Musk's Brave New World

[Zhivago]

Mostly about this Twitter stupidity... bloody annoying...

[Zhivago]

Vox populi vos dei seems to be a popular phrase among twats. I recall JRM also using it.

Everyone seems to forget the full quote though:
nec audiendi qui solent dicere vox populi vox dei quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit
nor to be listened to are those who tend to say voice of the people is the voice of god because the tumult of the common people is always close to insanity

[Stom]

Honestly...

Twitter and the World Cup are providing some much needed comic relief. I just keep hearing the Curb Your Enthusiasm music when Musk does anything atm, while Infantino's speech inadvertently quoted Shania Twain.

Couple that with the fallouts for Ronaldo and Verstappen and there's a hell of a lot of schadenfreude going around

[Son of Mathonwy]

Vox populi vos dei seems to be a popular phrase among twats. I recall JRM also using it.

Everyone seems to forget the full quote though:
nec audiendi qui solent dicere vox populi vox dei quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit
nor to be listened to are those who tend to say voice of the people is the voice of god because the tumult of the common people is always close to insanity

Wow, twats indeed.

Thanks for the quote - interesting stuff! I think there's a fair amount of precedent in the straight use of the term though :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Populi,_Vox_Dei

Just can't wait for the vox dei to consign JRM and the rest of them to political history in a couple of years. (At the same moment as it returns Trump to power, I fear).

[padprop]

It started as comic relief, and I wish it could be a case of whatever happens on twitter happening in a vacuum, but Musk is revealing himself as a right wing partisan who isn’t even trying to hide his allegiances. Twitter doesn’t have a big user base but is hugely influential due to being the main mouthpiece for organisations and Journalist HQ.

Trump couldn’t have won the election without twitter. His obscurity since being struck off has been stark.

Ideal scenario is that anyone with a moral compass departs and it just becomes another Parler, Truth Social right wing echochamber that isn’t taken seriously and a new platform arises that has better safe guards against the whims of partisan billionaire who’s trying to work his childhood bullying trauma and feelings of rejection.

[padprop]

Also the two scenarios for the twitter pool:

1) Musk actually thinks a twitter pool where 14 million people vote whilst he has 100+ million followers who are mainly have right political leanings is a fair estimate of public opinion just shows how shockingly poorly educated he is in basic statistics

2) He was just using it as an excuse.

Neither reflect well.

[Zhivago]

It started as comic relief, and I wish it could be a case of whatever happens on twitter happening in a vacuum, but Musk is revealing himself as a right wing partisan who isn’t even trying to hide his allegiances. Twitter doesn’t have a big user base but is hugely influential due to being the main mouthpiece for organisations and Journalist HQ.

Trump couldn’t have won the election without twitter. His obscurity since being struck off has been stark.

Ideal scenario is that anyone with a moral compass departs and it just becomes another Parler, Truth Social right wing echochamber that isn’t taken seriously and a new platform arises that has better safe guards against the whims of partisan billionaire who’s trying to work his childhood bullying trauma and feelings of rejection.

Mastodon seems to be the one people are flocking to.

Also Twitter is also an echochamber. Completely overquoted by journalists and not a reflection of the opinion of society... or of the vulgus/hoi polloi as JRM would probably say/think

Politicians need to stop trying to guess what people want and start actually having conviction. Until then we will flounder.

[Sandydragon]

I hate Twitter so part of me really dent care if he does trash it. But given how influential it is, the larger part of me acknowledges its influence and the need to not turn this into a hellscape.

Most social media is an echo chamber, and/or it promotes viewpoints that are outliers to promote debate/ raise outrage. I'd suggest that Twitter has been slightly left-leaning over its history, but that Musk seems intent on marching it firmly to the right, quite a way past what I would consider centre ground.

Aside from the political leanings, the circus surrounding his takeover seems like a total mess. I don't think anyone would have taken over without some job losses if the company really was losing money every day. But his approach to that is a poor way to manage employee relationships. Equally, this point about working harder or sod off seems like management from the 19th century.

[Puja]

Equally, this point about working harder or sod off seems like management from the 19th century.

Especially since skilled software engineers are a very limited resource. Last time a mate of mine was made redundant and changed his LinkedIn to looking for a job, he actually had to change his phone number because he couldn't stop recruiting agencies badgering him with job offers (most of which were £20k above his previous salary, so it was a good redundancy!).

I don't know quite what he expected with, "Everyone needs to sign a pledge to be hardcore and work long hours, or else I'll give them 3 months wages and they can get a job elsewhere." I'm assuming he'd bought into his own hype and thought that people would be excited to be going all-in on an Elon project, and wasn't prepared for the fact that his software engineers would be filming themselves in the twitter lobby, excitedly counting down to when they were officially fired and could go to a bar.

Puja

[Sandydragon]

People are talking about a crash in IT, but it looks to me that the problem is with the big IT firms such as Facebook and Amazon, whereas there’s still plenty of demand for IT skilled people in other organisations. I suspect all those who got let go will land on their feet of they have any technical skills.

[padprop]

And now Elon boots Kanye of twitter after his latest tirade!

It’s almost as if social media need an enforceable policy regarding speech…..