Twitter: Into the Musk-Verse (& Making Unions Great Again!)

In this episode, Alex starts with an update on Ukraine and how the atrocities committed in Bucha may show the cultural and organizational issues of Russia’s military. Then Alex goes into a discussion about Elon Musk buying 9.2% of Twitter’s total shares, making him the majority shareholder. The media is up in arms about this and many free speech absolutists are thrilled. Alex thinks that Musk is an important figure in exploration and technology, but is not sure if he should be so influential on Twitter. Alex goes into the history of Musk’s murky relationship with free speech. He discusses how Musk seems to believe in free speech for himself, but not for the average joe. He loves radical speech and compliments but is not as friendly to disagreement and ridicule. Alex feels that Musk is not a free speech absolutist, he is more of a free speech elitist. Finally, Alex goes into how unionization in the United States is seeing an impressive comeback. The Conversation writes that “April 1, 2022, may go down as a pivotal day in the history of American unions… the independent Amazon Labor Union, got the better of the previously successful anti-union efforts of the online retailer. The warehouse in Staten Island, New York, will be the first to have a unionized workforce.” Alex also discusses how there have been successes in Starbucks attempts where Starbucks Workers United has seen 10 out of 11 wins since the Buffalo branch won its unionization election in 2021. Alex is happy to see this is occurring but discusses the challenges ahead and how corporations will throw all their resources at stopping this.