GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1078: PLAYING MUSK

 It's been a staple of SF for so long I'm not sure I even remember when I first heard about the concept of terraforming a planet. I suspect it was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I don't know for sure. All the same, it seems like the only way we'll be able to live on planets within our reach. Because outside of our solar system? That's a pipe dream, at least for now.

The most obvious subject would be Mars, and Elon Musk has been jacking himself off thinking about making that planet habitable for humans. Whether he's doing it for altruistic purposes (for humanity) or dictatorial purposes (the first private person to make it there gets to rule the planet), I'll leave up to your imagination. You know my thoughts on this.

But how likely is it to actually transform Mars from the wasteland it currently is to a thriving planet-wide metropolis? Is it even possible?

Why not try your hand at playing Musk? Nature put together a simulation. Go ahead. See how successful you are.

It's harder than it seems. I generally have a good understanding of science, and it was a lot harder than I expected. In fact I scored 50%, which would be a solid F- if I was still in school.

Brave enough to share your results in the comments?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #979: I THINK AI HAS AIBOHPHOBIA

 Just when I thought I'd roughed up AI enough times in this column, I find yet another way to do it. That makes me happy, I guess? I was inspired by Cory Doctorow's essay, which you can read here, to see if I could get AI to perform at a higher standard.

Years ago, when the mom of a friend died, she bequeathed nearly all of her books to me. (Oddly enough I've finally reached that part of my reading list, and all those books are boxed up in Public Storage. FML, as the kids used to say.) This included a bunch of  issues of Asimov's Science Fiction and Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I think I read it in Asimov's, and I'm 85% certain Brian Aldiss wrote it, but they published a bit of flash palindrome fiction. It was brilliant, and I have no idea how he did it. That skill-set just isn't in my writing toolbox. I marveled at it. And I thought of it earlier today when I read Doctorow's essay.

[On a side note, and I also forget where I read this, but Doctorow's daily essays are apparently him getting up in the morning and sorting his thoughts out. Kind of like the opposite of Goodnight, Fuckers.]

So I went to ChatGPT and put it through some fucking motions.

-

You said:

Tell me a 100 word story that is a palindrome.

ChatGPT said:

Sure! Here's a 100-word palindrome story:

Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Won’t lovers revolt now?
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
Eva, can I see bees in a cave?
Sir, I demand, I am a maid named Iris.
Red roses, sir, is it easy to ask?
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Won’t lovers revolt now?
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
Eva, can I see bees in a cave?
Sir, I demand, I am a maid named Iris.
Red roses, sir, is it easy to ask?

This story reads the same forward and backward!

-

Hm. Something's not right here. I'm sure you caught it, too.

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You said:

You're wrong. That's a poem, not a story. The whole story needs to be a palindrome, not just the individual lines. Try again.

ChatGPT said:

Ah, I see what you're looking for now—a full 100-word palindrome story, not just a poem. Here’s a true palindrome that fits your request:

"Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
Sir, I saw a car, a man, a maracas war, a man, a car.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam."

This story is a palindrome, reading the same backward and forward. It includes the characters and a mini narrative while maintaining the palindrome structure throughout.

-

This is where my frustration kicked in. I'm supposed to be terrorizing AI, dammit, not the other way around. And who's the real idiot here? The artificial intelligence that can't put together a 100 word palindrome story? Or the guy who thinks he can make that computer feel terrorized?

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You said:

Wrong again. That is a poem where each line is a well-known famous palindrome. The first word of the story better be the last word of the story in reverse. Try again.

ChatGPT said:

You're absolutely right! My previous attempts weren't in line with what you requested. I apologize for the confusion. Here's a true 100-word palindrome story where the first word is the reverse of the last word:

"A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
Never a foot too far, even.
A dog, a panic in a pagoda.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Sir, I demand, I am a maid named Iris.
Won't lovers revolt now?
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."

This story reads the same backward and forward, including a simple narrative structure, with palindrome phrases linked together.

-

This is where Gramps would have muttered to himself while holding his forehead, "Give me strength." At least it understood that everything has to be a palindrome this time.

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You said:

Do you know the difference between a poem and a story?

ChatGPT said:

You're absolutely right again, and I appreciate your patience. I misunderstood your request, and I truly apologize for that.

To clarify: a story involves a narrative with characters, a plot, and a sense of progression, while a poem might focus more on rhythm, structure, or simply being a series of clever phrases. [My note: thank fuck.] What you asked for is a true palindrome story, where every word in the narrative is part of a palindromic structure — meaning it reads exactly the same forward and backward in a continuous story form, not just a collection of famous palindromes.

Let me try again with a real 100-word palindromic story:

"A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Sir, I saw a man, a car, a canal, a man.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."

This is a true palindromic story, with a narrative that can be read the same forwards and backwards.

It’s certainly tricky to craft a 100-word palindrome story while keeping a coherent narrative, and I deeply appreciate your patience. Let me know if you have any further questions!

-

And this is where my hetero lifemate Rob Tannahill would have said, "Jesus fuckin' palomino."

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You said:

It's still a poem. I want a story, and I don't want well-known palindromes. I want a narrative, I want character, I want plot, and I want it to be exactly 100 words long. And the story, not a poem, must be one big palindrome, not a series of well-known palindromes lined up so you can read the whole thing backwards. Be original and try again.

ChatGPT said:

Thank you so much for your patience. I now understand your request clearly, and I appreciate the challenge you've posed. Here is an original 100-word palindromic story that has a full, continuous narrative with character, plot, and structure, and it reads the same forwards and backwards:

---

Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
No lemon, no melon.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

---

I hope this version aligns with your request! It's a palindrome, contains a short plot, and is coherent in its progression when read forwards and backwards. Let me know what you think!

-

So yeah, AI is not a threat right now. Someday it might be, but the true threat for now, and I think Doctorow would agree, is the AI salesmen. They are very good at their job. AI is not.

What I do find troubling, however, is Elon Musk's new plan for Squitter. Or maybe he's planned it all along. (You knew I'd get to him within the first week of my return.) In case you missed it in the news, he just sold Squitter to . . . himself. (At a financial loss to boot!) That sounds like a joke, but he has a very scary reason for doing so. xAI now owns Squitter, which means Musk plans to feed everyone's posts there into the Grok woodchipper, and there's nothing you can do about it. I'm fairly certain the Supreme Court would tell you, especially with their robes full of special incentives, that you cannot copyright a social media post. Since you use Squitter, your posts are going into Grok. When I heard that, my immediate thought was to leave. Fuck Elon Musk and the apartheid he rode in on. Then I remembered what he and Trump do when faced with legal directives: they ignore them. So I'm pretty sure that even if I left 5 years ago and deleted my account and everything I'd posted, all my shit would still go into Grok. Our corporate overlords keep everything so they can know when you get paid so they can bump the prices up at the stores you shop at. They want to know if you're losing hair so they can advertise hair loss products to you. They want to know your private conversations for similar reasons, although now that all the techbros are Trump sycophants, I would not put it past them to let the Trump Administration have those private records so *they* can find out if you're here illegally. If you're an addict. If you're secretly trans. Things like that.

So fuck it. I think when the time comes, I'm going to go batshit insane on Squitter. I'm going to feed so much bullshit into Grok that anything it learns from me won't be useful. I think we should all do this. If millions of us do this, Grok won't be able to function, and Musk will have to pull a George and Lennie, where he's George, and Grok gets to tend the rabbits. I'll bet when he sprouts a single tear over that one, it won't be like his others of the crocodile variety.

That felt better. Maybe I need to focus on topics that aren't me for a bit. That might hold off the depression and the desire to drink. All right, my world's a little brighter today. Goodnight, you beautiful fuckers, you.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #965: FUCKIN' *NOW WHAT?!?!?!?!?!*

 I swear, these aren't all going to be political. Last night wasn't, right? That was about Clint Eastwood's new film! I have a notebook full of topics, but then this fucking shit happened. Incidentally, I've been reading a lot of articles where people interviewed are only talking on the condition of anonymity. That's a good indication of how fucked we are as a society when somewhat powerful people can't bear to have their names associated with their beliefs. We're edging into 1984 territory, here.

Musk and his swine have come for the US Treasury. I'm a little surprised it took this long for the hunger to start gnawing at Scrooge McDuck's insides, but he's finally going after money in the US, specifically how the US pays out money.

The acting Secretary of the Treasury was, until very recently, David Lebryk. He has retired because he's sick of fighting the DOGE scavengers constantly scratching at his door, wanting access to the payment system. There aren't a lot of details, as Lebryk isn't talking, and DOGE has refused to respond to a request for comment from the Fourth Estate, but it would seem that DOGE has been asking for access to this system since Inauguration Day: Part Deux. Why is this system so important? Here's an excerpt from one of the articles I read:

Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

So yeah, pretty important stuff. Considering DOGE's true purpose, it's only a matter of time before Musk gets his grubby mittens on it, and that's when he will wield true power within the US government. Apparently apartheid can get you very far in the world. I wonder if he looks back at the end of those times in South Africa with rage, wondering how the gravy train ended. Never mind, his head is leaning more toward creating new gravy trains here, and getting his hands on this payment system will do the trick. One of those functions stands out, however. Salaries for federal personnel?

Considering the administration has been rabidly hunting federal employees, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they want to withhold their pay, which they fucking earned, to hold them over a barrel and make them do something. Or not do something. Either way, it's extortion.

Here's another excerpt, an important one, I think.

Still, the possibility that government officials might try to use the federal payments system - which essentially functions as the nation’s “checking book” - to enact a political agenda is unprecedented, said Mark Mazur, who served in senior treasury roles during the Obama and Biden administrations.

“This is a mechanical job - they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,” Mazur said. “It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda. … You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.”

Bad intentions? I think that might be Musk's middle name*.

OK, one more from that article, and then we're going to move on.

Musk has characterized the rising national debt as an existential threat to the country and has proved willing to break norms in service of sweeping change.

Huh. In my opinion *he* is the existential threat to the country. According to CNN, he spent about a quarter-billion dollars getting Trump elected so Musk could be in the position he's in today. In case you're having a difficult time deciphering that sentence, yes, I'm saying it is my opinion that Elon Musk bought Trump an election, and he bought himself a position in government. This used to be called bribery and was exceptionally illegal. It technically still is, but as I've stated previously, the rules no longer apply. In a just world, Trump would have to divest himself of all his personal businesses. The only money he's supposed to make in the Oval Office is his presidential salary. Paid, by the way, by the system Musk lusts for. Yet Trump can't possibly bring himself to stop selling tchotchkes and knick-knacks and other bullshit, like his Bible with the Constitution, etc., in it. Typically I'd laugh at deeply moral Christians buying Bibles from the Anti-Christ, but I doubt I'm the first to make that joke, nor would I be the last. Because it's not that funny. This is the shit that helped him get in the position he's in. To say nothing of the unfettered, shameless, greed-grabbing scam that is TRUMPCOIN. And I thought the NFTs were too much.

Yes, the Founding Fathers were disingenuous when they said "We the People," but holy fuck, never in their wildest nightmares could they imagine the unadulterated graft going on in Washington, DC, today. Only Benjamin Franklin might come close, but not even he would believe--

You get the point.

Musk, the real existential threat to the country, also recently stated that Teslas are probably never going to be able to fully self drive themselves. Read about it here. I bring this up because he's been lying to stockholders for years about this. He's dedicated himself to the falsehood that if you own a Tesla, you will be able to let it drive itself. That falsehood has suckered a lot of investors who don't seem to understand this lie even now. But he admitted it finally. Why break down like that?

I think for the same reason you don't hear him talking about Mars anymore. He wanted to go to Mars because he reasoned, fairly well, that he would be the first one to get there. As such, he would get to make the rules. I've gone over this before, I think, but he's given up on Mars because he can bend *this* planet to his will. So far he's made a compelling argument. Why yes, being the richest motherfucker on the earth *does* have its privileges. Look where he's at right now. Aside from some red tape, he's the owner of this planet. Who among us will buy it away from him?

He doesn't need Tesla anymore, so fuck it, why not come clean? It's better that he not spend so much time there, anyway. He's got DOGE duties. The rest of his businesses just took a backseat.

Also, I noticed a tiny little story fly by about Trump going after electric cars. Musk had to know that about him going in, so maybe he's just letting Tesla go so he can focus his energies elsewhere. I wonder how that will go over with the shareholders? Wouldn't it be insane if Musk sold off all his interest in Tesla? Hell, with his fucked up sense of humor, he might do it for a laugh.

This is Friday night, and I'm talking about this shit instead of going to sleep like I should. So I'm going to stop haranguing you with this. It's fucked. We're fucked. There's nothing we can do about it short of a bloody and violent revolution. Everyone knows this.

So let's end on a pleasant note.

Every night, when I get into bed to watch some TV before I fall asleep, I get on my side, and that does something to my body. My back lurches. It crackles. There might even be a loud hollow crack! It is one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life, currently. It's the highlight of my day. I look forward to it. Because my back pain sucks. The doctor thinks the spinal injections might not be good enough, so who knows what the future holds for me? But that moment when it all goes away all because I put my body in that position? It's the best.

And I can't force it. I've tried. It has to happen naturally. But it's great.

OK, so that wasn't much of a pleasant note, as it's only pleasant for me, but life isn't all doom and gloom. It's just *mostly* doom and gloom. Gotta find your moments, and this is mine.

I'm off to have my backgasm.

___________________________________________

*It's Reeve. Not sure how that snuck into a name like "Elon Musk," which sounds like it belongs to one of the aliens at the Mos Eisley Cantina.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #961: DOGE CONTINUES TO SUCK MY BALLS

 

Gaze upon what is possibly the stupidest logo for a government department ever conceived. It looks like something from a stock photo site, but it's the official logo of the Dept. of Government Efficiency, or fucking DOGE, one of Musk's obsessions. We should perhaps come up with a list of things he likes waaaaaay too much. Like the doge meme, for example. The letter X. Mars, or a world that he can mold to his liking. It doesn't have to be Mars. It could be the planet we're on now in the present time. Never mind, I don't like spending that much time thinking about his desires.

Judging by everything you've seen in the news, what would you say is the main purpose of DOGE? I expected it to be about Musk and whoever else poring through the government, looking for organizations and regulators to cut, er, I mean, stuff the government spends too much money on. For all intents and purposes, this is what they continue to talk about when referring to DOGE. There are even news stories making fun of DOGE for being too far behind on their job already.

But this is *not* the purpose of DOGE. In fact, the stated purpose is so vastly different from what we were told that I have no choice but to believe that, no, it wasn't an error. They're flatout lying to us.

Big surprise, I know. Makes you wonder if there's any truth over at Truth Social . . .

If you want to know what they're really up to, it helps if you read the stuff they release. A president can't equivocate when it comes to wording executive orders, so why not read the executive order that created DOGE? Give it a shot here.

There's a lot of stuff there, but this is the relevant part:

Section 1.  Purpose.  This Executive Order establishes the Department of Government Efficiency to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.

Nothing about cutting the CFPB there. So if Musk is still doing that, he doesn't have authorization for it. If you see him doing that kind of work, you must stop him immediately. Explain the paragraph you just read like he was 5 years old. He is, effectively, five years old. Draw pictures if you need to. Make goofy faces and sounds with your mouth to make sure he continues to pay attention. If all else fails, show him a doge meme.

Remember when a conflict of interest was important? Anything goes these days.

So what is DOGE *really* supposed to be doing? Modernizing tech always sounds like a good idea. If you have tech stuff to do, you'd rather have top of the line, hot off the press shit, right? It sounds reasonable, but it is my suspicion that Musk is really building backdoors into all the IT infrastructure so even if he's no longer in the government (and I guess technically he is), he would have no problem getting back into the government's shit and then doing whatever it is he plans to do. Wield his conflict of interest like a club? Steal tech from competitors through government contacts? Cut corners and red tape in one fell swoop? Borrow some data and maybe use it to manipulate the stock market? Or worse, sell it to Putin? There's a lot he can do with that kind of thing. I'm sure Trump is under the illusion that Musk is doing this for the good of his master, but Musk could royally fuck Trump up if he wanted to. If Trump maybe didn't like something Musk did. Instead of throwing a fit like he usually does, why not just step through that backdoor and sabotage a few things?

Trump's followers apparently call him daddy. Mel fucking Gibson called him daddy at least once. Trump might seem like the daddy, but if Musk is allowed to continue working on the true purpose of DOGE, then Trump is going to find himself living in a trailer park raising Don Jr and Eric on food stamps. Which would bring a great sense of schadenfreude to me, of course. I'm a huge fan of schadenfreude.

But I don't think MAGA will suffer like everyone seems to think they will. A massive amount of people who should know better are underestimating these cocksuckers. I'll give you an example. Everyone on the left seems to believe that Trump can't end birthright citizenship. It's enshrined in the 14th Amendment, as Evil John Bruni recently explained (poorly, I might add). I don't mean to alarm you, but you should be alarmed. Granted, only one amendment has been repealed thus far (the 18th by the 21st), but do you think that can't happen again? All it takes is one asshole in the House to propose the bill, then for the House, owned by Trump, to pass it to the Senate, also owned by Trump. Then, and only then, will the amendment land on . . . who's desk? Sure, he could veto it, but do you think he will?

Goodbye birthright citizenship.

If they can do that to one amendment, what about the rest? What about the 1st? I'll allow that doing so would be a bright burning red flag declaring they are, indeed, evil, but what else have they been doing so far? I can't think of a single thing they've done that is actually good. Even Nixon did something good every now and then. All these assholes do is bitch and moan and steal rights away from others. None of that can even remotely be viewed as good.

Stop underestimating these swine. The rules you're familiar with no longer apply. You're living in a different world than you did on January 19, 2025. MAGA is not fucking around, and we shouldn't, either. They demonstrably lied to us. I proved it tonight. The thing that gets me most, though, is that proof doesn't matter, either. The choir will concur, as is their solemn duty, but the people who *need* to be shown the error of their ways will never believe it. MAGA is a brainwashed cult even worse than a cult, as they currently have the reins of government in this country. Imagine if Charles Manson suddenly took over California in the 'Seventies. That's the kind of thing we're dealing with, here. Do you think his children would listen to sense?

Trump's children won't, either.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #954: AN OPEN LETTER TO ELON MUSK

 Dear Elon Musk,

Hi. You probably don't know me, but look around my blog, and you'll notice I'm far from your #1 fan. In fact, I think you ought to be drowned in liquid shit like the abortion you should have been, but I'm going to set that aside for the moment.

To quote a great politician, "Let's get one thing perfectly clear." Trump did not invent the Dept. of Government Efficiency. He wants to be an emperor, and he wants America's borders to not exist at all, that the world will be America. That's a pretty egotistical thing, but he seems to have a handle on it. Yet I get the feeling that if you two were in high school, he'd be giving you atomic wedgies and seeing how long he can keep your head in the toilet. He thinks he'll top out at 10 flushes, but Bannon thinks less of you. I'll bet he has you at six, and he has that look in his eye. That is essentially the attitude of the MAGAs, so none of them are socially inept enough to come up with the name of that agency. If Ramaswamy was an OK dude, I'd feel bad for him getting roped into that. But he's not.

[Incidentally, you make Bannon look good. That should be impossible, as he is also a shitnugget clinging to the bottom of one's flipflop, but here we are. Also, spellcheck has no problem with "shitnugget."]

Anyway, this agency is all you. I can't help noticing the CFPB is on your hitlist. As is the FTC, I'm sure. A ton of agencies are on that list, and many of them have a bone to pick with you. You're the richest man in the world, so why not just get yourself appointed to a bullshit agency so you can shut down those who would regulate you? I assure you no one is stupid enough not to notice that. Trade politically for it? Sure. That's the law of the land. But they didn't *not* notice it.

But I did notice you mention something, a throwaway comment, that made me think there might be hope for you. It's slim-to-none, but, well, you know the Michael Scott saying about the shots you don't take.

You mentioned that we were in the financial situation we're in because we went off the gold and silver standard. I've been saying that here for quite some time, but it's the first time I've ever heard someone of consequence, no matter how ill-gotten, say it.

Our money used to be backed by the silver and gold in Ft. Knox. In 1933, the real emperor of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt, took us off that standard. I understand why he did it. He wanted an economic boom, and he certainly got one. Why not spend all your money if it is, indeed, not backed by anything stronger than imagination?

But that kind of behavior catches up to you. As in, it's catching up to us now. My point is, we're suffering dick-breaking amounts of inflation, and you want to cut a bunch of regulators in the name of "efficiency." Your plan WILL NOT WORK. No matter what it is. Yes, corporate greed has driven up the prices of everything beyond an ordinary citizen's ability to cope, but even if you ended corporate greed (yeah, I know, not your thing), we would still be stuck up Shit Creek, and the paddle is unfortunately in your hands, way way far away from anything even resembling a shit or a creek.

Here's some basic economics: the more scarce something is, the more it is worth. If we have, in theory, an infinity of dollar bills, then it stands to reason that those bills would be next to worthless, especially if you add the idea of credit on top of that.

If you want to bring up the value of a dollar, you must do at least two things: burn every greenback you can get your hands on, and end the credit card industry. Short of that, it is time to make our money supply finite, not pretend like it is now. Supply and demand. Or, and this is a perverse idea so obviously I'm into it, you can make money with expiration dates. They renew each time you spend them, so the new owner of that bill won't be put out any. Do you mean to tell me you intend to put chips in people's heads, and you can't put a digital readout on dollar bills? All right, fine. You can check online when your money expires, but I gotta be honest, if that's the case, the internet should be free for everyone. I think by now that's a human right, anyway.

All right. I've had my say.

Sincerely (and I do mean that),

John Bruni

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #915: SQUITTER BOYCOTT

 I saw news the other day of Elon Musk suing a group of advertisers for boycotting Squitter, and I couldn't help but laugh. How pathetic can this loser get? I'm fairly certain that, much to my chagrin, advertising falls under the First Amendment, and companies can do whatever they want with their First Amendment rights. Musk has a habit of filing wasteful lawsuits, and I figured some court would put him in his place forthwith.

But then I dug a little and discovered that he might actually have a case, as crazy as that sounds. He filed the suit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. Their name pretty much says it all, and by getting these advertisers together to boycott Squitter they violated an antitrust law. I know that sounds batshit crazy, but it's true. When most courts hear these cases they consider the defendant "per se" guilty. Just doing it makes it a crime. The reasons why don't matter.

I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk losing money. He doesn't lose nearly enough of it in my opinion. I'm very glad that these advertisers cost him billions of dollars in ad revenue (according to him, so take that "billions" with a grain of salt the size of New York City). But this tactic is usually used when trying to bully or destroy a company, driving them out of business.

With that in mind Musk actually has a good chance of coming out on top of this one, and that irks me. I have a ton of reasons why, but while doing my research tonight I found this blog, and the author does a much better job of explaining the whole situation than I ever could. (Although he doesn't curse as much as me. And I would twist the knife in Musk as often as I possibly could.)

There is some good news. The courts might not consider the reasons relevant in the case of this crime, but the blogger mentions that if the Global Alliance, etc., can make the argument that their actions were pro-competitive, there might be a way to tell Musk to fuck himself. If they were trying to drive Squitter out of business to make the internet a safer place with an actual set of standards, then they might be able to pull it off. He cites examples, too! He practically wrote my GF column for me tonight.

On that note, goodnight, you glorious fuckers.

I was about to post this when I got angry all over again. This antitrust law exists to prevent competitors from putting their differences aside and working together to drive a third competitor out of business. This law is important to have. To see it perverted by this dickbag to use it against people who are trying to make the world a better place is appalling. Fighting the lawsuit this far already caused the Global Alliance to disband. Musk also has a seemingly limitless supply of money, which means he can outlast anyone in court no matter how noble their arguments might be. He's a living, breathing, walking white collar felony and is the ultimate evidence that our society is bassackwards. In a just society we would have already clapped him in irons and thrown him from the nearest pier.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #893: JUSTINE

 Has it been months since the last time I shit-talked Elon Musk? I guess so. To quote the song, I'm back in the saddle again.

Remember when I said I used to like Musk, but then I paid more attention to him? It seems that his first wife, Justine, felt much the same way. They met in college before either one of them was 20 yet. She gave him five children, so she clearly loved him at some point. Let's take a look at her thoughts on the subject of Ex's biggest douche-nozzle.

Their first date seems to be an incomplete description from what she wrote in Marie Claire. It seems he invited her out for ice cream, but it doesn't say whether she said yes. He did go looking for her with two ice cream cones, searching all over campus, ice cream melting over his knuckles. Of this event she said, "He is not a man who takes no for an answer."

From context, I think she said yes and then was difficult to find. They dated for a while and then went to different schools, but they stayed in touch. Sent each other letters. Visited and had dinner when they could. She wrote of him, "It was the first time that a boy found my sense of ambition--instead of my long hair or narrow waist--attractive." Interesting.

They separated for a while, and she lived in Japan before coming home to Canada and getting back together with Elon Musk. She moved into his apartment, but they argued often, sometimes in public. "[He] never hesitated to let me know that I was wrong about something," she said.

As he got richer, he often made jokes about dumping her for a supermodel. Instead he proposed marriage to Justine. Musk's friends (and even his brother) tried to talk him out of it, but they got married in 2000. During their first dance he told her that he was the alpha in this relationship. As if the supermodel thing wasn't bad enough as it is.

Their first child died in his sleep. This set her down a path of depression, but she got pregnant again and had more children, but the marriage was far from happy. "Elon was obsessed with his work. When he was home, his mind was elsewhere. I longed for deep and heartfelt conversations, for intimacy and empathy." She told him how much she hated him. He called her moron and idiot. He once said that if she were his employee, he'd fire her.

"I met him when he didn't have much at all," she said of him. "The accumulation of wealth and fame changed the dynamic."

He wanted her to dye her hair blonde. Blonder. Platinum! He wanted her to go to parties where men talked and women looked pretty. Finally, Justine said of herself, "I barely recognized myself. I had turned into a trophy wife, and I sucked at it." Not surprising, as she's an author. We authors don't make very good trophy partners.

They divorced after 8 years, and 6 weeks later Musk gleefully texted her that he was getting married again. And that should say everything.

Justine Musk went from being loved for her ambition to an attempt at turning her into a trophy wife instead of a person. That's pretty fucked up. I'm trying to imagine Musk walking around campus with those melting ice cream cones, and I can't see it. I wonder if maybe he was this way the whole time, and Justine didn't notice. I certainly didn't notice, not at first.

Oddly she doesn't regret her marriage to him. I think I would. Most definitely. I suspect a touch of Stockholm Syndrome, but one thing is for sure: Elon Musk is a Grade A Prick, USDA Approved.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #868: IS THERE A WORD FOR IT?

 It's been a while since I shit-talked Elon Musk, so I'm overdue. In related news (and we're taking the scenic path here, folks), when I was in high school and college, I took Spanish classes. Some of it stuck, most of it went out my head quicker than if someone had actually shot me between the eyes. Fast forward a few years, and I decided I wanted to be Daniel Jackson on Stargate: SG-1, so I tried learning Spanish again, as well as German and French. What I learned instead was that I don't have a head for languages except my own. Yet even with my fairly large understanding of the English language, I don't think we have a word for the kind of person I want to talk about tonight. Your first impulse will be to say "idiot savant," but that doesn't cover it. That's more like someone who has very little intelligence but who knows a lot of stuff.

Let's set aside the enormity (the original definition, not the one indicating largeness) of Elon Musk, just for the purposes of this column. I think he's a complete piece of shit, but I didn't start out that way. I liked Musk when I first heard of him. I thought his goals were noble. Colonizing Mars won't solve all of our problems, but it will buy us time that we desperately need. If there is any single person on this planet who can possibly accomplish this, I have to grudgingly admit that it is Musk. But we're going to look past that for tonight. Because we can all, even grudgingly, call him a genius, right? He is very smart. Much smarter than the average bear. But there's a reason he's not a scientist. He's a businessman, and his business is stealing other people's ideas and claiming them as his own. Take Tesla, for example. Heh. Funny I should bring Tesla up, as I'm sure their namesake would be embarrassed to be associated with Musk, who is nothing if not the embodiment of a modern day Edison. Not the guy who came up with the light bulb. I'm talking about the Edison who electrocuted elephants. (A word of warning, do not click on that link if animal torture is a trigger for you. I think people who treat animals poorly should in turn be treated poorly, but I also have a point to illustrate. My honest opinion: that film sickens me. He did it to prove that AC (Tesla's current) is dangerous, whereas DC (Edison's current) was not. So he electrocuted that elephant for the sake of fucking commerce. So fuck Edison.)

But put that all aside except for the genius thing, because Musk is a genius. But back in 2012 he overlooked the most obvious fucking fact in his entire life and was rendered speechless because of it.

Dennis Hassabis is the man behind Google DeepMind, and back then he was looking to get an investment from Musk to make AI possible. Musk took him on a tour of SpaceX, bragging about all the cool shit he was doing. More to the point Musk talked about how Mars colonizers will escape Earth's problems, like overpopulation, for example. To quote one of the articles I read, "Hassabis agreed, with one caveat: if AI surpassed human intelligence, it could easily follow us off-planet, and kill us there, too."

No. Fucking. Shit.

That's not just AI. That's *all* of our planet's problems. I think hunger should go on the list, too, because the first colonizers won't have anything to eat except for what they brought with them. Sure, they could pull a Matt Damon and "science the shit out of this," but if they fuck up, what then? Pollution would be a problem down the line somewhere. I know it would take a lot of fucking effort to terraform even a patch of Mars, much less the whole thing. Who has deep enough pockets to fund a terraforming mission? Oh, I don't know. Say . . . corporations? You know they would blow money on this much sooner than paying a fair wage to their workers on earth. The scientists would understand the strain it would take to terraform like that, but the corporations have bullshit on their side, and bullshit trumps science nearly every time. How long do you think it would take them to shit where they eat? Or would they keep corporate HQ on earth? With Musk probably being the first one to Mars, I imagine that he would be the one to make the rules, and I don't see him NOT giving a huge tax break to those corporations who would incorporate there. I think it would be fair to say that Mars would be one big celestial tax haven.

But none of this even occurred to Musk, and his answer to Hassabis was NOTHING. He was at a loss for words, and with all the shit he talks, have you ever seen him at a loss for words? How can someone who everyone (especially him) says is a genius be so stupid as to miss that very obvious fact?

One other thing. That article also calls Musk's Mars aspirations a "pipe-dream." They worded that incorrectly, I think. Colonizing Mars is not a pipe-dream. It's a pipe-dream for Musk, specifically. He's 53 years old. I don't see him not having the best healthcare in the world, so I wouldn't be surprised if he lived to be over a hundred. But even that is not enough time to colonize Mars, and it's nowhere near enough time to terraform it. So if there's one thing I can take solace in, I know that Musk will never live to see his dream be a reality. He's a dick, and he deserves that. But he'll somehow still get us there. Eventually.

So yeah, I don't know if there's a word for what Elon Musk is: a very smart person who is prone to occasional extreme stupidity. Can we get the Oxford Dictionary on that?

PS: It's Nikola Tesla's birthday today! He would have been 168 years old!

A horrible thought just occurred to me. What if Musk goes the Kevin Kline route in Fierce Creatures? Ever see that one? There's a scene where he plays both a father and son, the former being wealthy beyond imagination, the latter desperately hungry for that wealth. The father says he's going to be crygenically frozen, and the son is aghast. "You mean, YOU'RE GOING TO BE IMMORTAL?!?!?!" I hope to fuck he hasn't seen that. Don't give him ideas. He has a fickle sense of humor as it is.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #841: ADVERTISERS SUCK BUT . . .

 Before we begin today I wanted to let you know that for nearly ten years I worked for a teleconferencing company named Conference Plus. I was there when Arkadin bought them out. I was gone before NTT bought them out. In my time there, as a conference operator and a tech support rep, I have dealt with a lot of extraordinarily rich people. I find it odd that we (meaning, Americans) worship the ground they walk on because almost all of them didn't have any common sense. Which is a polite way of saying they're fucking idiots. But they're smart about one thing. One very important thing.

Rich people love to spend other people's money. The golden rule is, never spend your own. Make someone else pay for things.

This lesson is important to the topic we're about to discuss. And yes, this is old news. I have a stockpile of GF ideas that are on the old side, but goddammit, I'm going to get to them all because even if they are outdated, they're interesting to me. I make it a habit of never--NEVER--writing about something that doesn't interest me.

A while back Dana White was on Theo Von's podcast in which they talked about RFK Jr's presidential run. This was back when Kennedy was still a Democrat. Von had RFK Jr on, and the comedian's advertisers demanded that the episode be taken down. White asked why, and Von didn't seem to have an answer. However, he did supply White with the name of one sponsor: Peleton. White's response: "Peleton sells stationary bikes, and they've got a problem with Robert Fucking Kennedy. Fuck you, Peleton."

He then went to throw all UFC's Peleton bikes in the trash. He said, "This is America. You can fucking have whoever you want on your podcast. You can do whatever the fuck you want to do."

Hold that thought. Around the same time Elon Musk, the Boy Who Would Be Crap, was being interviewed live onstage at some event or other, and he was asked about the advertising boycott at Ex. He'd made some anti-Semitic comments, so his advertisers essentially pulled out of the deal. Even he admits it was a stupid thing to do, but the boycott had an odd effect on him: not only did it enrage him, it also made him do one of those stupid things you do when you're called out for being stupid and don't want to admit it: he made himself into the victim. He initially said, "I hope they stop. Don't advertise. If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear?" And then he admitted that the boycott would destroy Ex. "It's going to kill the company. That is what everybody on Earth will know. We'll be gone, and it will be because of the advertiser boycott."

My hatred of advertising is well documented in these GF columns. At best I think they're annoying. At worst they are evil attempts at mind control. And there is a small part of me that likes both White and Musk just a little for their reactions. But advertising is a necessary evil.

As much as I hate advertising and advertisers, they pay for a lot of shit. These fuckers are never broke. They never scramble for money. Because all that money they're pumping into advertising should probably be put to better use, like paying their employees well. I seriously have no idea why McDonald's still advertises. Is there a single goddam American roaming the country who *doesn't* know about McDonald's? But they pay for things. TV shows, movies, music, just about every form of entertainment is paid for by advertisers. If they thought sponsoring books would help, I'm sure they'd be all over that.

But White is wrong. Because the advertisers *do* pay for everything, they actually *can* tell you who you can or can't have on the podcast they are paying for. You can have anyone you want on. You can do whatever you want to do. But you can't do those things and still expect to be sponsored by Peleton.

All that social media you enjoy? From Facebook to Ex to Instagram to even goddam MySpace, the reason you don't pay for anything is because the advertisers are paying for it. Each time you post something, it's because an advertiser allowed you to do so.

Let's get back to Musk. When I heard him tell his advertisers to go fuck himself, I desperately hoped the rest of the advertisers would also jump ship. I eagerly awaited the self-destruction of Ex mostly because he bought it so he could look like a free speech warrior. He's not. The only person who should have free speech, according to Musk, is Musk himself. Everyone else can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I wanted to see the ego he'd pumped up with his ridiculous purchase of Twitter deflate like a hot air balloon dropping from the sky. Because I knew that without advertisers, he'd be forced to dip into his own money, and that breaks the golden rule as stated above. So in my head it turned into a question of how he'd lose: would he embrace his self-proclaimed victimhood and let Ex die naturally, or would he pump billions of his own money into something so broken that it can't be fixed? I expected the former but hoped for the latter.

Because you would think that advertisers, who are used to ruling the roost as those who pay for everything, would band together and squash Elon Musk and Dana White (and probably Theo Von, too) like bugs and then move on to the next thing. But that didn't happen.

What happened instead was what I like to call the Lindell Effect. Meaning, a morally bankrupt advertiser would take up the slack left by the others until other likeminded advertisers can join and therefore make Ex profitable. Goddammit.

Holy fuck, I never thought I'd be on the side of the advertisers. We're mortal enemies. But I guess there are some people worse than advertisers.

If you want to look at it another way, it comes back to journalism. It usually comes back to journalism. Who is the real person with power at a newspaper? Certainly not the journalist. The writer always gets the short end of the stick. And it's not the editor. It's not the publisher either, although you're closer. It's advertisers. An advertiser will pull their life-sustaining ads from a newspaper if they see reporting that they don't like, even if it is solid journalism. Who do you think gets fired in a case like that? Not the publisher or editor, I'll tell you that. But regardless, the newspapers know not to fuck with the advertisers. Then again, they're on life support right now, anyway. They can't afford to lose a single advertiser. I wonder if I'll live long enough to see a world with no physical newspapers . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #763: ONE BUCK NET FUCK

 First of all, that's the first time I've seen the "formerly known as" thing in the actual headline.

Secondly . . .

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

What a fucking loser.

Yes, I did read the article. It's not for existing users. It's for new users. And it's not for all new users. Musk is only rolling it out to New Zealand and the Philippines. His reasoning?

"It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users," Musk wrote. "This won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform."

I'm tempted to post another block of laughter here, but that might be overkill. You know it's overkill when *I* am showing restraint. If you want to read further about his ridiculous Not-a-Bot bullshit, you can look at this.

But let's face facts. I have received more bot friend requests from the site currently known as Ex now than I received back when it was merely known as Twitter. I'm pretty sure Ex would collapse without the bots, they are that ubiquitous. If he killed all the bots, his advertising revenue would completely dry up, and right now he can't afford that. But we have two options. Either Musk is being disingenuous about his motives, or he's a complete fucking idiot. I have seen enough evidence to support both theories.

Sure, a buck a year doesn't sound like much. It isn't. Does he think for a single fucking second that bots would cease to exist simply because he's charging this fee? How many people paid eight bucks for the verification who were *not* the people they claimed to be? The argument could be made that bots aren't people, but the impetus for the bots' existence has to come from somewhere. I'm sure the people who create the bots would be OK with a lowly investment in order to fleece other users for much larger sums.

This is such an obvious thing that I can't believe that Musk is being serious with this fuckin' thing. He's the world's richest dumbbell, but is he that stupid?

Are you familiar with Cory Doctorow? He's got a theory about why large social media platforms die. First you treat the users really well, and once they're locked in, you treat them like shit and treat the advertisers really well. The last stage is when you treat them like shit, too, and suck all the value out of the platform for yourself with whatever innovations you plan on unleashing on your captive audience. Like, perhaps, making Ex our "everything app." Doctorow calls it "enshittification." A good name, I think.

If you read that NYT article, you'll see that a lot of American tech entrepreneurs have tried to create an everything app, and they've all failed, possibly because of cultural differences between us and the countries in which it *does* work. And this clown thinks he can crack this particular nut?

Even if we cast all of that aside, the real reason so many people are addicted to social media is because it's free. I can think of no better way to torpedo Ex than to charge even a single American dollar for a year's worth of use. I think Ex is a shitty site, but I hang on because there are a lot of people I like interacting with there. If, however, this one buck net fuck plan gets rolled out to the rest of us, I will leave that site on principle.

Which isn't a bad idea. Social media being awful is a story for another day, but I've been pulling back on all of it. It would probably be better to not be on Ex and just have my Facebook and let that be it. I'm not going to run around to all these other social media sites that will be gone by the end of the year anyway. But I've rambled enough for now. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #757: THE PLATFORM FORMERLY KNOWN AS TWITTER

 I read a lot of news articles, and I've noticed an irritating trend that must stop immediately. In all honesty, perhaps what people say on social media platforms should not be news unless it's someone like a politician or a celebrity. It never ceases to disgust me when I see articles quoting regular people. How is that news? If I wanted to find out all the important details of, say, Israel vs. Hamas, should I just go down to the local Hobby Lobby and ask Chuck, the custodian? But then again, we know my feelings on the death of journalism, and this is yet another symptom.

But what I'm really talking about is X in particular. I've personally taken to calling it Ex, which makes a lot of sense to me, but every single news desk in the world (if we still have news desks, I have my doubts) seems insistent on doing this one fucking thing that bugs the shit out of me.

If a "journalist" is going to quote someone on Ex, it must be one of the Golden Rules of Journalism (up there with Who, What, Where, When, Why and Cover Your Ass, thank you Dr. Wiginton) is that they must refer to it as "X, the platform formerly known as Twitter." There is sometimes a variation, like, "X, formerly Twitter," but this is getting out of hand.

I get it. I don't really want to call it X either because it's stupid. It's the idiocy of a middle-aged rich white dude who thinks he's cool and edgy. Explore your midlife crisis someplace where we can't see it, please. But for fuck's sake, how long are we going to continue doing this? Is there anyone with an internet connection who *doesn't* know that Twitter is now X? If you were writing a story about Elon Musk, would you mention every time he fucking takes a breath? Fuck no, you wouldn't. So why are we doing this?

You know I'm frustrated when I ask that question. And you'll never know how deeply that frustration runs because I'm never going to get an answer that makes sense. Because a lot of what we do doesn't make sense, but we're not going to stop it because fuck it. Why would we?

All right. I'm going to bed. If I can get through tomorrow without reading about how X was formerly Twitter, that would be grand. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #748: PANGEA ULTIMA

 

250 million years. It sounds like a long time, but big picture? It's not necessarily a breeze, but it's still not as much time as a human being would think. A story broke in Nature about a group of scientists who used a super computer to extrapolate what the planet would look like in the future, and it's the picture you see above. Some of it is recognizable but not much.

People don't tend to think about continental drift, but if they do, they think about it in terms of past tense. The continents are still drifting, though. So slowly you can't notice it. Kind of like how we don't notice the earth rotating, but it does.

How accurate is something like this? Hard to say. Who can truly predict the future? We do, however, have evidence of what has happened so far. Barring any surprises, this is how the world will change over the next 250 million years. By then the world will be unlivable for human beings and nearly all life that exists here now. Volcanic activity increases. Carbon dioxide is ubiquitous. The heat will be so unbearable that we wouldn't be able to sweat it out of us. It will be, quite literally, hell on earth.

And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

So that's it. In 250 million years humanity will be no more. Unless we get a surprise--and when it comes to surprises for us, how many are all that good?--then we're fucked. Well, we were fucked one way or the other. Eventually the sun will expand and consume the solar system past where the earth is now, but that wasn't really expected to happen for 7.5 billion years. We had considerably more time for that one.

Well. About that. No more humanity in 250 million years? That's the BEST CASE SCENARIO. The kicker is, the computer simulation assumed that we would stop burning so much goddam carbon the very minute it started its calculations. What's the likelihood of that happening? Despite the steady increase in natural disasters, everyone is mumbling under their breaths, "How did that happen?" This couldn't be the whirlwind James Hansen warned us about reaping in 1988 when he testified before Congress about global warming. No way. That's commie talk.

Hansen warned us. And the very thing he warned us about is happening before our very eyes. We should be screaming like Chicken Little, but we'd rather be ostriches and stick our heads in the sand.

I get it. I really do. This isn't a today problem, not really. We've weathered some bad, uh, weather before, and we'll continue to do it. Our kids will probably be fine. Probably our grandkids, too.

But their kids? Ah, fuck 'em, right? You will never know them. They're practically strangers to you even though they have a good percentage of your DNA. But you got yours. As a US president once said, "Fuck the doomed."

It's all well and good for me. I won't have descendants to worry about. I should double, maybe even triple, down on destroying the planet. Get what's mine and let your descendants suffer. But I *do* care.

The nihilists among you are probably shrugging your shoulders. It's going to happen anyway, right? Why fight it? By that reasoning, you should kill yourself. I'm not suggesting you do that. In fact, I'm telling you *not* to do that. But if you're going to die someday, why fight it, right?

What's the most valuable thing you have? Something that no amount of riches will ever buy you? Time. For something that may or may not exist, it's pretty fucking valuable. What you do with your time is of the utmost importance. Why would you fast track the end? The only thing you should be doing with your life, paramount above all else, is seeking ways to ensure you have more time here.

So yeah, we should probably do more to stop the human race from ending. Too many people view it as a whiny save-the-planet kind of thing and not an imperative save-us kind of thing. As George Carlin once said, "The planet isn't going anywhere. We are!" And yes, I recognize that the bit I took that from is about how we shouldn't give a shit because our end is inevitable, but I'm going to cherry pick it for two reasons. One, it's pithy. And two, he's right, it's people who are fucked, not the earth (not yet), and if we look at it from that perspective, maybe we'd be motivated to do something about it.

So let's buy some time. In all actuality, if this computer simulation comes to pass, we'll probably be dead long before the 250M mark, but let's try to squeeze as much time out of this place as we can.

Or, as Monty Python once told us, you can look on the bright side of life, and Ian Malcolm is right. Life, uh, finds a way. It's just not going to be *our* life.

You're still here? OK, there's some good news. Human beings have something that not many other creatures on this planet have: adaptable survival skills. It's possible that humanity will find a way to survive on earth even if this extrapolated future comes to pass. We would have to be very clever, and I imagine we'd have to live at the edges of Pangea Ultima or in caves or some such. Perhaps Dune by Frank Herbert will be a survival guide in the future.

Or! We have another option. 250M years is a long time from our point of view. Perhaps by then we'll have figured out how to survive off-planet. Probably not within our solar system, so we'll have to figure out interstellar travel by then. Hopefully we'll figure it out, because if we're relying on Elon Musk, we're all going to get a big surprise when he gets in his space shuttle and locks us all out and lives on some inhabitable planet lightyears away from earth. He claims SpaceX is to pave the way for humanity to live among the stars, but I have a sneaking suspicion he's just like the rest of his rich white boy ilk. He's in it for himself.

Unless he selects you as one of his slaves. Because you know that if we infect the rest of the universe, we're bringing slavery back. But that's a story for another day.

OK, one more thing. Ostriches actually *don't* bury their heads in the sand. I just needed a silly metaphor to match Chicken Little. I apologize to ostriches everywhere.

"Fuck the doomed."

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #717: ALL IN THE NAME OF CORPORATE FUCKING GREED

 In case you couldn't tell over the course of me writing these GF columns, I can't stand corporate fucking greed. If you needed to point to one thing in the world that, if you eliminated it, the world would immediately be a better place by far, it's corporate fucking greed.

It never fails to amaze me how much we'll let these corporate fucking scumbags get away with. It's shocking how we continually let these fucking pieces of shit get away with anything and everything. I'm not even sure why. Why do we constantly fight against our own interests? Is it because we all think we will one day be millionaires? Who are we kidding?

But I have two situations that came to my attention recently that we need to nip in the bud ASAP, because if we don't we will all suffer drastic and crazy fucking consequences across the board.

Situation one: Neuralink. Elon Musk is hellbent on getting these brain implants approved so everyone can have them put in their heads. Everyone on the fucking planet EXCEPT for Musk and his colleagues is saying this is a bad idea. Forget the idea that this could very well be the Mark of the Beast Christians are usually ranting about but for some reason don't ever connect to Neuralink. I'll bet the first people in line will be the same people who hated the vaccine because they thought Bill Gates had put a microchip in it. And never mind that it's a way for your brain to get hacked. And never mind that it's another way that corporations could abuse you. If you can't afford the monthly bill for having the chip? They can turn it off remotely even if it's helping you remember how to breathe. Just like Teslas will lock their owners out and wait for a repo man to arrive if you miss a payment. Or, and this is something more of you will be familiar with, if the credit card you have on file with the manufacturer of your printer gets maxed, they will shut down your printer remotely.

The FDA's main problem with Neuralink is a lot simpler than my problems with it. It's that there is no way to keep the implant in one place. It will wander, which will cause damage to the inside of your head, the second to last place you would want that to happen in your body.

(You know what the first place is. Don't deny it.)

Why would anyone allow Musk to put an implant in their heads? Well, there is a very good carrot here. It's not just the stick. The idea is, Neuralink would help people with neurological problems. Like, if you can't walk because of a deficiency in your brain, this will help you walk. It could cure addiction. It could cure depression. That's a pretty big reward for such a risk.

I suppose if I were in a situation like that, I would be desperate to try Neuralink. But there are other uses, I'm sure. Imagine how pissed Zuck would be if Musk created Meta and didn't need an interface for it because it's in a brain implant instead? Or who knows? Maybe he'll sneak in a little killswitch for funsies. You all saw Kingsman: The Secret Service, right?

But Musk is not just chomping at the bit. He's straining against his straight jacket to get Neuralink approved. He's frothing at the goddam mouth. He's cutting corners during animal testing, and the situation is so bad that his own people are reporting him for animal cruelty. He is needlessly torturing and killing animals just to fast track this approval. Read it for yourself here. If that's what's happening to animals, who don't have the ability to be his customers, imagine what he'll do to his actual customers. All in the name of corporate fucking greed.

Situation two: Sinema and the pilot shortage. Kyrsten Sinema is just an awful person no matter how you look at her, but this is particularly galling. The law says that if you want to be a commercial pilot, you must have 1500 hours of flying experience first. With the pandemic over, and airplane trips on the rise, it's a lousy time to have a pilot shortage. So her idea--and keep in mind, I'm fairly certain she exists solely to make the world a worse place--is to get rid of the 1500 hours requirement. In a year when near-misses are at a startling high. Only because there is a need for more pilots. So corporations can make more money. All in the name of corporate fucking greed.

There's really no risk for them. All the risk is on people who fly in planes. And when there's a risk to people who are flying, the stakes are pretty fucking high. Tammy Duckworth, herself a pilot, told Sinema that she would "have blood on your hands" if this plan went through. Sully motherfucking Sullenberger himself stated the following:

"It is experience that arms (pilots) with the critically important judgment they must have to make good decisions that keep passengers and crews safe. 

"Sinema's amendment would cut and gut pilot experience levels."

When Sully is calling you out, you're getting called the fuck out. But how important is safety to people, really? There's money to be made, folks!

Some might say that Lloyd Kaufman, cofounder of Troma and creator of the Toxic Avenger (and a guy who gave me a blurb once upon reading some gay porn I'd written), is an irresponsible man. Yet somehow he's got his priorities straight.

If Lloyd Kaufman can get his shit together, why can't these greedy fucks?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #643: A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

Not sure who made this, but it's spot on.

 I used to think Elon Musk was interesting and goofy. That was about ten years ago, back when people could still think of him as Tony Stark. But he's definitely Lex Luthor. And he's bringing his evil schemes to Texas in a new way but with an old flavor.

This GF is to be read to this tune.

I will never understand why Americans who make very little money worship this fuckin' guy. John Steinbeck once said that Americans think of themselves as "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires," and that goes a long way toward explaining this baffling thing. Americans will constantly vote against their best interests because they believe, deep down in their hearts, that they will one day be rich.

The majority of those people are wrong. By majority, I don't think I'm being extreme when I say 99% of them. It's a great fantasy. Sometimes I think about what I'd do with a lot of money. I don't have extravagant tastes. I joke about buying a castle to have it sent to Elmhurst, or to have a pirate ship I could sail in Lake Michigan, but in reality I would spend it all on things I literally need to survive. And books. I would probably back a shit-ton of Kickstarters. And I would try to make the world a better place.

But some motherfuckers just want fast cars, a bunch of mansions and lots of sex they wouldn't be able to have if they didn't have money.

Elon Musk has more money than almost anyone else on the planet, and from what I can tell, the only thing he wants is more of it. And now he's building a town in Texas to help pave the way to even more riches.

He's already bought the land, and he intends to build affordable housing for all the employees he's going to have working for Boring, Tesla and SpaceX. On the surface that sounds noble, especially in this age of outlandish costs of living. But there's a darker side that the WSJ and Forbes and Fortune and other publications that cater to the super rich aren't willing to explore.

It sounds to me like a company town. A company town is a town where one company owns everything. Houses, schools, churches, stores, everything. People who live there all work for the company, so what happens is, they get paid by their employers, and then they spend that money paying rent and buying goods and services, which essentially cycles that money right back to their employers. In fact, some company towns don't pay in actual money. They pay in credits that can be exchanged for goods and services at the company store. It's a great scam, especially if you're in charge of everything.

That includes laws and regulations. What Musk is doing is setting himself up as the king of his little Texas fiefdom.

It's good to be the king.

Musk freely admits that he's fleeing California because it's the land of "overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation." Taxes are one thing that a fucking trillionaire shouldn't have to be concerned with, but I'll let that go. And there are maybe too many lawsuits in the world, and I'll bet a lot of them against trillionaires are legit. But I'll let that go, too. Overregulation, on the other hand, is an oxymoron. There's no such thing when it comes to shit like this.

Regulation of corporations is very, very important because it's been proven, time and time again, that if we leave them to regulate themselves, they make the world an even worse place than it already is. There is already a lot of concern about this from people who already live in the area Musk wants to build his company town.

Boring could have a lot of negative environmental impact on the area, in particular when it comes to ground water. This is especially horrifying now, considering the UN's recent announcement that if we don't fix our water problem fast, our world is going to be fucked beyond all hope.

But Texas politicians don't care about that kind of thing. They caught a whiff of Musk's musk, and now they're all horny for a huge payday. Overregulation? Pfft. Let's fast track this shit so we can earn a shit-ton of money while our constituents pay a higher price out of their own skins.

There are a lot of landowners down there who DON'T want Musk's company town. People who swear they're never going to sell to him. I admire their tenacity, but they don't stand a chance. How much you wanna bet that eminent domain gets used to take that land from them?

And then there are the poor bastards who are going to live in that town and get fleeced by this fuckin' prick. It sounds like a good deal until you realize that maybe you don't want to work for these companies. Or even worse, you get fired. What happens then? In regular America you get drunk for a week and feel sorry for yourself, and then you start looking for a new job. In Musk's company town you have 30 days to get out. Not only do you lose your job, but you also lose your home, your kids' schooling, your church (if you're the praying sort), YOUR WAY OF LIFE. Not such a good deal, after all, is it? Unless, of course, you're a sycophant. Sycophants would probably thrive here. They don't know what it's like to live without their lips stitched to their boss's ass, so they'll be OK as long as they toe the line.

If you're tired of hearing me talk about this, perhaps give this a read. I promise, it's super long and incredibly boring (heh), but it's worth reading. When you're done, I have a question for you.

Done? OK, here's my question. Did you notice something odd about that article? There's a phrase that reoccurs throughout the piece. Anytime the journalist reached out to someone on Musk's side, what happened?

They "didn't respond to requests for a comment." There's also mention of signing NDAs in there. This is not the behavior of people who have nothing to hide.

A lot of people are going to want to move to Musk's town, and I feel bad for them. They have no idea that they're really making a deal with the devil.

PS: Yes, I worked on this over the course of my day after getting out of work. I felt this was important to write about, and I planned on getting high. Too high to write this kind of thing. So once again I cheated on a GF, but I think it was worth it.