I cannot find a single thing about him that’s likable. His ideas are all fucking stupid, and he only got to where he is now through rampant exploitation, disregard for safety in his factories, and stealing the “founder” title from every company he bought. He literally just bought his way to the top, and for some reason people see him as a deity. He isn’t charismatic, like a cult leader, and he gives off the impression that he peaked in middle school. So what about him is so likable to people? I don’t get it, and I probably never will.
You want to live in a better world.
The only place that offers you a vision of a better world is science fiction. The sci fi future is supposed to be better because it has cool things - flying/self-driving/nuclear cars, a colony on mars, that sort of thing - not because of anything relating to living standards or material well being or whatever.
The only methods of enacting change that your society acknowledges are: A - voting, and B - hoping some brilliant billionaire inventor does it for you.
None of the politicians are offering you a science fiction future. Of the billionaires, Elon Musk is the one putting his money into the cool future things. Elon Musk is your hero.
Star Trek Discovery features an Elon Musk reference :agony-immense: :picard-direct-action:
Disco and Picard are revisionist. Lower Decks is the True Star Trek. Prodigy seems like crap based on the one episode I’ve seen and I have weird optimism about Strange New Worlds cause Anson Mount as Pike is fucking perfect and I want more of it.
like someone wrote, he is a dumb person’s idea of a smart person
part of it, i think, is that if you’re a true believer in capitalism, you have to believe that the people who rise to the top are the most worthy. another factor is people who are so myopic in their love for electric cars and/or space travel that they are completely uncritical of tesla and spacex. a third one is that he does low-effort pandering to r*ddit types, which does actually work on some people.
I know that all cultures have a lot to owe to legends and stories, but it seems like the entire world has mentally seen itself as part of one of those stories. Porky’s the main character, and we’re all meaningless background figures that at best, we can exist to do behind the scenes work to make porky feel even more like a hero.
Speaking of which, imagine if one these fuckers just made a fund and donated like 70% of their wealth to solve climate change, and succeeds. They would be hailed as heroes for all eternity, even IF they are the ones responsible for it in the first place, and it would definitely make our job as leftists much harder when people point to them and say “I TOLD YOU we can trust business to do the right thing!”
He’s Trump for tech-bros. Projects charisma but in a “nerdy” way, fails upward but spins it into a tale of his own success, and insists that he’s hardworking and self made but with eco-tech that’ll save the world. His appearance on Rick and Morty is like Trump cameos in Home Alone or something. People want to feel validated that their grind is going to reward them richly, so realtors and business owners like Trump, guys who code and think their tech will end all troubles AND make them rich love Musk, even if they’re all making less than 100k and spend so many hours just trying to get by.
they’re riding the coattails of the nerdcore aesthetic that started in the late 2000s
he also has acknowledged that anime and bitcoin exists, so he’s just like me, zomg
