He is so profoundly bazinga :melon-musk:
The billionaire is urging “civilizational diversity” as a hedge against total global collapse
Any attempt to create a single world government is a cause for concern, since it could strip humanity of diversity and precipitate the end of civilization, billionaire Elon Musk has told a summit of government officials in Dubai.
The SpaceX CEO made a virtual appearance at the 2023 World Government Summit in the UAE on Wednesday. The event is aimed at fostering cooperation between nations, but Musk warned against taking it too far.
“We want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having – and this may seem odd – too much cooperation between governments,” Musk said.
Historically, different civilizations were separated by distance, so when one went into decline, others could rise, Musk reasoned. When Ancient Rome fell, Islam rose and managed to preserve much of the Roman knowledge and build upon it, Musk said. But in a globalized world this may no longer be a viable scenario.
We want to have some amount of civilizational diversity, such that if something goes wrong with one civilization, that the whole thing doesn’t collapse, and humanity keeps moving forward.
The imperative for humanity’s survival may be of universal importance, Musk believes, considering that as far as we know, there may be no other species anywhere that has developed consciousness.
“I have seen no evidence of alien technology or any alien life whatsoever. I think I’d know,” he mused. “SpaceX – we do a lot. I don’t think anyone knows more about space than me, at least about space technology.”
The thought that there are no aliens is “troubling,” he added, because it means that human civilization “is like a tiny candle in a vast darkness, and a very vulnerable tiny candle that could easily be blown out.”
Musk urged his audience to take great care to avoid humanity being wiped out by some cataclysm.
edit : also https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/2/16/tesla-to-recall-362000-us-vehicles-over-full-self-driving-softwa
Tesla to recall 362,000 US vehicles on full self-driving software
:data-laughing:
It's too late. We have a world government: the machine of Capital.
Every large scale society is linked up to the same capitalist world system. Even places like DPRK and Cuba aren't totally outside it and capital seeks to obliterate them. Places that discipline capital, like China, are also targets for destruction. Capital seeks to draw in everything, commodify everything and homogenize culture.
Unless this machine is destroyed, then diversity and the survival of humanity is not possible.
:porky-happy: Arthur Jensen : You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
:yes-honey-left: Howard Beale : Why me?
Arthur Jensen : Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
Howard Beale : I have seen the face of God.
Arthur Jensen : You just might be right, Mr. Beale.
When the scary corpo guy in a fictional movie isn't as evil and fucked up as the "good ones" of the contemporary world. :my-hero:
Welp, now I need to watch Network again
It turns out the real paperclip maximizer was the capitalism we met along the way