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PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   29190 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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Musk seems determined to go full John Galt here so there's a double-digit chance he'll end up in jail, X will be banned in the U.S., and Starlink will be given to "reliable people" to run.

He's not Galt. He's Rearden.

Musk seems determined to go full John Galt

I'd say it's less that Musk is going full John Galt, and more that the western world is devolving into every bit the dystopia Atlas Shrugged depicts, ham fisted and almost comically stupid as it may be.

There is also a small but non zero chance he pulls a Uno reverse card and does just that to the US government. Which in itself is kinda amazing.

I'm sure top men are scouring through out treaty obligations with Brazil as we speak to see if there's something to pin him on.

Oh, sorry if my comment was meant to imply that this incident will land him in jail. Of course it won't.

The way he could end up in jail is lawfare in the U.S.. If they can do it to Trump, they can do it to him. He seems to be pissing off a lot of powerful people.

I see no chance Musk will end up in jail. At the point they would be jailing Musk it would be easier and neater just to liquidate him for a lot of reasons.

For Musk to end up in jail, powerful people need merely to stand back and let overzealous prosecutors do their work. Trump's legal farce in New York proved that.

I mean yeah but all those same powerful people would need to do to kill him is shoot him with a gun.(Not them personally obviously but you get the point) That's 10x easier than the trail playing out and can't be undone or reversed by anyone.

But lawfare doesn't really require any explicitly nefarious or illegal action the way murder does—all you need is a willing prosecutor, something plausible, and a jurisdiction where you can get a jury that agrees with you.

yeah but lawfare is a tiresome,public tedious and long running gamble and gives your opponent time to respond and react. A bullet to the head is none of those things.

Not everyone is as willing to transgress all bounds as you seem to be.

I think prison is more likely than murder because of the psychology of the perps. These were the kids who told teacher, not kids that started fights. They enjoy watching Authority punish their victims while taking a victory lap about how they made it happen. You can see this from all their published fantasies about Trump and Musk getting raped in prison.

Just having victims quietly murdered doesn't satisfy that sort of sadism. It needs to be public and identifiable as their handywork for them to enjoy it.

The "quietly disappear an inconvenience" crowd are much more professional and not driven by the same kind of narcissistic pathologies. And I suspect musk and thiel have taken steps to be indispensable assets to them: launching spy satellites and whatever spook-contracting Thiel is up to tends to help there.

Just having victims quietly murdered doesn't satisfy that sort of sadism. It needs to be public and identifiable as their handywork for them to enjoy it.

Quietly murdered, sure, but terrorists who'll shoot somebody while posting a 10,000-word manifesto are also a thing and that side of the aisle isn't devoid of them.

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