[Technology] Elon Musk and Twitter

[jackalbion]

Elon Musk is easily one of the worst transport planners in history. His boring tunnel is one of the least efficient public transport systems on the globe, and will probably just end in a fireball that kills hundreds of people.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

If I had his money I'd be off on an island drinking cocktails all day but he seems to spend every waking hour posting inane drivel of Twitter.

 

[GloryDays]

I bought a Tesla because it was the first EV that had the range I needed to get to and from work comfortably on a single charge. I’m selling the Tesla because Elon Musk has demonstrated his ability to trash Twitter and I worry that he’ll trash Tesla too, leaving me with an expensive brick rather than a car.

That and, if Colon continues to pursue the currently unimpeded AI game plan, you won’t have work to go to.

 

[sparkie]

He's made the Twitter tick meaningless if any schmuk can just buy one. Which makes them worthless and a waste of money. Lol.

 

[beorhthelm]

I'm not going to slate him, but equally I'm just not sure about him....

He's clearly monstrously intelligent, and (imo) 'on the spectrum' - so does that account for his behaviour?

I think he just operates on such a higher level than us normos we don't get him. Or are we just being bamboozled.. F*ck knows.

sounds like he's going a bit like Howard Hughes, he was intellegent but went bit mad. changed the logo to Doge overnight, not sensible thing to do. the site is still running, despite so many expecting a firey collapse, but as a business there's many questionable decision. if it goes under, he'll have lost money and upset a lot of big investors.

also what happend to Mastodon and mass exodos there? dont see any evidence, same old accounts still tweeting (whats the verb to use Mastodon... )

 

[Goldstone1976]

…(whats the verb to use Mastodon... )

Gotta be ‘to masturbate’, shirley?

 

[Audax]

sounds like he's going a bit like Howard Hughes, he was intellegent but went bit mad. changed the logo to Doge overnight, not sensible thing to do. the site is still running, despite so many expecting a firey collapse, but as a business there's many questionable decision. if it goes under, he'll have lost money and upset a lot of big investors.

also what happend to Mastodon and mass exodos there? dont see any evidence, same old accounts still tweeting (whats the verb to use Mastodon... )

<boring>

Posts on Mastodon are called "toots", so it'll be tooting.

</boring>

 

[Audax]

I bought a Tesla because it was the first EV that had the range I needed to get to and from work comfortably on a single charge. I’m selling the Tesla because Elon Musk has demonstrated his ability to trash Twitter and I worry that he’ll trash Tesla too, leaving me with an expensive brick rather than a car.

I think Tesla will be fine. The big problem with Musk at Twitter is that he's trying to apply what he's learned from previous successes to Twitter, but Twitter is a very different beast.

Tesla is more of a "clock" problem. Although AI uses in transport are shifting that a bit, it's still fundamentally a "clock" problem. You can pull a clock apart, and see how to put it back together again, and once together you can validate that it works as expected. You can change something, test it, and immediately know if the change achieved what you were after or not.

Twitter is a "cloud" problem. Pulling it apart and putting it back together again isn't that easy. Measuring whether you've done that successfully isn't easy. Making a change and validating the outcome from that change isn't an instant thing - you have to be patient, wait for the change to be absorbed by the users, for bahaviour patterns to change etc.

He doesn't understand Twitter, he doesn't understand how or why it worked the way it did, and he doesn't understand how to change it to work the way he wants it to work.

Cloud vs clock problems:
.

 

[Hotchilidog]

I think any notion that Musk is a genius has been dispelled by his stewardship of twitter. Elon's contribution to engineering has been significant, he should have stuck to that. Just another billionaire with a fragile ego and a love for edge lord hate speech.

 

[beorhthelm]

<boring>

Posts on Mastodon are called "toots", so it'll be tooting.

</boring>

serious? as in "tooting ones horn"?

 

[Goldstone1976]

@Audax

Thanks for the considered reply, and link to the very interesting article. Appreciated.

While I accept your premise that Tesla is far more a clock problem than is Twitter, I retain some significant doubts about Musk’s decision-making at Twitter. There are individual decisions he’s made that had entirely foreseeable really negative consequences (ie, while Twitter as a whole is a cloud problem, some individual decisions are nonetheless clock ones). If he’s capable of making really dumb individual decisions at Twitter (some seem simply capricious), he’s capable of doing so at Tesla too.

That said, a quick bit of research shows me:

1. The Tesla is still by far the longest range EV without spending stupid money (close to or over £100k, which I’m simply not prepared to do)

2. No plug-in hybrid has an electric only range of greater than about 50 miles, which is nothing like enough.

Thus, my options currently are: stick with Tesla (hmm, see above), spend c£100k for an alternative long-range EV (nope), buy a plug-in hybrid with not enough electric-only range (what’s the point?), or go back to an ICE vehicle (which seems a retrograde step)…

 

[Audax]

serious? as in "tooting ones horn"?

It's the problem with going thematic. Mastodon = ancient elephant ancestor = "trumpet"? Trump? Trumping? Can see why they didn't go there! So they landed on Toots and Tooting.

also what happend to Mastodon and mass exodos there?

Forgot to reply to this bit earlier. The initial "exodus" was more about people going and trying an alternative. Mastodon got a lot of exposure from it, with the result a lot more people are aware of it. It is, however, a different beast from Twitter and takes a bit of getting used to. A lot, but not all, of the people who tried it went back to Twitter. But many of them (like me) also maintain a Mastodon account still. I often see a Tweet on Twitter, and then the exact same thing from the same person as a Toot on Mastodon.

Essentially, a lot of people have hedged their bets and have a foot in both camps currently. If Musk does manage to kill Twitter, Mastodon will take off.

 

[A1X]

Honestly Musk feels like exactly the sort of guy who should be preparing for how he's going to do battle with James Bond in his hollowed out volcano rather than being out there in the real world

 

[beorhthelm]

@Audax

Thanks for the considered reply, and link to the very interesting article. Appreciated.

While I accept your premise that Tesla is far more a clock problem than is Twitter, I retain some significant doubts about Musk’s decision-making at Twitter. There are individual decisions he’s made that had entirely foreseeable really negative consequences (ie, while Twitter as a whole is a cloud problem, some individual decisions are nonetheless clock ones). If he’s capable of making really dumb individual decisions at Twitter (some seem simply capricious), he’s capable of doing so at Tesla too.

That said, a quick bit of research shows me:

1. The Tesla is still by far the longest range EV without spending stupid money (close to or over £100k, which I’m simply not prepared to do)

2. No plug-in hybrid has an electric only range of greater than about 50 miles, which is nothing like enough.

Thus, my options currently are: stick with Tesla (hmm, see above), spend c£100k for an alternative long-range EV (nope), buy a plug-in hybrid with not enough electric-only range (what’s the point?), or go back to an ICE vehicle (which seems a retrograde step)…

i'm probably missing something obvious (forced upgrades?), but how exactly is your Tesla going to be negatively impacted by anything Musk does?

and if concern is about company forced upgrades, thats not something to give faith for any EV or remote modifiable object.

 

[Goldstone1976]

i'm probably missing something obvious (forced upgrades?), but how exactly is your Tesla going to be negatively impacted by anything Musk does?

and if concern is about company forced upgrades, thats not something to give faith for any EV or remote modifiable object.

The guy spent $44Bn on a respected tech company and seems intent on completely trashing the company. I don’t think it’s impossible that there will simply be no Twitter within a year. What’s he’s doing to Twitter is highly irrational, imo. If he’s capable of irrationally blowing $44Bn at Twitter, he’s capable of doing so at Tesla. The Tesla is essentially a moving OTA-capable software bundle. If he trashed the company, there’s a reasonable chance the car just stops moving (a much higher chance than with an ICE vehicle - there are plenty of mechanic shops that’ll get your ICE car working again. A Tesla? Not so much).

 

[Audax]

@Audax

Thanks for the considered reply, and link to the very interesting article. Appreciated.

While I accept your premise that Tesla is far more a clock problem than is Twitter, I retain some significant doubts about Musk’s decision-making at Twitter. There are individual decisions he’s made that had entirely foreseeable really negative consequences (ie, while Twitter as a whole is a cloud problem, some individual decisions are nonetheless clock ones). If he’s capable of making really dumb individual decisions at Twitter (some seem simply capricious), he’s capable of doing so at Tesla too.

So another key aspect: Musk has far less personal control of Tesla. That company is somewhat insulated from his more ... problematic ... decision making foibles. For starters, he's only a minority owner today. And while he is CEO, there are checks and balances in place that prevent him exerting 100% control. He can't go rogue in the same way as he has done at Twitter.

With Twitter, he's (currently) got full control and can do whatever he wants. And we're seeing how that plays out. IIRC there was a similar problem at PayPal for a while, when he part-owned it, but again his control wasn't absolute and he was eventually sidelined from being able to make any dangerous decisions before finally selling up.

 

[Goldstone1976]

So another key aspect: Musk has far less personal control of Tesla. That company is somewhat insulated from his more ... problematic ... decision making foibles. For starters, he's only a minority owner today. And while he is CEO, there are checks and balances in place that prevent him exerting 100% control. He can't go rogue in the same way as he has done at Twitter.

With Twitter, he's (currently) got full control and can do whatever he wants. And we're seeing how that plays out. IIRC there was a similar problem at PayPal for a while, when he part-owned it, but again his control wasn't absolute and he was eventually sidelined from being able to make any dangerous decisions before finally selling up.

Yep, you're right. He does indeed have far less control of Tesla. Maybe he can't trash it. I do hope you're right, as I think I'll need him not to for at least another year, until other car manufacturers can deliver 350 mile range for around the same price as a Tesla 3 or Y. When that happens, he won't see me for dust.

 

[Bozza]

Yep, you're right. He does indeed have far less control of Tesla. Maybe he can't trash it. I do hope you're right, as I think I'll need him not to for at least another year, until other car manufacturers can deliver 350 mile range for around the same price as a Tesla 3 or Y. When that happens, he won't see me for dust.

Frankly given the money he's poured down the twitter drain, he needs Tesla to be an ongoing success.

I read only last night that they delivered more cars in the last quarter than any previous quarter, so they still seem to be on an upward trajectory.

 

[Goldstone1976]

Frankly given the money he's poured down the twitter drain, he needs Tesla to be an ongoing success.

I read only last night that they delivered more cars in the last quarter than any previous quarter, so they still seem to be on an upward trajectory.

This is also true!

Maybe I'm being over-worried.

Truth be told, there's another reason I'm not happy with my purchase: the CEO's a total knobber (imo). I don't much like knowingly funding knobbers.

 

[schmunk]

Yep, you're right. He does indeed have far less control of Tesla. Maybe he can't trash it. I do hope you're right, as I think I'll need him not to for at least another year, until other car manufacturers can deliver 350 mile range for around the same price as a Tesla 3 or Y. When that happens, he won't see me for dust.

Have you looked at a Polestar 2?