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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Imagine telling you-two-years-ago about that twitter poll. Why is Musk doing this? How are we feeling about moldbug's (iirc) "put any fortune 500 CEO in charge of the USA, even the second worst one, and it'll massively improve"?

Given the quote tweets, a twitter poll here is less "the will of the people" and more "who brigades and manipulates the poll more", so idk what the point is.

The USA is not Twitter. And I'd argue anything would improve Twitter, including the site's complete destruction.

"put any fortune 500 CEO in charge of the USA, even the second worst one, and it'll massively improve"?

Didn't Trump's presidency falsify this idea?

Moldbug presumably meant dictatorial power, not merely the presidency.

Most fortune 500 CEOs seem vastly overpaid relative to their competence and much of apparent success or skill is just happenstance, and not only that, huge blunders. The idea that you will get better leadership with CEOs just seems risibly false. For every Eric Schmitt there are dozens of Carly Forinas. CEOs, just like politicians, quality is at best mixed to poor.

Seems to me like a ham fisted way of transitioning leadership to someone else (eg Blake masters) without it looking like you failed (eg never intended to be long term ceo, had a vote etc).

Wait, why Masters? And how?

Someone (guessing Thiel) suggested to Elon that a Masters type should run Twitter as CEO.

The how would be Elon appointing him.

How are we feeling about moldbug's (iirc) "put any fortune 500 CEO in charge of the USA, even the second worst one, and it'll massively improve"?

Here's the catch, there is no one person in charge of the USA. It's a bunch of bureaucrats, special interest groups, NGOs and career staffers that largely control the US.

Also, business people tend to make great bureaucrats, and are hardly outsiders once they gain some power. Pompeo comes to mind.

How are we feeling about moldbug's (iirc) "put any fortune 500 CEO in charge of the USA, even the second worst one, and it'll massively improve"?

Between Musk and SBF, I'm starting to become embarrassed that I ever took the proposition seriously.