That Salute

[smokingboot]

With the best will in the world, I can't help thinking some folk actively court terrible mental health.

Maybe this is age talking. I am still a passionate person, it's not hard to wind me up when I care. However I am absolutely amazed to see so many people captured by Elon Musk literally hand-waving. I can't be the only one to look at that salute and think this is the owner of X, Troll-Emperor of Mars. He's here to make you scream.

I think EM's egregious. Yes, he's a dangerous person. He may be a fascist, he may not; the situation has not been helped by years of overuse of that word. Accusations of bigot, nazi, racist, fascist have been thrown about so spuriously they've become code for thoughtcrime and the derailing of debate. Insult saturation is a thing, eventually people shrug. The Dark Lord might be a fascist, but if everybody gets called a fascist and we know it to be a lie when applied to ourselves, why should we believe when they say it of him?

Then the real thing is able to hide in plain sight. Smiling.

Musk is harvesting outrage. But what's that to those observing? We need to be able to spot the difference between an antic and an action, cons and consequences. Clarity re the real issues can be very hard to achieve at any time, but it's nigh on impossible in a state of hysteria.

And hysteria is definitely social media's flavour of the week.