I must admit to a frisson of optimism myself when this whole takeover was first mooted, if only because Musk said he'd unfreeze accounts. Reality soon came back! It's long past time we stopped concentrating power in the hands of the technocrats but it will be virtually impossible to persuade billions of twits to give up on their gossip mill. Any ideas?
I too was initially very optimistic about the Musk buyout, though cautious because of his Tesla EV background and presumed endorsement of 'climate action'. When it was delayed I seriously thought it would never happen, but now it looks to be definitely going ahead.
People are hooked on Twitter; it's like a drug. I would still be tweeting now if I hadn't got myself banned, but absence in this case has not made the heart grow fonder - the drug has worn off and I will never be tempted to go back. I'm afraid that millions will remain hooked until it's too late.
I think the problem for people like us is that the society that is implied by this is entirely workable, like the Soviet Union or North Korea. Those who are stuck in these systems are blind to the alternatives. They sincerely believe that, for example, lack of food is the norm and that it's down to 'foreign enemies'. Static societies like these can survive for a very long time - Feudalism lasted for six centuries in England. The peasants owned nothing and were happy (sound familiar?).
What we had until a few decades ago was a dynamic society where new ideas were subjected to test in the real world. Only the good ones survived and the result was a huge improvement in the well-being of everyone. This has not been happening in our modern-day technocracies where ideas have become more and more detached from reality with no grounding in reality to sort the wheat from the chaff.
I must admit to a frisson of optimism myself when this whole takeover was first mooted, if only because Musk said he'd unfreeze accounts. Reality soon came back! It's long past time we stopped concentrating power in the hands of the technocrats but it will be virtually impossible to persuade billions of twits to give up on their gossip mill. Any ideas?
I too was initially very optimistic about the Musk buyout, though cautious because of his Tesla EV background and presumed endorsement of 'climate action'. When it was delayed I seriously thought it would never happen, but now it looks to be definitely going ahead.
People are hooked on Twitter; it's like a drug. I would still be tweeting now if I hadn't got myself banned, but absence in this case has not made the heart grow fonder - the drug has worn off and I will never be tempted to go back. I'm afraid that millions will remain hooked until it's too late.
I think the problem for people like us is that the society that is implied by this is entirely workable, like the Soviet Union or North Korea. Those who are stuck in these systems are blind to the alternatives. They sincerely believe that, for example, lack of food is the norm and that it's down to 'foreign enemies'. Static societies like these can survive for a very long time - Feudalism lasted for six centuries in England. The peasants owned nothing and were happy (sound familiar?).
What we had until a few decades ago was a dynamic society where new ideas were subjected to test in the real world. Only the good ones survived and the result was a huge improvement in the well-being of everyone. This has not been happening in our modern-day technocracies where ideas have become more and more detached from reality with no grounding in reality to sort the wheat from the chaff.