This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. A story of rights and wrongs of slights and demagogs. Brother Elon Musk has broken his foot through the ice and threatens to sue the weather because of it. When Elon bought Twitter, it was a property which made no money. No profits at all, ever. No return on investment, a vanity property like Arabian horses or an expensive speed boat. “I’m so rich, I don’t care how much money I lose! So there!”

Elon had been mumbling about freedom of speech and how poor conservatives were being picked on for their views all the time. Here’s where it gets murky, freedom without restraint or responsibility is gutter rabble. If I go to the city council meeting and publicly call the mayor and city council a bunch of corn-fed assholes not worth a one-way trip to Mars. I would probably be ejected from the meeting, if not arrested despite my free-speech rights.

Lenny Bruce told us, “If you can’t say fuck, you can’t say fuck the government.” No one is arguing free speech. Elon has a right to say whatever he likes. But as the owner of the property open to the public, he has an implicit responsibility to keep the property safe. What Elon is doing is allowing hate filled rhetoric while claiming to have clean hands. Like the White Citizens councils of the 1950s. They don’t have any idea who cut those tires or burned down that house.

Pretending not to notice the line between demagoguery and hate speech. A landlord pretending, they didn’t know the property was being used as a brothel or a meth lab. It was just their freedom afoot. They aren’t making anyone use the Meth or see the prostitute. They claim it’s all about personal freedom. They don’t have to look or ask what’s going on inside their building if they don’t want to. No concern of theirs.

Brother Elon defends their right to the ugliest forms of antisemitic meth language, but just looks away. “What Me Worry?” Next window please, not responsible. Censorship is wrong and is unamerican! I should be able to go to church drunk and naked if I like. Don’t censor me with your phony values man.

Does society have a right or a responsibility to set the limits on polite company and conversation? Does anything go, in the wild, wild west of Andrew Dice Clay land? It’s a big internet, do you really want to put such low speech in such high places?

Just some nut yelling in the back of an electronic beer hall. We are simians and monkey see; monkey do. (See: Donald Trump) It doesn’t take much to rile up the monkey Island. But to allow outsiders to promote their values while damaging your vehicle in the process, makes no sense. Unless they would also be Brother Elon’s values too. They’re using Elon’s butter on their bread, and Elon gets nothing in return?

To give equal space and time to racist theories and conspiracies with mainstream public thought. And excuse it with a shrug of his shoulders. One can only wonder at the internal workings of such an individual. He allows electronic Klan Rallies in his fields but claims not to be racist, just a supporter of free speech.

Brother Elon had held a nice meeting with various advocacy groups of race, religion, and gender. And everybody smiled and shook hands. Everyone agreed it was a real good meeting and then nothing changed. The King has given you his royal audience and has heard your lamentations. Go forth and speak no more of these things. Either the King supports the racist behavior or he’s an idiot being used or being simple minded.

Because the brand formerly known as Twitter has done nothing, the advocacy groups called on advertisers to not to advertise  on the X platform. Brother Elon holds up his hands and complains, the revenue is down by 60% and blames the advocacy groups for ruining his business. Who put this brick wall up in the way of my car? It couldn’t be his fault, could it? It’s all 100% the advocacy groups, isn’t it? McDonald’s comes out with a new hamburger and if it fails, it’s all the vegetarian’s fault.

So, Brother Elon, while claiming he’s not a racist blames the very people who claim he is a racist for ruining his business over race.

It happens in the best of families sometimes, and we want to wipe out Billionaires disease in our lifetime. Won’t you help? It makes them crazy mostly, like Hydrophobia. The billions made Henry Ford crazy. He wanted his employees to square dance and attend church on Sunday. He lamented the loss of the 19^th Century values and longed for the good old days, before electricity and Jazz music. He created a village replica of the America his creation helped to destroy.

Elon dreams of colonizing Mars. Ford wanted to escape the 20^th Century and Elon wants to escape from Earth. I’m not exactly sure what that says about Elon’s sense of proportion and ambition. It is a noble ambition to advocate for a trip to Mars.

 But Elon’s plans rival Albert Speer’s Germania. He’s gonna colonize Mars with apartments and shopping centers. Traffic lights, ringing phones and barking dogs. With schools and garbage dumps and crime. We haven’t even returned to the moon yet, slow down Buck Rogers. At $ 5 million per person per trip, let’s figure out a reason to be on Mars other than just to not be here. It’s all just a bit grandiose button down and out of touch with reality.

Because Brother Elon is a wealthy man and sees his plan in tatters, he blames others and has his lawyers threaten to sue the advocacy groups. You see; its free speech to support racist, antisemitic, homophobic anti-government Nazis. But it’s not free speech, telling advertisers not to do business with Brother Elon.

From the moment Brother Elon bought the property he vowed to remodel. He said so and he did so. He invited known troublemakers back knowing what would happen. He renamed the platform, tearing away any connection with the old Twitter. His efforts have been rewarded with a golden failure with ashes in his mouth and revenue down 60% on a business that never made any money anyway.

Ford built a plantation in South America and tried to teach rubber trees to grow under the factory system. Elon tries to teach social media about how to run free speech. Ford blamed his failure on the rubber trees, Elon blames advocacy groups. A sure sign of Billionaires disease. The inability to admit a mistake and instead blame others.

Twitter never made a nickel before Brother Elon and now makes less. That’s a business model problem that might be unsolvable. That’s why they don’t make Pontiacs anymore. They couldn’t make any money at it because of competition and appealing to the wrong market share. You have to sell something people want to buy. It might be free speech, but the cost is not cheap.