Musk is a Dangerous Prat

 

There was a moment when I almost liked Musk. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, realizing climate change was a problem, wanting to spread our species across at least the solar system. It felt idealistic to me in a way--maybe I saw in him a touch of D. D. Harriman, I don't know. 

But then I realized he was a prat. 

It's the anti-woke stuff, you know. The idea that the "woke-mind virus" or diversity is going to prevent us from being a multiplanetary species is sheer twattery. We aren't actually going to be able to do it any other way.*

But anyway, Apartheid Clyde recently achieved a new low in a recent accelerating downward trajectory--no, not the thing where he's blaming ADL for his losing the multiple billions of dollars of value in Twitter that are actually his own stupid fault for letting the fascists and fucking child porn people back on his platform, but also destroying functionality (like analytics) and making people senselessly pay for things that were free and actually increased productive engagement. 

No, I mean the sabotage of a Ukrainian naval mission because he's a prat. 

Imagine being a contractor who decides to go so entirely outside of one's lane as to contact Russian authorities having been apprised of Ukrainian intent to do anything, and then believe the war criminals and just shut down the service they were contracted for. 

Do you think the heads of Lockheed Martin for a moment ever stop and go "You are using HIMARS for war stuff?! WTF!?" 

Starlink was intended for this connectivity. Ukraine was invaded by Russia--not the other way about. They have had schools and hospitals hit. Russia is indiscriminate about who they kill--it's fucking genocide. It even goes down to attempts to erase Ukraine identity, language and history, and stealing their children.  Naval vessels are a legitimate target of war. But here is dopey prat Elon trying to explain what he did:

Oh noes, I was supposed to be a war contractor, not a WAR contractor. Of course you'd be complicit in doing the job the business was hired for. The point of which was to stop the Russian fleet from killing Ukrainians and carrying out the business of embargoing grain shipments to mostly the global south. So Musk saved exactly no one (Russia pretends they are going to do nuclear shit, it's prats that believe them) and told what should have been contractually secret shit (I would entirely imagine) to people he had no business talking to, to fuck up what might have ENDED THE WAR. And so the Russian Navy can fucking still be a global problem WRT starving Africans. (They will still be major influencers killing them, somehow, even in the absence of Wagner--this I have no trouble seeing them allocate for.)

This isn't a case of Musk exceeding his "paygrade"--he hasn't one. It's being totally outside of his lane. He should have left the strategy to the strategists and the diplomacy to the diplomats, but he decided he had to be the Main Character. 

The Main Character is a villain.  I don't know what the solution is: nationalize Starlink and Space X? 

I do know I don't trust Musk for shit anymore. Forget the "woke mind virus" stopping us from becoming a multiplanetary species, I am starting to believe this fool is going to do it by Kessler Syndroming us because he won't get off the ketamine and go to a REAL FUCKING THERAPIST FOR HIS PROBLEMS.

And that is why he is a dangerous prat.

*In the somewhat disappointing Luc Besson joint "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" (redeemed in part by Rhianna and one outstanding montage), this is what tears me up:

Or the legacy of Gene Roddenberry and the Vulcan concept of "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations". (I've considered getting a tattoo of that.) There's just no place for Space Nazis.