Whoa. Cautious, fair, thorough…Ronan Farrow reviews Elon Musk’s life. Imagine an angel of utmost probity assessing his soul at the doorway to heaven, nodding kindly as he summarizes each decade, and then, sadly, pulling the lever that drops him into a blood-drenched flaming tunnel to Hell. It’s so satisfying.

Here’s a short sample.

“Given unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX, I intend to vote Republican in November,” he tweeted last year. By the time he bought Twitter, he was urging his followers to vote along similar lines, and appearing to back Ron DeSantis, whose candidacy he helped launch in a technically disastrous Twitter live event. Although Musk’s teen-age daughter, Vivian, has come out as trans, he has embraced anti-trans sentiment, saying that he would lobby to criminalize “irreversible” gender-affirming care for children. (Vivian recently changed her last name, saying in a legal filing, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”) Musk started spreading misinformation on the platform: he shared theories that the physical attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former Speaker of the House, had followed a meeting with a male prostitute, and retweeted suggestions that reports accurately identifying a mass shooter as a white supremacist were a “psyop.” Some people who know Musk well still struggle to make sense of his political shift. “There was nothing political about him ever,” a close associate told me. “I’ve been around him for a long time, and had lots of deep conversations with the man, at all hours of the day—never heard a fucking word about this.”

See what I mean? Farrow doesn’t pass judgement, he just calmly describes Musk’s appalling history of imposing his awful ignorance on everyone around him.

Read the rest. You won’t enjoy it, but much respect to the writer’s skill.

The semester has genuinely positively started. It’s happening. Can’t turn back time now.

By the way, I seem to be the only person on campus masking up anymore. I will continue to do so. I missed Skepticon this year, so I escaped some consequences there: Three attendees have come down with COVID so far. The pandemic is still around, be careful out there!

I’ve pointed out before how creationists like to butcher quotes from scientists to completely change their meaning, in a practice called quote mining. Guess who else does this?

Jordan Peterson. Tell me you’re surprised.

He and his publisher spattered the back cover of his latest book, Beyond Order, with blurbs from reviewers that praised it highly…or did they?

Another objection came from The Times reviewer James Marriott, because the blurb included from his review quoted him calling the book “A philosophy of the meaning of life… the most lucid and touching prose Peterson has ever written.”

In a now-deleted X post, Marriott noted that the ellipse covered up that his full sentence was “A philosophy of the meaning of life which is bonkers.”

“My review of this mad book was probably the most negative thing I have ever written,” Marriott said. He later added that he was amused by the situation, “Though my amusement is tinged with annoyance at being misrepresented to the tens of thousands of people who will buy that book in paperback.

Oh man, you can’t trust Jordan Peterson? Shocking.

Remember this guy? Bryan Johnson is a millionaire who has dedicated his life to obsessively striving to become ‘younger,’ sort of, and only seems to have become a boring monomaniac.

His quest is surprisingly granular, and won’t shut up about his little idée fixe. Guess what little thing he’s focused on now?

I’m done. I don’t want to know any more.

I will never attend another meeting in person again.*

I have a day of meetings scheduled for the rest of the day, but the first one nearly killed me. It was two hours long. We had a detailed 5-page agenda that had been emailed to us, and that should have been all we needed. I dutifully attended, ankle wrapped up and immobilized, as the pain continued to raise, despite the brain-addling drugs I’m taking, and worst of all, I’m taking a diuretic. Breaks? No.

It was fucking agonizing, a thoroughly unpleasant meeting in which I learned nothing I hadn’t already learned from a few decades of experience and reading the agenda ahead of time. I got to listen to a parade of administrators while squirming and almost breaking down and praying to a benevolent god for a merciful ending. I knew my prayer for a lightning bolt to end my suffering wouldn’t be answered, though. Jumping out a window was tempting, but the room was on the ground floor.

I’ve got more meetings scheduled, but screw it, I’m not going unless they’re over Zoom.

I’m two years away from retirement, and I swear, this experience confirmed my commitment to getting out in Spring of 2025. I just can’t handle it anymore. Maybe if I were in good health, I’d be able to cope, but I’m right on the edge of erupting and melting down, and it was too much.

Classes start next week, and that’s going to be interesting. Lectures are one hour, not two, so that helps, but I’m also going to have to give up on the medication, which makes me drowsy and stresses my kidneys. Isn’t it great when a job is a compromise between getting the work done and your health?

*Student meetings excepted. I like those.

Things are not going well for Sam Bankman-Fried, the big-time crypto con man. He’s been out on bail, living the easy life pending his trial, but he just can’t resist blabbing and conspiring to intimidate witnesses to his crimes, so he earned a hard slap from justice.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail has been revoked for witness tampering — specifically, that he shared ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison’s private diary with a New York Times reporter. This was the last straw for Judge Lewis Kaplan, who said the documents were “something that someone who has been in a relationship would be unlikely to share with anyone except to hurt and frighten the subject.”

Previously, Sam tried to get in touch via Signal with another witness, former FTX US lawyer Ryne Miller, about getting their stories straight — which nearly saw Sam’s bail revoked that time.

Our hero is currently at MDC Brooklyn — notoriously one of the worst jails in the federal system — but the government has asked that he be remanded at Putnam, where he’ll be allowed more computer access to prepare for his upcoming trial on October 2.

That’s going to be a fun trial.

Reading that, though, I was somehow reminded of someone else with a penchant for blustering and threatening witnesses on social media, someone else currently facing an October trial date, someone — I can’t quite put my finger on who — currently living freely in a gilded mansion in Florida. What’s the worst state jail in Georgia? I think he needs to spend some time there.

Got some new drugs, and a couple of injections, oh boy.

I’m kind of perverse, I really enjoy seeing knives and needles applied to my own flesh (but not to other people’s, I get squeamish about that). So this morning I got to watch as I got some local steroid injections.

If you’re uncomfortable at the sight of needles, stop here.

[Read more…]

After more than a week of narcotics and steroids, I decided to quit this morning — the fog and haze and insomnia were too much. It wasn’t quite cold turkey, because I started dropping the dosage a couple of days ago, but still, this is my first day totally drug-free.

It’s not going real well so far. The pain is back (but still much less than last week), and now I get to deal with diffuse feelings of nausea, and I’m still foggy and slow. It’s one of those lose:lose situations and I’m not having a grand time. I also keep getting reminded that classes start in a few weeks.

I will get better. Next doctor’s appointment is early Monday morning.