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Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
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Nov 28 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
🧵WTF is going on right now with Elon, Twitter, Apple, Google, and the project of free speech on the internet?

There's real 4D chess going on beneath the memes.
Right now, Elon's moves are solely focused on raising Apple's internal cost estimate of how much it will cost them to take on Elon/Twitter.

- He threatened to make a phone
- He is highlighting the Apple Appstore tax
- He is pointing out the COVID censorship Apple implemented
On the phone front, Apple knows Elon is a product visionary unlike the world has ever seen, probably since Steve Jobs. Him coming after the iPhone cash cow is something they would like to avoid.

Uninformed speculation on what a phone might look like here:
On the App Store tax front, Elon is sending a dual message: Not only I can take you on, your surcharge makes it profitable for me to do so if I avoid the tax. I have the will and the budget to invest in the long-term to hurt you, do not tempt me.

Also keep in mind that some of Apple's best talent from the Jobs era is now working at Tesla, for reasons you can probably imagine.
Third, he's highlighting that they have taken anti-free speech actions in their past. This is sending a message both to them, but also to (R) congress members that there may be something to investigate here.
Elon sending such public signals, which can only mean that the threats they got from Apple are *extremely credible*. Elon is playing to the court of public opinion to make Apple back down and avoid a prolonged war.
Now, here's an interesting question -- why isn't Google in this conversation? Keep in mind that Larry Page and Sergei Brin, both very good friends of Elon from before they were all rich, technically have complete control of Alphabet's voting stock. They can veto any decision.
In fact, their mutual respect goes far enough that Larry Page once said that if he were to die young, he might leave his money to Elon, since he's the one doing the most for humanity. businessinsider.com/larry-page-elo…
So there's all sorts of way this might break. There could be a tactical Google-Elon alliance for a while. Or Google could be forced to kowtow and take down Twitter too. Or perhaps Google will see the competitive advantage and want to absorb all the iPhone users that might quit.
What I'm almost certain of is that there is an old guard in Silicon Valley that holds beliefs that are broadly libertarian. People like Marc Andreessen come to mind. But there are many others that have been forced to hiding by wokeness. They may see this as a last chance.
And of course there is a LOT of talent that is probably sick and tired of working with the boot of wokeness on their necks. What we're witnessing right now is a fight for the heart of Silicon Valley itself that will rearrange the balance of forces as we've known it so far.
Elon choosing free speech as the field of battle is genius. This is an issue that most Americans still see as sacrosanct, no matter what the wokeratti will tell you. This is not a red-vs-blue issue.
knightfoundation.org/press/releases… Image
What other chokepoints may be exploited? The Parler approach won't work on Twitter, since it has its own datacenters.
The next one is DNS. This is a big one, though mostly affects browsers.

Worth remembering that the US government essentially took over DNS slowly but surely, against the wishes of its early pioneers. domainmondo.com/2015/04/the-da…
There are a few non-centralized approaches to DNS that use blockchain-like approaches. I believe both Opera and Brave have made some moves to support HNS, though it remains incomplete for secure contexts. blogs.opera.com/news/2021/12/o…
I don't know where this will all end up. It's incredible to watch all this play out in real-time. Elon has pulled a loose thread and the sweater has started to unravel. How far will it go? How far will he?

All I know is that it's embarrassing that we rely on one man for so much.

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More from @alexandrosM

Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
Nov 28
Hey Siri, what is a weasel?

@vprasadmdph explains why he didn't sign the GBD.

Apparently he wanted a pony. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Or something. Watch him realize in real-time that he has no coherent excuse.

The rest is great:
There is a simple set of words he can say. "I'm sorry I didn't put my neck on the line for this. I didn't have tenure at the time. I was worried about the optics. I missed an opportunity to make a difference. I failed you as a public health advocate."
To blame the GBD heroes, who put their career and mental health on the line for us, for not including his imaginary wishlist, is so low that I doubt even ZDogg would stoop to it.

Seriously, I suspect this dude has more integrity than that.
Read 13 tweets
Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
Nov 27
Did Elon lie about his credentials?

Seventy thousand retweets on this endless thread that has a lot of attachments and surprisingly little actual substance.

So let's dive in and find out what the hell is going on.
First of all, in several parts throughout, it apparently "nails" Elon not remembering the exact name of the department he was a PhD student in. Well, I actually have a PhD and I couldn't tell you the exact name of the department I was in. Who the hell memorizes this shit?
Number 2, they claim its unusual that the BA does not stats a department. Not so, apparently.
Read 17 tweets
Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
Nov 27
There is a set of explanations I routinely avoid unless I see hard evidence.
1. X is a psychopath
2. X is a deep state construct
3. X is a doing it for the money

The reason is because these explanations are so powerful as to explain everything. There is no limiting principle. 🧵
In other words, every strange thing I see could be easily be explained with one or more of these explanations. And if I did that, I would miss out on far more interesting explanation. As such, I've decided to a priori leave these explanations out. I need falsifiable models.
Another one in the same unfalsifiable category is

4. Egregores or "memetic agents"

Remember -- everyone is a hero of their own story. In order to fully explain someone's behaviour, you have to figure out what it is they tell themselves. How they expain their own actions.
Read 6 tweets
Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
Nov 26
I'm a little under the weather, so time to tweet out my imaginary Tesla Phone feature list I had put together for fun a while back.
First, it will be encased in something like transparent alumin(i)um, also known as ALON, much like the cybertruck's windows. The back will come with a cybertruck crack just for the fun of it. hackaday.com/2018/04/03/wha…
It will obviously retail for $420.69
Read 10 tweets
Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
Nov 25
Let's be clear: Sam paints those he disagrees with as schizophrenics and murderers and wants them silenced. He wants people injected against their will.

People felt like they had something to say and said it. Who dares chastise the crowd for being snarky? On what authority?
Our intellectual betters should really press pause and review Sam's record. He's not the courageous rebel anymore. Now he's the guy that deletes his interview with SBF after the fraud is revealed. I presume it besmirched his squeaky clean image.
If someone wants to criticize the reaction to Sam, then articulate a clear principle. Should we not have called him out? Should we not have mocked him? Be specific. What was it that counts as a "dogpile"?

Or is Sam just a high status individual you want to be seen as defending?
Read 4 tweets
Alexandros Marinos Profile picture
Nov 25
The only way I can make sense of it is this:
1. Sam is a golden boy we all love no matter what
2. Sam's takes are getting a lot of pushback
3. Sam leaves twitter
Therefore
4. Sam left because he was being "attacked".
And
5. Why don't I make a vaguetweet complaining about it
Look, I don't think anyone should be attacked for their views. I don't think he "got what he deserved". I think unpopular opinions should be discussed on here. Yesterday I was sorta glib about it because I find it funny that Sam, who pontificates on everything and anything from..
..his massive platform appeared to have quit twitter in protest of *freedom of speech*. How absurd is this? After propping himself up as the champion of reason and conversation. It's revealing. And all the IDW both sides femcesitters who are now mourning dear Sam should take a...
Read 4 tweets

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