bluesky users could jump over to the new app and port over their existing followers, handle and data.

"You'll always have the freedom to choose (and to exit) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be there too," a Bluesky blog post explained.

But I think BvS would be in a better position to elaborate.

[Syt]

I look forward to Elon's and Vivek's DOGE cutting back on US fighter jets.











Unmanned vehicles in air and on ground are here to stay, but replacing fighter jets? Not sure we're there yet.

[HVC]

AI drones? Has no one watched the terminator?

[Syt]

AI drones? Has no one watched the terminator?

Some tech bros see that vision of the future as "aspirational." Well, maybe not the "destroy all humanity bit", but a lot of them seem to really like the idea of living in cyberpunk dystopias with them at the top of the food chain.