#capitalism

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Sönke Iwersen, Michael Verfürden: The Tesla Files (Hardcover, english language, 2025, Steerforth) No rating

When an anonymous whistleblower and former Tesla employee approached Germany’s business newspaper Handelsblatt in November …

Trust, in Tesla’s framework, is a prerequisite for feedback and growth. Managers are told to cultivate it – to be open, receptive, and self-aware. But what happens when that principle is tested at the top? What does trust look like when the person in question is Elon Musk himself?

One barely noticed moment captures the answer with striking clarity. In October 2023, during an earnings call, Musk talks about Tesla’s bright future. But there’s one problem: no one can hear him. His microphone is muted. He keeps talking. And talking. Unaware that his words are going nowhere. On their screens, analysts can do little more than read his lips. Time passes. Still, no one interrupts. No one trusts that speaking up would be a good idea.

Eventually, someone at Tesla unmutes him. But no one dares to point out the issue. Musk continues as if nothing happened – he doesn’t repeat the start of his statement. In the transcript, where his opening should be, it now reads: ‘[Audio gap]’ or ‘[Call starts abruptly].’

A statement from the richest man on Earth turns into a farce – because no one speaks the obvious truth: he can’t be heard. The moment reveals just how deeply fear shapes the environment around him. Even during a routine earnings call, silence wins.

The episode recalls The Emperor’s New Clothes, a fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. In his story, no one dares to tell the ruler what’s plainly obvious: that he’s not wearing any clothes. Everyone stays silent – until a child speaks the truth. There were no children at that Tesla conference call. And Musk, it seems, surrounds himself with yes-men. The open feedback culture he promotes? If it exists at Tesla, it stops at the door to his office.

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The Society of the Spectacle is a famous book from 1968 by Guy Debord. It is a critique of capitalism about how commodities rule the workers and consumers, instead of being ruled by them.

And under capitalism almost anything is a commodity - not least misery, pain and war lapped up by drooling viewers through screens 24/7.

It is a book about people becoming passive viewers and consumers of the world around them rather than participants affecting its outcomes.

Insurrectionist E.J. Antoni - Trump2 Pick for Labor Statistics Head -
https://truthout.org/articles/footage-shows-trumps-pick-for-labor-statistics-head-in-january-6-mob
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.J._Antoni

* Heritage Foundation economist | Project 2025
* Jan 06 Mob
* eliminate social security

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🇺🇲 Thank you for your service - not! Air Force veteran stripped of retirement under Trump2 transgender purge
https://www.advocate.com/news/transgender-air-force-retirement-pulled

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React or do nothing and suffer the consequences.

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Para los hispanohablantes. Este texto se escribió originalmente en inglés. Se usó una aplicación de traducción, ya que no hablo español. Disculpen si la traducción es incorrecta. ⬇️

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Todos tenemos puntos de vista contradictorios: amamos a nuestras familias, pero nos vuelven locos. Queremos más vivienda en nuestras ciudades, pero no queremos que nuestros valores de propiedad disminuyan con el aumento de la oferta. Queremos mejores escuelas, pero nos echamos atrás ante un impuesto municipal del 0,1 % para financiarlas.

Es normal tener puntos de vista contradictorios, pero cuando esas opiniones entran en conflicto, la forma en que actuamos nos muestra cómo estas diferentes perspectivas se ordenan en nuestras prioridades. Cuando las cosas se ponen difíciles, descubres qué es lo que realmente te importa.

Tomemos la política: un estribillo común es que “ya ni siquiera sé qué significan derecha o izquierda, ahora son solo identidades tribales”. Hace muchos …

"In the book Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism Is a Joke, Leigh Claire La Berge reflects on her time at a management-consulting firm in the waning days of the 1990s to explain her gradual realization that there was something off not just about her own job but about capitalism as a whole. The work that La Berge was engaged in at the murkily named “Conglomerate,” was tangentially related to what is commonly referred to as Y2K, though La Berge’s work at the Conglomerate was associated with documentation and legal protection, as opposed to technical remediation. As the book’s title makes clear, the work at the firm seemed largely “fake” to her, a sentiment which she in turn repeatedly projects onto the entirety of Y2K which the book repeatedly describes as a “fake crisis.” Though couched in a historical moment, Fake Work does not present itself as a …

What a find. This billboard contains a secret 20+ years old time capsule on its back. It is only faintly visible at the back of the billboard that is covered by a group of trees. The ad is mirrored since it was initially displayed facing one of the main boulevards in Varna, Bulgaria.

The Alcatel One Touch 511 came out around 2002. Someone surely has one of those with battery still at 10%.

I miss dumb phones.