Someone I know knew him a little bit. He was a thoroughly nice fellah by all accounts.
Depends on your viewpoint , some consider him a real traitor
Still sad to pop your clogs at that age, would only give me 2 months to go.
Saw AD on the Victoria Line soon after the 2010 election, no doubt on his way to King's Cross and back home to civilisation. He looked perfectly content to be leaving London.
Are we going through this nonsense of everybody is off to Mastadon again...hows Threads doing these days, seems to have about as much popularity as Piers Morgan tv show.
Good point. Although I think Truth Social/Telegram provide the same functionality, unlike Bluesky/Mastodon. Neverthless a lot of people who leave Twitter come back. Zeihan's case is slightly different because he uses it to research and disseminate his stuff: the former is compromised by Muskery and the latter is not necessary
Enshittification is followed by high-value-users buggering off and founding their own communities. YouTube refuseniks are going to Nebula or Armchair History TV or that new gun one. Trump Twitniks went to Truth Social, Russians(?) went to Telegram. Threads/Mastodon didn't get traction because they were difficult to use(?). WhatsApp is its own thing.
We used to have megathings and now we don't: USENET went to newsgroups went to Geocities went to MySpace went to Facebook and fragmented to YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Nebula, Truth Social, stuff, stuff, more stuff. Each year things become more difficult to analyse and summarise.
Most of the people on services like Nebula are on YouTube and use their YouTube videos to drive traffic to Nebula.
I know. Bloody annoying. Mustard's latest stuff is on Nebula not YT, I think Potential History has stopped publishing new stuff on YouTube.
Some of it is also YouTube censorship. Particularly history videos can be very tricky because the automated system get twitchy when talking about Nazis, Hitler, etc.
Youtube has all sorts of problems this year, they’re trying to avoid politically extreme content, but are instead tripping up a lot of legitimate content. There’s also thought to be political campaigners mass flagging current political content in an attempt to get it taken down, even if only temporarily.
I noticed that Rumble are making similar claims like Musk that Media Matters have been setting up profiles and engineering them to get the Nazi post next to an ad by following only the extremists, liking the posts etc, and those accounts are literally the only account that saw such an interaction out of millions / billions of ad serves.
Its a bit like going into a strip club, throwing money around like it is going out of fashion, accepting an invite to the VIP room, then clutching your pearls when the stripper ask if you might be interested in extras.
There’s a number of these nonprofit groups in the US, who appear to be very well funded and are trying to take down alternative media by going after their revenue sources. We know from filings that Media Matters took $1m from Soros a few years ago.
I have a feeling that the next 12 months is going to be very difficult for these companies, in the buildup to the election. On the other hand, there’s also organisations such as Public Square that have started up, recommending conservative businesses to the public and to each other. In the media space, there’s companies like Daily Wire throwing huge amounts of money at all sorts of random projects. DW now has 1m monthly subscribers, and annual revenue approaching $250m.
Oh, wow, straight to people being “very well funded” and Soros as a source of all evil?
He’s the Democrat version of the Koch brothers, willing to spend quite literally billions of dollars on politicians and political campaigns in the US over a period of decades.
It’s not controversial, that’s just how the US political system works, as much as it seems very weird to outsiders for presidential candidates to spend $1bn each in six months, and for every election down to the dog catcher (but mostly judges and DAs) to attract serious money to push a particular agenda.
Yes, that’s free speech. He can give his money to who he wants. Meanwhile, the US (and Hungarian) right have turned him into a hate figure, with lots of wink-wink conspiracy theories implied, lots of echoes of “Jews control the media”.
The problem obviously isn’t “Jews”, the problem is the likes of Soros, the Kochs, Murdoch, Gates et al controlling the media, and aggressively going after new media that doesn’t toe the line, telling lies to their advertisers and trying to deprive them of revenue. Hence the lawsuits.
I’m expecting it to get a lot worse in the next 12 months, with lots of pressure on large companies to not advertise on any platform that’s not considered mainstream.
I don't see anyone "aggressively going after new media that doesn't toe the line". I see people saying the obvious, that Nazis and antisemitism are commoner and commoner on Twitter. Soros does not control the media and his influence here is massively overstated. References to "Soros" by the US MAGA right are a dogwhistle referencing antisemitic conspiracy theories. See https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Final-George-Soros-Briefing.pdf
Also, I am always baffled why you, personally, go in to bat for a bunch of people who back Putin over Ukraine.
Today’s news isn’t about Twitter, it’s about Rumble.
Soros as an individual has been funding Democrats for decades, trying to call any criticism of him as an individual antisemitic is half of the problem. Just as it’s possible to critisise Netanyahu without being anti-Semitic, yet few on the left seem to manage it.
Soros has funded the campaigns of judges and district attorneys in the US, who now oversee record crime rates in cities, and see Trump and other conservatives dragged through courts for what in many cases are clearly politically motivated charges.
I’m not going into bat for a bunch of Putinists, I’m trying to provide some balance to the debate here on US politics by following loads of people on all sides of the debate. It’s clear that the US focus is now on China as the primary enemy, and that European governments are going to need to step up and fund NATO properly, rather than relying on the US. On that matter, Trump was right.
If Trump didn't want to be "dragged through courts" for fraud and insurrection, he shouldn't have committed fraud and insurrection.
Putin loving Rumble, is most definitely not the same as Rumble loving Putin.
The fact that a bunch of racist idiots try and use Soros’ name as a conspiracy theory, doesn’t mean that valid critisicm of that particular individual is racist.
Well, show me some valid criticism of Soros then. You just chucked his name in as if that proved Media Matters must be up to no good.
My criticism of Soros, is that he’s been funding campaigns for elected offices of people with whom I profoundly disagree.
For example, the DAs in San Francisco and Los Angeles who decided to effectively decriminalise shoplifting and vagrancy, and the DA in New York who campaigned on a platform of “Get Donald Trump”.
Yet you're a very keen fan of Musk.
Not at all, I’m just not someone who thinks of him as evil. The world would be better with more Elon Musks, but someone needs to take his phone off him when he’s on drugs.
He has his uses, business disruptors like him can be a great thing, its just a worry he's both an idiot who believes anything he reads online and if not antisemitic someone who likes antisemitic conspiracies and then whinges about not being understood.
I think he likes being a bit of a troll online, but sometimes misses the nuances of the antisemitic conspiracy theories. He didn’t grow up in the US. It’s also well known that he likes his drugs.
On the other hand - Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Twitter. All very useful companies.
Are we going through this nonsense of everybody is off to Mastadon again...hows Threads doing these days, seems to have about as much popularity as Piers Morgan tv show.
Good point. Although I think Truth Social/Telegram provide the same functionality, unlike Bluesky/Mastodon. Neverthless a lot of people who leave Twitter come back. Zeihan's case is slightly different because he uses it to research and disseminate his stuff: the former is compromised by Muskery and the latter is not necessary
Enshittification is followed by high-value-users buggering off and founding their own communities. YouTube refuseniks are going to Nebula or Armchair History TV or that new gun one. Trump Twitniks went to Truth Social, Russians(?) went to Telegram. Threads/Mastodon didn't get traction because they were difficult to use(?). WhatsApp is its own thing.
We used to have megathings and now we don't: USENET went to newsgroups went to Geocities went to MySpace went to Facebook and fragmented to YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Nebula, Truth Social, stuff, stuff, more stuff. Each year things become more difficult to analyse and summarise.
Most of the people on services like Nebula are on YouTube and use their YouTube videos to drive traffic to Nebula.
I know. Bloody annoying. Mustard's latest stuff is on Nebula not YT, I think Potential History has stopped publishing new stuff on YouTube.
Some of it is also YouTube censorship. Particularly history videos can be very tricky because the automated system get twitchy when talking about Nazis, Hitler, etc.
Youtube has all sorts of problems this year, they’re trying to avoid politically extreme content, but are instead tripping up a lot of legitimate content. There’s also thought to be political campaigners mass flagging current political content in an attempt to get it taken down, even if only temporarily.
I noticed that Rumble are making similar claims like Musk that Media Matters have been setting up profiles and engineering them to get the Nazi post next to an ad by following only the extremists, liking the posts etc, and those accounts are literally the only account that saw such an interaction out of millions / billions of ad serves.
Its a bit like going into a strip club, throwing money around like it is going out of fashion, accepting an invite to the VIP room, then clutching your pearls when the stripper ask if you might be interested in extras.
There’s a number of these nonprofit groups in the US, who appear to be very well funded and are trying to take down alternative media by going after their revenue sources. We know from filings that Media Matters took $1m from Soros a few years ago.
I have a feeling that the next 12 months is going to be very difficult for these companies, in the buildup to the election. On the other hand, there’s also organisations such as Public Square that have started up, recommending conservative businesses to the public and to each other. In the media space, there’s companies like Daily Wire throwing huge amounts of money at all sorts of random projects. DW now has 1m monthly subscribers, and annual revenue approaching $250m.
Oh, wow, straight to people being “very well funded” and Soros as a source of all evil?
He’s the Democrat version of the Koch brothers, willing to spend quite literally billions of dollars on politicians and political campaigns in the US over a period of decades.
It’s not controversial, that’s just how the US political system works, as much as it seems very weird to outsiders for presidential candidates to spend $1bn each in six months, and for every election down to the dog catcher (but mostly judges and DAs) to attract serious money to push a particular agenda.
Yes, that’s free speech. He can give his money to who he wants. Meanwhile, the US (and Hungarian) right have turned him into a hate figure, with lots of wink-wink conspiracy theories implied, lots of echoes of “Jews control the media”.
The problem obviously isn’t “Jews”, the problem is the likes of Soros, the Kochs, Murdoch, Gates et al controlling the media, and aggressively going after new media that doesn’t toe the line, telling lies to their advertisers and trying to deprive them of revenue. Hence the lawsuits.
I’m expecting it to get a lot worse in the next 12 months, with lots of pressure on large companies to not advertise on any platform that’s not considered mainstream.
I don't see anyone "aggressively going after new media that doesn't toe the line". I see people saying the obvious, that Nazis and antisemitism are commoner and commoner on Twitter. Soros does not control the media and his influence here is massively overstated. References to "Soros" by the US MAGA right are a dogwhistle referencing antisemitic conspiracy theories. See https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Final-George-Soros-Briefing.pdf
Also, I am always baffled why you, personally, go in to bat for a bunch of people who back Putin over Ukraine.
Today’s news isn’t about Twitter, it’s about Rumble.
Soros as an individual has been funding Democrats for decades, trying to call any criticism of him as an individual antisemitic is half of the problem. Just as it’s possible to critisise Netanyahu without being anti-Semitic, yet few on the left seem to manage it.
Soros has funded the campaigns of judges and district attorneys in the US, who now oversee record crime rates in cities, and see Trump and other conservatives dragged through courts for what in many cases are clearly politically motivated charges.
I’m not going into bat for a bunch of Putinists, I’m trying to provide some balance to the debate here on US politics by following loads of people on all sides of the debate. It’s clear that the US focus is now on China as the primary enemy, and that European governments are going to need to step up and fund NATO properly, rather than relying on the US. On that matter, Trump was right.
If Trump didn't want to be "dragged through courts" for fraud and insurrection, he shouldn't have committed fraud and insurrection.
Putin loving Rumble, is most definitely not the same as Rumble loving Putin.
The fact that a bunch of racist idiots try and use Soros’ name as a conspiracy theory, doesn’t mean that valid critisicm of that particular individual is racist.
Well, show me some valid criticism of Soros then. You just chucked his name in as if that proved Media Matters must be up to no good.
My criticism of Soros, is that he’s been funding campaigns for elected offices of people with whom I profoundly disagree.
For example, the DAs in San Francisco and Los Angeles who decided to effectively decriminalise shoplifting and vagrancy, and the DA in New York who campaigned on a platform of “Get Donald Trump”.
Yet you're a very keen fan of Musk.
Not at all, I’m just not someone who thinks of him as evil. The world would be better with more Elon Musks, but someone needs to take his phone off him when he’s on drugs.
Nah, you really are. I remember when you wanted a Hyperloop between Heathrow and Gatwick.
The world needs disruptors; people who take risks. But IMV (and this seems to be an increasingly common view), the negatives relating to Musk *far* outweigh the positives.
I've been on a journey with this: up to (say) 2012, I was really a fan of Musk, and I would favourably compare him to Brunel. Then came Vance's hagiography in 15 or 16, and his increasingly erratic behaviour. Then the Thai cave rescue happened five years ago, and the real Musk came to light. Since then, it's just got worse.
This is a man, it should be remembered, who lied about the death of his own child. If he lies about that for his own advantage, what else would he do?
Are we going through this nonsense of everybody is off to Mastadon again...hows Threads doing these days, seems to have about as much popularity as Piers Morgan tv show.
Good point. Although I think Truth Social/Telegram provide the same functionality, unlike Bluesky/Mastodon. Neverthless a lot of people who leave Twitter come back. Zeihan's case is slightly different because he uses it to research and disseminate his stuff: the former is compromised by Muskery and the latter is not necessary
Enshittification is followed by high-value-users buggering off and founding their own communities. YouTube refuseniks are going to Nebula or Armchair History TV or that new gun one. Trump Twitniks went to Truth Social, Russians(?) went to Telegram. Threads/Mastodon didn't get traction because they were difficult to use(?). WhatsApp is its own thing.
We used to have megathings and now we don't: USENET went to newsgroups went to Geocities went to MySpace went to Facebook and fragmented to YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Nebula, Truth Social, stuff, stuff, more stuff. Each year things become more difficult to analyse and summarise.
Most of the people on services like Nebula are on YouTube and use their YouTube videos to drive traffic to Nebula.
I know. Bloody annoying. Mustard's latest stuff is on Nebula not YT, I think Potential History has stopped publishing new stuff on YouTube.
Some of it is also YouTube censorship. Particularly history videos can be very tricky because the automated system get twitchy when talking about Nazis, Hitler, etc.
Youtube has all sorts of problems this year, they’re trying to avoid politically extreme content, but are instead tripping up a lot of legitimate content. There’s also thought to be political campaigners mass flagging current political content in an attempt to get it taken down, even if only temporarily.
I noticed that Rumble are making similar claims like Musk that Media Matters have been setting up profiles and engineering them to get the Nazi post next to an ad by following only the extremists, liking the posts etc, and those accounts are literally the only account that saw such an interaction out of millions / billions of ad serves.
Its a bit like going into a strip club, throwing money around like it is going out of fashion, accepting an invite to the VIP room, then clutching your pearls when the stripper ask if you might be interested in extras.
There’s a number of these nonprofit groups in the US, who appear to be very well funded and are trying to take down alternative media by going after their revenue sources. We know from filings that Media Matters took $1m from Soros a few years ago.
I have a feeling that the next 12 months is going to be very difficult for these companies, in the buildup to the election. On the other hand, there’s also organisations such as Public Square that have started up, recommending conservative businesses to the public and to each other. In the media space, there’s companies like Daily Wire throwing huge amounts of money at all sorts of random projects. DW now has 1m monthly subscribers, and annual revenue approaching $250m.
Oh, wow, straight to people being “very well funded” and Soros as a source of all evil?
He’s the Democrat version of the Koch brothers, willing to spend quite literally billions of dollars on politicians and political campaigns in the US over a period of decades.
It’s not controversial, that’s just how the US political system works, as much as it seems very weird to outsiders for presidential candidates to spend $1bn each in six months, and for every election down to the dog catcher (but mostly judges and DAs) to attract serious money to push a particular agenda.
Yes, that’s free speech. He can give his money to who he wants. Meanwhile, the US (and Hungarian) right have turned him into a hate figure, with lots of wink-wink conspiracy theories implied, lots of echoes of “Jews control the media”.
The problem obviously isn’t “Jews”, the problem is the likes of Soros, the Kochs, Murdoch, Gates et al controlling the media, and aggressively going after new media that doesn’t toe the line, telling lies to their advertisers and trying to deprive them of revenue. Hence the lawsuits.
I’m expecting it to get a lot worse in the next 12 months, with lots of pressure on large companies to not advertise on any platform that’s not considered mainstream.
I don't see anyone "aggressively going after new media that doesn't toe the line". I see people saying the obvious, that Nazis and antisemitism are commoner and commoner on Twitter. Soros does not control the media and his influence here is massively overstated. References to "Soros" by the US MAGA right are a dogwhistle referencing antisemitic conspiracy theories. See https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Final-George-Soros-Briefing.pdf
Also, I am always baffled why you, personally, go in to bat for a bunch of people who back Putin over Ukraine.
Today’s news isn’t about Twitter, it’s about Rumble.
Soros as an individual has been funding Democrats for decades, trying to call any criticism of him as an individual antisemitic is half of the problem. Just as it’s possible to critisise Netanyahu without being anti-Semitic, yet few on the left seem to manage it.
Soros has funded the campaigns of judges and district attorneys in the US, who now oversee record crime rates in cities, and see Trump and other conservatives dragged through courts for what in many cases are clearly politically motivated charges.
I’m not going into bat for a bunch of Putinists, I’m trying to provide some balance to the debate here on US politics by following loads of people on all sides of the debate. It’s clear that the US focus is now on China as the primary enemy, and that European governments are going to need to step up and fund NATO properly, rather than relying on the US. On that matter, Trump was right.
If Trump didn't want to be "dragged through courts" for fraud and insurrection, he shouldn't have committed fraud and insurrection.
Putin loving Rumble, is most definitely not the same as Rumble loving Putin.
The fact that a bunch of racist idiots try and use Soros’ name as a conspiracy theory, doesn’t mean that valid critisicm of that particular individual is racist.
Well, show me some valid criticism of Soros then. You just chucked his name in as if that proved Media Matters must be up to no good.
My criticism of Soros, is that he’s been funding campaigns for elected offices of people with whom I profoundly disagree.
For example, the DAs in San Francisco and Los Angeles who decided to effectively decriminalise shoplifting and vagrancy, and the DA in New York who campaigned on a platform of “Get Donald Trump”.
Yet you're a very keen fan of Musk.
Not at all, I’m just not someone who thinks of him as evil. The world would be better with more Elon Musks, but someone needs to take his phone off him when he’s on drugs.
Nah, you really are. I remember when you wanted a Hyperloop between Heathrow and Gatwick.
The world needs disruptors; people who take risks. But IMV (and this seems to be an increasingly common view), the negatives relating to Musk *far* outweigh the positives.
I've been on a journey with this: up to (say) 2012, I was really a fan of Musk, and I would favourably compare him to Brunel. Then came Vance's hagiography in 15 or 16, and his increasingly erratic behaviour. Then the Thai cave rescue happened five years ago, and the real Musk came to light. Since then, it's just got worse.
This is a man, it should be remembered, who lied about the death of his own child. If he lies about that for his own advantage, what else would he do?
We need fewer Musks, not more.
Why would a Hyperloop between LHR and LGW be a bad thing?
Are we going through this nonsense of everybody is off to Mastadon again...hows Threads doing these days, seems to have about as much popularity as Piers Morgan tv show.
Good point. Although I think Truth Social/Telegram provide the same functionality, unlike Bluesky/Mastodon. Neverthless a lot of people who leave Twitter come back. Zeihan's case is slightly different because he uses it to research and disseminate his stuff: the former is compromised by Muskery and the latter is not necessary
Enshittification is followed by high-value-users buggering off and founding their own communities. YouTube refuseniks are going to Nebula or Armchair History TV or that new gun one. Trump Twitniks went to Truth Social, Russians(?) went to Telegram. Threads/Mastodon didn't get traction because they were difficult to use(?). WhatsApp is its own thing.
We used to have megathings and now we don't: USENET went to newsgroups went to Geocities went to MySpace went to Facebook and fragmented to YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Nebula, Truth Social, stuff, stuff, more stuff. Each year things become more difficult to analyse and summarise.
Most of the people on services like Nebula are on YouTube and use their YouTube videos to drive traffic to Nebula.
I know. Bloody annoying. Mustard's latest stuff is on Nebula not YT, I think Potential History has stopped publishing new stuff on YouTube.
Some of it is also YouTube censorship. Particularly history videos can be very tricky because the automated system get twitchy when talking about Nazis, Hitler, etc.
Youtube has all sorts of problems this year, they’re trying to avoid politically extreme content, but are instead tripping up a lot of legitimate content. There’s also thought to be political campaigners mass flagging current political content in an attempt to get it taken down, even if only temporarily.
I noticed that Rumble are making similar claims like Musk that Media Matters have been setting up profiles and engineering them to get the Nazi post next to an ad by following only the extremists, liking the posts etc, and those accounts are literally the only account that saw such an interaction out of millions / billions of ad serves.
Its a bit like going into a strip club, throwing money around like it is going out of fashion, accepting an invite to the VIP room, then clutching your pearls when the stripper ask if you might be interested in extras.
There’s a number of these nonprofit groups in the US, who appear to be very well funded and are trying to take down alternative media by going after their revenue sources. We know from filings that Media Matters took $1m from Soros a few years ago.
I have a feeling that the next 12 months is going to be very difficult for these companies, in the buildup to the election. On the other hand, there’s also organisations such as Public Square that have started up, recommending conservative businesses to the public and to each other. In the media space, there’s companies like Daily Wire throwing huge amounts of money at all sorts of random projects. DW now has 1m monthly subscribers, and annual revenue approaching $250m.
Oh, wow, straight to people being “very well funded” and Soros as a source of all evil?
He’s the Democrat version of the Koch brothers, willing to spend quite literally billions of dollars on politicians and political campaigns in the US over a period of decades.
It’s not controversial, that’s just how the US political system works, as much as it seems very weird to outsiders for presidential candidates to spend $1bn each in six months, and for every election down to the dog catcher (but mostly judges and DAs) to attract serious money to push a particular agenda.
Yes, that’s free speech. He can give his money to who he wants. Meanwhile, the US (and Hungarian) right have turned him into a hate figure, with lots of wink-wink conspiracy theories implied, lots of echoes of “Jews control the media”.
The problem obviously isn’t “Jews”, the problem is the likes of Soros, the Kochs, Murdoch, Gates et al controlling the media, and aggressively going after new media that doesn’t toe the line, telling lies to their advertisers and trying to deprive them of revenue. Hence the lawsuits.
I’m expecting it to get a lot worse in the next 12 months, with lots of pressure on large companies to not advertise on any platform that’s not considered mainstream.
I don't see anyone "aggressively going after new media that doesn't toe the line". I see people saying the obvious, that Nazis and antisemitism are commoner and commoner on Twitter. Soros does not control the media and his influence here is massively overstated. References to "Soros" by the US MAGA right are a dogwhistle referencing antisemitic conspiracy theories. See https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Final-George-Soros-Briefing.pdf
Also, I am always baffled why you, personally, go in to bat for a bunch of people who back Putin over Ukraine.
Today’s news isn’t about Twitter, it’s about Rumble.
Soros as an individual has been funding Democrats for decades, trying to call any criticism of him as an individual antisemitic is half of the problem. Just as it’s possible to critisise Netanyahu without being anti-Semitic, yet few on the left seem to manage it.
Soros has funded the campaigns of judges and district attorneys in the US, who now oversee record crime rates in cities, and see Trump and other conservatives dragged through courts for what in many cases are clearly politically motivated charges.
I’m not going into bat for a bunch of Putinists, I’m trying to provide some balance to the debate here on US politics by following loads of people on all sides of the debate. It’s clear that the US focus is now on China as the primary enemy, and that European governments are going to need to step up and fund NATO properly, rather than relying on the US. On that matter, Trump was right.
If Trump didn't want to be "dragged through courts" for fraud and insurrection, he shouldn't have committed fraud and insurrection.
Putin loving Rumble, is most definitely not the same as Rumble loving Putin.
The fact that a bunch of racist idiots try and use Soros’ name as a conspiracy theory, doesn’t mean that valid critisicm of that particular individual is racist.
Well, show me some valid criticism of Soros then. You just chucked his name in as if that proved Media Matters must be up to no good.
My criticism of Soros, is that he’s been funding campaigns for elected offices of people with whom I profoundly disagree.
For example, the DAs in San Francisco and Los Angeles who decided to effectively decriminalise shoplifting and vagrancy, and the DA in New York who campaigned on a platform of “Get Donald Trump”.
Yet you're a very keen fan of Musk.
Not at all, I’m just not someone who thinks of him as evil. The world would be better with more Elon Musks, but someone needs to take his phone off him when he’s on drugs.
Nah, you really are. I remember when you wanted a Hyperloop between Heathrow and Gatwick.
The world needs disruptors; people who take risks. But IMV (and this seems to be an increasingly common view), the negatives relating to Musk *far* outweigh the positives.
I've been on a journey with this: up to (say) 2012, I was really a fan of Musk, and I would favourably compare him to Brunel. Then came Vance's hagiography in 15 or 16, and his increasingly erratic behaviour. Then the Thai cave rescue happened five years ago, and the real Musk came to light. Since then, it's just got worse.
This is a man, it should be remembered, who lied about the death of his own child. If he lies about that for his own advantage, what else would he do?
We need fewer Musks, not more.
Why would a Hyperloop between LHR and LGW be a bad thing?
Because even SpaceX have cut up their trial Hyperloop tube. It has always been a stupid idea.
It was a tech that Musk put forward to kill high-speed rail in the US. That was its purpose.
Hyperloop is a cr@p idea, and was not even original. It takes all the bad points of Maglev and adds an order of magnitude more difficulty. I'd *love* it not to be the case, but sadly, it is. You should look at what he promised, and what he delivered in Las Vegas...
Cyclefree - Thanks for identifying the "relevant Minister – Paul Boateng (a solicitor)". The Wikipedia biography of him doesn't mention the Post Office scandal, so I assume it didn't hurt his career.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on whether the scandal hurt his party, or just faith inthe UK government, generally. (And, yes, there is some betting relevance to those aspects.)
Cyclefree - Thanks for identifying the "relevant Minister – Paul Boateng (a solicitor)". The Wikipedia biography of him doesn't mention the Post Office scandal, so I assume it didn't hurt his career.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on whether the scandal hurt his party, or just faith inthe UK government, generally. (And, yes, there is some betting relevance to those aspects.)
Maybe I can answer for Ms Free?
One reason why I believe this scandal has not caught the public's imagination is that it is not Party Political in the normal and general sense of the phrase. It originates back in the days of Blair/Harman, and the perfectly reasonable desire to see the PO brought up to date, although as with much that TB initiated, the follow-through was sadly lacking.
The LDs cop it too. Paula Vennells was appointed by Vince Cable. Jo Swinson was the Minister responsible for the PO during a critical period and seems to have adopted the type of hands off approach that was characteristic of succeeding Governments right the way through to Boris Johnson's. (He must though be credited with authorising the Public Inquiry, whatever else one may say about him.) So you see, they've all had their mucky paws on it, or rather, they have all failed to take the kind of interest that a good owner should, especially once there are signs (and there were plenty) that something, somewhere, is going terribly wrong.
Nor can we expect Starmer to nail his colors to the mast. It is obvious that the current Government is in no hurry to see the Inquiry draw its conclusions. It is now very likely that the final report will be published after the GE. Any reasonable financial settlement is going to be very expensive indeed. Starmer will not want to be too gung-ho about justice for the Subpostmasters because it is very likely his mob that will have to write the cheques.
So there are no winners here in any political Party. Pehaps if there were, we would be hearing a damn sight more about it. And I see no betting angle too, except that the scandal tends to add a little to the miasma of doom and gloom hanging over the Tory Party as it awaits its fate.
Sitting Governments generally take the blame for everything, whatever the realities, as Labour and Starmer will no doubt discover from about next November.
Cyclefree - Thanks for identifying the "relevant Minister – Paul Boateng (a solicitor)". The Wikipedia biography of him doesn't mention the Post Office scandal, so I assume it didn't hurt his career.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on whether the scandal hurt his party, or just faith inthe UK government, generally. (And, yes, there is some betting relevance to those aspects.)
Maybe I can answer for Ms Free?
One reason why I believe this scandal has not caught the public's imagination is that it is not Party Political in the normal and general sense of the phrase. It originates back in the days of Blair/Harman, and the perfectly reasonable desire to see the PO brought up to date, although as with much that TB initiated, the follow-through was sadly lacking.
The LDs cop it too. Paula Vennells was appointed by Vince Cable. Jo Swinson was the Minister responsible for the PO during a critical period and seems to have adopted the type of hands off approach that was characteristic of succeeding Governments right the way through to Boris Johnson's. (He must though be credited with authorising the Public Inquiry, whatever else one may say about him.) So you see, they've all had their mucky paws on it, or rather, they have all failed to take the kind of interest that a good owner should, especially once there are signs (and there were plenty) that something, somewhere, is going terribly wrong.
Nor can we expect Starmer to nail his colors to the mast. It is obvious that the current Government is in no hurry to see the Inquiry draw its conclusions. It is now very likely that the final report will be published after the GE. Any reasonable financial settlement is going to be very expensive indeed. Starmer will not want to be too gung-ho about justice for the Subpostmasters because it is very likely his mob that will have to write the cheques.
So there are no winners here in any political Party. Pehaps if there were, we would be hearing a damn sight more about it. And I see no betting angle too, except that the scandal tends to add a little to the miasma of doom and gloom hanging over the Tory Party as it awaits its fate.
Sitting Governments generally take the blame for everything, whatever the realities, as Labour and Starmer will no doubt discover from about next November.
Edit: Oh, you mentioned Paul Boateng? I think he's just one of those blokes who would come up with a bar of chocolate if he fell down a sewer.
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https://youtu.be/TX9h558Tz1E?si=9EP5zR9AhMNazFuC
On the other hand - Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Twitter. All very useful companies.
The world needs disruptors; people who take risks. But IMV (and this seems to be an increasingly common view), the negatives relating to Musk *far* outweigh the positives.
I've been on a journey with this: up to (say) 2012, I was really a fan of Musk, and I would favourably compare him to Brunel. Then came Vance's hagiography in 15 or 16, and his increasingly erratic behaviour. Then the Thai cave rescue happened five years ago, and the real Musk came to light. Since then, it's just got worse.
This is a man, it should be remembered, who lied about the death of his own child. If he lies about that for his own advantage, what else would he do?
We need fewer Musks, not more.
NEW THREAD
It was a tech that Musk put forward to kill high-speed rail in the US. That was its purpose.
Hyperloop is a cr@p idea, and was not even original. It takes all the bad points of Maglev and adds an order of magnitude more difficulty. I'd *love* it not to be the case, but sadly, it is. You should look at what he promised, and what he delivered in Las Vegas...
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on whether the scandal hurt his party, or just faith inthe UK government, generally. (And, yes, there is some betting relevance to those aspects.)
One reason why I believe this scandal has not caught the public's imagination is that it is not Party Political in the normal and general sense of the phrase. It originates back in the days of Blair/Harman, and the perfectly reasonable desire to see the PO brought up to date, although as with much that TB initiated, the follow-through was sadly lacking.
The LDs cop it too. Paula Vennells was appointed by Vince Cable. Jo Swinson was the Minister responsible for the PO during a critical period and seems to have adopted the type of hands off approach that was characteristic of succeeding Governments right the way through to Boris Johnson's. (He must though be credited with authorising the Public Inquiry, whatever else one may say about him.) So you see, they've all had their mucky paws on it, or rather, they have all failed to take the kind of interest that a good owner should, especially once there are signs (and there were plenty) that something, somewhere, is going terribly wrong.
Nor can we expect Starmer to nail his colors to the mast. It is obvious that the current Government is in no hurry to see the Inquiry draw its conclusions. It is now very likely that the final report will be published after the GE. Any reasonable financial settlement is going to be very expensive indeed. Starmer will not want to be too gung-ho about justice for the Subpostmasters because it is very likely his mob that will have to write the cheques.
So there are no winners here in any political Party. Pehaps if there were, we would be hearing a damn sight more about it. And I see no betting angle too, except that the scandal tends to add a little to the miasma of doom and gloom hanging over the Tory Party as it awaits its fate.
Sitting Governments generally take the blame for everything, whatever the realities, as Labour and Starmer will no doubt discover from about next November.