If you’re reading this on the day it’s published (May 5), then you’re reading it on my birthday—which also happens to coincide with Flow Week, a seven week sabbatical model I’m experimenting with. Hopefully spring is in the air and leaves have started to show. And if this week’s text sounds glum, chalk it up to age ;)  

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When I first heard Elon Musk was attempting a hostile takeover of Twitter, I was immediately reminded of The Gilded Age—the era, but also the latest Julian Fellowes joint (he of Downton Abbey fame). This one is set in New York City at the tail end of the 1800s—with the industrial revolution, class warfares, and rise of the robber barons as backdrop. It’s awful. No, really. Cynthia and I thought the actors were overplaying on purpose, as a sort of homage to 1950s high society movies kitsch…but it got old real fast, and the show never offered a glimpse of a complicit wink during the entire run of its first season. So, maybe not. Anyway, I thought of one of the show’s main protagonists—a power-hungry industrialist throwing money at every situation that arises—when I learned about that Twitter bid. Apparently, I’m not the only one who made that connection.

I wrote down a sentence in my notebook, yesterday or the day before, something along the lines of a rise of sociopaths. I was thinking about the current pervasiveness of men without empathy and of infinite narcissism, lacking any consideration beyond their personal goals. Most of them disguise themselves as champions of the common man, or fearless futurist messiahs, fighting for the soul of humanity. They speak of freedom and connection, as if these are unattainable luxuries only they can provide. As if we’re all waiting for them to finally realize the world we’ve been waiting for. Except, we CAN connect with one another. And most of us probably experience a level of freedom unequaled at any point in human history. We just seem to forget our past easily.

Listening to Zuckerberg speak is chilling. I always get the sense that he’s never had a real friend. Elon Musk is a more complicated case. Amidst the delusions, there’s at least a baseline of actual innovations that have benefited humankind—the adoption of electric cars, battery technologies, the Starlink satellite network that’s currently allowing many Ukrainians to remain connected with the world, despite Putin’s best efforts to cut them off. Unfortunately, Musk is also a man of questionable judgment, who now appears to believe his own myth, his own grandeur, and his own truth. The brilliant engineer is harder to find nowadays. What is it they say about absolute power? 

At least the Gilded Age despots were probably polite—in public, anyway. The importance of manners and all that. Then again, who knows how Jay Gould would’ve behaved with a Twitter megaphone at his beck and call.

Look, none of us know how this will turn out. We may be on the verge of a renaissance of Twitter. But I think I’ll always be suspicious of men proposing a vision for which they’ll never suffer the consequences, regardless of the outcome. People who can just float above whatever wreckage they create, escape into the stratosphere—and eventually ride a spaceship to the stars. 

And now, the links.