What's that Musk? It's the Mainstream Media's Rotting Corpse!

Nikola Tesla's legacy is as divisive as it is vague. Some regard him as an eccentric whose quirks hampered his potential (despite changing the world; developing Alternating Current). Others view the Serbian inventor as a mind surpassing that of Newton, Einstein and the overlords of scientific discovery. In fact, Einstein was rumoured to have said in an interview - when asked how being the smartest man felt - "ask Nikola Tesla."

One major hindrance to Tesla's progress was his complete indifference to money, and money makes the world go round. Elon Musk became one of the greatest proponents of cashless tech in his joint creation of PayPal, giving people a mastery over the flow of their cash. Money is not all he wishes to revolutionise; his entrepreneurial abilities have placed numerous fingers in many pies. Musk now dabbles in a range of burgeoning tech; ranging from his space program Space X to the potentially transformative Hyperloop (with the potential to travel between LA and San Francisco in 35 minutes). However, woe betide if Musk's attention should turn to any major reform of the media!

What was the billionaire's unconscionable transgression? To deign to suggest that the media could do with a rating system akin to everything else online, such as Amazon. Heaven forfend the press be held accountable by those they disseminate propaganda to (once known as 'reporting the news'). Once upon a time, the printing press heralded dawning enlightenment; an epoch allowing information to pass into more hands other than the clergy. The remit of media remained a sacred pact with society to pursue the truth, before spreading it among the populace.

Now, the arms of journalistic discourse have drawn together, forming a chokehold on the neck of objectivity, strangling its breath free. Corporations muscled in on media with impunity, attaching puppet strings of bias, disguised as lines of credit. Meanwhile, journalists try to retain a facade of respectability, a delusion of their position being sacrosanct, behind their high budget cameras, lights and studios. But it's 2018; anyone with an enquiring mind, a smartphone and some accessories can produce/broadcast news. Like the printing press and Nikola Tesla before him, Musk faces a monster of enlightenment's own making. Although it is a monster we can tame, for it is a self-destructive aspect of our nature that requires tempering by the better angels of our nature. What the media are experiencing now is fear. Fear for their future and their ability against the revelation that they are nothing special. A more powerful entity - the third in as many years after Brexit, Trump and now Elon Musk - has altered discourse with discord. Long may intellectual discord (in the form of nuanced and open dialectic) continue!

#minds, #freetommy, #news, #nature, #freetommyrobinson, #metoo, #politics.