Tag: elon musk

Emperor Titters

The news that Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and Space X, has recently become the largest shareholder of Twitter Inc. is grist to the mill of the media with hoots and huhs. Musk has ascended to the throne and begun to wield his power to shake the Twitter Empire from inside and out. He expressed a design of converting the Twitter HQ into a homeless shelter while contemplating changing the name Twitter to Titter, egged on by a popular vote of consent he instigated a while ago on the portal. So the question is, has Musk already gone mad in the fury of retaliation against the Twitter Senate? Or is it out of his pure, unscrupulous intention drenched in the wine of humanity?

My perception of Elon Musk may be an illustration of heuristics and biases to form a systematic judgment of error and make a decision based on resemblance shaped by intuitive preference. But such a design of machinery of cognition is also complemented by System 2 of slow thinking requiring analytical reasoning. Were it not for Tesla’s lawsuits brought by racism in the work environment and Musk’s nonchalant attitudes toward them adorned with his flamboyant gestures, I would applaud him to the end of the earth riding on a Tesla flying on a Space X. Perhaps, such acrid regard of him is akin to accusing a socially estranged woman of being a witch without a preponderance of the evidence. But Musk is anything but a pitiful figure deserving our pity with his immense universal wealth, doing businesses on earth and heaven. Although, as the saying goes, “A tree is known by its fruits,” the racially-motivated lawsuits betoken the dispiriting work environment of Tesla tells something about Musk’s personality. I find it very hard to regard Musk’s declaration of converting the Twitter HQ into homeless housing. It seems an adrenaline-driven uppercut blow to the foe as sweet vindication with Tittering.

I read that Jeff Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon and the owner of a private galactical tourist company, consented to Musk’s profound charitable remark. Nowadays, celebrities have all negative heuristics and biases against social media. Nevertheless, they feed on attention and thrive in it, so any such uttering of disaffection with the media is a sign of entrepreneurial solidarity. Not that I have the same sentiment toward Bezos, who is more intelligent and reticent than his slightly younger rival, but that they are astronomically rich and universally famous. It’s called class consciousness, by which the members of the same class share the same social statuses and cultures to guard themselves against those of another class. Musk’s sensational promise to give housing largess to the homeless and change the world’s famous media platform reminds me of Emperor Nero. Truth or false, he was said to play the cithara singing while Rome was burning and then distributed stipends to the homeless due to the great fire.

woes of workers

I have always appreciated the magnificent impacts on the Industrial Revolution, especially during the mid 19th century in the West, as it upended the contemporary foundation of the economy and reconstructed the social systems and culture around the world. However, I cannot help but look on to the plight of workers at the mercy of ruthless employers in a toxic working environment still practiced in this aeronautical, wireless internet age.

While the rights and benefits of workers have even been recognized and improved, thanks to people like Lord Ashley, the mistreatment of workers is yet rampantly prevalent by their callous employers exploiting their labor in the toxic environment. Unfortunately, sad tendencies exist everywhere in our world, particularly among non-western populations for whom the Industrial Revolution is the relatively late advent of human progress in terms of collective welfare.

Workers may be born free by the bill of rights, but they are at the whims and caprice of their employers like their ancient slave owners who would decide the livelihood of those under their mastership. Otherwise, Elon Musk’s Tesla would be careful about their non-white workers at his factory, but that’s just the tip of a vast collective unfair employment iceberg. Indeed, the history and experience exhibit to be utterly inconsistent with the advanced minds in the real world.