Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Syt]

[Syt]

Elon about his transsexual daughter.

[Richard Hakluyt]

He's worrying about the wrong "mind virus".

[Grey Fox]

He has rarely been this truthful about what broke him. He had a perfect record, all boys, until she broke it. He seemed to never have dealt properly with it.

[Josquius]

It's funny people infected by the woke mind virus are so into projection.
Well.
Would be funny if they weren't devastating the world.

Autism too. Musk is clearly deeply on the spectrum, as are many of that sort, yet it's a big insult for them.

Big protests in Turkey about the dear leaders illegal banning of the main opposition candidate from the coming election.

Twitter responds by banning the accounts of opposition groups.

Two things on this. I've mentioned before that it's really striking how little Musk's Twitter pushes back on requests for information or access from law enforcement or other authorities. For all the talk about "free speech". Old Twitter would occasionally pushback and try to litigate or challenge these requests legally - Musk's Twitter just rolls over (this is not the first time it's happened in Turkey).

The other is these are legal requests from the Turkish authorities on grounds of "inciting hatred". The UK has recently passed legislation that provides its authorities with similarly sweeping powers to instruct social media companies to shut down accounts or identify people. The EU law being used to investigate Musk's Twitter contains similar powers for the "public authorities" of member states. In both cases, as here, there is no requirement to obtain a court order and the "authorities" able to use these powers include the police. The Turkish laws are broader and more illiberal but this is part of states regulating social media content more.

Part of the reason I've been dubious on these laws is that they are often quite broad and subjective and basically give a lot of power to "public authorities" with no need to get a court order. But also I think it is more difficult to have a principled objection to similar laws in other countries - the EU one could be used by Orban if there were opposition protests in Budapest. There are problems with it, but I think it is part of the attractiveness of a US style first amendment.

I don't agree. That's what leads us down this path in the first place.
I've said many times before despite using it for evil China does have broadly the right ideas when it comes to social media and making activity tracable.
Yes evil regimes use that to oppress. But the same tools can be used to defend democracy - and "what if a dictator takes power here!" arguments don't work for me as they just do this themselves anyway without the existing framework.

[Norgy]

I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with Israel and the "leftists are all antisemitic".

Both sides are horrible and both sides have valid grievances. Not sure why your whole shtick is rooting out the sneaky, secretly antisemitic left.

Because any criticism against Israel is morally wrong in the eyes of the basement-dweller?

I have to say, if the left is anti-zionist and antisemitic, we are doing a piss poor job compared to when the right was on top of that particular issue. 

[Razgovory]

I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with Israel and the "leftists are all antisemitic".

Both sides are horrible and both sides have valid grievances. Not sure why your whole shtick is rooting out the sneaky, secretly antisemitic left.

Because any criticism against Israel is morally wrong in the eyes of the basement-dweller?

I have to say, if the left is anti-zionist and antisemitic, we are doing a piss poor job compared to when the right was on top of that particular issue. 

Fuck you man,  "We aren't as bad as the Nazis!"  That's a shit defense.  When anyone is called out for justifying or dismissing calls for mass murder, ethnic cleansing, mass rapes etc, the response is always "You won't allow any criticism of Israel."  You can criticize Israel, that's fine.  But advocating for the destruction of Israel, goes a little beyond that.  Excusing the mass murder of civilians is not criticism of Israel.

[The Minsky Moment]

This isn't a serious question.  Surveys have consistently shown that antisemitic attitudes are far more prevalent on the right than on the left.  For a recent example: https://www.jta.org/2021/04/22/united-states/conservatives-are-more-likely-than-liberals-to-hold-anti-semitic-views-survey-finds.   This holds true even among people on the left hostile to Israel; such people are actually less likely to hold negative attitudes about Jews than the general population.

None of this should be surprising as the right has always provided the strongest embrace for theories that attribute essential characteristics to races and groups, whereas the left rejects this for more universalist and humanist perspectives. It should not be surprising given the casual and ubiquitous nature of antisemitism on right wing social media, likely contributing to rising antisemitism among younger conservatives.  Yes it is true Stalin was antisemitic, but Stalinism is hardly a vibrant ideological force in the 2020 era American and European left.

It is of course easy to come up with anecdotal examples of antisemitism on the left; it's a big world and one can come up with lots of anecdotal examples of just about everything. Antisemitism has sadly always been a popular prejudice and can always be found spread throughout most societies, but in terms of virulence and predominance it is and has always been most prominent in the political right.

[Admiral Yi]

None of this should be surprising as the right has always provided the strongest embrace for theories that attribute essential characteristics to races and groups, whereas the left rejects this for more universalist and humanist perspectives.

I frequently heard during the BLM protests that all white cops are racist.  Is this an outlier?  How about feminists and white male sexism in the work place?

[mongers]

Chairs meet the deck, I hope you'll all be very happy, but mind, no sliding about.

[Razgovory]

This isn't a serious question.  Surveys have consistently shown that antisemitic attitudes are far more prevalent on the right than on the left.  For a recent example: https://www.jta.org/2021/04/22/united-states/conservatives-are-more-likely-than-liberals-to-hold-anti-semitic-views-survey-finds.  This holds true even among people on the left hostile to Israel; such people are actually less likely to hold negative attitudes about Jews than the general population.

None of this should be surprising as the right has always provided the strongest embrace for theories that attribute essential characteristics to races and groups, whereas the left rejects this for more universalist and humanist perspectives. It should not be surprising given the casual and ubiquitous nature of antisemitism on right wing social media, likely contributing to rising antisemitism among younger conservatives.  Yes it is true Stalin was antisemitic, but Stalinism is hardly a vibrant ideological force in the 2020 era American and European left.

It is of course easy to come up with anecdotal examples of antisemitism on the left; it's a big world and one can come up with lots of anecdotal examples of just about everything. Antisemitism has sadly always been a popular prejudice and can always be found spread throughout most societies, but in terms of virulence and predominance it is and has always been most prominent in the political right.

I do not disagree, but it shouldn't be the left at all, yet it is.  It would be a more convincing argument if the poll was done after Oct 7th and not before, though.

However, left-wing antisemitism isn't quite the same as the right wing one, for one thing the left-wing antisemites don't consider themselves as such.  Among the leftists they will say, they don't hate Jews just Zionists, even though something like 80-85% of Jews are Zionist.  Leftists will say Jews don't have to much influence but AIPAC, which is mostly Jewish, does.  We on the left frequently talk about "dog whistles" and try to find ways to sus out racism among those on the right that deny they are racist.  If we apply the same thing to the left with antisemitism what will we get?  It's not the most reassuring picture.

This really only applies to the West, and specifically the US.  Obviously antisemitism in communist countries come from the left more from the right because the right doesn't exist.  There is also the matter of the Palestinians themselves that many pro Palestinian activists want to include as leftists, which is absolutely bizarre, but it is a genuine opinion among that movement.

[Sophie Scholl]

New Tesla logo just dropped...
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[Norgy]

Fuck you man,  "We aren't as bad as the Nazis!"  That's a shit defense.  When anyone is called out for justifying or dismissing calls for mass murder, ethnic cleansing, mass rapes etc, the response is always "You won't allow any criticism of Israel."  You can criticize Israel, that's fine.  But advocating for the destruction of Israel, goes a little beyond that.  Excusing the mass murder of civilians is not criticism of Israel.

It is not a defence. You will find hatred anywhere, against any group of people. I don't condone crimes against humanity, I don't stand around waving a Palestinian scarf, I am morally conflicted about the whole issue. Because there appears to be no side who's MORE right or wrong at the moment, does it? I pity Israel's choice of leaders. They are on par with the Hamas.

[Razgovory]

Fuck you man,  "We aren't as bad as the Nazis!"  That's a shit defense.  When anyone is called out for justifying or dismissing calls for mass murder, ethnic cleansing, mass rapes etc, the response is always "You won't allow any criticism of Israel."  You can criticize Israel, that's fine.  But advocating for the destruction of Israel, goes a little beyond that.  Excusing the mass murder of civilians is not criticism of Israel.

It is not a defence. You will find hatred anywhere, against any group of people. I don't condone crimes against humanity, I don't stand around waving a Palestinian scarf, I am morally conflicted about the whole issue. Because there appears to be no side who's MORE right or wrong at the moment, does it? I pity Israel's choice of leaders. They are on par with the Hamas.

Really?  One side advocates targeting civilians, the other side does not.  One side has elections the other side does not.  It is fully within the power of the Israel to kill every last Palestinian, but they do not do this.  Can you really say the same for the Palestinian side?  What do you think the world would look like if Hamas or Hezbollah had nukes?  

This sort of thinking confuses me a great deal as a I am not inclined to support people who would kill me if they had a chance.  Would it be easier if the Palestinians were a shade lighter and Christian?  If "The Army of God" or "The Christian Resistance Movement" was operating in the US South, firing rockets at cities and committing Pogroms I don't think we would have such a hard time picking side.

In WW2 would you really have stood by saying "Well, both sides are equally bad.  Sure the Nazis have concentration camps but the US has Jim Crow and Britain has that Empire.  They all bomb civilians."?

[Norgy]

You, sir, are looking for arguments where none are to be found. Good luck in the GOP!