....Elon

Quote :

"On X, users have circulated nonconsenual AI videos created by Grok of a woman they think is Jane Doe. They continue to spread her name. People have praised X for staying relevant for AI and tech conversation. But it also is the main vector for a doxing. That is X."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/nyregion/cornell-jane-doe-internet-doxing.html

[Edited on October 17, 2026 at 7:59 PM. Reason : E]

10/17/2026 7:58:50 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/opinion/elon-musk-republican-politics.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JlE.1oH8.tFqzGEoyCCct&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Quote :

"Elon Musk Is Beyond the Pale"

10/17/2026 8:05:48 PM

Quote :

"but are his comments proof?"

it shouldn't need to rise to the level of a detailed, legalistic review with incontrovertible proof for the particular friends he's referring to. it can be enough for a reflective person to say "i get where he's coming from. i've seen or sensed that sometimes too. there's a kernel of truth there. he's got a point." and then go from there to further explore what that truth is and isn't. but the fringe woke won't even acknowledge that there's even something there.

Quote :

"This also feels like a false absolute"

again, i'm trying to get people to stop thinking of everything in terms of absolutes. he's not saying it's absolutely true in all cases. he's just saying it's a factor that is present. alongside other (good) factors. recognize the good and the bad. keep doing the good, stop doing the bad.
the "left" is supposed to be the party of the smart people, but most of the time these days they can't seem to think with more than one neuron's worth of precision, and then half the time they get the bit wrong anyways. no more one dimensional thinking. no more good and evil. no more left and right. no more oppressor and oppressed. treating all these binary categories as absolutes is working for us about as well as the Old Testament did. time for the left to adopt a new covenant.

Quote :

"I also think you've been claiming for awhile that Woke ism led to Trump 2024, when everything I've read leads me to believe it's economy 95% anf 5% other reasons."

it's a factor, not an absolute. my reasons are

1) Biden is an absolute idiot for running for reelection (that blame isn't wokism - it's the "establishment's" fault)
2) The Dem Party is an absolute idiot for not having the sense and the courage to tell Biden not to run for reelection. Even if he wasn't the oldest mfer ever elected with obvious cognitive decline that they covered up for years, the polling numbers vs (somehow likely nominee) Trump were majorly against Biden for YEARS and they still let him run. pathetic cowardice from all involved. (that blame isn't wokism - it's the establishment's fault)
3) Inflation. I'm not sure it's Biden's fault, although the buck stops with the President, so I guess it is. I can't blame him too much though - coming out of covid there was no way to get global supply chains back to pre-covid efficiency immediately. There was always going to be a lag there. You can argue that the covid stimulus (money printing) led to the inflation. Half of the money printing was under Trump though so it's not all Biden's fault. We could have avoided the stimulus inflation by paying for it instead of just money printing, and while Biden did spend considerable effort trying to rework tax policy, it wouldn't have been in time to prevent the inflation, and arguably ended up being bad policy anyways (for similar reasons Obamacare ended up being a fiscal flop) And then the alternative to covid stimulus would have been no covid stimulus but I suspect that would have been even worse for the economy and therefore Dem prospects in 24. Finally, they were late adjusting interest rates. That's really the only thing you can nail them on here, but even that I don't think was complete negligence. The transitory argument wasn't entirely wrong. (so all this isn't wokism obviously - it's the establishment's fault)
4) So then we get to Biden dropping out. Better late than never. The deck is already majorly stacked agains the Dems at this point. Biden kneecapped our prospects by immediately endorsing Kamala (who had no legitimate popular appeal or mandate, it was mostly out of loyalty to proceduralism, although i guess the optics of not endorsing your black woman VP would have set the woke fringe ablaze so they get some blame there perhaps) and the Party further kneecapped our prospects by not pushing for a competitive primary. This would have empirically determined the best possible candidate to face Trump and given us a sorely needed boost in media attention, public interest and given the public a sense that the Dem Party was actually going to speak for the people and not just once again anoint their preferred insider follow the party-line candidate whether we liked it or not. Furthermore, they had already completely alienated portions of willing Dem voters by sabotaging the actual primary process against folks like Marianne Williamson, RFK Jr or Dean Phillips. (so all this isn't wokism obviously - it's the establishment's fault)
5) So now it's Kamala or bust. Fine. Still better than risking a vindictive Trump getting back into office. But all this time that 1-4 were happening, instead of the left/progressive folks paying attention to that slow moving trainwreck and trying to use their voice to put the party in a position to actually win in 24, everybody was still deranged by the typical culture war issues, culminating with the Genocide Libel sucking up most of the oxygen for the last year of the election season. the left can baghdad bob themselves all they want, but the data is clear that whatever chance Kamala had vs Trump, her "woke" excesses and refusal to really even clarify or own her positions were a major factor in (especially independent/swing) voters not buying what she was selling.

So yeah, most of all that is establishment fuckups. But voters have low expectations for politicians and parties. They expect them to act like self-interested manipulative liars, especially at the top of the totem pole. It's baked into their voting calculations. We can overcome that, cus voters think it's happening on both sides and are used to it. But voting is a social activity too. It's an association, an affiliation, an identity you're signing up for. And people see libsoftiktok nonsense and think "is that what i'm signing up for? that's not me, i could never associate my vote with that" the same way we see maga nonsense and think "these people are deplorable. that's not me, i could never associate my vote with that" i know it's an unfair comparison and is not intended to justify maga nonsense, i'm just explaining clear-eyed the unfair reality of human behavior when it comes to this tragically effective tactic on voting. and an acknowledgement of this human behavior combined with a commitment to actually WINNING elections means you call out the nonsense in your party to minimize the potential negative impact of the fringes on your side. which requires recognizing it in the first place. so recognize it. and then find the courage to call it out. and kamala didn't. and the party didn't. we could have absorbed the bad hand from 1-4 and still won if we had had the courage to tell the public that we weren't going to let the deluded antisocial fringes run the show.

10/17/2026 9:22:37 PM

Quote :

"again, i'm trying to get people to stop thinking of everything in terms of absolutes. he's not saying it's absolutely true in all cases. "

I was just responding to what you wrote, I quoted it


And the problem with Rocks comments is, I don't know if he has a point without details. I believe very very few people were ever substantially canceled for their words. I also believe his personal choice to forgive his friends has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they were canceled, or whether or not they deserved to be.

For all the election stuff, I appreciate the long response, apologies that mine are much shorter, I'll just say I agree with most of 1-3, much of 4 and less of 5.

Quote :

"but the typical reaction to these oh so gentle suggestions of possible woke excess is it all gets flattened to "so you're saying woke is bad"

Quote :

"it shouldn't need to rise to the level of a detailed, legalistic review with incontrovertible proof "

stop thinking of everything in terms of absolutes!

[Edited on October 17, 2026 at 9:45 PM. Reason : Btw choices of woke being net good, net bad or net neutral.... ]

10/17/2026 9:38:18 PM

Quote :

"I was just responding to what you wrote, I quoted it"

maybe i'm misunderstanding. "the problem with wokeness is there's no forgiveness" although the words as transcribed does have a grammatically precise (ie absolute) meaning that you can nitpick, rock in his conversation was not using it that kind of absolutist sense. he was just talking out loud like a normal human being. he wasn't speaking a legal brief he'd prepared. he was verbally pointing in the direction of something (forgiveness) and saying it is generally absent. if you were actually sitting across from a person and you asked them about wokism and that's what they said. you wouldn't think "what do you mean NO forgiveness? what do you mean THE problem? consider yourself disproved, bigot"

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"apologies that mine are much shorter"

no apology needed.

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" Btw choices of woke being net good, net bad or net neutral...."

if you're asking me to clarify my opinion on woke being net good? i'd say it "started" (not 1938 start don't get absolutist on me) net good. BLM for example started out as a reasonable response to unnecessary/excessive police use of force. BLM as an organization/movement morphed into a corrupt, dysfunctional mess. trans advocacy as a "some people want to live their lives as the 'opposite' gender and please leave them alone" was fine, but they net turned into a bunch of screeching bullies and I 100% have concerns about the social contagion for adolescents question and the way trans activists shut down any reasonable conversation about that. i think immigration is a net good, but the activists are not serious when it comes to enforcing immigration law or legitimate exceptions to immigration-positive policy when national security is concerned. and we don't have to rehash where i stand on anti-israel activism. all that said, i still remain committed to my principled Liberal positions as it relates to demanding responsible police behavior, treating the small number of trans people in this country with respect and dignity, welcoming as many immigrants as realistically possible who want to come here to be economically and socially productive aspiring citizens, and the legitimate right to self-determination for Palestinians with the expectation that they acknowledge and respect the legitimate right to self-determination for Israelis as well.

10/17/2026 10:26:51 PM

Quote :

"you can nitpick, "

My edit was to note that twice you genuinely interpreted (or nitpicked??) my words as absolutes, but when I genuinely interpreted (or nitpicked?) your words as absolutes, I was chided.

I assumed you meant you interpreted Rock as saying there was "no forgiveness" bc those were the words you chose and the little i know of you leads me to believe that's a valid interpretation of your words. Perhaps you could've said "not enough forgiveness" to be more clear just as I could've used clearer words in my two posts, which were not intended as absolutes but were interpreted as such.

[Edited on October 17, 2026 at 10:39 PM. Reason : Nobody would ever mistake my posts for legal briefs ]

10/17/2026 10:37:47 PM

Quote :

"maybe i'm misunderstanding"

I'm still not quite grokking where our difference is. all good though, I'm content to move on and let folks continue to register their complaints about mister musk

[Edited on October 17, 2026 at 10:50 PM. Reason : if this were an in person conversation or video chat I bet it'd have been straightened out in 2 min. the unfortunate consequences of the primitive technology we all insist on still using here]

10/17/2026 10:48:50 PM

Quote :

" BLM as an organization/movement morphed into a corrupt, dysfunctional mess"

unless you’re of the belief that the vast majority of people who use the term Black Lives Matter only use it in support of a specific organization, this doesn’t mean anything. it’s a right-wing talking point to point to the organization as opposed to the idea.

Quote :

"trans advocacy as a "some people want to live their lives as the 'opposite' gender and please leave them alone" was fine, but they net turned into a bunch of screeching bullies"

who is the “they”? this is legitimately the thing I’ve been saying on here for more than a decade.

Quote :

"and I 100% have concerns about the social contagion for adolescents question"

would you have had the same concerns about left handed-ness and/or gay people?

Quote :

"i think immigration is a net good, but the activists are not serious when it comes to enforcing immigration law or legitimate exceptions to immigration-positive policy when national security is concerned."

do you feel this is more important than enforcing white collar crime?

what national security issues are you worried about when it comes to immigration?

10/17/2026 11:05:24 PM

^^
Excuse me, but this is the PEAK of communication.

I talk to people all day. . .

10/17/2026 11:06:51 PM

I missed this earlier:

Quote :

"And people see libsoftiktok nonsense and think "is that what i'm signing up for? that's not me, i could never associate my vote with that" the same way we see maga nonsense and think "these people are deplorable. that's not me, i could never associate my vote with that" i know it's an unfair comparison and is not intended to justify maga nonsense, i'm just explaining clear-eyed the unfair reality of human behavior when it comes to this tragically effective tactic on voting. and an acknowledgement of this human behavior combined with a commitment to actually WINNING elections means you call out the nonsense in your party to minimize the potential negative impact of the fringes on your side. which requires recognizing it in the first place. so recognize it. and then find the courage to call it out."

you are vastly overrating the reach of libsoftiktok. the overwhelming majority of voters have no idea what that even is.

10/18/2026 1:50:25 AM

"libsoftiktok nonsense" moreso means "nonsense of the kind that libsoftiktok might typically post about" aka "woke nonsense" or "fringe left nonsense"

people may not be particularly familiar with the specific social media account libsoftiktok, but they are familiar with the nonsense. that's what I meant.

10/18/2026 8:17:17 AM

Quote :

"ABC/Ipsos poll finds Americans trust Democrats on "transgender issues" by nine points This is a pretty consistent finding - most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about trans people and they generally trust Democrats on it in any case https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/ABC-News-Washington-Post-Ipsos-Poll-October-2026"

10/18/2026 1:16:39 PM

Quote :

"most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about trans people"

Its the economy stupid

10/18/2026 1:29:55 PM

Let's hope so.

10/18/2026 1:45:59 PM