(1) That this is a question & (2) That I should “answer Elon’s question”
My reply:
(1) That’s not a question! (2) Every time Twitter is asked by a government to censor something they have a choice about whether to comply
It is certainly possible that if Twitter took an anti-censorship stance in response to government requests to do censorship that the censoring government would retaliate by banning Twitter or in some other way. It’s also possible that the censoring government would back down.
Elon Musk is a much more accomplished businessman than I am, and he surely knows better than I do that “invariably back down when faced with threats” is a questionable negotiating strategy.
But beyond that, the whole issue here is I poked fun at his claim to be an “absolutist.”
If Elon wants to say “it turns out that standing up against censorship comes with downsides and trade offs and I don’t think it’s categorically worth doing” that seems like a plausible business claim.
But then you’re not an absolutist.
Lots of people are not “free speech absolutists.” You might instead be a “profit-seeking businessman” or a “pragmatist who looks to a balance of considerations.”
But if you proclaim yourself to be an absolutist and then do a lot of censorship, people will poke fun at you.
That is my complete answer: I have no answer whatsoever to the question “how should @elonmusk run Twitter.”
It’s his company and he can do whatever he wants with it.
But I will continue to make fun of the absolutist thing as long as he deserves it, as is my right.
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I didn't express myself super-clearly here so let's just talk about another case — the Trump Trade War of 2025.
Because Trump has instigated this and because congressional Republicans are enabling it, there are absolutely right-wing media figures doing apologetics for it. 🧵
At the same time, if you get your news and information from highbrow right-of-center pundits and columnists — Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, The Free Press, etc — you'll see tons of Trump-friendly content in general and *tons* of criticism of tariffs.
What's happening, broadly speaking, is that conservative pundits cannot actually steer White House policy and they *certainly* cannot induce backbench House Republicans to buck Trump on this.
The mediasphere is responding to political reality that is beyond its control.
A lot of "Abundance" discourse has been excessively abstract, so here's a concrete case.
Should one arm of the government (DOB) allow another arm of the government to (DCPS) to finish a school construction project on time or cater to local objectors?
I think there’s no way to get around the fact that the core of nostalgianomics is a desire for the much larger *relative* male earnings premium and consequent lower bar (for men) to be a good catch.
“Guy with an average job” commands much more purchasing power in 2025 than in 1955, but he is less impressive on the dating market than his grandfather would have been.
Add to that the fact that your wartime service, while harrowing at the time, is now in the rearview mirror and constitutes something impressive you did that basically everyone is going to respect.
The Vice President is one of the smarter and more articulate people in politics — he's written some very good articles and a pretty good book over the years — so I have to say I find the quality and quantity of the evidence he has produced here to be pretty disappointing.
I think it's notable that military spending as a share of the economy was lower at the end of the Biden administration than during any year of the Bush, Obama, or Trump administrations.
We could keep it up indefinitely, I believe.
Now sometimes you hear that the objective of the Trump administration's Ukraine policy is to try to force Europe to shoulder a larger share of the financial load so that we can focus more on China.
Democrats are a center-left party that support progressive taxation, a safety net, and reasonable regulation.
Most business owners will likely always prefer Republicans. But if some are a bit more broad-minded or culturally liberal than average and want to be Dems that’s good!
There are good regulations and there are areas where rules should be stricter, but it’s also transparently the case that lots of regulations are anti-competitive and don’t serve the public interest and if you can work with business partners to change that — that’s good!
A lot of the discussion from the Tech Right about how impressive Elon Musk is totally elides the question of goals.
I 100% believe based on his record that he is hyper-competent with skills that apply across multiple domains.
But what is the evidence that he cares about me?
Cutting nutritional assistance and medical care for tens of millions of poor Americans to partially offset a corporate income tax cut might get a rocket to Mars faster but … is that good? Is that what I want?
I’m not against going to Mars, SpaceX is really cool.
But I’m not a monomaniac about it — I think PEPFAR and Medicaid expansion and NATO are also pretty impressive, and reiterating how *capable* Musk is just makes me more alarmed that he doesn’t share my values.