I sort of wonder who is the target audience of these kind of articles. Anyone with access to a reasonable level of critical thinking has likely already come to this conclusion. Like, do we really think we're speaking to this flock of acolytes with these? Like Trump, hasn't he largely alienated a massive number of people who will never see him as a positive figure again? We're all very ready to believe Musk is an anti-semite of the type described like Jean-Paul Sartre, and it's absolutely because of years of bad behavior on his part leading to this. It's transparent that the only free speech he cares about is his own, so who are these articles really written for?
Anyone with access to a reasonable level of critical thinking
aaaand you’ve just excluded about half of the planet, possibly more...
The overwhelming majority of humans on the planet do not have sufficient critical thinking skills
And everyone who does have sufficient critical thinking skills use them only when they are made aware that they need to use them, which is the minority of the time.
If nobody wrote these articles you’d be going “why does no one report on his anti-semitism/acknowledge it?” That’s not a dig, mind you. You’d be right to ask that question.
Journalists trying to convince each other that they can convince the world to stop bad actors.
But most of us are just trying to keep our heads down to survive, and a large minority is actively engaged in supporting authoritarianism. So it's all very performative.
I sort of wonder who is the target audience of these kind of articles. Anyone with access to a reasonable level of critical thinking has likely already come to this conclusion. Like, do we really think we're speaking to this flock of acolytes with these? Like Trump, hasn't he largely alienated a massive number of people who will never see him as a positive figure again? We're all very ready to believe Musk is an anti-semite of the type described like Jean-Paul Sartre, and it's absolutely because of years of bad behavior on his part leading to this. It's transparent that the only free speech he cares about is his own, so who are these articles really written for?
aaaand you’ve just excluded about half of the planet, possibly more...
The overwhelming majority of humans on the planet do not have sufficient critical thinking skills
And everyone who does have sufficient critical thinking skills use them only when they are made aware that they need to use them, which is the minority of the time.
If nobody wrote these articles you’d be going “why does no one report on his anti-semitism/acknowledge it?” That’s not a dig, mind you. You’d be right to ask that question.
Journalists trying to convince each other that they can convince the world to stop bad actors.
But most of us are just trying to keep our heads down to survive, and a large minority is actively engaged in supporting authoritarianism. So it's all very performative.
FWIW, check out the article's comments section.
Yes! Exactly, is there anyone in the readership of this paper who would still be on the fence about Musk at this point?
Why does this article exist?