Primarily, Twitter was a place for like-minded people to come together and talk about shared interests. It wasn’t necessarily political unless you wanted it to be. I came for Astros talk, Houston sports in general, and a little politics on the side. I am not a right wing person. I have many of those in my life. There are some I love very dearly. One of the great things about life and about Twitter is that I had the power to control my exposure to those ideas.

Musk removed that power. He set up the app to switch us from our own feed to something he called “For you.” Ostensibly, the idea seemed to be to share other ideas and profiles that they thought you would be interested in. That concept seems fair enough. I enjoy reading new perspectives and finding new friends. That is clearly not what “For You” became. It became a way to project right wing hate and trolling behavior. This is not an indictment of right-wing beliefs or people. Remember, some of them are my friends and family. I have no desire to censor ideas or remove people’s platform to project those ideas unless they are promoting violence or promoting insurrection or revolution. In many instances, those are the same thing.

My only desire was to limit my own exposure to those ideas. I want the power to choose what I watch, read, and listen to. I don’t want my television randomly changing the channel to Fox News or Newsmax because it is obeying an algorithm called ‘For You.” I may not be the smartest man on the planet, but I think I am reasonably intelligent enough to choose what I want to read, watch, and listen to.

Instead, I get one woman that calls herself a terrorism survivor but somehow a lover of everything Trump. She posts pictures of him wearing camo, colonial gear, or worker clothes and asking us why we don’t appreciate everything he has sacrificed for us. Maybe it is because he is nowhere remotely close to any of those things. I see other profiles that continue to harp on the obvious election fraud in 2020.

So, the development of Twitter afforded me a few unappealing options. I could keep my profile and simply not go. However, that would leave even just a few people hanging. I could go and engage with those bozos, but again that would grow their brand and accomplish what they are out to do. I could simply read and not respond and seethe about it if even for one minute, or I could pull the plug.

My joy comes first. There is so much going on in our lives that I don’t want to waste one minute doing something that doesn’t make me or the people in my life happier. Good people will sacrifice their happiness for others. Great people will sacrifice so much more than that. Contemptible people purposefully go out of their way to suck joy out of life. I don’t want to silence them. I just don’t want to hear it if I don’t want to.

“You’re lovin’ gives me a thrill But you’re lovin’ don’t pay my bills.” — Berry Gordy

Elon Musk has purchased Twitter for 44 billion dollars. Obviously, there is a lot that can go into that transaction and its effect on free speech and debates over the limitations of platforms. Who knows whether certain individuals will be allowed back on Twitter after the company banished them before. Someone else can handle that discussion or we can come to it later.

I’m still trying to get my head around the transaction itself. I have to admit that I have a twitter account. I have one of those Word Press triggers that will tweet out this column as soon as its published. I also peruse it every now and then to get breaking sports news and to see what people are saying about the Astros. I might participate in political discussions once in a blue moon. I’m on enough to have 800 or so followers. That number changes periodically. I just don’t have time to care.

I know companies advertise on Twitter and some sell their junk on Twitter as well. Still, I’m struggling to see how Twitter is worth much more than a billion dollars much less 44 billion. However, that’s still not the biggest road block in my mind. The biggest road block is just how someone is able to acquire enough money to buy anything for that sum.

There are two kinds of billionaires out there. There are the ones that create something. J.K. Rowling is a billionaire. Bill Gates is a billionaire. Steve Jobs was a billionaire before he died. Those kinds of billionaires make sense. If you create something or invent a better mousetrap you deserve your reward.

Then there are the billionaires that ride the coattails of someone else’s sweat, tears, and ingenuity. Elon Musk didn’t start Tesla. He just acquired them. He didn’t design the rockets that he launches into space. In fact, much of his fortune was inherited from his father. Some of you are probably thinking that sounds vaguely familiar. It should. That’s how wealth is often acquired these days.

Many of the billionaires out there are people you’ve never heard of. They make their money investing in other people’s blood, sweat, and tears. They buy companies and sell companies in the blink of an eye. They don’t create anything. They don’t make anything better or even worse. They are like parasites on the body politic, glomming the excess off the top before anyone can see it.

The ultimate question is whether they should exist in the first place. Someone somewhere along the line (likely on Twitter) came up with the best suggestion I’ve heard so far. Once someone gets to 999,999,999.99 they should get a trophy saying they had won capitalism and they get nothing else. The rest goes into the public coffers and distributed somehow equitably. Maybe it could retire down the debt. Maybe we could end homelessness. Maybe we could make sure everyone has a hot meal. Maybe we could make sure that everyone has health care and access to post-secondary education. I suppose that is too much to ask. A simple man can dream simple dreams. The rest can buy platforms with more money than they know what to do with.

Must see.  Former Obama speechwriter David Litt owns the arrogant morning Newsmax anchor today.  It’s hilarious.