Hot Topix: X Marks the Mess

00:01.27
Henry
Hey everyone it's Henry Mike and Jeff of the decentralists and welcome to our latest hot topic and this one might be a bit familiar to some of you. Well I don't know it could be the third or fourth time we have dedicated a show to.

00:21.10
Henry
Mr. Elon Musk because of his interesting behavior this one we're calling x marks the mess. Yeah, you remember Twitter as you know it's called x now and um Mike and.

00:33.13
Geoff
Only by you henry.

00:35.20
Mike
Yeah, exactly only by you.

00:39.30
Henry
Ah, and of course Mike and Jeff are always asking me. Can we do another elon one because there's so much to say and don't forget guys I'm going to let you run with this but don't forget to mention all of your predictions that you were. So sure on months ago anyway. So um, ah.

01:00.00
Geoff
Wait a minute wait a minute you didn't keep a recording of this did you Henry there's no way anyone can go back and know what we said a year ago it's yeah

01:03.19
Mike
I yeah wait a second I cannot be held accountable for anything I've said on social media I think Jeff should start.

01:05.62
Henry
Okay, stop I'm gentleman who's going to start because I know you're both salivating who's going to start all right, get the voice of reason Jeffrey please.

01:18.16
Geoff
So my prediction from I don't know when that was a year ago well he so owned it for more than a year. So probably something like fourteen months ago was that he was going to be forced to buy Twitter if you can recall he made this outlandishly large bid for the platform almost on a whim. And then he turned around and tried to get out of it. But of course the Delaware chancellry court. He knew the Delaware chancellry court was going to hold him to it and as you recall I said that the board of Twitter had a fiduciary fiduciary duty. To force the sale because it would be a good payback for all the shareholders. Um, and what do you know um that that is what happened ah and and he took over ah Twitter and and chaos began to reign. Um I would say.

02:02.51
Henry
Ah.

02:08.35
Mike
And from day one when he showed up with a toilet or a kitchen sink in his hands.

02:14.71
Geoff
Yeah, showed up with a sync. Um, the first thing he started to do of course was laying off vast numbers of people and you know from developers to marketing people to media people. And most importantly, we could talk about in a few minutes um pretty much gutted the entire trust and safety team which is the team that ensures that if you turn up and start um, posting content saying that Adolf Hitler was the greatest guy of all time and. And that he did the right thing loading jews into box cars the trust and safety team would take that content down. So so so he he guide that team.

02:52.78
Henry
Right? Okay, but hold on Jeff you said that the first thing he did was was essentially cut expenses and and chop people am I right in thinking. The only reason he would do that is because he overpaid for the yeah for for Twitter.

03:10.21
Geoff
I certainly that would be part of it I mean he suddenly you know suddenly Twitter is burdened with this this enormous debt. He now has to cope with this debt and and one of the ways to you know reduce that debt is to. Reduce operating costs and you do that by cutting headcount so you can you can kind of connect the dots there and and and say that's that's what he did. He also said you know a lot of people went home and started working from home in the pandemic and he said everybody has to come back to the office as we know from. His Tesla factories and other places he was just never happy with remote work. He was never happy with the government saying you have to shut down your business because of this pandemic so he also ordered vast numbers of people back to the office which also had the byproduct of of a lot of people saying.

03:54.58
Henry
Um, yeah.

04:04.87
Geoff
Well I don't want to work for this guy anyway and so and so they quit So you also had and a nice. You know a significant round of attrition where he didn't have to lay people off. They just they just quit on him.

04:19.20
Henry
Um, it was a great star wasn't it.

04:21.59
Geoff
Ah, yeah, and and I know that um you know I know that Mike got kicked off Twitter years ago for some completely on um twice for some reasons that remain unclear to this day. Um, but i.

04:29.24
Mike
I twice actually.

04:37.42
Geoff
You know I was dabbling in there I've been dabbling in there for for a long time when Twitter first launched your character count that you could use was quite limited so you know unless you're able to write like a teenager writing a text on a flip phone I found the site hard to use but when they increased the character count. Um. I did I did dive in there and interact and and sort of the first thing I noticed not long after the layoffs was the site really started to become glitchy search stopped working my my feeds didn't load correctly tweets that I wrote never appeared the site just started to become.

05:04.10
Mike
I hope.

05:04.95
Henry
Um, oh.

05:14.33
Geoff
Unstable and and also just a lot of toxic crap that I wasn't seeing before started to appear within my feed as well that that I you know that I didn't used to see before so it it.

05:21.90
Henry
Um, ah.

05:30.24
Geoff
Rapidly started to become a shadow of its former self.

05:33.92
Henry
Um, well Mike um, give us your perspective. Um, from the point of well even before the point he yeah he purchased it.

05:36.78
Mike
Right.

05:42.19
Mike
Right? So so yes, if ah, you know I will step in there in the high road. Um, and basically you know my I you know I think if you recall basically where if I recall correctly because it's been quite a while um you know. Most of my discussions were revold around the fact that I didn't think he should be allowed to buy Twitter and I didn't think he would be allowed to buy Twitter kind of almost like an antitrust thing right? I mean you have this, you know you've had these ongoing sagas. You know where.

06:04.33
Henry
Um, oh yeah.

06:14.22
Mike
Um, Microsoft has been trying to buy Ubisoft which is the game maker of call of duty which is you know blah blah blah a big game on Sony and you know all this other kind of competitive xbox stuff and they've been fighting that thing all over the planet for years and you know it would be the same thing with Twitter. You know you had this guy that was arguably the biggest influencer who had the most followers you know he would he would say things on Twitter and like the stock would drop 10% or he would you know what I mean and it and it would be his own stock right? Which which you know going back to going back to the whole.

06:43.89
Henry
Um, yeah.

06:50.49
Mike
The whole beginning. Ah when we were just done when Jeff was just tongue I was biting my tongue when he was you know when when he came in and the first thing he does he buys Twitter he overpays for it. He stopped $44000000000 and he comes in carrying the sink. It says that's it and he starts firing people right. And when arguably which which did a lot of damage right? I mean it does not work. Well um, it has become this den of garbage. But I mean the biggest the biggest effect on Twitter has been musk himself you know since he purchased it I mean the the latest bit that god has kind of.

07:21.53
Henry
It's true.

07:25.59
Mike
You know, wanting to talk about this again. Is you've seen these these headlines over the last kind of six months or so where all the advertisers are leaving because Musk is just being musk. He owns the platform he jumps on it and he starts saying you know anti-semitic stuff when the Hamas.

07:34.51
Henry
Um, yeah.

07:43.53
Mike
Ah, Israel thing starts going off right? and and so you know as used to happen in social media. It's kind of always been a problem is that advertisers would bounce in and out of these platforms because one day you know Nike guys are getting these complaints from from Nike's consumers

07:45.20
Henry
Um, that is unbelievable.

08:02.97
Mike
Saying I just went to look I just went and saw some Nike ad and right next to it was like you know an ad for the Kkk or something like this right and they're going I don't want to be associated with this stuff like you've got my Nike thing and you're putting the you know the Ku Klux Klan on this thing and well now it's like. I don't want to be associated with this platform because every time every time somebody looks at a Nike ad they see Elon Musk Beacon off about the jews or something this is this is it but but you know so so you.

08:27.44
Henry
Um, and that's uncontrollable too.

08:29.62
Geoff
And well it it is controllable I mean it's not correct to say it's uncontrollable. It's that Elon Mark chooses not to control it.

08:37.61
Mike
But I mean I don't even know if that's the case though, right? I mean you know I agree with you one hundred percent but like let's let's let's look at this guys. We've been talking about social media. Okay, for years and all the evils and all this other kind of stuff right in the previous life and all these other things.

08:40.44
Henry
Um.

08:56.19
Mike
And and there was always um, you know you always had like the Europeans right? and you had the um ah you had the Europeans you had the the Americans you had all these guys. You remember back was not that long ago where every three months there'd be a congressional hearing.

09:13.46
Henry
Um, yeah.

09:13.94
Mike
They'd have Zuckerberg and they'd have dorsey you know former Ceo of Twitter rested peace and they'd have all of these other guys and girls come out and testify in front of congress about how they were promoting hate speech and doing all this stuff. So how the heck has Musk been able to come in by Twitter right. Get rid of like basically gut the whole kind of um, you know like you said the trust team the guys that basically would moderate right? They call it moderators. How has he been able to gut the moderators on Twitter and this guy is not getting roasted alive by the scc fcc every week.

09:39.91
Henry
Who.

09:48.71
Henry
Um, well that's probably because they don't really control the internet internet.

09:51.12
Mike
Right? I mean people, but but but they control the finds right? and so you would have to think that it you know like you mean if if you had Twitter without Musk. Okay, and this is where you start to get a little bit weird off into this conspiracy theory thing right? but. If you had Twitter without Musk and and all of a sudden you had anti-semitic you know advertising and you know Kkk stuff and all of this and all these weird pizzagate things and everything like that these guys would get roasted for it and they get fined right? You aren't transmitting hate speech.

10:25.86
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.

10:28.52
Mike
You are transmitting you know doing all these things and they would get fined and they would pay a fine and they would you know I mean there'd be I haven't when was the last time any when was the last time any of these guys have been fined.

10:38.24
Henry
Yeah.

10:38.52
Geoff
The challenge in is in the united states there is this you know there is this notion of of freedom of speech that that that dominates over everything right? Alex Jones of Infowars can say that the sandy hook children who are gunned down into.

10:50.67
Henry
Um, yeah.

10:57.82
Geoff
Hamburger were all crisis actors. Their parents were crisis actors. It didn't happen. You know he can and by the way he must just let Alex Jones back on Twitter but he he can say anything like that and no matter you know you can have nazis with.

11:01.80
Henry
Then said, ah.

11:08.32
Henry
Um, that's incredible.

11:16.20
Geoff
Swastika flags protesting outside of Disney World like what happened a couple of months ago and that is allowed in the Us under freedom of Speech and the only recourse is is civil litigation right? which is which is what what happened against. Alex Jones and and just a couple of days ago happened against Rudy Giuliani when he when he defamed those election workers. So that is you? you basically you basically have the right to say whatever you want, but you don't have the right for that to be consequence-free now of course it all falls down in the Us where.

11:35.29
Henry
Oh yeah, right.

11:36.96
Mike
And.

11:51.91
Geoff
You need to have a million dollars to be able to get the lawyers and go and go and sue but but that's why nothing happens because the Us government were they to attempt to say to Twitter you can't do that or you shouldn't do that with some exceptions. Um, you know. Child sexual abuse material. That's clearly against the law so they can come down on that and but that's really sort of the only the only exception so I I think yeah so I think where where it gets addressed in the Us is um is in the public market right? So you. You had these attempted free speech sites come up like parlor and gab and so on a few years ago. Um, that said anybody could say anything they want and they are all either bankrupt or all well on the way to bankrupt because they couldn't get any advertising dollars and so.

12:38.60
Henry
Ah, her.

12:45.92
Henry
Exactly.

12:47.18
Mike
Right.

12:49.78
Geoff
So that is yeah other than like my pillow guy who is bankrupt himself now. So so so that is what people would expect would happen with Twitter and and it's why Twitter previously ah worked at trust and safety worked at. Um, keeping the place as tidy as they could to keep to because they valued those advertisers but then you get some the richest men in the world who just buys it who literally says f you to the advertisers and and and that that mechanism that exists in the states of of.

13:20.49
Mike
Yeah, literally.

13:28.60
Geoff
Whereas in Canada where we are. We've got like hate legislation. The bar is very high but you you can be criminally charged for hate speech in the Us there's really none of that framework and so and so where it was typically addressed was in the free market where if you created some toxic hate-filled site. Um. Nobody would advertise on it and there would be no way to make money and you'd go bankrupt. So yeah.

13:50.30
Henry
And that could very well be happening. Okay.

13:51.45
Mike
And oh and and and don't you feel sorry for Elon right? when he goes on himself and says you know what you first like as Jeff says he says f you to these advertisers who pull out and says. Look you guys by pulling out, you're just going to bankrupt the platform wo too bad exactly that.

14:09.47
Henry
Yeah.

14:12.50
Geoff
Don't threaten me with a don't threaten me with a good time. Elon.

14:14.29
Henry
Yeah, no kidding. Okay, a question for I guess I guess I want you to both address this um and you know fairly seriously um, okay, do you believe that Elon Musk had a plan when he purchased Twitter and transformed it to x um, and do you feel that he has a better idea of what he's doing now or do you feel that he has morphed into having more of a plan. What are your thoughts Mike.

14:54.62
Mike
Um, okay, do I think he had a plan. No um I think he had some weird idea right? that? Um, you know all of these. You know because if you if you look at the social platforms in the states right? They're very fragmented right? All the american ones you've got Facebook and Instagram and like those The only reason they're kind of unified is because they're bought they bought each other but they all have just this little niche right? like you know, tiktoks the little videos. Instagram's pictures Facebook is old people you know stuff like this right and whereas some of these these apps in China like we chat and waibo and stuff like this are these super apps. They call them.

15:40.90
Henry
Um, what do you? What do you mean? Super app.

15:41.75
Mike
Well so so essentially you what you have is is is if you were on the equivalent of Twitter okay, in China not only can you do your tweets you can post your pictures. You can buy things you can go shopping like there's there's things that you could just click on something and buy it like Facebook marketplace.

15:54.55
Henry
The earth.

16:00.79
Mike
You can send money to people through a message you can go into like like like taxic caps you just tap your Wi-bo thing and it goes boop right? They're basically everything and so I think you know I think potentially somewhere in the dirty recesses of musks.

16:10.94
Henry
Wow.

16:19.13
Mike
Clearly kind of starting to go insane mind he figured that if he that that it was worth it to basically buy 1 of the most recognizable now Twitter was always the smallest you know what I mean like Facebook has 1000000000 people Twitter has 200000000 but he figured that if he had.

16:30.48
Henry
Who.

16:38.85
Mike
You you know a big platform that had a bunch of users that were dedicated because of the way it worked right I mean because twitters still kind of at the time he bought it was like the best way to just quickly get information and sound bites out right? You just want to make an opinion about the you know like Sandy hook and you can.

16:52.89
Henry
Who.

16:58.38
Mike
Be Alex Jones and go nuts or you can be somebody who who's who's that's using that as an immediate opportunity to promote gun control. Okay so always been that platform and so I think maybe in the dusty researches recesses up his mind. He figured that he would.

17:05.10
Henry
Um, sure.

17:15.67
Mike
He would buy this platform he because he knew he couldn't buy Facebook right? It's worth $1000000000000 he doesn't even have that money so so he could buy Twitter and that was a deal for him I guarantee you in his might he's like 40000000000 no big deal so he he buys Twitter and he thinks I'm just going to buy it and I'm going to turn it into this this super app.

17:22.59
Henry
Um, her.

17:35.47
Mike
Where now everybody who has Twitter will use it for payments and we'll use it for shopping and we'll use it for you know all of the money transfers and and all of this stuff and it'll just become this thing that will just now grow to a billion people and all these people are on Facebook will also be on x.

17:52.60
Henry
Oh so. That's what you think that he wanted to build a super app but there's only 1 problem with that does that doesn't that absolutely require massive investment and a whole bunch of programmers and not a whole bunch of crazy stuff.

17:54.12
Mike
Right? Of course it will.

18:01.23
Mike
Um, yeah, do you think Well this is it well but he's we've always said as part of the last couple of podcasts right? 1 of the things that's that's kind of you know I've been kind of one of these passive followers of Elon Musk for quite a while. Okay. And I kind of there was a time when I really respected the guy for a lot of the things he would do and the chances he would take and things like this right? I mean he did the whole tesla thing which you could argue basically kind of created the foundation for the electric vehicle industry as we see it today.

18:24.76
Henry
Who.

18:34.26
Henry
Um, absolutely so did I.

18:35.15
Mike
Right? The Spacex thing I mean I thought he was nuts but he's basically created the the foundation of a private space industry. Okay, and and so those are great laudable goals but I think that. You know, just like um Howard Hughes I like to use the analogy right? And for those of you that don't remember Howard Hughes Howard Hughes was this kind. He was a super rich guy who owned standard oil which basically had all of the oil wells in Texas or something like this and he was richer than god kind of like Elon is.

18:53.81
Henry
Um, ah.

19:07.95
Mike
And he was also known when he was a young man of being a very innovative risk taker. He built this thing called the Spruce goose right? which was the biggest airplane I think it still is the biggest airplane that's ever been built right? and and he and he had the broke The what is it the speed record in an airplane.

19:11.40
Henry
Absolutely.

19:19.70
Henry
Ah.

19:25.45
Mike
So you know and he was so he was one of these guys that was using his money and his kind of creative zeal to push himself. But for those who also may not remember Howard Hughes went nuts.

19:35.70
Henry
Yeah, he did.

19:37.68
Mike
At the of Howard Hughes's life I mean he spent like the last I think ten or fifteen years of his life locked up as a recluse in like the panthouse of some hotel in Vegas you know with walking around with his literally walking around with his feet in Kleenex boxes.

19:52.22
Henry
Yeah, yeah.

19:54.68
Mike
Where he wouldn't cut his hair nail. He wouldn't cut his hair or his nails. He was like he was like the guy at the beginning of Monty Python who goes it's you know what? I mean who always had the hair and everything I mean he he he literally went nuts and ah and so you start to wonder I mean does absolute power and absolute money. Corrupt absolutely and I think Elon's starting to show this I think he truly truly with this Twitter thing he does not he does not believe that any of his ideas can go wrong. Um, to your point Henry and to Jeff's point originally you know you you want to turn this Twitter into this ex super app and the first thing you do is fire every human that works there are you out of your mind. So anyway, that's my thought is is he's just losing it right.

20:37.63
Geoff
So you asked me Henry or asked us you know did he have a plan and and I would say yes he had a plan but you know much like Hitner's Hitler's plan to invade Russia it was not a good plan right? and.

20:51.68
Henry
Yeah.

20:55.36
Geoff
And so really and I would break it down into from what you from what you read and and from what people have tried to glean. There was really 3 3 components to this plan. The first plan is as as elon became red pilled. Kind of moved to the republican camps started believe in conspiracy theories started doing all this stuff. Um, a lot of you know people that move in those spaces operate under this belief that there's this tremendous amount of censorship on the internet right? and that there is.

21:15.41
Henry
Um, yeah.

21:29.30
Geoff
You know these voices are being silenced and and people are being prevented from speaking which of course is complete nonsense right? Like if you look at the most engaged and most active sites on the internet. There are people like Dan Bongino their Ben Shapiro their daily wire. There was you know there was no, you could you could basically put anything you want up online almost with with no consequence particularly in the us as we talked about earlier but but people operate in this bubble where they believe this is going on and they believe there is this vast.

21:55.14
Henry
It's true.

22:07.10
Geoff
Vast quantity of millions of people who have been silenced who if an open platform is created they will flood onto it and flourish. Um, and that's just not true. You let ah you know you got.

22:21.55
Geoff
Couple 100000 guys in their mom's basements that you let back onto the internet so they can go online and and and spew transphobic nonsense. It's not. It's not some kind of path to wealth but but he kind of he kind of thought it would be right and and so and.

22:31.56
Henry
Um, who.

22:32.20
Mike
Hundred percent

22:38.64
Geoff
He would only need to look at parlor and gab and truth social and all these other dead sites to know there is not this I mean what site is surging the most right now growing exponentially Tiktok. Why well one of the reasons is Tiktok is the most heavily moderated sites out there. So when people go on Tiktok.

22:38.91
Henry
Yes.

22:57.28
Henry
Sorry my ah sorry Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff we dropped you, you just said and I don't know the last time I actually dropped an important thing. So you said you were just going on.

22:57.51
Geoff
It's yeah.

23:09.84
Henry
And look at these other sites and just before you said Tiktok we'd lost a sentence. Can you try again.

23:13.32
Geoff
Sure and take a look at Tiktok Tiktok is one of the most heavily moderated sites on the internet. It's also growing exponentially why because it's a positive experience. It's puppy videos and.

23:24.84
Henry
Who.

23:31.81
Geoff
Dancing in jokes and you know not full of all this toxic crap. So so it's really the opposite is the case that if you want to grow exponentially you want to bring the good stuff on, not you know, not all these terrible people. So that's the first part of his plan that was wrong.

23:51.50
Henry
Um, ah, fascinating.

23:51.70
Geoff
The second point is um, you know moving it to this x.com name we haven't really talked about that too much but Elon has owned x.com forever. It's been his vision to make this everything app that that Mike talked about um, in addition to the things that Mike mentioned and you mentioned in terms of investment. And and all that kind of stuff that's required in developers and everything else. There's also this huge regulatory framework to overcome where if you want to if you want to be uber and you want to be venmo which is a money transfer solution. And you want to be Twitter and you want to be Instagram and you want to be all these things and you want to be a payment app like Paypal which is where elon so one of the places elon started. Um, that's that's pretty impossible in the western regulatory framework you can do it in China because there's.

24:36.53
Henry
Are.

24:45.63
Mike
Correct.

24:46.88
Henry
Yeah.

24:49.52
Geoff
You know you're just totally different regulatory framework and then I think the final part of his plan was he wanted um a large data set where he could train an ai large language model so excuse me so the way. Large language models work today as they consume they they basically you know consume all of this content that's on the web and then they do predictive language. So when you say you know how can I cook something from these contents in my fridge. It. It it spits it out based on all the data all the data that it's consumed all the like words that it's consumed off the internet so Twitter consists of millions and millions and millions of words and so all put together in sentences and so on and so we thought okay great. Here is where I can create I have a ready data set for my own large large language model and he's actually launched this recently. But again, it's a little bit bananas where um where the red pilled crazies are convinced that chat Gpt and and bard and these large language models.

25:41.52
Henry
E.

25:58.82
Geoff
I'll have a liberal bent so I can make right wing Ai and and so that's his goal now now these these language models might have a liberal bent because that's what the world has right? The world has a liberal bent. So if you consume.

26:03.80
Mike
I put on a joke.

26:13.18
Henry
Actually you're right.

26:17.41
Geoff
You consume everything that's been written in English in the world. It will have a liberal bent because the majority of humans are like hey look after your neighbor and you should get health care and all this stuff and and so that's that's what ah it spits back out So those you know those plans that that notion of.

26:26.79
Henry
Yeah, yeah.

26:36.38
Geoff
Ah, get rid of censorship and I'll get millions of new users. Well that was a stupid plan the everything app as we've discussed that was a stupid plan and you know seating Ai well maybe that's ah, not a bad plan but who a how do you monetize that and b you know who. Who is the market for people who want you know right? wing ai I mean how many how many people are there. So. It's all yeah, it's it's all nuts.

26:58.77
Henry
Yeah.

27:00.23
Mike
Totally.

27:06.45
Henry
Wow that you've really thought about that Jeffrey I mean you're absolutely right? You know ah was it you or Mike mentioned you know those those those those teenagers in their basement those loser incel guys I mean. What kind of market is that it's ridiculous.

27:23.68
Mike
Well but but I think this is part of it right? I mean and then this is part of this greater narrative that you know frankly, really bothers me okay and I think it bothers a lot of people because I couldn't agree more um. Like you know I know there's more than not more than a hundred percent but I couldn't agree a hundred I agree 110 percent that the world is in general people are good. The world has a liberal bent.

27:45.15
Henry
Ah.

27:46.35
Mike
People don't want to see you know homeless people lying on streets so they don't want to see people not given health care or not given access to education. They don't want to see you know 200000 people lined up at a border crosssing trying to get through the wall. They don't want to see this.

27:59.69
Henry
Right.

28:04.18
Mike
And and but yet if you if you pay attention to the way that you know the media, especially the right wing media that's basically controlled by Rupert Murdoch who's essentially the antichrist. Um, you know what? you you would you would literally believe right that there are. That that at least 50% of the humans in the United States are pro or sorry anti-abottion pro-gun control. Don't believe that trans rights should exist. Don't believe that you should be able to teach anything like this in school. Don't believe in. In in in in legal immigration or any of this stuff like you would literally believe that and it's just not true anti gun control right? like basically what I mean is is that is that in no way.

28:48.73
Henry
And I think you meant anti gun control. Yes.

28:58.99
Mike
Do I believe that a significant portion of the population of the United States is a firm believer in Donald Trump is the best human to run that country right? They're just paralyzed in this area where.

29:08.53
Geoff
And.

29:13.51
Mike
I've voted republican my dad voted republican my grandfather voted republican we came over on the freaking mayflower and started the republican party and I need to vote for whoever the republican is and they're stuck in this kind of a rut which would make you believe that everybody right same as in Canada do you truly believe Henry that every single human who's.

29:25.90
Henry
Yeah.

29:33.18
Mike
Ever Voted conservative in their life would support this polyaf guy not a chance right? So it's just this is it.

29:38.98
Henry
Ah, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay.

29:43.30
Geoff
And and part of the issue in the United States is that the way the Us political system is structured gerrymandering to elect people into you know into congress the fact that you know North Dakota and South Dakota have you know one thirty fifth the population of California but have twice as many senators. Um the electoral college that elects the president all of these things cause the the minority to be boosted up much higher than than they would be otherwise so.

30:21.28
Henry
Ah.

30:22.46
Geoff
You know the republicans have a majority in the house of representatives they you know have the the congress or sorry that senate is split fifty fifty so people believe that that these opinions are much more prevalent and much stronger than they actually are. Because the system has amplified amplified those disproportionately and and so that's where people like Musk and others. You know feel like they're in the right when again, they just don't reflect overall what the. What the majority believe.

31:00.42
Henry
Yeah, yeah, good point. Ah 1 last question gentlemen and this of course is to both of you. What do you think is next for x.

31:13.20
Mike
Who um gee okay I'll I'll I'll take this one because Jes will probably be much more profound. Um, ah you know I I honestly believe that he's gonna drive it into the ground I think that I think that.

31:28.80
Henry
Ah.

31:32.70
Mike
You know he's proven that he just he never learns his lesson right? I mean it it would it surprise anybody to see him come out with some kind of you know Anti-semitic comment again in the future or to to swear at his advertisers or to do things like this and and I think that just naturally what's happening with.

31:48.20
Henry
Um.

31:51.75
Mike
X because I mean it's not even like think about it. You know, even in the regular. It's now been x for how long six months a year something like this. It's been x for a while and yet you still you cannot read anything anywhere where it doesn't say x bracket formerly Twitter.

31:58.90
Henry
No, not that long. Yeah.

32:09.64
Henry
Um, I know.

32:10.33
Mike
At some point right? you you have people where I'm guessing that if you were to look into it people have been either leaving or at the very least not joining X in droves like as they used to and so I think that what you end up seeing is that is that you know.

32:21.18
Henry
Who.

32:29.35
Mike
Elon's already kind of hooked his red pill wagon to this, you know, kind of right wingy kind of thing and I think it's going to be his undoing I think that that you know even Donald Trump isn't really back even though he's back. He still kind of throws his stuff on this true social thing right. And so so I think that elon you know that basically Twitter as it is as a voice box for you know, kind of the rest of the world. It just dies I think it just dies and Elon takes it and tries to use it to build this model and that won't really work either because I agree with Jeff.

32:47.73
Henry
Ah.

33:05.95
Henry
Um.

33:06.83
Mike
And so I think that that it'll just it'll limp along for a little bit of time and eventually elon will just realize that you know. He'll cut his losses. You'll something will happen right? Tesla will go up 40% stock in one day he'll realize that he that he basically now just has it. He's made back every dollar that he lost on Twitter and he'll just let it go.

33:24.69
Henry
Or maybe sell it.

33:28.60
Geoff
Yeah, maybe I mean I if I if I want to look into my crystal ball I think you know I think Mike's point was a key one about about users I mean there was users leaving as he said and users not joining and then the third category are people like me which is.

33:28.50
Mike
Who who's going to buy it.

33:46.75
Geoff
Users that are no longer engaging. So if you look me up on Twitter feel free x whatever the heck it's called um, you know my last tweet was in Mid -october and that was an ah angry tweet to mclean's magazine which is canada's version of time magazine asking why they're buying ads on twitter when.

33:49.57
Henry
Ah.

34:05.99
Geoff
When the ads are being served up amongst all this homophobic. Theres this long homophobic thread and then right in the middle of it is a mclean's magazine ad prior to that I was mostly just boosting pro-ukraine stuff so there is there. There's a third tier of.

34:08.35
Henry
Yeah, good point.

34:22.72
Geoff
Users that just aren't engaging with the platform anymore and I've mostly moved over to threads and that's a topic for another podcast another day. Ah, but but that is you know that is also key is people that just aren't aren't aren't using the platform anymore and I I think. So what's important to remember is that Musk bought Twitter sure with some of his own money but he also bought it with a lot of other people's money. Um I think don't sue me if I'm getting this wrong. But I think Morgan Stanley puts some money in there's some there's a bunch of money from the gulf.

34:55.73
Mike
You yep.

35:00.45
Geoff
Um, from Saudis There's you know it's a lot of money from other places because that's you know all successful billionaires just spend other people's money and shareholders. Whatever um so it would not surprise me if the world's richest man just turned around and.

35:01.95
Henry
Um, is that right.

35:08.50
Henry
Yeah, yeah.

35:19.81
Geoff
Um, bought that debt himself for twenty five cents on the dollar. So so he he basically just went to Morgan Stanley and said you know I'll I'll buy that debt for twenty five cents on the dollar went to his the folks in Saudi and said the same thing and and basically.

35:23.88
Henry
Um, oh wow.

35:37.19
Geoff
You know he's spent. He'll spend some more billions some money that he can find down the bottom of the couch back of the couch but but then he will own it for himself and and at that point I think it will just toole along the way Gab or you know these other sites did where. You know it'll it'll continue to be you know like I don't know like 4 Chan like this this site that continues. It's been around for 20 years and it'll be around for 20 more but nobody nobody you know is on there and nobody knows doing anything there but it's still you know it's still out there and it's still doing its thing and.

36:09.50
Mike
Correct.

36:10.30
Henry
Here.

36:16.64
Geoff
Um, and you know and and there will be high profile people that will up appear there. So um, you know Tucker Carlson's show is on there. Ah and you know and others. So I think that you know I think that people will I think it'll continue to stumble along and I think he will just own it outright. Um, and and get rid of all his investors so we can we can? Yeah, so we can come back in a year again and and see which which prediction was correct.

36:36.64
Mike
And then just if it comes up it just message board.

36:36.71
Henry
Yeah.

36:44.92
Mike
Right.

36:47.18
Henry
Well I tell you guys the ah there's no question that your your outlook for x and Mr Musk it's it's not too positive but I can tell you 1 thing for sure. Um, we will I'm positive have lots of fodder for. Future podcasts.

37:04.92
Geoff
We're opinionated if nothing else.

37:05.00
Mike
Yeah, exactly and we love talking about Elon I just like saying Elon.

37:10.11
Henry
You know, ah gentlemen I want to thank you again. Jeffrey Michael ah this was a fun one and I look forward to the next a and have ah a wonderful holiday season.

37:23.46
Mike
Um, yes, that's right Merry Christmas later

37:25.73
Geoff
Um, thank you you too by.

37:27.34
Henry
By life.