Beware of "Musk Theology": an experiment in manipulating human nature

Musk single-handedly manipulated the price of a bunch of cryptocurrencies, which is also a horrific experiment to manipulate human nature and group behavior.

Original title: "Vigilance against the Spread of "Musk's Religion"

Author: Luo Yihang

The original article was published on the public account of Pin Play, and the chain was reprinted with the authorization of the author

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on social media that Tesla was suspending payments with bitcoin, citing concerns about the environmental impact of the rapid increase in the frequency of fossil fuels in bitcoin mining and transactions. On the same day, the price of all virtual currencies fell sharply: Bitcoin fell by more than 5% a day, Musk single-handedly pushed up the price of "Dogecoin" plunged 15%, and Ethereum also fell sharply.

Once supported the virtual digital currency, in a year on social media with a word, a word or even an expression to promote the bitcoin, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu coin (shib) and other virtual currency prices soared, so that countless people became rich Musk, again gently pressed the Enter button, instantly evaporated a large amount of wealth of people who believe in the direction he guided. It is a complete thought; it is a rain of clouds, and it is broken in its own mind—it is a thing that makes all mentally normal adults in this world sweat.

Musk looks more and more like a "sage", and everything he does seems to have great legitimacy and foresight for the future: Tesla and SolarCity have created a cleaner and greener world, SpaceX contains human beings' Mars colonization plans and space dreams, Starlink connects everything, and the blessing of Bitcoin Ethereum and even Dogecoin is a far-reaching revolution of "decentralization"... Even this time the suspension of bitcoin payment Tesla sedan is out of environmental protection "human plan" - Musk has advocated bitcoin for more than a year, and when he uses bitcoin payment to raise Tesla's stock price, he may have forgotten that bitcoin mining and trading have produced a lot of fossil fuel emissions. He also built electric cars and solar panels for more than 10 years, and it is possible that he did not know to this day that the production of photovoltaic cells would also cause a lot of pollution... Anyway, what he said, you believe in the spirit.

It's time to take off Musk's theocratic mask.

With the help of social media, Musk single-handedly manipulated the value and price of a number of virtual currencies, as well as Tesla's stock price. He made many people rich overnight, and deprived many people of their assets overnight. He issued a "dogge" Doge coin that was immediately unstoppable, he said "we are looking for a Shiba Inu", and the Shiba Inu coin soared. He let the common sense of alternative money that "air coins have no value" disappear, and he made himself the master of the value of all virtual currencies, and a group of people roared along with his guidance and fell into a carnival. He made another statement in a light and gentle manner, beating the price of virtual currency down, so that these people cut meat damaged or even ruined. Will he continue to pull up the price of virtual currency? It should. Because what he wants is never to satisfy the desire to harvest leeks to make money. He is conducting an extreme experiment, a limit experiment of how far he can seduce his followers and believers, to go to the soup in the direction he has directed, and to what extent he can dominate the wealth, joy, and even life and death of a large number of people in this world.

It was a dangerous experiment, but also a terrible experiment.

There is no doubt that virtual currencies are the easiest bait to manipulate this horrific experiment. Unlike traditional fiat currencies issued by countries, virtual currencies, commonly referred to as alternative digital currencies (crypto currencies), seem to have "decentralized" properties, they are not in the hands of a country or government, and therefore seem to have a certain "revolutionary". However, unlike the "general equivalent" nature of traditional currencies, the properties of alternative currencies are largely based on social construction – their distribution and trading patterns are closer to those in which social media accounts post information and spread through relationships. This has also led to the problem that people with super social network influence can manipulate the price of an alternative currency with ease. I said you are worth you are worth, I said you have to rise if you rise, I said you must fall if you fall.

Right now, the manipulator is Musk. It exposes the mirage of alternative digital currencies "decentralized" so easily. Under Musk's easy manipulation, the money, joy and death of a group of people are hyped as a candlestick chart, and after several rounds of ups and downs, most people will be deeply involved in it, and believe in Musk's "greatness", "prophet" and omnipotence. In this way, the alternative digital currency has become a highly centralized tool – it is not the centralization of one country and one organization, but the centralization of the will of one person. It is hard for a person of good mind to believe that this is a manifestation of human social progress — with the exception of Musk's loyal followers.

Yes, there is already a large number of loyal followers of Musk in this world - it is not excluded that there are some Jude-style opinion leaders who are dragging their money bags to pay Musk for the banner of "innovation" to take advantage of the opportunity to cut leeks, but most of them are kind and innocent, have good hopes and visions for the future of mankind, and believe that the revolution of science and technology will infinitely broaden the boundaries of human dreams and imaginations. But this bet on Musk is a merciless mockery of their goodness and beautiful vision.

Musk has been cloaked in the guise of "inventor" and "dreamer" — a label he has been popular for 10 years. It seems that he has indeed done a lot of things that shock the world, after all, the Tesla sedan is the world's highest-selling electric car, SpaceX has indeed successfully launched a lot of recyclable space rockets, and Starlink sounds a little exciting. After all, Musk is not a scammer who makes money on PPT.

However, that doesn't mean Musk is really a guy who invents a lot of new things and pushes his dreams to the extreme. Musk didn't start Tesla, just as he didn't really start PayPal, he was an investor in Tesla, and then expelled the founder as CEO himself, and since then he has appointed himself the actual founder of Tesla. Before Tesla, there weren't no electric sedans in the world. Before the Tesla sedan achieved mass deliveries, BYD did the same thing on the other side of the Pacific.

Musk isn't the first to launch a recyclable rocket into space. He founded SpaceX, the first private company to launch rockets into space, but that wasn't enough proof of SpaceX and Musk's own achievements in aerospace technology. After all, SpaceX's rocket launches are more like a huge public relations marketing. If the rocket explodes, chicken soup of "believe in the future" and "believe in dreams" will sweep social media; if the launch is successful, just the word "not fried" can make Musk's fans ecstatic. As the inventor and dreamer of the canonized "Iron Man" and "Martian", Musk has threatened to land on Mars for more than 10 years, but SpaceX has been launching successful rockets for so many years, too close to The Earth's atmosphere and too far from Mars. To be sure, SpaceX's actual contribution to human space is not comparable to NASA, China's National Space Agency, and the Russian Space Agency, yet it has garnered more flowers and applause on social media. The same private companies that launch rockets and flying vehicles, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' "Blue Origin" received far less applause, even though Blue Origin has been firing rockets.

After all, "building rockets" is an aphrodisiac for people who pretend to love innovation, and Musk is the debugger of this aphrodisiac.

Unlike Steve Jobs, the real inventor and innovator who died 10 years ago and apple founder, Musk's "invention" is a combination of rarely scrutinized detritus and mud. Jobs never looked up at the stars, but he was the inventor of personal computers and real smartphones, and the inventor of the business model of digital music and software being bought and traded in a store-based fashion. Jobs never said anything that wasn't relevant to him, and his time was spent almost exclusively inventing the next generation of products; he didn't rhythm anything that had nothing to do with Apple on social media, preferring instead to talk to himself, meditate and devotional. Jobs had no intention of becoming an opinion leader, but he became a well-deserved opinion leader — the fundamental difference between him and Musk.

Musk's position as opinion leader is something he has dreamed tirelessly for years. Musk's rise to fame as "Iron Man" occurred in 2012. Jobs's death at the end of 2011 brought about an "idol vacuum" in Silicon Valley, which was filled by Musk overnight, which is difficult not to be considered the result of the careful operation of public opinion. As an ordinary programmer, Musk is not really involved in the development of Tesla's battery and the design of the body, nor does he have too much substantive involvement in space technology, and the time he spends on social media and star variety shows to bring goods for himself is not much less than Trump, who lost the US presidency half a year ago.

There is a universal law of human nature – people usually emphasize that they have what they lack the most, while trying to hide what they care about. From Tesla in the United States to China, from Musk himself to Tesla executives in China, it is the favorite to claim that they are truly focused on products and are reluctant to engage in marketing. This actually provides a good perspective on what Musk and Tesla really care about. After all, when the "antenna gate" incident occurred on the iPhone 4, despite Jobs saying "that's because you held it the wrong way", he quickly held a brief press conference to explain the bug and immediately fixed the problem. In contrast, Tesla has a lot of obsession with model 3 global owners "stepping on the brakes in the wrong way", but has never tried to make repairs and adjustments to the product, which is not what it cares about.

Tesla will not apologize, because it cannot apologize. Tesla can't apologize because Musk can't make mistakes. Musk can't make mistakes because God can't be wrong.

For 10 years, everything Musk has done has been following such a path. Everything he does seems to have an indisputable sense of legitimacy and futurism; every idea he advocates seems to be full of elements of innovation and dreams; every appearance and performance he makes in public is a strenuous proof that he is a geek, a revolutionary dedicated to breaking all shackles. Yet he was a speculator, an ambitionist who manipulated the dangerous game of human nature and the mental behavior of believers in the packaging of innovation and dreams, a tyrant who put himself at the center of the world in the guise of the hippies of the West Coast of the United States in the 1960s.

When Bitcoin is connected to the payment method for buying Tesla, when Dogecoin and SpaceX's crowdfunding for Mars are linked, many people will think it's too cool, they will burst into tears, and they will go crazy about it. However, bitcoin pays tesla for this matter, Musk can lightly write off. Dogecoin's use as the "cosmic currency" for the expedition to Mars is even more of a game between thoughts. But Bitcoin went up and down, Dogecoin went up and down, and the game of manipulating human nature and crowd behavior succeeded, succeeding in the name of innovation and dreams. Those who see Musk as a prophet rather than an ambitionist, those who see alternative digital currencies as tools to liberate humanity rather than gold equivalents, those who see Tesla sedans as holy relics rather than means of transportation, have all been captured by Musk.

Musk's actions today tell us that an individual with the characteristics of the leader of the "theological religion" can be packaged in the name of science and technology, innovation and dreams, and many well-educated, advanced scientific and technological knowledge and people who are in a dominant position in the distribution of social wealth cannot resist this "temptation" - in fact, intellectuals, businessmen and scientists who lack faith have always been the objects of group and individual hits with "theological" attributes.

In China, we have all the more reason to be vigilant and contain the spread of "Musk's religion".

There is no doubt that Musk has gained a lot of "followers" in China – this is even the basic disk of Tesla's Chinese fan base. Tesla's certain degree of "rice circle" in China is directly projected from Musk's "love bean". And when the love bean god was enlightened, things changed.

If the "Musk Cult" spreads, the strange theory of "why China can't come out of Musk" will be rampant, the idea that "Musk should give more lessons to Chinese entrepreneurs" will be quite marketable, and the rumor that "China's new energy vehicles besiege Tesla's bright top and force Tesla out of China" will be widely circulated. To be fair, China may really need Jobs, but it doesn't need Musk, and China has too many people trying to become Musk, but they are not as skilled as Musk. Chinese entrepreneurs also don't need Musk to be a teacher, and Tesla's staff turnover and internal governance are not worth emulating at any level. In China, no Chinese new energy vehicle company is deliberately trying to squeeze out Tesla, Tesla's problem in China is an extension of its global problems in China, not because of China's new problems; similar to the rumors of "Baidu forced away Google" 10 years ago, the meaning behind it is too deep.

Of course, China will not accept the value and heat of a person who is keen to manipulate alternative digital currencies to kidnap people's attention and beliefs from the sky, whether he is Musk or Niusk.

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