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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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So in the span of 8 days: trump assassination attempt, Cloudstrike, and now the presumptive democratic nominee steps down, a first in decades. I think you'd have to go as far back as LBJ the last time this happened. The big winner is Elon Musk and twitter by putting himself center in the media spectacle. In hindsight, it looks like his purchase will pay off as the news cycle continues to intensify and twitter surges in use.

MAU aren’t even up that much.

Twitter has done to traditional news media what TikTok has done to traditional entertainment.

Twitter is just way more addictive and informative than watching CNN or reading the NYT or whatever. I'm not sure it's good for the world, but Twitter will continue to eat away at news media's ratings/circulation. Why would I want to read yesterday's news written by biased journalists when I have the world on my phone right now?

It's hard not to see this as another massive win for Elon. The doubters were all wrong.

He still overpaid at least couple of billion more than needed.

What price can you put on being the most powerful man in the world? At a minimum number 2.

He toppled an Empire with the purchase. And it’s not like he needs more money.

Can you really put a price on being the only American citizen to whom the First Amendment meaningfully applies, though?

I'm not gonna believe this until he posts a tweet containing the word "nigger".

"So what, are you saying I'll be able to say the n-word on the Internet?"

"No. I'm saying that once you're ready, you won't have to."

Maybe. Keep in mind that at first the left was united against him buying it.

Then when he threatened to back out, they said “no you have to buy it”.

When he eventually did buy it, the left thought they had struck a great blow against him. Otherwise there’s a good chance that lawfare would have got in his way.

Some will say it’s not 4D chess just dumb luck. But isn’t it weird how the same guy just keeps being phenomenally, impossibly, successful at multiple different things?

But isn’t it weird how the same guy just keeps being phenomenally, impossibly, successful at multiple different things?

If there is any human being on earth who I might believe is actually playing some form of 4D chess at this point it'd be Elon.

The only other explanation is that he is actually from outside the simulation and has access to the in-game console.

elon is one of those people who can make anything work