It is my hope that in these pages on Substack your voice and the voices of other heroic writers and courageous people will be preserved and the history of these times will be recorded.
Perhaps Musk’s point is actually to break the alliance that follows trump. There are a lot of people in this country that fear everything that is not WASP. They are morally deficient but the human animal is messy and quite morally unevolved. I think that Musk’s fury with trump is so focused that he may believe that the best way to hurt him is to draw the alt right and the uneasy white away from trump.
The party Elon wants to start is simply a more extreme version of MAGA, at least in terms of Nazism and austerity (rich coming from the biggest recipient of govt handouts in history). Shouldn't we allow him to fracture the Republican party? Considering his record low popularity and the challenges that third parties face, his party won't amount to anything. And as for those who want to join Musk, let them out themselves and show their lack of moral character.
The lie of Musk's genius is second only to Trump's lie as a great businessman and populist. Any genius Musk had went bye-bye when he discovered ketamine. Let's allow him and his businesses to continue to self-destruct, and take the Republican party along for the ride.
As for moral clarity, I think everybody has already chosen their side. You're never gonna win an argument with a fascist. Boycott Twitter and Nazi Grok.
Thank you for publishing this important reminder that Musk is evil and presents a major threat to our democratic republic. We now have to fight him and MAGA, a two-front war.
Musk's appalling bot should disabuse us of the notion that there can be an unbiased "AI". Any LLM is going to return some combination of (a) the average content in its training set and (b) what it infers the user wants to hear.
The idea of a neutral AI is just the same as the "view from nowhere" ideology that has led US media to treat Trump and his various Democratic opponents as equally good or bad. Since each has the support of about half of Americans, the correct position implicit in journalistic "balance" must be somewhere between the two. The same point applies to AI
Let’s say we had five parties and each had 20% of the population approximately …. You would need thee of the parties to agree on a topic for it to go anywhere. I’m liking those odds actually. I think 3 of the parties would represent decent people of differing viewpoints who could use reason to decide on real issues and priorities. While the other two argued incessantly about things that don’t matter widely.
Ah yes, the age of the enlightened overlord who thinks empathy is a bug and Hitler had leadership potential. Truly, what better time to start a political party than right after your chatbot suggests genocide with algorithmic confidence?
This isn't about "removing filters" or letting AI "speak freely." It's about engineering a machine to reflect a worldview where compassion is weakness, cruelty is clarity, and history's worst ideas are just another checkbox in the settings menu.
Joining Musk's movement now is like jumping into a lifeboat with a hole in it because you're bored of the cruise ship. You're not escaping the system. You're sinking the idea that any system should be grounded in decency.
Let’s stop pretending this is complicated. If your messiah builds a Nazi AI and you still think he’s going to save democracy, you don’t need a new party. You need a functioning conscience.
The test is simple. The results are public. Choose accordingly.
Quote Investigator on historical commentary on how fascism would come to the United States, and various observations on how it would come draped in "Americanism", the flag, and religion (most likely Protestant Christianity, given the historical anti-Catholicism of the United States).
Mike, I agree with the point you're making, but this part bothers me a bit:
"Anyone who joins Musk’s political movement after this revelation"
Why after *this* revelation, in particular? What makes *this* revelation more revelatory than last year when he endorsed great replacement theory, or this past January when he did a nazi salute on stage, or, hell, the last time he monkeyed with Grok's settings to make it push racist conspiracy theories, two months ago?
I feel like every couple of months there's a spate of "anyone who supports Musk after *this*" takes, and...we're way, *way* past the first *this*.
I'm not saying this isn't newsworthy, and I'm not saying we shouldn't condemn Musk for it. But it's not revelatory. It doesn't tell us anything about the man that we didn't already know. And behaving as if this was some unique, crossing-the-Rubicon moment is, itself, a sign of the collapse of moral consequence, because Musk keeps doing this kind of thing and people keep reporting it as if they've forgotten all the other times he did it.
And I know you haven't forgotten. I know you know all this; you acknowledge in your piece that this "is not exactly an isolated incident."
But I feel like your tone, your "after this revelation" take, makes it seem like this is a unique moment of insight into Musk the likes of which we haven't had before, and it just isn't. Musk is a nazi. He says and does nazi shit. This is the latest of many, many examples; it's not a revelation, it's just one more example to throw on the pile.
I'm not saying we should normalize it or treat it as anything less than disgusting and disqualifying. I'm not saying we shouldn't treat it as the outrage that it is. But I'm saying we should treat it as the latest outrage in a series of outrages; it's not a one-off, it's part of a pattern, and the pattern is more outrageous than any individual incident.
Okay, call me stupid. I don't understand why no liberal or progressive candidate could run in Musk's "American Party". I think it would be a perfect opportunity to fight down and dirty like republicans do, by using Musk's own funding to turn the tables on him and his ilk. Seems like situational ethics to me, by liberal-minded voters who continue to feed the beast (the profit mongers) with their labor and dollars, but draw their strong lines around funding so-called corporatist candidates and party leaders. If I'm wrong, then why aren't they all jumping to participate in a general strike or nation-wide walkout? Humans are so confusing 🙄
Your writing is so brilliant and important but I wish there was a way you could share more with less educated people. Perhaps take these brilliant articles and rewrite them using AI to 6th grade level. That is the most readable level for reviews, mission statements and other marketing materials. Trump uses three words to describe his stuff - so maybe coin a slogan… I need to think about what that could be. Kindness over cruelty?
It is my hope that in these pages on Substack your voice and the voices of other heroic writers and courageous people will be preserved and the history of these times will be recorded.
Yes, indeed Rosanne. My hope as well❤️
Perhaps Musk’s point is actually to break the alliance that follows trump. There are a lot of people in this country that fear everything that is not WASP. They are morally deficient but the human animal is messy and quite morally unevolved. I think that Musk’s fury with trump is so focused that he may believe that the best way to hurt him is to draw the alt right and the uneasy white away from trump.
The party Elon wants to start is simply a more extreme version of MAGA, at least in terms of Nazism and austerity (rich coming from the biggest recipient of govt handouts in history). Shouldn't we allow him to fracture the Republican party? Considering his record low popularity and the challenges that third parties face, his party won't amount to anything. And as for those who want to join Musk, let them out themselves and show their lack of moral character.
The lie of Musk's genius is second only to Trump's lie as a great businessman and populist. Any genius Musk had went bye-bye when he discovered ketamine. Let's allow him and his businesses to continue to self-destruct, and take the Republican party along for the ride.
As for moral clarity, I think everybody has already chosen their side. You're never gonna win an argument with a fascist. Boycott Twitter and Nazi Grok.
Thank you for publishing this important reminder that Musk is evil and presents a major threat to our democratic republic. We now have to fight him and MAGA, a two-front war.
Musk's appalling bot should disabuse us of the notion that there can be an unbiased "AI". Any LLM is going to return some combination of (a) the average content in its training set and (b) what it infers the user wants to hear.
The idea of a neutral AI is just the same as the "view from nowhere" ideology that has led US media to treat Trump and his various Democratic opponents as equally good or bad. Since each has the support of about half of Americans, the correct position implicit in journalistic "balance" must be somewhere between the two. The same point applies to AI
Let’s say we had five parties and each had 20% of the population approximately …. You would need thee of the parties to agree on a topic for it to go anywhere. I’m liking those odds actually. I think 3 of the parties would represent decent people of differing viewpoints who could use reason to decide on real issues and priorities. While the other two argued incessantly about things that don’t matter widely.
Ah yes, the age of the enlightened overlord who thinks empathy is a bug and Hitler had leadership potential. Truly, what better time to start a political party than right after your chatbot suggests genocide with algorithmic confidence?
This isn't about "removing filters" or letting AI "speak freely." It's about engineering a machine to reflect a worldview where compassion is weakness, cruelty is clarity, and history's worst ideas are just another checkbox in the settings menu.
Joining Musk's movement now is like jumping into a lifeboat with a hole in it because you're bored of the cruise ship. You're not escaping the system. You're sinking the idea that any system should be grounded in decency.
Let’s stop pretending this is complicated. If your messiah builds a Nazi AI and you still think he’s going to save democracy, you don’t need a new party. You need a functioning conscience.
The test is simple. The results are public. Choose accordingly.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/07/28/flag/
Quote Investigator on historical commentary on how fascism would come to the United States, and various observations on how it would come draped in "Americanism", the flag, and religion (most likely Protestant Christianity, given the historical anti-Catholicism of the United States).
I know you wanted to focus in on the Grok stuff, but there's a bunch more we could talk about:
https://open.substack.com/pub/brainsmatter/p/why-elon-musk-is-an-ayn-rand-villain?r=1tjpzi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Mike, I agree with the point you're making, but this part bothers me a bit:
"Anyone who joins Musk’s political movement after this revelation"
Why after *this* revelation, in particular? What makes *this* revelation more revelatory than last year when he endorsed great replacement theory, or this past January when he did a nazi salute on stage, or, hell, the last time he monkeyed with Grok's settings to make it push racist conspiracy theories, two months ago?
I feel like every couple of months there's a spate of "anyone who supports Musk after *this*" takes, and...we're way, *way* past the first *this*.
I'm not saying this isn't newsworthy, and I'm not saying we shouldn't condemn Musk for it. But it's not revelatory. It doesn't tell us anything about the man that we didn't already know. And behaving as if this was some unique, crossing-the-Rubicon moment is, itself, a sign of the collapse of moral consequence, because Musk keeps doing this kind of thing and people keep reporting it as if they've forgotten all the other times he did it.
And I know you haven't forgotten. I know you know all this; you acknowledge in your piece that this "is not exactly an isolated incident."
But I feel like your tone, your "after this revelation" take, makes it seem like this is a unique moment of insight into Musk the likes of which we haven't had before, and it just isn't. Musk is a nazi. He says and does nazi shit. This is the latest of many, many examples; it's not a revelation, it's just one more example to throw on the pile.
I'm not saying we should normalize it or treat it as anything less than disgusting and disqualifying. I'm not saying we shouldn't treat it as the outrage that it is. But I'm saying we should treat it as the latest outrage in a series of outrages; it's not a one-off, it's part of a pattern, and the pattern is more outrageous than any individual incident.
I agree with you, but it's kind of beside the point I'm making.
Okay, call me stupid. I don't understand why no liberal or progressive candidate could run in Musk's "American Party". I think it would be a perfect opportunity to fight down and dirty like republicans do, by using Musk's own funding to turn the tables on him and his ilk. Seems like situational ethics to me, by liberal-minded voters who continue to feed the beast (the profit mongers) with their labor and dollars, but draw their strong lines around funding so-called corporatist candidates and party leaders. If I'm wrong, then why aren't they all jumping to participate in a general strike or nation-wide walkout? Humans are so confusing 🙄
Your writing is so brilliant and important but I wish there was a way you could share more with less educated people. Perhaps take these brilliant articles and rewrite them using AI to 6th grade level. That is the most readable level for reviews, mission statements and other marketing materials. Trump uses three words to describe his stuff - so maybe coin a slogan… I need to think about what that could be. Kindness over cruelty?