“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
— The First Amendment, American Constitution, ratified 1788
Dear Reader,
Seems weird doesn’t it? To wonder aloud what “free speech” means. We grew up knowing what it meant.
Apparently not anymore.
A couple of hours ago a woman published an article in the Guardian, which is generally considered a decent rag. Siva is her name. Siva … whom we have some insight into this week.… believes that Elon will not respect her honor for the transgender community.
Might be. We could take that issue up another time. But who knows what Musk is actually thinking?
Are we really that afraid Elon Musk will take a public conversation private, just to destroy discourse about important social issues?
My guess is no. And if you asked Musk the same question, he’s probably more interested in how the platform works itself. Literally. Watch our interview with Jimmy Soni, who interviewed the man himself… he thinks the conversations between “tech oligarchs” or dark techno-utopians are “a lot nerdier than you think.”
A timely interview with Jimmy Soni about Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the other tech masters of the universe, here.
When the Constitution was ratified, they had to ride horses with paper in their pouches, storm into the signing hall and wield their feather quills for those juicy John Hancock’s to swoop onto the page. I think of it kind of like a glorified frat house… that is to say, those Old Boys are outdated & punctiliously patriarchal.
That being said, they did what they did and signed what they signed – The Constitution of the United States of America! – in hopes of defining a future to look forward to. Steady ground to build high monuments and the City Upon A Hill. Think the Washington Monument or the White House.
Today’s halls though aren’t so spacious…
In fact, I’d say they aren’t halls at all, besides Congress’ shit-smeared marbled floors & the internet real estate of the Meta-Verse.
The beauty of the document… the Constitution itself… allows us to disagree.
Do we want freedom to do and say as we please, or don’t we?
Again, take Elon Musk’s acquisition. $44B dollars on a tech company, Twitter. Why the hell did he buy them out?
For “free speech!” What’s his definition? Look below, at his first Tweet on his newly bought platform:
There it is again, “free speech” & the Law in plain text…
The conversation around this stuff is ambiguous and heavy – and deeply historical – going back to the very roots of our American union. We ought to keep the conversation going, right?
So for now, keep tweeting. Everybody’s got their two cents. Musk just has a jar full of them.
Follow your bliss,
Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Financial Reserve
P.S. If you’re feeling down and out, Mark Ford just put out a great piece on his website about failing hard and failing fast. That is, from the perspective of a mixed martial arts fighter… take a look here
