[ExI] Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Sat Oct 25 11:22:52 UTC 2025


On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 7:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*> is THAT what those no-kings protests were about? I was wondering about
> that. *
>

*You were wondering about that?! Can you honestly say you have seen no
indication that the current POTUS is acting like a king in ways that no
other American president ever has before?  *

>

> *>>…But for millions of people Twitter**X is their only news source, so
>> they believe that Elon Musk must be a demigod who is never wrong…*
>
>
>
> *> Easy solution: don’t be one of those millions.*
>

*Spike, I think you should take your own advice, I already have. I
subscribe to 4 science magazines and the New York Times, and I visit Google
News nearly every day, and I watch CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC. Sometimes I
even watch Fox News but when I do I usually end up screaming rebuttals at
the screen until I remember that they can't hear me. *


> *> Regarding the New York Times, I was referring to Hunter Biden’s laptop,
> which was discovered shortly before the 2016 election. **The mainstream
> news sources distracted, diverted, cheerfully reported falsehoods that the
> laptop was Russian disinformation.*


*No. The Hunter Biden laptop story broke on October 14, 2020 just before
the 2020 election NOT the 2016 election. On that day the Times said they
were "unable to independently verify the contents" and that was true, they
could not verify it. A few days later they said the story was
 "unsubstantiated" and in October 2020 it was unsubstantiated. Given the
fact that there was so much Russian disinformation going on at the time it
was responsible journalism to be careful and not report it as if it was a
proven fact. **It turned out that in late 2019 the FBI had verified it but
that fact had not been made public.  **In March 2022 things had changed
because the Times had discovered  more information, so they reported  they
had authenticated emails "from a cache of files that appears to have come
from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop".*

*And what did we learn from that laptop? Not much except that Hunter Biden
liked pornography and cocaine. And that he bought a gun illegally, which I
don't think would bother the MAGA crowd very much. And that he tried to
cash in on the fact that he was the son of the president of the United
States which, for obvious reasons, I'm CERTAIN the MAGA people shouldn't
have the slightest problem with.*


> *>> *
>> * do you really believe that the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and 14 other US
>> intelligence agencies are wrong, but TwitterX's algorithm is right?   John
>> K Clark*
>
>
>
> *I do.*
>

*Well Spike all I can say is that explains a lot.  *


*John K Clark*
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