I have never been more thankful for the critical thinking skills that my teachers developed in me as a kid. With how the last 6 years have trended it's a skill that seems like it's getting more and more valuable. The amount of regurgitation that goes on in online spaces is staggering sometimes. Not that I don't fall for it too but when you step out of the fray a little bit it becomes obvious how little people are using their critical thinking skills.
The latest example of this is the whole Elon Musk buying Twitter saga. Whatever side of the fence you sit on it was pretty obvious that Elon's deal to buy Twitter wasn't actually going to go through. Yet as soon as they had an agreement social media, Twitter especially, lit up like he was walking in as CEO tomorrow. All of this hullabaloo before the deal was officially closed yet. There's still an entire sale process that needs to happen first where this could all go belly up - and we're already seeing signs that it is.
Elon is known to be a troll online. He's already gotten in trouble with the SEC for it with Tesla. Clear as day this was just another one of his online billionaire troll stunts. He is banking on the exact response we saw to be the general response to this deal. Media, social and otherwise, blows up with news that he "bought" twitter so he can get all the press and limelight, run his mouth about whatever to stir things up, and then slink off to do whatever else it is he does. So completely predictable. In-fact it's pretty much the same playbook Donald Trump ran with in his dealings with the media before and during is Presidency and the general media landscape has shown that it's pretty susceptible to this kind of thing.
I'm not bringing this up just to dump on Elon but to demonstrate the pre-meditation of it all. Once you see it, it becomes hard to un-see. You don't have to just follow blindly the actions of billionaires like Elon. It's possible to identify their game long before the rest of the world seems to pick up on it.
I doubt this will be the last time we see something like this. It might not be Elon again but I'm sure it will be some other loud mouth billionaire pulling another outrageous stunt that threatens to upend a lot of lives. When that does happen remember to fall back on your critical thinking skills. Identify what they're trying to hide from everyone else.
We all have this skill. This skill serves us and the world well if we used it a little more.
So let's not waste it.
The latest example of this is the whole Elon Musk buying Twitter saga. Whatever side of the fence you sit on it was pretty obvious that Elon's deal to buy Twitter wasn't actually going to go through. Yet as soon as they had an agreement social media, Twitter especially, lit up like he was walking in as CEO tomorrow. All of this hullabaloo before the deal was officially closed yet. There's still an entire sale process that needs to happen first where this could all go belly up - and we're already seeing signs that it is.
Elon is known to be a troll online. He's already gotten in trouble with the SEC for it with Tesla. Clear as day this was just another one of his online billionaire troll stunts. He is banking on the exact response we saw to be the general response to this deal. Media, social and otherwise, blows up with news that he "bought" twitter so he can get all the press and limelight, run his mouth about whatever to stir things up, and then slink off to do whatever else it is he does. So completely predictable. In-fact it's pretty much the same playbook Donald Trump ran with in his dealings with the media before and during is Presidency and the general media landscape has shown that it's pretty susceptible to this kind of thing.
I'm not bringing this up just to dump on Elon but to demonstrate the pre-meditation of it all. Once you see it, it becomes hard to un-see. You don't have to just follow blindly the actions of billionaires like Elon. It's possible to identify their game long before the rest of the world seems to pick up on it.
I doubt this will be the last time we see something like this. It might not be Elon again but I'm sure it will be some other loud mouth billionaire pulling another outrageous stunt that threatens to upend a lot of lives. When that does happen remember to fall back on your critical thinking skills. Identify what they're trying to hide from everyone else.
We all have this skill. This skill serves us and the world well if we used it a little more.
So let's not waste it.