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Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

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Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#121
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CNN 2 minute video chopping up what he says to make it sound more grand is not him being a "showman". It's called video editing. You can tell the video has been HIGHLY edited because it's not how he talks. > it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI This is h…

The point is, building tunnels underground for personal transport vehicles as a "solution" to traffic is a terrible idea, and something only a showman can sell. Even if he has an awkward 2 hour speech about it, he succeeded as a showman because Vegas funded this terrible idea (just look how it ended up).

So Musk moved the Monorail underground... Isn't Mars' atmosphere already a hyperloop?

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on if he follows through on what he is proposing, which seems to be to allow for disinformation and hate speech. If that turns out to not be the case, then I might reconsider.

Yes. The current information coming from Twatter is is perfectly accurate.

So making it far worse is a good plan?

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#123
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, building tunnels underground for personal transport vehicles as a "solution" to traffic is a terrible idea, and something only a showman can sell. Even if he has an awkward 2 hour speech about it, he succeeded as a showman because Vegas funded this terrible idea (just look how it ended up).

> The point is, building tunnels underground for personal transport vehicles as a "solution" to traffic is a terrible idea, and something only a showman can sell. The fundamental point of boring company is to reduce the cost of underground boring. Shoving cars through tunnels is a means to an end of reducing the cost of underground boring. It's about finding a path to make some kind, any kind, of money off of boring…

So, like subways? Or every single road and train tunnel anywhere on the planet so far?

Moving transportation underground is such revolutionary idea that it exists for a century by now.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also a simplification to highlight his achievements without also acknowledging that he doesn’t seem to be a very moral or stable person. Some of the criticism of his behavior is clearly sour grapes that he doesn’t act “properly” for a billionaire, but there are also many examples of him being a bad person a la Steve Jobs. We tolerate the characteristics because of the perceived value, but it would also be nice…

> Some of the criticism of his behavior is clearly sour grapes that he doesn’t act “properly” for a billionaire, but there are also many examples of him being a bad person a la Steve Jobs. If we can get a massively successful revolutionary business like SpaceX without someone like Steve Jobs I'd love it. But so far the sample size is small and there aren't any countering examples. History has thus far shown that you…

SpaceX is impressive, no doubt about that. But all we got from it so far is, maybe, cheaper orbital launches. Even without SpaceX we would get stuff into space, we did before already so.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#125

If Musk acquires Twitter, I will likely be deleting my account. Am I the only one? Would his acquisition spell the beginning of the end for Twitter?

I think I'll be creating one (having deleted mine ages ago).

That would make Twitter the only big tech company with free speech as a core issue.

Nowadays even small tech like DuckDuckGo is actively cherry picking which propaganda to display.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downvotes in response to my question seems to imply a lot of people think a Musk acquisition would be a good thing. Maybe list some of the reasons why?

Free speech, A truer town square to debate important issues, Remove bots, add new features, a fresh take on how to raise profits, better management, and he even mentioned building a homeless shelter in their HQ.

We're back to believing Elon's promises because...?

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#128

The cost to code and market a Twitter clone would be a tiny fraction of $45b. If the existing Twitter is so bad that Elon needs to buy it and save it, then the value of the userbase is low - particulary considering that the time cost for a user to switch is much lower than say a Myspace to FB shift. I am assuming that Elon is not this much of a dumbass - what am I missing here?

> The cost to code and market a Twitter clone would be a tiny fraction of $45b. No it wouldn't. Literally tons of people would do it and plenty of competitors have tried or are trying. Per the value of the userbase and the cost of switching: well look at some of the competitors I mentioned, the ones Joe Rogan and others flock too when they get a temporary Twitter ban, do they not return immediately after their ban is…

This argument is double edged. If on the one hand you argue that the free speech twitter clones are uncompelling, you have to also agree that the proposed features are inconsequential, no? What's the point of Elon shaking things up?

I also think its odd to mix altruistic ideas like free speech platforms with profitable network effects. If it's just about speech, why can't such a platform co-exist with Twitter? Why does it need to overtake Twitter?

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#129

If Musk acquires Twitter, I will likely be deleting my account. Am I the only one? Would his acquisition spell the beginning of the end for Twitter?

As long as he follows through with the idea of a more open platform, with reduced censorship of unpopular people and ideas, I'd create an account. It would be a hopeful sign that freedom of expression isn't on a death march. And not that it would be easy, but I'd probably end up listening more often to people I disagree with.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. Somehow people still think he’s just a showman. At some point in time, accomplishments can’t be explained away

> Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. You don’t have to imagine. It literally already happened once when he claimed he had funding secured to take Tesla private. As such, if you can’t imagine him not having funding secured this time, you’re severely lacking in imagination.

Yes, relying on the word of Saudi Arabia without a written agreement was pretty dumb. Especially for 70B.

This time the plan seems to have better foundations.

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