Elon Musk thinks you're an idiot

And maybe he's right.

On February 17th, Elon retweeted (or re-X’d? or whatever, I hate this timeline) this post:

The original post has since been deleted, but his share of it is still up.

The claim made in the original post is, obviously, fake.

The Community Notes fact check of the richest human in the world was attached to Elon’s post for a time, but that too has since been deleted.

The image is from The Dark Knight Rises, the 2012 Batman movie.

If Elon is so willing to lie to us about small things that don’t matter, why should anyone trust him to be honest about big things that do matter?

Elon Musk thinks you’re an idiot.

Elon isn’t stupid. You don’t saddle up to the most powerful man in the world by being dumb. He knows exactly what he’s doing here.

He knows he’s spreading disinformation. He’s doing it intentionally because he thinks you, me, and society as a whole are too stupid to notice. And maybe he’s right.

This wasn’t even the only disinformation Elon shared on the 17th. He had another post that his own fact check protocol fact checked him on, too.

I could go on and list dozens of other examples where Elon has been contradicted by his own fact checking system, but if you’re reading this article, you’re likely already aware.

This is intentional.

Flood the zone

This goes back to the strategy being deployed by the Trump administration. If you overwhelm people with information, they’re unable to focus on one or two issues. Divide and conquer. Steve Bannon, Trump v1’s first White House strategist and convicted felon, emerged from the dumpster he congealed in to explain it rather well:

In the short clip, Bannon says “I strongly believe in the 'flood the zone' theory, which is just overwhelm the opposition.”

This is why I’ve repeatedly said (like here and here) to stop worrying about keeping up-to-date with every little thing Trump and Elon do. They’re creating so much noise, and that’s the point. They want to overwhelm us, they want us to feel defeated and helpless. With so much to focus on, you get paralysis by analysis.

Ignore the outrage of the day. Legacy media learned nothing the first go-around with Trump, and since most are owned by the oligarchy anyway, they're incentivized to continually keep you upset about whatever the issue of the day is and will churn out meaningless clickbait.

Be smarter than they think you are. Don't fall for it.

Facts matter.

Now more than ever, it’s crucial we rely strictly on facts. When we engage others on social media, we need to present facts and call out the bullshit when we see it.

What a truly terrifying time to be alive and capable of empathy.