Elon Musk Quits Mark Zuckerberg's Lobbying Club 71
theodp writes "Valleywag's Adrian Chen wasn't the only one troubled by the tactics of Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us political lobbying group. Composed of a Who's Who of tech millionaires and billionaires, the group boasted its control of massive distribution channels, broad popularity with Americans, and money would make it a political force to be reckoned with. But the group came under fire for embracing decidedly old-school political tactics, forming both left-leaning and right-leaning subsidiaries, thus broadening its appeal to those who might help advance its agenda. Reports that FWD.us had funded ads praising Arctic oil drilling drew fire from critics, including Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who FWD.us listed as a 'Major Supporter.' Not anymore. Valleywag reports that Musk has quit Zuckerberg's lobbying cabal, apparently feeling that the group's ends did not justify their hit-both-sides-of-the-aisle-to-get-what-you-want means. 'I have spent a lot of time fighting far larger lobbying organizations in DC and believe that the right way to win on a cause is to argue the merits of that cause,' Musk said. 'This statement may surprise some people, but my experience is that most (not all) politicians and their staffs want to do the right thing and eventually do.' By the way, didn't members of the Zuck PACk create, fund, and appear on Code.org, which lamented the sad state of U.S. CS education and featured a slick documentary showing technically clueless little kids, just weeks before launching their pro-techie immigration push? Hey, all's fair in love and lobbying!"
Well (Score:5, Interesting)
Oops (Score:4, Interesting)
Oops, we got so wrapped up in the whole "money buys power" thing that we forgot to make sure we wanted to buy the same stuff.
Zuck is a narcissist. (Score:4, Interesting)
Zuckerberg is a narcissist and likely also a sociopath:
Note the amusing pro forma disclaimer in this video before the slicing and dicing begins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuB_ng5uVaI [youtube.com]
He doesn't have a "value system" as normal people mean that concept. How many times does he need to prove that to everyone? Why do people sign up for FB? Does anyone really trust that when his ship starts sinking, he won't post a 3.am. *privacy policy update* and sell absolutely everything about you to the highest bidder who in turn just wants to mine your data to create a "character profile" and sell it to, say, your potential future employers? Or that Zuck will just do that himself ?
FB is one gigantic blackmailing data collection machine without the blackmail part. The profit will be derived from "concluding" things about your character and proclivities which will follow you, haunt you, limit you until the day you die .