Elon, Yarvin, and Verbal vs Embodied Understandings
No one has a better embodied understanding of power than Musk
A verbal understanding is providing an answer that would let you pass a test. You demonstrate with words you correctly understand something.
An embodied understanding is when your actions demonstrate you understand it. The way you navigate the world shows a physical, action-oriented, internalized recognition of information.
If I say “I know Brock Lesner can destroy me” and then walk up to him, smack him in the face, and tell him his mom is ugly: I have a correct verbal understanding, but zero embodied understanding.
They aren’t mutually exclusive, nor does one suggest you have the other. You can have an incorrect verbal and correct embodied, and vice versa, or both wrong, both right. It’s the embodied understanding that counts most, because the Man In The Arena is the one who moves the needle; if you don’t act out a truth, you haven’t actually internalized it. Actions trump words, but ideally you have both.
Let’s review how Elon represents an embodied understanding of power, Curtis Yarvin the verbal understanding.
When Elon acquired twitter, Yarvin released a post on how he should leverage Twitter's narrative control to set the tone of what truth is to amass power. This is smart, Yarvin has an excellent verbal/philosophical understanding of power. More control over discourse is influence over what’s emphasized, discussed, and thus acted upon. Narrative control is soft power in that it directs and guides hard power.
Musk's stated stance of Twitter being an impartial platform is naive, infeasible, and shows poor verbal understanding of power dynamics. His enemies offer him no such “impartial” consideration in domains they control, of which they control most of them.
If you abdicate the power of Twitter by having it be apolitical (an impossible task, but we’ll pretend) that vacuum will be filled elsewhere by your adversaries. You must use the tools you have, lest they be used against you, to advance your positions and beliefs... if you’re serious about them.
However, Musk's embodied understanding of power is vastly superior to almost anyone alive. Elon understands power dynamics extraordinarily well, even if he fails to articulate it (or just hides his power levels). We know about love languages, but what about power languages? The actions one takes to assert dominance, establish supremacy, etc.; when it comes to language, Elon is immeasurably more fluent than Yarvin.
Elon’s Power Language
One (1) man controls:
the most efficient way to get to space
the most valuable transportation company (with energy and AI applications)
the most high-impact social media company
the most sophisticated satellite/communications companies
the most advanced mind/machine company
god knows what in AI
Elon is already more powerful than many heads of state. It’s not hyperbole. The constellation of assets Elon's amassed represent real societal and resource power.
This man has systematically gained command over numerous critical industries in human transportation, communication, space travel, and technology. He accomplished this degree of influence and authority entirely via asset allocation and his own decision making. Capital markets and managerial excellence.
No violence was used, and he’s created hundreds of billions in value (likely trillions someday) and control over serious infrastructure. This man understands power, and is blindingly competent; it’d be impossible to accomplish this otherwise, you don’t just luck your way into this degree of repeated dominance. Yarvin should be able to see this, even while Elon sometimes verbally bumbles along saying otherwise.
Elon’s accomplishments are not generalizable to any rich guy. He's methodically dominated industries in incredibly difficult ways. The last car IPO before Tesla... was Ford. The ULA (Boeing and Lockheed rocket program) was basically a monopoly on rockets and he broke it. The same guy did both of these things. Why Elon??? You know there are easier ways to make money right? Perhaps he has different motivations…
Oh also militaries reach out to him for help on satellites and communications, just like they do with Mark Cuban! These really rich guys, they're all the same you know.
Let me disabuse you of “capitalist” misgivings: he’s not just trying to make money. A man who thinks this way wants more than money. I believe Elon believes in humanity, but that’s not all that I think he seeks to advance.
Elon’s embodied understanding of what power and resource control is is almost unprecedented, and there is information to be gleaned from the patterns in his actions.
Pretend I was writing a Marvel comic and creating a fictional businessman: and I made him the richest guy in the world, owns a diverse network of critical/impactful infrastructure, is self-made, and also hugely culturally significant. You’d tell me “come on man be more realistic!” But because it’s Elon we forget these accomplishments and gossip about how he’s not that smart because his tweets are silly. Perhaps he does this on purpose… “hey look over here, isn’t this meme outrageous!” and everyone fixates accordingly.
Stop analyzing him like a celebrity gossip commentator and view his actions and accomplishments in the historical context they deserve. When you see him do something you find to be dumb, consider… maybe he’s thought about this more than you. He deserves the benefit of the doubt. Just a little.
Yarvin need not worry, Elon knows what he’s doing, even if he’s not as eloquent or his verbal understanding says otherwise. I wouldn’t lecture him about power, I promise you he grasps it just a tad, because no man's embodied understanding of it is better.
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In Trump, Musk has found yet another unique product. Musk saw an opportunity to re-engineer Trump and defacto acquire the powers of a POTUS... without running for office or being American born. He could not ever have the same power in a Harris/Democrat administration.
Out of curiosity, do you think Elon is putting a great deal of weight behind pushing the most compromised man on planet earth (Russian-Jewish mob debt, Ehud Barak/Epstein ring complicity and so on), with an ostensible working IQ in the high 90s, into the most powerful vocation on this hemisphere, with some underhanded, intricate endgame in mind? Or is this stirring the pot of american political catastrophe just some side-venture? And what of all those juvenile tweets he manages to hammer out every hour of every day? Are those in now way indicative of the man’s habitual dispensation? I’m sure you realize that the only alternative “read” on the Musk-phenomenon is that the civilization that allowed a schoolboyish, aspergous twit to reach such heights of power is one well on the way of collapse, yes? It might not sound like I’m open to being convinced otherwise, that any time spent arguing this forceful little polemic is wasted, but I can assure you, I only write this all out under the prior assumption that you have interesting counterpoints to provide.