Yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas so it seems time to ask some hard questions, like have you taken down your decorations, what’s the point in such festivities anyway and are there any reasons to be cheerful in 2023?

Here’s someone who was feeling optimistic back in the sweltering heat (I’m imagining) of US Independence Day in 2020:

But if you click on the date (or time) you’ll see something strange. Conversation interruptus one might call it. This may give a clue to the alert Cliscep reader that this post can be seen as a sequel to Bit Rot. It is. But when I penned those initial thoughts in February last year I had no idea that Elon Musk was going to take over Twitter. And for me that makes the question about plausible cheerfulness this year a highly interesting one. Listen for example to these four opinions:

How about the Covid vaccine debate in the legacy media today?

Would this breakthrough in the Daily Telegraph have happened without Dr Malhotra’s sterling work on Twitter recently under the liberal, free speech-loving regime of the Tesla owner? I wouldn’t be doing this post if I didn’t think there was a connection. (And if I didn’t think this issue, and others like it, were extremely important.)

But I’m interested in anyone’s view. Musk-haters. Pessimists. Covid vaccine trusters. I’m sure you get the idea.

That’s it for now. I will add to this post in the coming days. When I make an addition to the main body I’ll add a comment to that effect.

Perplexing Mr Musk (8th Jan 2023)

Thanks to Mark Hodgson for this:

As for Musk, the man just perplexes me. On balance, I think I’m pleased about what he seems to be trying to achieve at Twitter, and since at the Guardian he seems to have gone from hero (due to his early pushing of EVs) to zero (apparently because he says he believes in freedom of speech) then in my eyes he must be doing something right. That said, I haven’t forgotten the Thai cave incident and what he said at the time.

I wanted to talk more about Elon Musk so thanks! He freely admits of course to having Aspergers (here hosting Saturday Night Live in May 2021):

As he says there his monotone style of speech actually lends itself rather well to standup. His mother Maye Musk isn’t quite as good on that but their closeness comes through in a rather sweet way. On Musk’s diffidence generally, and competence as a ‘conductor’ for engineers, we have the first-hand testimony of Michael Kelly on Cliscep in October 2020:

Last night, my wife and I watched “Steve Jobs,” and it was like reliving my past (without the billions in wealth) – especially the scenes where Jobs and Wozniak were talking about who did what, and Jobs took Wozniak into the orchestra pit. He described himself as the conductor. It was exactly on point.

I know Elon, and like him a lot. In all of my dealings with him, he’s been straightforward, polite, and almost shy. My last hurrah in commercial space was as Chief Engineer of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation in the Federal Aviation Agency. I dealt with SpaceX a lot in that capacity, and tried to ensure that the federal “oversight” was not onerous. I have the utmost respect for SpaceX on a technical level, and for Elon as an orchestra leader – and more. I see what he is doing in these videos, and know why he is doing them. Been there, done that, though not on the same scale.

Cut him some slack. The life of a visionary is not easy, and the life of a successful visionary (as Elon absolutely is in the world of space transportation) is demanding as hell. He may bet on some wrong horses. I thought Tesla was one, until I took a trip in a relative’s Model X SUV a couple of months ago….l have never, ever been “wowed” by an automobile, but that one left me agape.

Judge the claims against engineering and physics, and adjust expectations accordingly. But don’t dismiss him. He has too many successes for that.

That doesn’t mean of course that he’s getting everything right on and concerning Twitter. Two months ago he talked at length to Ron Baron, a long-term investor in Tesla. This goes straight to the segment about his plans and vision for the social media outfit, though I found the rest, about Tesla and SpaceX, informative and indeed (at least in part) inspiring:

Then there’s the incident in July 2018, that Mark alludes to, where Musk called Vernon Unsworth ‘pedo guy’ on Twitter. Unsworth was one of those trying to save the lives of the kids trapped in the Thai cave system. As an aside, Thirteen Lives is a great film about the rescue, that only came out in the last six months. And the article Ron Howard’s ‘Thirteen Lives’ Is Incredibly Accurate Except for One Element in September is fascinating if one is really interested in ‘truth’ in all kinds of media and what that means.

Anyway, I googled musk pedo guy on reading Mark’s comment and was, once more, surprised by the Web. For Google happily served up this paragraph up front, from a CNN report:

Calling someone a ‘pedo guy’ means creepy. If you did a search or asked someone what it means it would be a creepy.” Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro, in his opening statement, referred to Musk’s tweet as a “JDART.” Spiro said, “It was a joking, deleted, apologized for, responsive tweet. A JDART.” (3 Dec 2019)

Does it make the reader suspicious that near the end of this section I say I believe a lawyer? Anyway, Musk won the case. The court decided he hadn’t defamed Unsworth. Or as the Guardian put it in their headline “Elon Musk: pedo guy insult was ‘not classy’ but not meant literally”.

It’s not the only thing perplexing about Musk. There’s also stuff like this

Wow. Not forgetting a proud Mum.

My subtitle for this post was Enigmatic New Year. That’s not unconnected for me with the perplexing enigma of Elon Musk himself. Further feedback welcome.

Let Women Speak (31st Jan 2023)

#LetWomenSpeak is a hashtag that is thriving on Twitter under Elon Musk, not least because some outstanding women who like to use it in the transgender debate, who were banned by the previous regime – mostly outrageously, in my opinion – have been reinstated. This section is about one journey for me last weekend, as I checked out one of my old favourites. It turned out to my delight that Charmian was also back. Thus I could see once again her gratitude dating from a previous, albeit brief, restoration from Twitter outer darkness, in January 2020:

I say ‘old favourite’ – with apologies – but this is youthful fun. Here an unmuted Charmian is responding to a significant new Twitter voice, from nine months ago, when the older woman was still banned:

Ah, Blondie. Where was I? Ah yes, Ms Crawford.

I’d not seen these interactions before and I was well impressed. Not least because my attention had been drawn to the original tweet by a fascinating article a few days before in London’s esteemed Financial Times. Here are some excerpts to consider as we delve further into the perplexing Mr Musk:

Crawford, Twitter’s director of product management, has according to current and former staff risen to become among the most influential leaders left from the old guard before Musk fired more than half the social media group’s workforce of 7,500, including most of its top executives.

The 39-year-old has done so, say people close to the company, by embodying the “hardcore” vision that Musk seeks to instil across his other companies such as Tesla and SpaceX where there is an expectation of working long hours “at high intensity”.

That has enabled her rapid ascent to lead its new moneymaking initiatives, such as the Twitter Blue subscription service and its nascent plans to allow payments through the site.

Crawford has also become one of the few women at the company to join Musk’s trusted lieutenants — a rise marked by her regular gushing posts online about the new Twitter, alongside self-improvement or management quotes.

To some insiders, Crawford has the charismatic energy needed to help transform Twitter’s flailing business, while being a sensible voice who has the ear of its impulsive owner. To other former employees, she is reviled as a sycophant and opportunist.

…

When Musk first came to the San Francisco headquarters just before the deal closed, Crawford introduced herself in the Perch, Twitter’s on-site coffee shop, and secured a one-on-one meeting to discuss her ideas around payments and creators, according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

For Musk, as one of the biggest creators on the platform with 126mn followers, her ideas resonated. Other people were irked; Crawford was reprimanded by a more senior leader for going above their head directly to Musk, according to people with knowledge of the company’s operations.

— The rise of Esther Crawford in Elon Musk’s ‘hardcore’ Twitter, 24 Jan 2023

Mr Musk, it seems, proved capable, at least once, of letting a woman speak. Who knows where that might lead.

33 Comments

  1. On the one hand, censorship of inconvenient thoughts slackening under Musk’s control of Twitter. On the other, censorship for apparently spurious reasons at YT, just in time to prevent a Heartland live stream with Judith Curry:

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/07/youtube-bans-heartland-institutes-channel-just-before-live-stream-with-climate-scientist-judith-curry/

    I haven’t watched any of their streams so do not know whether they violate terms of service. The timing was certainly suspicious in this case: more to do with the upcoming live stream than the one they were banned for?

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Jit: Yes thanks. I was thinking of mentioning that. And this one

    The YouTube incident is clearly climate-centred and that one from Facebook is kinda broader. But I think we have to be in all-for-one and one-for-all mode across this. Not least because this suspicion arises in all:

    I think ‘extremely high’ is too strong from the lawyer from Atlanta. But certainly one can’t rule much out.

    Like

  3. Musk-haters. Pessimists. Covid vaccine trusters. Where do I fit among that lot?

    As for Musk, the man just perplexes me. On balance, I think I’m pleased about what he seems to be trying to achieve at Twitter, and since at the Guardian he seems to have gone from hero (due to his early pushing of EVs) to zero (apparently because he says he believes in freedom of speech) then in my eyes he must be doing something right. That said, I haven’t forgotten the Thai cave incident and what he said at the time.

    Pessimist? Probably, on balance. There seems to be no sign of sanity breaking out among our political class regarding net zero and energy policy.

    Covid vaccine truster? Probably not any more, or at least I should say that as a fit and healthy 50 something who recently had a very mild and inoffensive bout of covid, I have decided that there is no point in me having a booster jab, given that the risk from the booster seems to be greater for me personally than the risk from covid. That said, it’s just a case of the calculation having changed. I had my first three covid jabs as soon as they were available – for the good of society more than for my own benefit. I have always been strongly opposed to compulsory covid vaccinations, and I think it is wrong that they have been pushed at the young, especially children. I still think the initial vaccination programme for the elderly and vulnerable was important and right.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Thanks Mark. My response to the first part is in Perplexing Mr Musk. I’ll have more to say about pessimism and various areas of concern where one feels free speech is vital. Not just covid and vaccines. It’s much broader than that, as I should no doubt have made clear.

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  6. Richard,

    I had forgotten that Musk won the libel case! However, reading that Guardian article simply reinforces my perplexity regarding Musk. I was particularly intrigued by this quote:

    In another moment of apparent self-awareness, he said: “There are a lot of things that I say. Not all of them have the same quality of thought. I would say very little at all if I just said sense.”

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Beth: That’s a great help. Sacks is one of the original ‘PayPal mafia’ that was already familiar to me. But his reflections make a lot of sense to me, as do some of Freddie Sayers’ probing questions. Most of all Sacks says he doesn’t know how it’s going to pan out. Plot spoiler: me too. That was one of my points coming up in the main post. Eventually.

    Mark: I’m not here to remove your perplexity! For myself, I would say that I have underestimated Musk until recently. But the warts are there for all to see. And, in passing, I found the Guardian’s reporting from all days of the trial really rather impressive. Legacy media huh? It’s nuance all the way here 😉

    Like

  9. Whatever you think of Musk, this BBC article is extraordinary. ‘Elon Musk has made me embarrassed to drive my Tesla now’ is the title.

    The story is how ordinary punters are either now embarrassed to drive their Teslas because of Musk’s politics (what are they? I don’t know. These “liberals” seem to), or else they are put off buying a Tesla because doing so would mark them out as – what? A conservative?

    “With him being so tied to the brand, buying a Tesla feels very much like a passive but regular announcement of ‘I think Elon is great. I love everything he does,'” the 35-year-old says.

    The 35-year-old in question is Indie Grant, who in what we might call an interesting move, bought a Peugeot instead. Also quoted extensively, including (presumably paraphrased) in the title of the piece, is Anne-Marie Squeo. An example:

    “At the end of the day, there’s a lot of variety to choose from – are you going to really align yourself with a company that maybe doesn’t represent your values anymore? I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it.”

    Like I said, extraordinary. The article also majors on how Tesla stock has plummeted without adding the necessary context that other car companies have plummeted too, companies not fronted by Iron Man. Worth a read to see how different reality is for some people.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Jit,

    I too found that BBC article quite remarkable. When I read it I had just finished responding to a comment from Richard in which he used an Elon tweet to demonstrate how the power of the fact-checker must be waning. Consequently, I couldn’t help but see in the BBC’s propaganda against the Elon brand an ulterior motive to discredit someone who is enabling a popular challenge to the BBC’s fact-checkers.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. I couldn’t help but see in the BBC’s propaganda against the Elon brand an ulterior motive to discredit someone who is enabling a popular challenge to the BBC’s fact-checkers.

    You may not be surprised that I saw it the same way, the moment Jit drew my attention to it. And it’s very, very weak. A journalist from Connecticut who wants to generate clicks for her article about the whole sorry business, for which the BBC helpfully provides a link. And an insurance person in New Zealand. I have nothing against the place – seriously Mum, cousins and all. But couldn’t Auntie have found something closer to home than that?

    There are more interesting things to link to regarding Musk and Twitter. Even the Financial Times has done a lot better this month. I will come to that. This post isn’t dead, just pining for the fjords, as they say.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Jit – thanks for that “BBC By Natalie Sherman & Samira Hussain, BBC News, New York” link.

    when anybody says – “”It’s been very depressing, and sometimes embarrassing to be driving this car around,” says Anne Marie, a former journalist who lives in Connecticut and wrote an article about her discomfort. “I wondered if people were making a judgement about me that I wasn’t looking for.””

    you have to wonder about her mental health, does she really think other people will stigmatize her for driving a Tesla car because of Elon!!!

    Like

  17. When I wrote that new section I didn’t know if I’d do this today.

    But it looks like I have. It’s strangely moving.

    Like

  18. You can’t say Mr Musk lacks a sense of humour. But the point about the mass media ignoring the Twitter Files is a serious one.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. One of ‘big ideas’ of this post, right from the start, is that it’s hard to separate the good news from the bad news at a very confusing time of flux – and even more difficult to work out which is winning! With the utter abasement of traditional media in so many areas, as Tony’s latest post also details, it’s important not to miss the positives. Most of them seem to me to be down to Musk’s takeover of Twitter and his concern for truth (whether or not that’s partly attributable to an element of autism, h/t Beth). Here’s an example of what I mean:

    I’m not saying here that Trump is without fault, or even without fault in the way he’s used social media. But Trump being banned by a number of key platforms, having been voted in as US President in 2016, has been extraordinarily wrong. And I agree it’s been put right because of Musk-led Twitter.

    As for Larry Elder calling Musk an ‘African-American warrior’ that is funny indeed. It’s a term Elder hates when it’s used of himself. He always corrects people: “No, I’m a black American. I’ve got no connection that’s worth speaking of to Africa.” But Musk of course does have that African connection, from birth. Lovely.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. On the point of US government agencies seeking to control what ‘truths’ the public get to see and to discuss (with bans and shadow-bans skewing both) I thought Tulsi Gabbard’s testimony to Congress today was powerful, partly because she speaks calmly and clearly, though with real emotion. The Twitter Files are proving useful indeed to those in power still interested in the truth.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Richard – thanks for that Tulsi Gabbard link.
    needs to be seen by as many people as possible, so we all get behind her.
    Brave & fearless Woman.

    Liked by 2 people

  22. Thanks df. The brave and fearless Hawaiian has just had a long conversation with Jordan Peterson (not him again), released a few hours ago. This bit, about what it’s like when you’re first elected to Congress, really gives me goosebumps:

    Then there’s the earlier part where Peterson explicitly compares Ukraine war fantasists (as he sees them) with ‘environmental doomsayers’. That’s a similar weakness of mind I’ve felt deeply for almost a year and that I was reminded of by the recent antics of Annalena Baerbock of the German Greens, now foreign minister. That’s at 36 min 6 sec if anyone is open to consider that line of thought. Gabbard doesn’t seem to mind which, given her concerns about nuclear escalation, is pretty striking. Impressive throughout.

    Like

  23. The following is an experiment.

    It’s a long-form tweet, the first I’ve seen. But the whole thing isn’t shown when embedded in WordPress.

    Nice that it’s by an African journalist. And I happen to agree with his summary of the last two US elections.

    Elon Musk is changing Twitter. We kinda knew that but, put together, it could begin to matter a lot.

    Like

  24. Here’s a hard question. What’s the precise connection between the Twitter Files process, and all it’s already revealed, and our concerns as climate sceptics? Here’s 20 seconds of Michael Shellenberger giving a potent clue, answering Republican Elise Stefanik during the House “Weaponization of the Federal Government” hearing in Congress last Thursday:

    Note the censorship and disinformation Shellenberger has been the victim of online in his climate/energy work has come his way from Facebook. But it’s the Twitter Files that are now acting as a window on this, thanks to Elon Musk.

    The full two hours and a half of Matt Taibbi and Shellenberger being questioned (and berated by the ‘other side’) is here. Judith Curry was also well impressed by Taibbi’s opening statement in tweet form:

    ‘Enjoy’ is probably not the right term. ‘Consider some brave men and women fighting against the extinguishing of the light in the Western world and be inspired to do something similar’ might be closer.

    Like

  25. Thanks Richard – I think. I have now watched the whole thing – hard going thanks to the barracking harridans. I had rather hoped to hear more from the witnesses. Something that I must always remember when I am denigrating the UK is that we do know how to do a committee and actually make it worth witnesses actually turning up. A grotesque spectacle from across the pond, but at least informing in some ways.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. My apologies Jit. It’s awful isn’t it? This short segment with Dan Bongino, published on Sunday but recorded on Friday, from what I can tell, gives I think a fair summary of how bad what’s already been uncovered through the Twitter Files is and how obstructive and obnoxious the Democrat congresspeople were in their questioning on Thursday:

    Taibbi has never that I’ve seen been called a ‘climate denier’. Not his area. Shellenberger has, though like Bjorn Lomborg and Robin Guenier, he tends to accept the IPCC reports as near enough to the truth. Taibbi has also never been a ‘libertarian-leaning conservative’ as Bongino self-describes in the clip. So the heartfelt praise from Bongino for the journalist at the end warms my own cockles.

    Like

  28. Mark, more the case that a few holes are opening up in their lines. To which we should respond:

    “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”

    It’s going to be a long and bloody battle.

    Liked by 2 people

  29. That is a really fine article by Chris Morrison, Mark, thank you. And note how it ends Jaime:

    Guardian activist George Monbiot recently called for an end to animal farming. It is difficult to know when this madness will end. The academic economist Ralph Schoellhammer recently noted in an article in Newsweek that climate activism isn’t about the planet – it’s about the boredom of the bourgeoisie. It might be argued that pampered and indulged elites have had it easy for so long that they have lost all track of understanding how food, warmth, shelter and security from the ravages of nature are both produced and secured.

    That’s not Pollyanna writing. Long and bloody battle is right.

    For Kellie-Jay Keen in Auckland the blood was ‘fake’ (tomato juice being poured over her) but the violence was real. At Nashville Covenant School the blood of the defenceless was all-too-real, with the attacker another tragic trans-identifying person who, it’s fair to assume, had been enraged by online lies and provocation.

    Why mention these horrible things when this blog is about the much gentler climate wars, even in the hands of Moonbat? Because I’ve been mentioning both from the start. Because I believe there is something indivisible about the woke and the climate alarmed – and the way they are both manipulated by lies in mainstream and social media.

    [I’ll add some links on these thoughts later in the day. Peace, Cliscep friends.]

    Liked by 3 people

  31. Just read that, very quickly, Jaime and I have considerable respect for your point of view, which you rightly label sceptical. (Opposite of credulous, perhaps?) I think it is worth asking why the police have not released the attacker’s manifesto, which they have apparently found. But I’ll come back to this and related social media manipulation matters, on this thread. Gotta go right now!

    Like

  33. Just a quick comment on today’s Twitter, on predictive power and on how well “Good Cheer?” is standing up as a question for our world.

    We’ve mentioned David Sacks in comments above. Here’s a long tweet by him followed by a short satirical one by someone else unknown:

    Premature predictions. That puts it very well. Nobody that I saw predicted anything of any note ahead of time, even on a half-hour timescale. Least of all the MSM. But nobody.

    But they know all about climate and energy tech, and the relationship between them, in 50 years time. Yeah right. If we last that long.

    Liked by 1 person

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