Dangerous Democracy; The Musk Fallacy

The will of the people is usually bad news

“People,” my Daddy would always say, “Are always twice as stupid as you’d think.” As a man who has yet to be wrong on just about every public consensus issue I can think of, I’m beginning to lose my optimism in disagreeing with him.

This isn’t a smug intelligencia thing. I’ll openly accept that my mathematical ability is enough to destroy empires and start wars, and that my understanding of the role of interest regulation around the euro is at best non-existent. I’m smart enough to recognise that there is stuff - huge swathes of stuff- I don’t know about. I defer to my dentist, my doctor, my accountant and my hairdresser on massive sections of expertise across my life. As you should, if you aren’t a raging narcissist.

Speaking of raging narcissists, Elon Musk has bought Twitter. Yeah: a man with the worst understanding of social engagement in the world bought Twitter thinking he would do a better job. While that is in itself very yikes, that’s also very rich-boy-with-daddy’s-emerald-mines-and-lots-of-people-saying-what-a-clever-boy-he-is so I’ll let it go. What fascinates me, personally speaking, is the…