Alchemy

It is really entertaining to see so many comments in blind support of Elon and his actions.  

Twitter got over 90% of it's revenue from advertising!  Advertisers want to attract customers, not insult or alienate them.  Twitter is a communication network that needs to offend as few people as possible while keeping information available to as many people as possible.  It has become a source of news and entertainment for millions of people worldwide and with that comes a tremendous amount of responsibility to try and ensure that it is as accurate as possible.  It also needs to protect peoples private information and try to eliminate scams, con artists, etc.  It is under the watch of numerous governments agencies around the world and has direct legal responsibilities.  Twitter is not "free speech" it is more "civil discord".  

Elon has absolutely no clue as to the responsibilities and obligations that Twitter has to various regulation agencies around the world.  He also has demonstrated that he has no clue on how to run the business, nor does he have any magical plans on how to make it more profitable.  Elon got mad at Twitter because he got in trouble for tweeting false and irresponsible claims about Tesla and some of his other companies (claiming Tesla was going bankrupt or going private causing stock prices to fall).  He also got mad because he got push back on some of his off the wall tweets criticizing rescuers of trapped miners or the SEC because he had to follow the same rules as everyone else.  

Elon let his ego get the better of himself and made an "I will show you" statement by making a legally binding offer for Twitter at a ridiculously high price.  He then tried to back out by trash talking Twitter.  He was then forced to complete the deal and then claimed he was going to relax most of the content guidelines.  This caused half of the advertisers to halt spending during a wait and see period.  Twitter revenue dropped in half the day Elon walked into Twitter all because of the Elon's actions and comments.  He started by digging a very deep hole.  

Elon then immediately cut half of the work force without any knowledge of the work those people did and without any understanding of the government labor laws.  This is substantiated by the fact that Twitter had to ask many to come back to work.  All major changes in management/culture deal with changes in the workforce, but typically it is done methodically by order of importance and hope that some will voluntarily leaves (much cheaper than severance and unemployment expenses).

Elon came in with a blind iron fist and such an ignorance of the business that it created a toxic work environment.  Elon's immediate failure of the verified/sponsored check marks shows just how naive he is about the Twitter business and how he does not have any real ideas on how to improve profits.  He didn't really want to own Twitter and he is just throwing things at the wall hoping he gets lucky.  Twitter had financial issues before Elon got involved, but he has made it much worse.

People in these tech companies know how to work hard and put in extra hours, but they will only do it for something they really believe in and have a passion to make it work.  Elon insulted all of the Twitter employees with his arrogance, ignorance and ultimatum.  Report are that about 75% of the employees did not agree to the ultimatum.  Most of the remaining employees either have working Visa issues or are being cautious about leaving before they have another job.  In other words, all of the ambitious, confident and top achieving employees have left.  I can't imagine how anyone that excels in their job could stay in such a toxic environment.  Those that say these people are leaving because they do not want to work hard is totally clueless and doesn't know what motivates brilliant people.

Elon's only hope is if he can fire sale the remains of Twitter to another company that can resurrect it back from the dead, hire back a good portion of the workforce and bring back the advertisers.  Elon would lose his $44 billion and be able to wash his hands of the whole ordeal.  As it stands, he is at risk of losing his control over Tesla and SpaceX!  Twitter has the assets and structure to build back quickly and then gradually add more revenue sources, but not under Elon.

patchythepirate said:

charlesatlas said:

patchythepirate said:

How are people just blindly accepting these vaccine passports? How is it that so few even question something that is so obviously absurd? The fact that they don't accommodate for natural immunity, which is *superior* to the vaccine 'immunity,' should be a clear indication that we're being manipulated. Not to mention the fact that they make no sense, since people 'vaccinated' with these gene modifying agents can still catch and spread covid. It's shocking how many people are accepting these 'passports' as somehow justifiable.

https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/why-covid-19-vaccines-offer-better-protection-than-infection.html

Wow, thank you for sharing that, but that is beyond absurd. I can't believe that's published on Johns Hopkins site. Extremely poorly written, lacks context, and even contradicts itself. You don't even need any outside information or knowledge to see how ridiculous this is, and conveniently, they don't reference any actual studies, just framing it as this one person's opinion.

For example, they claim that natural immunity is worse, but don't say how they came to this conclusion (antibodies? B or T cell activation?). They say they don't know how it is better, it just is, then diminish their own point by noting that the vaccines only focus on one set of antigens, the spike proteins, unlike natural immunity that can address all of the antigens on the virus. They also don't mention that focusing on spike proteins also reduces the immune response to B and T cell activation, whereas natural immunity also involves natural killer cells, macrophages, etc. They also don't mention the context of a *much* higher rate of reinfection with those who have been vaccinated vs those who have natural immunity, which shows that this limited gene therapy vaccine immunity is clearly not superior to natural immunity (which is obvious and expected).

https://showme.missouri.edu/2021/study-finds-covid-19-reinfection-rate-less-than-1-for-those-with-severe-illness/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab234/6170939

It's disturbing that an article like the one you linked is being disseminated as 'reliable' information. People need to wake up and realize that science has been politicized.

It was an interview with the emphasis on trying to directly answer the questions.  It is not a medical journal article with references.  Also, it does not contradict itself.  

Your University of Missouri link confirms the original J Hopkins link in that severe C-19 infections give greater immunity.  So hence the need for vaccinations for less severely infected C-19, which is the case for most people that got invected!

The Israel link says people that with prior confirmed C-19 infections were less likely to get infected with the new strain than someone that got the vaccine.  This could just be another confirmation of the severity of the infection.  Most people that got infected with original strains of C-19 were asymptotic and did not know they had the virus and thus would not have been counted as prior confirmed infections.  

Your last Oxford link was early testing of the effectiveness of the antibodies produced after a C-19 infection and the possibilities of virus shedding causing a false positive test result for "re-infection".  It's conclusion was that the immunity could last past 90 days!  It was used to help prioritize which should be people vaccinated first.

Your disinformation and improper use of medical citations does not make your conclusions any more correct.  The only way that we can get back to a more normal world is for as many people as possible to be vaccinated.  Higher rates of vaccinations and social distancing precautions are the reasons why some areas have been able to reopen.  All unvaccinated people are incubation vessels for the virus to mutate into more effective strains.  If the vaccines would have been more readily available sooner, the Delta variant may never have occurred.

MacQuadra840av said:

sdw2001 said:

I just can’t with this Billie Eilish thing anymore.  We get it.  She’s talented.  Apple is pushing her as the next John Lennon.  

Actually, she is not talented.  Her music is dull.  There is nothing special about her, but somehow writing a song in your bedroom with your brother is supposed to be something no one has ever done before.  It is bizarre how Apple is pushing this, but sorry, it is not going to get more people to subscribe to or watch AppleTV+ to see some kid running around wearing oversized baggy clothes because she has no self esteem and thinks she is entitled.  Just sweep her under the rug like Lindsey Lohan.

This may come as a surprise, but I don’t think you are the demographics that Apple is looking for with this project.