> Elon Musk’s comment about the inevitability of civil war in Britain might have been flippant.
It is IMHO a mistake to view Elon Musk’s comment as merely "flippant". We should take the risk from "Elon Musk’s comments stoking civil war", and his personal platform to amplify radicalism and propagandise hatred, very seriously.
Even if the civil war that he fantasises about is currently a nonsense.
Sometimes what people predict is referred to as "nonsense" because they manage to infer things based on trends over a longer term than others who can only see what's right in front of them.
In this case, Musk (and many others) only extrapolate the trends at play for 50+ years to their logical conclusion, and actually I'd say that denying this it's becoming more and more a case of ostrich syndrome.
What do you think Musk is trying to do here? His purpose is not coolly to assess the probability of a certain outcome (nobody asked him to do that!) but rather to make that outcome more probable.
Imho it is more likely that he is using it to consolidate a voting bloc. Much like how all the partisan propaganda in the US of civil war convinced right wingers to rally around Trump and left wingers to not take it seriously. If you think that they will try to overthrow your way of life, you'll simultaneously announce you are prepared to defend yourself and - more importantly - you'll vote for whatever resembles your way of life.
Elon doesn't profit from chaos, he is just using psychological manipulation to empower his allies.
In the UK at least, talk of civil war by right-wingers is intended not to put fear into their friends but to excite them. As they envisage, it's they who will be starting it.
Yes that will act to consolidate a voting bloc for Musk's allies. If it were additionally to cause chaos that would be a bonus. Right-wingers in the US love nothing more than to point to a situation in a foreign country as a warning of the perils of leftism. Usually they just make shit up but of course it's better not to have to.
Well, you also qualify your "nonsense" claim by "currently". This is the point, IMHO. No-one claims that civil war is imminent but it does look inevitable if the trends at play keep their trajectories.
> but it does look inevitable if the trends at play keep their trajectories.
I think this too is utter nonsense. Too much of the twitter brainrot.
But it does highlight the dangers that this poses, that people can easily fall into it as you have done. So, Mr Musk's incitement is a danger to you and others. Even if the "civil war" remains someone's fantasy.
HN is supposed to foster discussion and curiosity. I presented arguments to attempt to show that what Musk wrote is a least a plausible scenario (and the LSE link shows that this is taken seriously), whatever will actually happen (so "inevitable" is probably the interesting aspect to debate), whatever I think of Musk, and whatever I think of those issues in general. You keep being dangerously close to simply trolling...
You were presenting talking points from the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory and hoping that no-one notices. They did and it was flagged out. This is not coherent argument, it is inflammatory rhetoric.
> the rise of Islam ... riots caused by this instability.
Oh, the Muslims were rioting were they? Is that what you're saying?
Funny that you don't blame the riots on the people who were actually rioting. You make it sounds like it's inevitable and they had no choice. I reject that. You are using convoluted phrasing to obscure what is what.
> Musk made his comment during
Musk was not "making comment during", he was inciting further violence.
> You keep being dangerously close to simply trolling...
This is all very disingenuous, and so you do not deserve serious response. I am not obligated to debate civilly with extremists.
It is IMHO a mistake to view Elon Musk’s comment as merely "flippant". We should take the risk from "Elon Musk’s comments stoking civil war", and his personal platform to amplify radicalism and propagandise hatred, very seriously.
Even if the civil war that he fantasises about is currently a nonsense.