Thread by @PnictogenHorses

@WholeMarsBlog now...this sort of thing is very interesting. it's speculative and futile, nonsensical even, but these little arithmetic calculations are one of the chief preoccupations of the grifter class—the #entrepreneur class, the #investor class, the #cryptocurrency gambler class.

~Mona

@WholeMarsBlog @WholeMarsBlog, @APompliano, @BillyM2k, and all the other grifting rag-tag who are wont to dangle after @elonmusk (or any other wealthy and famous person whom they perceive as blessed with #success) spend huge amounts of time with these napkin-scribblings that forecast *riches*.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @WholeMarsBlog starts out with a false assumption: @Tesla will be able to extract cash from literally every car driver in the country. this is their presumed #market, and it's deliberately chosen to be as broad as possible, so as to forecast even greater riches from extorting it.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla that's unrealistic, not the least because @Tesla is strictly a niche product with a locked-in fanbase. either you're in the @elonmusk cult, and you'll buy into $TSLA no matter how many Tesla cars catch on fire or slam into telephone poles; or you know that Musk is a disaster.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla most of #capitalism these days, in fact, relies upon extortion of locked-in fanbases. these fans tend to be privileged people in idle careers, people with loads of "passive" (i.e. unearned) income—folks who can spend heaps of cash on toys and hobbies and fandoms, in other words.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla as long as wealth inequality is great enough and the leisure class has most of the money, it's sensible for corporations to focus all their efforts on appealing solely to these insular, locked-in #markets. cultish loyalists are predictable, and easily milked by standard methods.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla hence @WholeMarsBlog's napkin-scribblings, to have any value as a prediction of future riches, would need to account for the limited scope of @Tesla / @elonmusk fandom. but that would mean a *smaller dollar figure* at the end. anyway it's a napkin-scribbling; it's not serious.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla it's not serious...and yet @WholeMarsBlog (in common with all the other grifters of #capitalism, all the people who have pinned their hopes to making unearned, effort-free money) make all their decisions on such an unserious, excessively optimistic basis. they shoot for the Moon.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla to be successful in #business and #entrepreneurlife and #investment and #crypto and all those other ways of making fast but dirty money, you need to have #confidence and #faith, while rejecting pessimism and #fear and #doubt—to be a grifter is to want to see ONLY the good news.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla to be a grifter in #capitalism is also to be preoccupied with the #future: fortune-telling, or "economic forecasting" as capitalists optimistically call it, is one of the most important activities among the greedy and avaricious pursuers of easy money through "passive income".

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla needless to say, because of that intense hyperfocus on #optimism and #confidence and huge overestimations of future riches to be milked out of enormous #markets, and the strict avoidance of "#FUD", @WholeMarsBlog's fortune-telling is always *happy*. the #future is always good.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla the #future is @elonmusk ruling as the man-child God-King of #Mars, and @Tesla cars that drive themselves around as if by magic, while @WholeMarsBlog sits in one and watches money cascading into numerous bank accounts, piling up and up and up. there's no sadness or difficulties.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla @WholeMarsBlog (or @APompliano or @BillyM2k or @mtaibbi) are not alone in this regard: all #capitalism is committed to a similarly unhinged, hyperoptimistic fixation on a golden glowing #future, one that @elonmusk and other genius #CEOs will simply *cause to happen*, inevitably.

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla @mtaibbi #capitalism believes in Heaven, in other words: this unbalanced #optimism is merely #Christian fixation on heavenly rewards available to the "saved". unhinged #Christianity and unhinged capitalism are more or less the same, deep down.

meanwhile, the real world *rots*.

~Mona

@WholeMarsBlog @APompliano @BillyM2k @elonmusk @Tesla @mtaibbi @threadreaderapp unroll