Elon Musk’s Tweet Word on the Week 30th April 2022.
At this time of year, we are enchanted by the Dawn Chorus. The mating season is announced daily with a symphony of birdsong. This week one ‘twitter’ made more noise in the media than the rest and that was Elon Musk. He parted with a relatively small portion of his fortune to obtain Twitter.
What would an electric car manufacturer with a desire for space travel want with a social media platform which earns a relatively small amount of money? Perhaps what appealed to Elon was witnessing how the former US President, Trump, self-promoted his ideas on the network. Daily users, currently at 229 million, would be an attractive base to what he has termed a ‘digital town square’.
So who is this 50-year-old billionaire who has purchased Twitter? Musk was born in Pretoria in South Africa, the eldest of three children. The parents divorced when he was 8. He describes his father as a ‘terrible human being’ but that didn’t stop him from making his first $500 at the age of 12! He now lives in Texas, has married three times, (twice to the same woman), and has six sons the eldest tragically died of sudden infant death syndrome.
His stated intent is to make Twitter available to everyone as a forum for the exchange of ideas. Musk’s advocacy of “free speech” – which means reducing moderation of online content – promises to make Twitter a far nastier, angrier arena.
So who will control Musk? The way he controls the network must be made transparent. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has to be controlled. The potential of robots is well understood in car manufacturing so Musk would understand it. Putin has said, “Artificial Intelligence” is the future not only for Russia but for all human kind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” (Quoted in John C. Lennox’s book ‘2084’).
The battle for the mind of man will first be fought with words. The problem is that Robotic language is becoming increasingly hard to detect. However, words are the Christians’ stock in trade. Christians’ follow Jesus who is the living Word of God (St John Chapter 1 verse 14).
By God’s grace we have the Divine revelation, miraculously preserved, in the Bible. In Psalm 119 the Psalmist praises the Bible; The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple (Verse 130). 2 Timothy Chapter 3 verse 15 explains what this could mean.
We need to take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God (Ephesians Chapter 6 verse 17).