Twitter and the limits of free enterprise

[chewybrian]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

[Pattern-chaser]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

Billionaires should not exist.

No, I don't think any individual should be permitted to exercise this amount of power.

I think what Musk has done is a colossal act of egotism, perhaps to defend the sacred freedom of speech that is so heavily protected by your Constitution?

[GE Morton]

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

Whether the changes will be good for customers and stockholders remains to be seen. But Musk has no duties to benefit employees (beyond whatever is included in their employment contracts) or "humanity."

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!).

Musk has no "power" over you. He only has "power" over his own property, just as you do. Twitter is not a public service, its servers are not public property and no one other than the company's stockholders have any rights to use them. Unlike governments, Musk's "powers" do not extend to seizing your property, imprisoning you, enslaving you, or hanging you --- which are the only sorts of "powers" in which you and I have any legitimate concern.

[Sculptor1]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

Gosh you sound like a socialist.

[Sculptor1]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

Billionaires should not exist.

No, I don't think any individual should be permitted to exercise this amount of power.

I think what Musk has done is a colossal act of egotism, perhaps to defend the sacred freedom of speech that is so heavily protected by your Constitution?

Musk cares nothing for free speech and has acted to shut it down for those he spout ideas he does not like.

[IKnowNothing]

Twitter, Facebook and most other social media platforms are just propaganda tools to influence masses opinions.
Their obvious bias in the last years proved they were nothing but a trumpet for corrupt governments.
Private or public ownership makes little difference when they are submissive to external interests.
I would rather trust a platform with its sole interest being the generation of profit instead of one with a hidden mission.

[chewybrian]

Twitter, Facebook and most other social media platforms are just propaganda tools to influence masses opinions.
Their obvious bias in the last years proved they were nothing but a trumpet for corrupt governments.
Private or public ownership makes little difference when they are submissive to external interests.
I would rather trust a platform with its sole interest being the generation of profit instead of one with a hidden mission.

I certainly see that foreign governments and wealthy individuals have an agenda that they pursue by many means, including theses sites. However, I'm not so sure that the past owners of facebook or twitter had some hidden agenda. I presume they just wanted to make as much money as possible, meaning they willingly turned a blind eye to those users that did have an agenda. Musk clearly does have an agenda, as evidenced by his allowing Trump to return.

Wikipedia seems like one of the few trustworthy sources out there, and maybe it is time for a twitopedia to emerge, where advertising would not have influence, and the users were compelled to seek the truth and call out lies. Not many people seem to care these days, though, as they'd rather find lies that match their prejudices and opinions rather than truth that conflicts with such preconceptions.

[chewybrian]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

Gosh you sound like a socialist.

If you mean the European brand of socialism, meaning capitalism with taxes for the wealthy, health care for all, public transportation and such, then I will take that as a compliment. If you mean something else, then you have a wrong idea of what I want.

We should allow people to be free for the most part, but there have to be limits, and they change over time. You are no longer free to take a box cutter on a plane, and that is a good limitation on our freedoms in order to protect us. Perhaps the kind of destruction Elon is causing should cause us to change some of the rules of what a CEO can and cannot do. In other companies, the board would have (presumably) called an emergency meeting, fired Musk and undone a lot of the damage he has done by hiring back the laid off workers and calming the tone and recreating the culture they had before Musk. In this case, he has no such check valve and the cost to the stakeholders is not worth bearing for the excessive freedom of one man.

[chewybrian]

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

Whether the changes will be good for customers and stockholders remains to be seen. But Musk has no duties to benefit employees (beyond whatever is included in their employment contracts) or "humanity."

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!).

Musk has no "power" over you. He only has "power" over his own property, just as you do. Twitter is not a public service, its servers are not public property and no one other than the company's stockholders have any rights to use them. Unlike governments, Musk's "powers" do not extend to seizing your property, imprisoning you, enslaving you, or hanging you --- which are the only sorts of "powers" in which you and I have any legitimate concern.

Of course Musk has power over me. He could give me a million dollars or waste it by shooting Captain Kirk out into space. Money is power!

Of course Musk has duties to me and all of mankind. He has a duty to be fair and kind and just. We all have these duties and they transcend laws and governments. If you act unjustly, it doesn't matter if you get hung or get a dirty look or if nobody notices or nobody cares, or if they cheer you on and then storm the capital. You have still acted unjustly and failed in a duty to others.

I knew exactly what your answer would be before reading it. You conflate law with morality and your theoretical system with reality. You've never been swayed by any argument that seems to be in conflict with these ideas and you seem to have folded your arms and decided that you need not consider new ideas or try to improve. In short, you don't seem to be trying to "do" philosophy at all.

This is not some 'ad hominem' attack, because I am not in a high school debate class, and I don't care to win or lose the argument. Go ahead and declare victory. I am only being honest about what I see in your words. They make me sad. I know that these ideas motivate a few people and they are used to control many others. I know I'll never sway you, but I feel compelled to protest against your ideas lest one other person is swayed by them without seeing them countered. However, I really wish you would just ignore me, as the conversation is always repetitive and tedious and unproductive.

[Sculptor1]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

Gosh you sound like a socialist.

If you mean the European brand of socialism, meaning capitalism with taxes for the wealthy, health care for all, public transportation and such, then I will take that as a compliment. If you mean something else, then you have a wrong idea of what I want.

That's pretty much what socialism has always been.
It's just that the US establishment has turned it into something horrific to scare the children.
And to send boys into the meat grinder that was \Vietnam; Korea, and other places to protect the profits of the rich.

We should allow people to be free for the most part, but there have to be limits, and they change over time. You are no longer free to take a box cutter on a plane, and that is a good limitation on our freedoms in order to protect us. Perhaps the kind of destruction Elon is causing should cause us to change some of the rules of what a CEO can and cannot do. In other companies, the board would have (presumably) called an emergency meeting, fired Musk and undone a lot of the damage he has done by hiring back the laid off workers and calming the tone and recreating the culture they had before Musk. In this case, he has no such check valve and the cost to the stakeholders is not worth bearing for the excessive freedom of one man.

[GE Morton]

Musk cares nothing for free speech and has acted to shut it down for those he spout ideas he does not like.

You apparently misunderstand the meaning of "free speech." It refers to the absence of suppression of speech or restrictions on speech imposed by governments. Neither Musk nor anyone else has any duty to allow free speech on his property; he may set any conditions for its use he pleases --- just as you may do with your property.

[Sculptor1]

Musk cares nothing for free speech and has acted to shut it down for those he spout ideas he does not like.

You apparently misunderstand the meaning of "free speech." It refers to the absence of suppression of speech or restrictions on speech imposed by governments. Neither Musk nor anyone else has any duty to allow free speech on his property; he may set any conditions for its use he pleases --- just as you may do with your property.

Nothing here implies that I lack knowledge of the definition of free speech.
You are being ridiculous again.

[GE Morton]

Of course Musk has power over me. He could give me a million dollars or waste it by shooting Captain Kirk out into space. Money is power!

Anyone could give you a million dollars. Or 5 dollars. So everyone who could possibly give you money has "power" over you? And in what sense does shooting Kirk into space represent "power" over you? What effects does that have on you?

You have, apparently, adopted that strange lefty definition of "power."

Of course Musk has duties to me and all of mankind. He has a duty to be fair and kind and just.

Of course --- but not per the lefty definitions of "fair," "just," and "kind," which gratuitously entail material equality, charity, and communalism.

We all have these duties and they transcend laws and governments. If you act unjustly, it doesn't matter if you get hung or get a dirty look or if nobody notices or nobody cares, or if they cheer you on and then storm the capital. You have still acted unjustly and failed in a duty to others.

I agree. You act unjustly when you fail to deliver what another person is due, what he has earned or otherwise merits, and when you inflict losses or injuries on other persons, or violate their natural rights. You have no duties, however, to serve or support anyone else, unless per some contract or agreement into which you've freely entered. Neither Musk nor anyone else has any duty to supply an internet forum to anyone.

You've never been swayed by any argument that seems to be in conflict with these ideas and you seem to have folded your arms and decided that you need not consider new ideas or try to improve. In short, you don't seem to be trying to "do" philosophy at all.

I've actually seen no actual arguments from you supporting those "ideas." Only expressions of sentiments. If you have an argument supporting the "duties" you think Musk has, please set it forth.

However, I really wish you would just ignore me, as the conversation is always repetitive and tedious and unproductive.

Yes, it is. You are firmly entrenched in the "organic fallacy" --- a badly mistaken, archaic conception of the nature and structure of modern societies --- which leads you to expectations that are wholly unrealistic and unworkable.

[chewybrian]

However, I really wish you would just ignore me, as the conversation is always repetitive and tedious and unproductive.

Yes, it is. You are firmly entrenched in the "organic fallacy" --- a badly mistaken, archaic conception of the nature and structure of modern societies --- which leads you to expectations that are wholly unrealistic and unworkable.

And...you are stuck in your own loop. For the hundredth time, you conflate morality and legality. Nobody will arrest you because you don't hold the door open for the lady with her hands full of groceries, but you are something less than human if you don't. I don't believe that society has any particular traits. I think PEOPLE do.

I think people need to learn that being good is better for them and for society. In the end, our life only amounts to the good we can do for others and the state of the world and society that we leave behind for the next generation. Elon and the rest are just Pharaohs building pyramids and wasting everyone else's time, resources and very lives with their trivial pursuits that amount to nothing. To enable or glorify their pursuits is bad form.

I'm not calling for the guillotine for Musk and the like, just a little fair play, like paying taxes and paying the rest of society back, in small measure, for enabling them to become so obscenely rich. You, however are calling for the polar opposite of the guillotine, wishing to grease the rails for a return to full on feudalism. Humanity will go backwards under those terms, if we are not already.

[ernestm]

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ip-2022-11

This is a wild but sad story that seems to be getting worse by the minute. Musk (eventually) bought Twitter and then fired thousands of employees and threatened the rest such that now many key employees are choosing severance pay over the idea of working in his shadow. He seemed to think he could intimidate everyone into working double time in order to boost profits, and this strategy has clearly backfired on him to the most spectacular extent imaginable (he is on record as saying the company may go bankrupt, though he was willing to buy it for something like 40 billion just weeks ago!).

I think it is clear that these developments have not been good for customers, employees, the company or the rest of humanity. It looks like he's destroyed billions in equity and disrupted thousands of lives for nothing but perhaps ego.

So, the question is, should we ever let someone have this much unchecked power? We have all sorts of checks and balances in government (the wisdom of these safeguards has been made crystal clear in recent years!). So, why do we not have some sort of check on the power of the uber-wealthy? Why do we just assume that he has the 'right' to cause so much destruction just because he is already wealthy? Perhaps this incident could shine a light on the need for some safeguards. I'm not sure what they could or should be. Further, I have no hope that they are coming soon, as we don't even make the wealthy pay taxes or follow many laws. Still, if we could reign them in a bit, should we, and how would you say we should proceed (just pretending that we would)?

As a retired Oracle executive, I can share the horrid truth of it all. My involvement in Twitter was actually a long time ago. I suggesting to one if its founders a social-media platform that exploits a short-message limit for more efficient inter-server communication. At the time he was working for Macromedia. The President of Oracle, heard my idea from his assistant, and called the guy to say he'd fund it. Thus Twitter was born. I was not assigned to the Oracle server team for Twitter, I worked on Netflix and Comcast Xfinity instead. But I talked with some older colleagues about it, and they couldn't agree with me more emphatically, lol.

So here is Twitter’s problem. The way it happens is, companies are strapped for cash until they go public, for which they need something deployed. So they deploy complete garbage on the back end, and polish the front end interface because that's what people see. Then it's impossible to replace all at once, because the hardware replacement and server rewrite would take years, during which there has to be quarterly profits.
~
So some project starts up to fix the servers. Then an internal fight ALWAYS springs up. Someone manages to replace the guy in charge and says everything his predecessor did was wrong. They start replacing the replacement. And that carries on happening until there is nothing left but a hodgepodge of bug patches and decrepit servers held together with toothpicks. Fixing any breakdown at all is 100x more expensive than it was at the beginning. Most of it is still on Sun Solaris machines and Sun's been out of business for over a decade. It's old, VERY slow, and the code can't be directly ported to new servers. They have to build 'virtual shells' to hold the old code, which makes the newer servers slower than the old ones.
~
Or course, no one reveals that outside the company. Their heads are on the line. They buy some new servers and put them in front. That's what people see. No one says the new ones aren't actually on the external network yet, because they'd have to run the old code in virtual shells and would be slower. They use the new ones for internal code development of a platform replacement, so they don't have to twiddle their thumbs so long. They don't want to lose THAT, always hoping their code development doesn't get canceled by the next manager. But due to management changes, the new code development just goes on forever. It never finishes.
~
So the developers just show the server rooms with the old cantankerous machines in the rear racks, and no one wants to say those are the old ones actually serving customers, until one breaks down, and they have to lose one of their new code development servers to replace it.
~
I feel really bad for Musk, and I totally know why he went nuts firing people, lol, it's really not a surprising reaction. So now he wants to hire people who will actually fix it. If my health was better, I would go help out, but people like me who really know the game have already been worn out by at least one heart attack from overwork, or have other problems. So it's going to be someone else's turn. Sigh.