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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/4/23 4:36 AM, Pieter Steenekamp
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAPerSOK_45HQ_Td8ppS9NpPqDHO+NROJtrc1O61PgxWo_Gf6Ug@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">I carefully listened to Musk's speech as provided
in the reference and attempted to reconcile Marcus's comments
with it. Here are my observations:<br>
<br>
a) Marcus states, "I realized I kind of agree with Musk about
the benefits of more isolation." However, I interpret Musk's
stance differently. He appears to be cautioning against
excessive global unity rather than advocating for more
isolation. In Musk's own words, "I think we should be a little
bit concerned about becoming too much of a single world
government." To me, this doesn't imply a call for greater
isolation, but merely warns about a single world government. Am
I being overly simplistic in my understanding?<br>
<br>
b) Marcus suggests, "I believe his advocacy may be aimed at
fostering chaos." While I may strongly disagree with many of
Musk's actions and statements, I don't share the belief that he
desires chaos. I recognize that sometimes one must connect the
dots and draw conclusions without concrete evidence, so I don't
fault Marcus for his perspective. However, it's crucial to
emphasize that I have not come across any evidence supporting
the idea that Musk intends to create chaos.<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Reading Isaacson's biography of Musk it seems highly credible
that Musk *likes* disruption... that he likes to disrupt his own
companies' technical agendas as well as their staff's tactical
styles. Isaacson gives Musk a lot of tentative but qualified
credit for this: <br>
</p>
<p>Musk's cowboy effort/demonstration last Xmas break of going into
the Sacramento Data Center and moving (dozens?) of server racks to
Washington State (Tacoma/Seattle) to <i>demonstrate to the arm of
X/Twitter responsible for such things that their estimates of
the effort and time involved were unreasonably long</i>, is a
good example. The net effect was, in fact, negative by most
measures, but his intention as described was ultimately to make a
point in spite of his face. And (maybe) it worked. There was
definitely an overt *performative cruelty* or at least *punishing*
aspect to this demonstration but it may have helped to move other
sub-projects along much faster than they would have otherwise.
X/Twitter survived the chaos that ensued...<br>
</p>
<p>He has done the same many times with Tesla and SpaceX technical
arms/agendas/phases. One *could* say that he doesn't *intend*
the resulting chaos but rather simply "risks it", but my reading
is that he sees the (contained in space and time) as a tool to
dislodge *other* parts of his business ventures from local minima
with the *threat* of disruption. As I remember another
anecdote... he pulled a lot of engineers off of various
time-critical SpaceX missions onto a self-imposed deadline on a
less time-critical mission which was very frustrating to most if
not all of the engineers being jerked around, but after the fact
some or even many of the engineers acknowledged that the forced
march on a project not near and dear to them rejuvenated them and
refocused them on their home-turf project. It is at the very
least an injection of "noise" into a gradient-descent algorithm
that (sometimes) helps jog things out of a local minima.<br>
</p>
<p>This is not to say that Musk's intentions around projects within
his own domain (empire) apply to his intentions around the global
socio-economic-political system they are embedded in, but it seems
likely to me that he *does* believe that his tactics apply
*everywhere*... I believe/fear his influence is outsize (by
multiples even of the Gilded Age Robber Barons). One can give
the likes of Genghis Khan and Chairman Mao credit for reshaping
significant geopolitical regions profoundly, but that doesn't mean
we would support doing it again if we had the opportunity.<br>
</p>
<p>As with my previous ramble about my own life-experience with
individualism/collectivism, I think there is an acute tension
between the agency facilitated by individuation/isolation and
authoritarianism/collectivism. My personal holy grail is to
understand the middle ground where collective action (with wisdom)
emerges from individualism without authoritarianism. Q's motto
"Where We Go One, We Go All" is creepy as hell to me... it is an
overt statement that "collective action" in some way supercedes
everything else. When lead by a cult leader (and Q might not
even exist but is deferred to as if a real individual authority)
this kind of deference to authority is acutely dangerous. <br>
</p>
<p>In my last post, I wandered off of Glen's original question or
point about <i>Fascism</i> which I think he meant to emphasize
top-down authoritarianism but perhaps also admits to the (illusion
of?) the bottom up style of <i>Populism</i> which seems to often
go hand-in-hand with Fascism. Musk derives his "power" from a
combination of $$ and Attention, both of which we, the unwashed
masses give to him every time we buy/use one of his products, reX
one of his X's, or even say his name (all Press is Good Press?)
out loud (even worse if you do it 3 times in front of a
mirror?). So his "power" derives from our populist support
(advertent or otherwise) but he *wields* it top down through how
he chooses to spend his fortune in $$ and Attention (and
Reputation to a lesser extent). <br>
</p>
<p><br>
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<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAPerSOK_45HQ_Td8ppS9NpPqDHO+NROJtrc1O61PgxWo_Gf6Ug@mail.gmail.com"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, 3 Oct 2023 at 18:23,
Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">I
realized I kind of agree with Musk about the benefits of more
isolation. <br>
<br>
<a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1625732016896458755"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://twitter.com/i/status/1625732016896458755</a><br>
<br>
However, national boundaries are not the right cutoff. Any
community or cult is the potential nucleation of a mind
virus. <br>
I expect his advocacy above is about creating chaos so that
people such as himself are the only ones that have the
resources to influence governments. <br>
A particularly virulent mind virus (like white supremacy, or
09A) could cross national boundaries and not be impeded by law
enforcement.<br>
<br>
What does the world look like if P% of the population has
broad resistance to mind viruses and (100-P)% does not? <br>
If P is <= 10, maybe better to fan the flames of crazy and
let the chips fall where they may. Perhaps that is how Musk
sees it.<br>
<br>
Marcus<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>>
On Behalf Of glen<br>
Sent: Sunday, October 1, 2023 6:37 AM<br>
To: FriAM <<a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">friam@redfish.com</a>><br>
Subject: [FRIAM] cults<br>
<br>
It's been awhile since I've run across a new-to-me cult. But
09A certainly qualifies as a meaty one:<br>
<br>
<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi</a><br>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Nine_Angles"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Nine_Angles</a><br>
<a
href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195065"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195065</a><br>
<br>
I can't reconcile the apparent contradiction between fascism
and individuality. I guess the closest some analysts come is
to suggest that they're only aligning with the fascists, for
now, to bring about the end of the current aeon and the
colonization of the galaxy.<br>
<br>
I guess it reminds me of the "no enemies to the [right|left]"
rhetoric: <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/30/conservative-christopher-rufo-florida-twitter-debate"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/30/conservative-christopher-rufo-florida-twitter-debate</a><br>
<br>
But otherwise, O9A's ... "beliefs and structure" seem
incoherent enough to write them off as just too stupid to care
about. However one author nailed it in saying that there are
plenty of both impressionable and antisocial people using the
internet, susceptible to the "sinister" allure, to cause real
damage.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
glen<br>
<br>
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