greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
User ID: 68
Elon is on the warpath again, this time Apple is in his crosshairs. He made a bunch of tweets this morning about Apple being anti free speech. This pertains to two possible developments: Apple possibly stopping advertising on Twitter. And Apple threatening action against the Twitter app, according to Musk (Apple has not confined either). [1] I don't see how these are related. Apple's cutting ad spending does not imply it being anti-speech or anti-Musk or whatever. But the timing is suspicious. Elon by going up against Apple has met his match. This not the NYTs, but a 2-trillion dollar company that is like an economy in and of itself. it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Apple has the power to create or destroy businesses , through its app or supply line .
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/28/musk-apple-app-store-twitter/
Edit: because twitter is fully privately owned, it does not have to report anything, incl financials, so it's impossible to know how it's doing, unless, I suppose, it goes bankrupt and shuts down completely, or if secondary analytic firms show a major drop in traffic, or employees with insider info leaking financials an other metrics. People are speculating about what will happen to Twitter, but we will have no way of knowing. It's step step above in secrecy than an already public company undergoing a new management; we're talking new management + secrecy.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
10mo ago
This is why I have long believed that crime is worse in Europe than the Us (not just Eastern or Southern Europe) and that social media only make it seem like crime is worse in the US (such as viral footage of shoplifters or hoodlums in the US). Hardly anyone pays attention to UK crime , but it exists and is bad, such as assaults with knives, shoplifting, pickpockets, property crime, etc. If ex-Eastern Europe had America's demographics , crime there would go through the roof.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
Link from my blog The media is honest, except when it isn’t in response to Richard Hanania's article about how the media is honest and good.
My main disagreement is that Hanania's argument amounts to a sort of bait and switch: making a generalization that 'the media is honest and good' and then later equivocating that it's only honest in select cases (matters not pertaining to race, ideology, gender, etc.), although even that is questionable such as regarding global warming, which is also highly political despite not being about race or gender. Second, let's assume that the media is honest, but if the reporting is so bad that for all intents and purposes there is no difference between incompetence or deception, then I don't see how this supports Hanania's thesis that the media is also good.
Regarding the NYTs, the NYTs is popular in part because it produces so much content, which is not specifically news-related but includes op-eds, general interest pieces, and such that are of a less topical nature. This is not the same as the NYTs being honest, because it's not news. Reading an article about cooking in the NYTs does not mean I endorse its reporting of foreign affairs.
The financial incentives encourage clickbait. Even bloggers are not immune to this. Clickbait offers very high upside (virality, ad dollars, subscriptions, etc.) and little downside (small reputational loss), the latter which can be mitigated by mixing clickbait with non-clickbait. If people stopped following the media because of getting stories wrong ,even on occasion very big ones, no media company would still be in business. So people trust the media, yes, but this does not necessarily imply it's trustworthy. I think the media cannot be fixed until these incentives change.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
Part 2 of the Twitter Files have been released
https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601007575633305600
Instead of Matt Taibbi, Barry Weiss is doing the honors
Twitter suppressed the virality of certain accounts and hashtags of conservatives and covid-skpetics, such as Sanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who came out against mask mandates, and Dan Bongino. Twitter also has different tiers of moderation. Highly controversial, high-traffic accounts have an extra layer of oversight.
I thought it would be worse, but still makes twitter look bad.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
It seems like a fair request. He was not banned per say. He was given the option of returning under a different username. The vast majority of communities would not do this.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
5mo ago
Yes business owners do kill themselves when their business fails. Capitalism does have brutal aspects.
yeah this is why if you have a decent net-worth, just park it in tech stocks (like QQQ or maybe add some leverage to the mix) and get a nice 20-40% yoy return. Or maybe real estate. No need to take the extra risk with high rate of failure with small biz or start-ups. For every Facebook, there are many failures. Entrepreneurship so expensive, too much failure, and too much work.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
Dilbert is gone...not in some abstract sense , but dropped by syndicate, all papers. That's it..kaput.
“Dilbert has been cancelled from all newspapers, websites, calendars, and books because I gave some advice everyone agreed with,” he tweeted. “Dilbert (and more) will only be available on the subscription site http://scottadams.locals.com when sorted out.”
First Kanye, and now Scott Adams. 48 hours to destroy your career. Like Kanye he didn't recant and instead doubled down, but at least he still has his twitter account. How many people are going to pay read Dilbert from Scott's personal website? Probably not enough to recover the lost revenue (as he said, he paid a high price). He still has his youtube account, but he's likely on thin ice there. At least he is good friends with Elon Musk, so his Twitter account should be safe. But damn. I feel mixed about this as to if this was a good move on his part ,or what he hopes to get from destroying his career, connections, etc.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
Has anyone else noticed that podcasts are such crap these days? so many ads. It's ridiculous. Not just YouTube. Any format. Ads for first 3 minutes , random ads in the middle, more ads. The entire cloud/SAS architecture is dependent on podcast ads it seem.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
I hate these huge judgements. Justice can still be served without having to destroy someone's career which otherwise should be protected by the 1st amendment. Did these survivors and victims really experience $1 billion worth of trauma? At what point does justice cross into thirst for revenge? I hope Alex Jones fights this successfully to get it reduced to something that will not totally ruin him, not even because I agree with him, but this has a chilling effect on anyone whose career involves speech.
Even I am stary to wary of the black crime narrative, although I strongly oppose Saylor being suspended for the tweet. Yeah, maybe it's true in terms of smaller crime or property crime or drug crime, but blacks are not creating madoff, theranos, or FTX-sized crimes. Look at the people involved in FTX...not a black among them. Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried , and Gary Wang...real black-sounding names, huh. Look at the FBI most wanted list..no blacks among them, although it's quite diverse. Look at the race of people who commit investor fraud or identity theft, no blacks, even though those crimes have way more victims and damage. A single hacker can compromise thousands of identities, steal millions of dollars. It's like there is no one group or race that is immune to doing crime. It's just that different races more more likely to engage in different types of crimes, which affect people in different ways. Financial fraud affects a lot of people at once, often involving a lot of money, whereas murder is way worse for the victim, but only a single victim. Hell ,even the Amish commit crime https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/16-sentenced-in-amish-beard-cutting-case
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
It looks like it's finally happening: Elon Musk Twitter deal back on in surprise U-turn
Billionaire Elon Musk has apparently changed his mind about buying Twitter, again, and is now willing to proceed with his takeover of the social media platform.
In a letter to the firm, Mr Musk agreed to pay the price he offered months ago before trying to quit the deal.
The surprise reversal comes just weeks before the two sides were due in court.
I wonder if the recovery of Tesla stock has anything to do with this reversal. TSLA got as high as $310 two weeks ago (now back at $250), which is around the same price when he originally made the offer.
It will be interesting to see what happens if it does go through. Will Elon fix the bot problem for good? (likely not). Will some famous previously banned users be restored, notably Trump? Same for Jordan Peterson, who has not tweeted since July after being forced to delete a tweet, which he has refused. Same for The Babylon Bee, which stopped tweeting out of protest. Probably. Not good news for the left though if he does succeed.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
Kanye West is buying ‘free speech platform’ Parler
Kanye West, the musician now known as Ye, is buying Parler, a social media platform that styles itself as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter. The acquisition was announced by Parler in a press release, which said that it has entered into an agreement in principle with Ye that’s expected to close later this year.
“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” said Ye in a press statement.
Parlement Technologies, Parler’s parent company, said the acquisition would help create “an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome.” In a message sent this morning to the “Parler Family,” (included in full below), Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said, “The current Parler staff you’ve come to know —many of whom you’ve interacted with— will still be working on the app, and the platform will continue to utilize Dynascale’s cloud services.”
How much do you think he paid? (Parler raised $56 million recently after its site famously went down.) My own take is, it seems like a waste of money given that the market for alt-tech is getting saturated and the tendency of these platforms to lose money. It means he is not only buying Parler outright, but also covering all future losses. There is Rumble, dLive, Odysee, Bitchute, etc. None of these small video sites are making much money, probably most will not survive. Social media , like online dating, is a very saturated market, which doesn't make me optimistic.
If someone has $50-100 million to invest in 'free speech' or to promote anti-woke causes, how would/should he or she go about it? Someone like Elon can buy Twitter outright, but Kanye is not nearly as wealthy.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
The problem with shaming is it ignores the role biology plays too. Long-term results for most dieters are abysmal. Trying to lose weight long-term means having to make restrictions that are possibly infeasible. Some people who have bad genes are quite literally unable to stop eating, or have really slow metabolisms, or bad balance of ghrelin vs. leptin, etc. These people are screwed
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
I don' think automation will have a net-destructive effect on jobs--that is, new jobs will replace old ones. But to go along with the hypothetical, probably a continuation of what we have now: more welfare spending, but also occasional on-time universal remittances like in 2020-2021, but it will not be a UBI.
Eat The Poor. Catch-all for socialist visions of capitalist dystopia (eg. Manna, Elysium) in which the poor are either slowly or quickly genocided, or waste away in awful conditions on earth while a small number of wealthy capital owners continue humanity.
Likely not because in a consumerist capitalist society elites derive their wealth from the lower classes. Who is clicking those Facebook, Google, or Instagram ads? There will be more business to business activity, bypassing the consumer altogether, such as Facebook selling ad space to NGOs and multinationals, Amazon selling cloud storage to big companies, Microsoft servers, etc.
There will always be some scarcity, such as social status or between the merely rich and ultra-wealthy.
"Not understanding core market" is a long way from "small pr stunt goes wrong". I don't think management could have imagined it would have such a long and lasting impact as what it has become. In the past, a bad PR stunt would probably be forgotten as the news cycle changes and the old product line is discontinued (the Dylan Mulvaney cans were a one-off thing, not a product line), but social media keeps it alive in perpetuity. In 1996, McDonald's Arch Deluxe burger is a notable example of a major brand misreading a market, but it did not have a lasting impact like this has. Congrats, i guess, to Kid Rock for having more of an impact on a stock price than famous billionaire short sellers like Bill Ackman, Jim Chanos, Michael Burry etc. He should get a job at a hedge fund.
I have never taken these sort of studies or projections with much salt. Any job loss is easily negated by the creation of new, unforeseen jobs as well as more total jobs as the economy grows. AI as far back as 15 years ago was projected to displace lawyers, doctors, and journalists...not even close to happening. At best, AI only replaces a part of the job, not the whole thing. AI can help doctors diagnose conditions but cannot treat patients, nor can it make invasive diagnosis like biopsy.
2020 stolen election time! There's been some rather big developments with my favorite cute little hobby horse. I haven't had the time to make a deep-dive write-up, but it's has already been extensively reported on elsewhere (e.g. this post by Jacob Sullum). To summarize, Dominion voting systems sued Fox News (and Newsmax, and OAN) for defamation. Dominion has been past the discovery stage for more than a year now but their filings only recently became public and, no way to say this lightly, it's been extremely humiliating for Fox. Tons of text messages from the big names (Carlson, Hannity, etc.) either talking shit about how crazy Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani are, or (especially for Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo) credulously accepting and repeating the stolen election theories.
It's ironic or bittersweet how Dominion, a private company, is now Fox's greatest adversary, not the Biden administration. Usually government is framed as being tyrannical or overreaching, compared to the private sector as the 'little guy' or victim, but it's flipped.
The Dominion lawsuit demonstrates the problem behind audience capture; Fox pundits and reporters had to deal with a credible financial pressure to cater to the crazy fringes of their audience for fear of losing them to their less scrupulous competitors.
It shows that free speech does not apply to libel. Unlike governments and bureaucrats, private companies and individuals can fight back. being targeted by a private entity is worse than being targeted by a government, unless it's something really bad like terrorism or Jan 6th. There are many people who have years of back taxes and the IRS waits years or longer, if ever, to do anything, except sometimes arresting celebrities to make examples. Private lawsuits are slow only because the courts are slow, not out apathy of the plaintiff.
In my opinion, this one is somehow even weaker than the first reveal. Most of this was already known through other sources, it just gives additional information to existing claims about bias. Nothing new was revealed, which is now an argument many are using to claim that this is all a waste of time.
Yeah does seem weak. Of course the FBI looked into it . The FBI looks into anything of national interest, and Jan 6 certainly is.
I'm totally down to believe that Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi had to post their reveals on Twitter, but the theatrical nature of the reveals is, in my opinion, actively hurting whatever points they want to make.
Good for their brands. More $, more subs. I think it shows how banal it all is. This great machiavellian conspiracy is just some functionaries who could not be less enthusiastic about the jobs they have been tasked with.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
The big story today: Xi Jinping secures historic third term as leader of China
The Communist Party leader broke with the traditional two-term limit, extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy.
HONG KONG — Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as the leader of China on Sunday, cementing his status as the country’s most powerful figure in decades and extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy.
Xi’s third five-year term became official when he was the first to walk out onstage at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where a twice-a-decade congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party wrapped up Saturday. He was followed in descending order of rank by the six other members of the new Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top leadership body.
Chinese stocks are falling hard on this news, down 10% or more. Is the prelude to something worse, or will China recover?
Of course, the media has its priorities right:
In his speech opening the party congress on Oct. 16, Xi said he remained “committed to the fundamental national policy of gender equality.” But only 11 of the new Central Committee’s 205 members are women, and there is not a single woman in the new 24-member Politburo. (The previous Politburo’s only female member, Sun Chunlan, retired at 72.)
The second largest economy in the world may be in economic and political crisis, but are there enough women in power?
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
5mo ago
This is not to say that white men are somewhat underrepresented, that despite being 31% of the US population, they’re only 15% of those being cast in ads, or something along those lines. This is to say that there are literally no white men in TV commercials. You can watch ad-supported TV for hours and not see a single one. For a while I noticed that white men were allowed to be shown, but only if there was a non-white, non-male onscreen with them. But more recently the trend has been to simply not show them at all.
yeah, blacks are 13% of US population yet have 70+% representation in ads, it seems. Same for govt. work (not just blacks but other minorities too). Some stereotypes are true.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
5mo ago
I find it so hard to want to support the the Palestinian cause even if they have legitimate grievances, because their tactics are so deplorable--the deliberate use of violence and martyrdom and their citizens as fodder to invoke sympathy from the Western masses. It's like an extreme version of performance art or theatrics.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
10mo ago
Richard Hanania thinks Desantis should challenge Trump to a boxing match. Desantis's campaign so far has been pretty pathetic. He's been afraid to really push back against Trump despite Trump lobbing almost daily attacks against him. Desantis is great on paper, with his victories against woke institutions in Florida, but he's failed to appeal to the Republican id so far. Many Republican voters care far more about appearance and physical vigor than policy positions, good governance, intelligence, etc.
Unless either of them is caught making a Nazi salute or soliciting for underage sex, or Trump is indicted and arrested for major crime, it's a horserace at this point until actual the primaries begin. it was like this at this time in 2015 too. It was close, and people still actually thought Jeb, Cruz, or Rubio could win . What makes it close is that they both have relative equal strengths and weaknesses. If wokeness is of paramount concern, then the choice is DeSantis. If you care more about immigration or economic nationalism , then Trump.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
So this is going viral Dalai Lama apologizes after video asking child to 'suck' his tongue sparks outcry. This was in February, but only today he apologized after it went viral.
One thing that's interesting is major media sites like CNN are hiding the video, presumably because it's 'too inappropriate', yet it was trivially easy to find footage of the Trump Access Hollywood tape leak when that story broke:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/07/donald-trump-women-lewd-comments-origwx-cs.cnn
or nytimes:
or npr:
Other news sites link to a tweet containing the Dalai Lama video.
There are two ways of looking at this: either Dalai Lama knew it was inappropriate but didn't care or did not expect it to viral. Or he actually thought it was harmless.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
1yr ago
m, and in person this would be easily spotted. Even if there are some who would realistically pass a first-impression test, their body (hips, jaw, Adam's apple, "vagina", body odor) would soon give them away, and possibly also their behavior would seem incongruent. And all of this is based on the premise that people's sexual preference are based on formal logic as opposed to general trends in a group's appearance - most transwomen are not even close to passing and that's why many men have a categorical aversion to transwomen.
My biggest problem is it's false advertising. You are not really hooking up with a woman, but only an approximation of one. Even if it could 100% pass a blind test, it's still categorically not the same thing. This is a such a messy subject that it's pretty much off-limits anywhere...if you think race & IQ is contentious, the trans issue is even worse.
The vaccine debate has to be the least productive of any topic. has anyone on either side ever had their minds changed on this issue despite all the ink spilled? Given how many people have taken the vaccines (billions worldwide) if there was even a small uptick in deaths and other complications, it would be a huge deal and unavoidable. You would not need to comb through huge troves of data to find maybe a tiny uptick in deaths for some small cohort
More options
Context Copy link