Conservatives shouldn't trust Elon Musk

 I don't mean to tell conservatives how to be conservatives, but conservatism should at least stand for something other than "whatever liberals hate". Is the enemy of your enemy really your friend? Was Stalin a good person just because he fought Hitler at the same time America did?

Elon Musk was a Democrat right up until it was revealed that he was sleeping with his own employees. So he bought up Twitter and lifted the ban on multiple RWNJ's. He spent way more money on the deal than he could possibly make back through ad sales. This appears to make conservatives happy in part because it makes liberals mad.

As if it's an accomplishment to make liberals mad. It's not even hard. Liberals make each other mad all the time. I happen to be a liberal myself and I'm anticipating hatemail from other liberals over what I just typed.

What are Elon Musk's goals? He was already the richest man in the world, and then he lost over 100 billion this year. That doesn't matter to him, he has enough money that his grandkids can retire as soon as they are born. One measure of a man's morality is how he acts when he no longer has to care about his own needs. We don't need to hate him for being rich, but what is he doing with his money? He launched a car into space and bought a website of dubious value. I checked to see if he was funding any medical research. He is paying for brain chip implant research. 

So I'm pro-vaccine, but I guess I'm not sure about brain chip implants. Maybe I might warm up to them if a bunch of other people try them first. If you are anti-vaccine because you don't want stuff injected into your bloodstream, how do you feel about chips inside your skull?

I'm not even telling you to be anti-brain implant. I'm offering you information and letting you draw your own conclusion. Maybe brain implants might be a good thing if they let paralyzed people walk again or blind people see again. But it's also healthy to be skeptical about stuff designed to impact your brain directly. I'm not going to be the first to try this.

My overall impression of Elon Musk was shaped by watching him on Saturday Night Live last year. It seemed like he wanted to present himself as a cool nerd, a smart guy who solves problems. I wish I could believe that was the kind of guy that he is. But prior to the episode, he said he was going to make an important announcement about Dogecoin. Investors got excited and bought more Dogecoin, driving up the price. 

Here was the announcement that he made.

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That little skit caused people to lose faith in Dogecoin. So people lost money because of him. If he was holding Dogecoin and sold it prior to the SNL episode, we could say that he was running a scam. But if he didn't have any Dogecoin, then as far as I can tell, he played a prank just to hurt people. Since Musk already has all the money anyone could ever want, I'm leaning towards the hypothesis that he's a sadist rather than a scam artist. You can make your own decisions, of course.

Meme

Can't get to me here, can you Zuckerberg?

 

Unsolicited career advice for conservatives

 1. I think you should get vaccinated so as to prevent possible sickness and missed work. But  maybe you either disagree with the science, or you are trying to prove some kind of point. Maybe you actually do have a health issue in which vaccination is contraindicated. Moving on.

2. Try to acquire skills that let you work from home. Learning to code might be a place to start. Other ways to work from home include customer service, tech support, and social media specialist. Avoid any of that multi-level marketing crap.

3. If  you won't get vaccinated and you can't work from home, that means you'll have to work around other people. Maybe you have some sort of assurance that you can keep your current job for as long as you need it. But if that's not the case, then you should expect to be speaking with HR reps within the next couple years. Some employers, such as healthcare providers, will have vaccine requirements posted up front. Other employers might not say up front that they want you to be vaccinated, but they still might review any publicly viewable social media presence that you have. If they see antivax memes on your timeline, they might decide to choose a different candidate over you. Remember that vaccination is a personal choice. You wouldn't tell an HR rep that you like boxers over briefs, or that you had Skittles for breakfast instead of cereal. Yes, pro-vax people like me can be insufferable. We feel that vaccination is a matter of public health, so we made our decision public. You on the other hand, made a personal decision. Keep your personal decisions to yourself.

4. Conventional wisdom holds that if the economy is good during an election year, then the President usually gets re-elected. The pandemic and its unfortunate economic consequences no doubt played a role in Donald Trump's defeat in 2020. It stands to reason that if the economy is good in 2024, then Joe Biden will likely be re-elected. Pretending that somebody else is President might cause an employer to question your sanity.