This Brazil-Twitter stuff is hilarious. Great leadership Muskrat.

That's why the pedophile tweet in 2018 so thoroughly shattered the illusion for me. It wasn't just incredibly petty, it was also easily avoidable. Like not only did he reveal who he was, it was easy to see how he could have been that person all along and the world could have never known about it if he just knew when to swallow his pride. And "the cave is too tight and twisty for your submarine to fit, even if you could develop and confirm its safety in time to save the kids, when we can just get them out without that tech" was such a dumb moment to decide to be petty.
I don't have much of a mind for PR stuff but it was even obvious to me that he could have still walked away looking great if he had financed some catering for the rescue team and families. Just show he was comfortable with sharing the spotlight and having an idea that was made in good faith shot down.
But nooooo, he had to be the saviour and since he couldn't do that, he needed to turn the one that hurt his feelings into a villain. With a comment that caught anyone who goes to Thailand for non-child sex tourist reasons in the blast radius (and maybe even told on himself a bit?).
And then he's just been spiraling since, at least as far as public image goes.
- It was about one day before that for me. I was like
  oh that's so cool, he's got amazing engineers working to repurpose a pressure vessel from SpaceX to act as a rescue pod to save those kids.
  Then actual cave divers were like:
  any cave diver will tell you that this will never work
  What kind of cave diving rescue plan doesn't talk to any cave divers before drawing any attention to itself? The kind designed solely to draw attention and stroke ego. He tried to make those boys' struggles about himself because he thinks he's the most capable man alive.
- wasn't the accusation entierly based on looks?
DIVORCED.
- NONE MAY DIVORCE ME
Despite having more money than god, he had "lovable dork" energy. I can't imagine squandering that. I would have just kept my mouth shut and only opened it when I wanted to talk about whatever new cool thing I decided to have built.
asshole
Also a sad little loser.
He has a lot of money, but he has nothing. He has nobody with him who actually loves him for who he really is, it's sad, really. I know a few guys like him (just way less rich) IRL, they are just the saddest bunch to see. They are so insecure and dickish that they always need more money so that they can use it to control other people into staying close, it's the only way they can pretend that they are loved.
Xcrement
I like this.
Also, borrowing from blogger John Gruber: Phony Stark.

FrEe SpEeCh

I wonder why the richest man in the world says he's about free speech. He lives in a country that considers money to be speech. He has the most speech of anyone, but that's not it surely.
- He says he's about free speech because he agreed with the kinds of speech that get excluded from civil discussion. He considered people getting shunned for racist opinions to be censorship, while he considers terminating the accounts of anyone who disagrees with him to be his prerogative and perfectly fair.
  Elon Musk has never actually stood for "Free Speech," only for the speech he likes. He SAYS he likes free speech purely because it has better optics for him and worse optics for his opposition than "Let me say racist things."
Free (my) speech.
- Freeze peach.

It is very clearly not going away.
- well I don't use it anymore, and I had a whole circle, so I don't care.

How many people is a Brazilian?

I had a Brazilian professor. He was super smart, so maybe 3?
- Yeah but how physically strong was he, that could make the person to Brazilian ratio change
A brazilion, obviously
- no, say "cade e o br??", appended with multiple brazilian flag emojis

It's the sort of thing I might do if I were so rich that I could burn tens of billions of dollars to run a major corporation just for fun. I mean, saying "get lost" to the government of a country of over 200 million people must be quite a rush.

So how does the boot juce of elon taste?
- What are you talking about? I think he's a lunatic, but he does seem to be having a lot of fun.
- That was really presumptive. I don't think they were endorsing Elon at all
- How does one juice a boot?

🎶 He's the worst CEO you've ever heard 🎶

🎶 He's the Angry Racist Twitter Nerd 🎶

I am currently helping to develop a platform that aims to catch Brazilians evading the ban, hopefully it will help enforcing the law.

The best thing you could possibly do is have children report on their parents for evading the ban. Or I suppose have neighbors report on each other.
It was really effective for the Stasi and the KGB.
- Musk fan spotted.
Sure you are.
How would that help anyone? Maybe spend your time promoting alternatives instead.
- I like Mastodon, idk why people are hesitating to join up.
I am currently helping to develop a platform that aims to catch
Ooh child abusers?! Terrorists?!
Brazilians using a website
Oh
a lot of brazillians are going to bluesky
You should pack up your stuff and get the fuck out of here
Narc
- In this case it's ok

Good, fuck censorship. If you don't stick up for those you disagree with one day they'll be censoring you.

Twitter gladly executes ban requests from right wing governments
- Yeah, if twitter was run by a principled individual who actually was a free speech absolutist, I would be siding twitter. If twitter was anything other then an advertising platform, I would be siding with twitter. If twitter wasn't censoring news orgs that criticized Musk, I would be siding with twitter.
- "A Broken clock is still right twice a day"
My country has hate speech laws and 99.9% of us aren't concerned or yelling "censorship!", because 99.9% of us aren't running around saying hateful shit that would get us arrested for hate speech. Only a racist is worried about being cancelled for racism, only a bigot is concerned about hate speech laws.
- I don't think that works as a blanket statement, for example Australia has a law allowing takedowns for hate speech but it was recently used to censor a journalist who shared a video of an Isreal leader saying from the "river to the sea".
  But in general, yes, censor hate and uphold journalistic integrity and freedom of the press in equal measures.
Can't be tolerant of intolerance.
This comes from a Elon-drone like you, that ignores Musk banning people who make a joke about him or post where his plane took off to...
No, this is free speech absolutism. You can't say anything you want on any forum and expect zero consequences. That's ridiculous.
I mean, yes in theory, but it's also a social contract. We shouldn't allow people who advocate for violence or harm against other people.
There should be no censorship in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.
First they came for the racists and nazis and I said nothing
What a limited view of the world.
At this point you can basically just search for the word "disagree" and it's 99% intellectual dishonesty.