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Elon Musk's consumer run media project: The trouble with technocrats?

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https://quillette.com/2018/06/04/the-tro...chnocracy/

EXCERPT: Technocrats are the technical experts who help to lead industries. Considerable and constant success can launch a technocrat’s career into such lofty heights that they reach orbit (especially if said technocrat has ambitions which most of us share as kids). It creates an intelligent, wealthy, and powerful member of society who has the ideas, the money, and the means to direct technology, and therefore society, in the direction they want it to go. The label ‘technocrat’ has no moral connotations, so one can be a technocrat whether or not one’s intentions are pure. A technocrat is also usually an expert in just one specific area (increasingly in science and technology as their prominence continues to increase).

Elon Musk offers a good example of how technocrats don’t always get it right, and why trusting them with the world’s progress is risky. On 23 May, Musk sent a tweet declaring he will create a new website “where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication.” Sounds great, right? Maybe not so much. He has decided to call it Pravda, which means ‘truth’ in Russian.

[...] Pravda’s notion is essentially that of a consumer-run media. It is a reaction against the cries of fake news which have plagued the media for the last few years. The media simply isn’t trusted as it once was—and in many cases, rightly so. Mainstream outlets have obvious political affiliations and biases which have only become clearer during the Trump era, as various publications, networks, and journalists appeal to their established audiences at the expense of a more accurate, less partisan, and less speculative focus on reporting.

But is a consumer-run media the answer? Pravda will need to rely upon mass participation to weed out writers who routinely report fake news and publications whose political agenda has become too obvious. It is a utopian project in which everyone who rates a journalist is fair-minded and informed enough to judge what is and what is not ‘real’ news. The personal biases, at which the mainstream media directs its more provocative pieces, will apparently become a thing of the past as one man’s truth becomes every man’s truth. Everyone will be safe from the dangerous lies of the media and Musk will be the messiah protecting his flock from being led astray.

As a technocrat, Musk is building a cargo cult-like fan base which believes that he is the man to transform the world and give us all the things we ever wanted—from self-driving cars to brain-enhancing implants, from high speed travel to space travel. His word is becoming sacrosanct and any attempt to criticise some of his more radical ideas, including Pravda, is met with an indignant shout down from his followers. Even Sam Harris, a man made famous by his campaigns against religions and faith-based beliefs, has defended Musk from criticism.

It is important to remember that Elon Musk has contributed massive amounts to the world already, and I feel sure he will contribute much more in the future. To take the ultra-defensive position, which some journalists have already adopted, is probably a mistake because it diminishes Musk’s worthy achievements and ignores the failures of the media, underscoring the reason why Pravda has already struck a chord with so many. Nevertheless, it is vital that the idea behind Pravda is scrutinized....

MORE: https://quillette.com/2018/06/04/the-tro...chnocracy/
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