I would say his pivot to culture wars is in part because he wants to distract people from his promises. I don't think there is much more he can offer in the name of perverted progress. He already has his hands in spacex, hyperloop (RIP), neuralink, his garbage LLM called grok. Even the most highlighted promise of his, electric vehicles, has been a failure in both quality and proliferation. So he has turned into a kkklansman pope hide the fact that he is a huckster.
Grok's woke!
He has maintained his interest in THE CYBERPUNKERINOS by way of torturing and killing animals in unregulated Mengele-like "experiments." Maybe he sees some escape fantasy potential in that, because being one of the richest assholes in the world apparently still needs to be escaped from.
He's a leaky bucket. He'll never be satisfied. He'll destroy everything and everyone he can all for more, more, more.
He has maintained his interest in THE CYBERPUNKERINOS
It's not unlike being superficially fascinated with "the Expanse" because of course he fancies himself an immortal oligarch in the setting.
I always wondered why Amazon picked up the show, but that'd make sense. I don't remember if immortality/an extremely long life was possible within that universe, though.
It is kinda. Saying how or why would spoil the series, it's not really a good thing though
The average human on earth in the expanse can live to a hundred and thirty quite comfortably, the rich and the martians considerably longer and in more comfort.
sometimes at night, i look at the stars in the sky; thinking about all the unexplored habitable planets out there and the to be horrific deaths in the space mining industry because the space capitalists didn't have to pay attention to OHSA in international space
Part of what made me hate E~L~O~N's particular brand of grifting was that it touched something near and dear to me: my lifelong yearning to explore the stars, to see what's out there, with curiosity and wonder in my young heart.
That's right. I wanted the space treats. I was the target audience for the space treats. But this wasn't Star Trek that that disgusting carnival barker was offering: it was a spoiled brat fanboy's misreading of Star Trek (among many other things) taken as gospel, privatized and made for-profit in a vomitous melange with all the other consumer treats he mixed it with while devouring it thoughtlessly with only a surface level liking of the visuals and the pew pew noises.
Yes, it's personal for me. Peddling dreams to people under grotesque false pretenses hurts me in my soul.
Another classic UlyssesT rant
Yes, it was, and one from my heart.
I used to be pretty big into what is now called "futurology" so it stings for me.
I have hope that capitalism will destroy us all before we infect the wider galaxy with it.
It's very telling how many "universe empty, only humans out there" space power fantasies use the creative bankrupcy of not even trying to imagine what intelligent life may look like elsewhere all for what amounts to capitalist realism space manifest destiny shit, pretty much without exception.
I didn't like the way The Dark Forest, the second Three Body Problem book, portrayed this. ”Of course there's no intelligent life out there, because they'll just be destroyed by a more advanced civilization once they find out, because everyone is always hostile to each other. This also extends to the last remnants of humanity in space killing each other.”
I argue that in many cases (not all, but hear me out), it's an after-the-fact justification for the difficulty in coming up with alien life that feels sufficiently "alien" to not feel like a Star Trek makeup job.
To be fair to the TBP trilogy..
spoiler
Some civilizations have been fighting an endless transdimensional grudgematch to the point that successive inevitable dimensional collapses purge all the races that aren't hyper survivalist and also hyper advanced. The trisolarans are an example of a primitive civilization who's experiences have somewhat mirrored this extremely poisoned outlook.
Communists do the best sci-fi and proper alien aliens. China Mieville's Embassy Town being a great example.
I don't know if Ursula Le Guin was really a communist, but she wrote some good aliens.
Certainly so some of her books featured communism or communal societies quite heavily. I'm pretty sure she would have been, or anarchist
Elon Musk said he's 'definitely going to be dead' before humans go to Mars
OK, then I hope it happens two days from now and you die tomorrow.
Talking about Game of Thrones without using any of
? You're slipping, UlyssesT.
I did slip, I admit, because I was so drained and disgusted by watching the "AI" video, specifically because one of the richest, most connected, and most protected men in the world at the top of capitalism's burning heap of wasted resources and human suffering is giggling like a spoiled child because the treat printer can make Emilia Clarke amuse him against her will... not unlike the trust fund failsons that did the same to her on set, giggling at her actual distress on set during those le epic SV scenes that were only slightly aged up from the book's context to begin with, driven by misleading contract stipulations that she argued against after she was coerced into compliance... only to have her character effectively character assassinated (then actually assassinated) by those same trust fund failsons in a petty punitive way later in the show's run for resisting their demands for more amusement against her will at her expense.
TL;DR: I am too drained and tired at this moment to repeat that particular emoji sequence while seeing the ongoing cultural ripples of that fucking show stoked by treat hogs like E~L~O~N.
le epic SV scenes that were only slightly aged up from the book's context to begin with
The first rape scene wasn't even in the book, it was originally written as "consensual"
I know.
Age of consent issues aside (which were clearly not sided as much as highlighted for titillation purposes from the author, but I digress), that's part of why I really, really hate the two trust fund failsons that ran that show.
That kinda sucks. My lifelong dream has always been to step onto another planet. I didn't expect it to happen by 2040. It would've been nice, but the dream seems dead now.
It's Jokerfying that much of 's riches came from exploiting people's yearning to do just that. That includes government contracts, I dare say.
Every bad news about capitalists space programs is a good news for humanity.
If it means bringing the blight of capitalism to space, especially because it would also involve the colonial treatment to any life found out there (to the heaving delight of the kind of chuds that fantasize about murdering the Na'vi of Pandora for their treats), no, I do not want "the light of consciousness" to spread to the stars.
Yes, i just want to point that at this stage not even geniunely good and impressive initiatives like Webb telescope are justifying any of it. No, porky and their pet uncle Sam get face in mud in gulag, should not look up and think how to monetise the space.
u gonna eat your words once CNSA puts a person on Mars in less than 20 years.
Why would I eat my words then? I'd be happy if that happened, especially because it wasn't a grift.
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