The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.
Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.
The suspension was first ordered on Friday as a result of the company’s refusal to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation and for the social network to name a local legal representative.
Except it does. Money = speech = power and he has the most of any human.
Downvote this all you want, it won’t change the reality that Musk is more powerful than any other human currently alive on earth. I hate him too, but you can’t deny his power.
Turns out that if you are not a Right-wing shit head you can legislate and govern against people with money that try to do as they will :O
Doesn’t seem like it’s working out so well for him on Brazil…
I’m sure he’ll cry about it a lot while wiping his tears away with bills worth more than you or I will ever make in a lifetime.
Uhh okay? He’s so powerful his website (which he didn’t want to buy in the first place) is blocked in a whole country.
A number of whole countries, Brazil is just the most recent.
The three most powerful people on earth are the US President, the President of the Russian Federation, and any Captain of an Ohio class submarine
and money chooses who each of these is
I would like to see some evidence that Elon Musk can choose who is captain of an Ohio class submarine.
He cant choose but with money, he can influence people who can influence who is chosen.
By that logic musk would be president right now so doesnt make much sense. Its less about money and more about your family and friends. Almost all presidents of the United states have been descendants from the same british family. Including Obama yes.
I was completely with you until the conspiracy theory about a single British family and Obama. JFC. 😂
Seriously though. You gotta have a credible source for something like that. Share that Fox News link already!
Thats not a secret my dude and its not even that crazy of a fact. Basically everyone is related if you just go back enough generations.
Almost all of them stem from families that came to america during colonial times.
Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stock_Americans
Whats more interesting tho is this chart that doesnt go back quite as far. You can still see that being president is not going to happen unless you have connections
Your own links indicate that the presidents came from separate families. Am l missing a key section that explains that they all came from the same family as you indicated?
If you dialed back the narrow specificity of your original claim, I would agree with your sentiment, as I think most here would. I feel like we may be debating a semantic here.
He also said almost all of the presidents, then links to a genealogy that lists less than half.
I dont know who first claimed the whole “King John” thing or how well proven it is, but whats not disputed is that many of them are pretty closely related. They might not actually all be descendant from one specific guy but for practical purposes they behave like it. They are a closed circle that is impossible to just enter.
https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Genealogical_relationships_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
We do certainly maintain the tradition of limiting our highest positions of power to only those who are wealthy or have the most privileged access to our version of royalty. Geneology aside, this election may be a giant welcome deviation from our normal “family tradition” of leadership.
You’re going to need to source that.
Not OP but it got my brain curious. Found several different sites about it, here are 2 that seem fairly reputable. Apparently a 12yr old genealogy buff did an extensive search to map the presidents and came across some connections that kept them going till they found the chain of relatives for each one.
It doesn’t seem like “put on your tin foil hat close-related”, more “if you go back far enough most of us are kin in some way related”. Though, the fact that the only one who is not related, was actually appointed instead of elected, does make it look a little weird.
https://www.geni.com/blog/look-whos-related-george-washington-and-all-the-presidents-25451.html
https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Genealogical_relationships_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
Oh wow. Thanks.
No prob Mr Maggoty. Figured I couldn’t be the only one curious, why make more folks dive down that rabbit hole.
Musk becoming president is
very real possibility, average person becoming president is not unless miracles happen. While yes, money alone can’t so easily get you power but it is requirement for it.It is constitutionally impossible for Musk to become president.
How so? Is it about birth place?
Yes, the US constitution requires that the president be at least 35 and a natural born citizen. There is more info here.
Why isn’t Trump president?
Why is there even possibility such man can realistically be president?
The assesment that he’s the wealthiest person on earth is pretty dubious, actually. The analyses which list the worlds wealthiest people always are, because they have to decide what counts as wealth and how to count it.
Normally that’s fairly easy, but for very powerful people (who, as you point out, the people at the top of those lists are) it gets murky because of things like stocks and options which they could liquidate in theory, but which would crash in value if they tried to actually do so. Does it still count as wealth if it only exists so long as you don’t spend it?
There are also people who’s wealth isn’t held in any currency, or gold, or stocks. How do you measure the wealth or power of a sovereign king, or any other kind of dictator? You certainly can’t neatly put it in a scale alongside people who just have a dragon’s horde of cash somewhere, that wouldn’t be comparing like for like
This is also borne out in practice as you watch the purportedly “most powerful man on Earth” constantly tap dance for Putin in lockstep with the GOP. As a kleptocratic dictator, he informally adds the entire country’s economy to his personal net worth.
The GOP is foaming at the mouth to form a right-wing dictatorship in this country for precisely the reason you are addressing here. A person with powers of complete dictatorship over the world’s biggest economy would definitively make them the most powerful man on Earth without a second even deserving mention.
SCOTUS told America the President could have anyone killed as long as it was an official act. And you’re still going to say the guy with an indirect access to influence has more power?
Hah.
Real life isn’t a Marvel movie.
Maybe in the US it is so, but the Citizens United decision does not apply outside of there. Some countries value the power of democracy more than money.
Name one. All I see is lip service. Action is a whole different matter.
I mean what are we looking at right now?
Another example: Unions don’t cave to Tesla in Sweden, this dispute appears to be still ongoing even after another 9 months.
The nazis, too, had a lot of power and yet they lost WW II.
It’s all a ruse