Beware of the "Musk Cult": A horrific experiment in manipulating human nature and human group behavior

On that day, the prices of all virtual currencies plummeted: Bitcoin fell more than 5% in a day, Dogecoin, whose price was pushed up by Musk, plummeted 15%, and Ethereum also suffered a sharp drop.

Musk, who once strongly supported virtual digital currencies and used a sentence, a word, or even an emoji on social media to drive up the prices of virtual currencies including Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu Coin (shib) and other "air coins" within a year, making countless people rich, once again gently pressed the Enter key, and instantly evaporated a large amount of wealth of those who believed in the direction he guided. He can take and take away at will; he can change the situation at his own will - this is something that all normal adults in the world should sweat.

Musk looks more and more like a "saint". Everything he does seems to have great legitimacy and foresight for the future: Tesla and SolarCity have created a cleaner and greener world, SpaceX contains the human Mars immigration plan and space dream, Starlink connects everything far and wide, and the support of Bitcoin, Ethereum and even Dogecoin is a profound revolution of "decentralization"... Even the suspension of Bitcoin payment for Tesla cars this time is out of the "human plan" of environmental protection - Musk has been advocating Bitcoin for more than a year. When he used Bitcoin payment to raise Tesla's stock price, he may have forgotten that Bitcoin mining and trading have created a lot of fossil fuel emissions. He has also built electric cars and solar panels for more than 10 years, and he may not know that the production of photovoltaic cells will also cause a lot of pollution until today... Anyway, what he said is effective if you believe it.

It's time to take off Musk's cult mask.

Musk, with the help of social media, has manipulated the value and price of a number of virtual currencies, as well as Tesla's stock price. He made many people rich overnight, and deprived many people of their assets overnight. He sent a "dogge" Dogecoin and it became unstoppable. He said "We are looking for a Shiba Inu", and the Shiba Inucoin soared. He made the common sense of alternative currencies that "air coins have no value" vanish, and he made himself the master of the value of all virtual currencies. A group of people followed his guidance and rushed in, falling into a carnival. He made another statement calmly, driving down the price of virtual currencies, causing these people to lose money or even go bankrupt. Will he continue to raise the price of virtual currencies? He should. Because what he wants is never to satisfy his desire to make money by harvesting leeks. He is conducting an extreme experiment, an extreme experiment to see to what extent he can seduce his fans and believers to go through fire and water in the direction he guides, and then to what extent he can dominate the wealth, sorrow and joy, and even life and death of a large number of people in this world.

This is a dangerous experiment and a terrifying experiment.

There is no doubt that virtual currency is the easiest bait to manipulate this horrific experiment. Unlike the traditional legal currency issued by the state, virtual currency, which is usually referred to as alternative digital currency (crypto currency), seems to have the attribute of "decentralization". It is not in the hands of a certain country or government, and therefore seems to have a certain "revolutionary" nature. However, unlike the "general equivalent" attribute of traditional currency, the attribute of alternative currency is largely based on social construction - its distribution and transaction form is closer to the form of social media accounts publishing information and spreading through interpersonal relationships. This also leads to a problem, that is, it is easy for people with super social network influence to manipulate the price of an alternative currency. If I say you are valuable, you are valuable. If I say you are going to rise, you must rise. If I say you are going to fall, you must fall.

At present, the manipulator is Musk. It exposes that the mirage of "decentralization" of alternative digital currencies is so easy to dissipate. Under Musk's easy manipulation, the money, joys and sorrows, life and death of a group of people are hyped as candlestick charts. After several rounds of ups and downs, most people will be deeply trapped in it, and believe in Musk's "greatness", "prophecy" and omnipotence. In this way, alternative digital currencies have become a highly centralized tool - it is not the centralization of a country or an organization, but the centralization around the will of one person. It is difficult for a sane person to believe that this is a manifestation of the progress of human society - except for Musk's loyal followers.

Yes, there are already a large number of Musk loyalists in the world. It is possible that there are some Judas-like opinion leaders in the cryptocurrency circle who hold Musk as the banner of "innovation" and take the opportunity to make money. However, most of them are kind and innocent, have good hopes and visions for the future of mankind, and believe that the revolution of science and technology will infinitely broaden the boundaries of human dreams and imagination. However, betting on Musk is a ruthless mockery of their kindness and beautiful vision.

Musk has been labeled as an "inventor" and a "dreamer" - these are the labels that have been popular in the world for the past 10 years. It seems that he has indeed done a lot of things that have shocked the world. After all, Tesla cars are the world's best-selling electric cars, SpaceX has successfully launched a number of recyclable space rockets, and Starlink sounds exciting. After all, Musk is not a liar who makes money by PPT.

However, this does not mean that Musk is really a person who invented many new things and pushed his dreams to the extreme. Musk did not start Tesla, just like he did not really start PayPal. He was an investor in Tesla, and later expelled the founder and became the CEO himself, and since then he has been self-proclaimed as the actual founder of Tesla. Before Tesla, there were electric cars in the world. Before Tesla cars were delivered on a large scale, BYD did the same thing on the other side of the Pacific.

Musk is not the first person to launch a reusable rocket into space. SpaceX, which he founded, is the first private company to launch a rocket into space, but this is not enough to prove the achievements of SpaceX and Musk himself in aerospace technology. After all, each of SpaceX's rocket launches is more like a large-scale public relations marketing. If the rocket explodes, "believe in the future" and "believe in dreams" will sweep social media; if the launch is successful, just the two words "no explosion" will make Musk's fans ecstatic. As an inventor and dreamer who has been canonized as "Iron Man" and "Martian", Musk has threatened to land on Mars for more than 10 years, but the rockets that SpaceX has successfully launched over the years have always been too close to the Earth's atmosphere and too far from Mars. To be fair, SpaceX's actual contribution to human spaceflight cannot be compared with NASA, the China National Space Administration and the Russian Space Agency, but it has received more flowers and applause on social media. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has received far less applause than other private companies that have launched rockets and spacecraft, even though Blue Origin has also been launching rockets.

After all, "building rockets" is an aphrodisiac for people who pretend to love innovation, and Musk is the debugger of this aphrodisiac.

Unlike Steve Jobs, the true inventor and innovator who died 10 years ago, Musk's "inventions" are a combination of crumbs and mud that are hard to scrutinize. Jobs never looked up at the stars, but he was the inventor of personal computers and real smartphones, and the inventor of the business model of digital music and software being purchased and traded in a store-based way. Jobs never talked about things that were not related to him, and his time was almost spent on inventing the next generation of products; he did not lead the pace on social media for anything that was not related to Apple, but preferred to talk to himself, meditate and practice spirituality. Jobs had no intention of becoming an opinion leader, but he became a well-deserved opinion leader - this is the fundamental difference between him and Musk.

Musk's position as an opinion leader is something he has been dreaming of for many years. Musk's rise to fame as "Iron Man" occurred in 2012. The "idol vacuum" in Silicon Valley caused by the death of Steve Jobs at the end of 2011 was filled by Musk overnight. It is hard not to think that this is the result of the careful operation of public opinion. As an ordinary programmer, Musk did not really participate in the research and development of Tesla batteries and the design of car bodies, nor did he have much actual involvement in space technology. The time he spent on social media and celebrity variety shows to promote his own products is not much less than that of Trump, who lost the re-election of the US president half a year ago.

There is a universal law of human nature - people usually emphasize that they have what they actually lack the most, while trying to hide what they care about the most. From Tesla in the United States to China, from Musk himself to Tesla's executives in China, they love to claim that they are truly focused on products and are unwilling to engage in marketing. This actually provides us with a good angle to observe what Musk and Tesla really care about. After all, when the "antenna gate" incident occurred in the iPhone 4, although Jobs kept saying "that's because you hold it the wrong way", he quickly held a short press conference to explain the bug and immediately fixed the related problems. In contrast, Tesla has a lot of obsessions with the "wrong way of stepping on the brakes" of Model 3 owners around the world, but has never tried to make repairs and adjustments to the product. After all, this is not what it cares about.

Tesla will not apologize because it cannot apologize. Tesla cannot apologize because Musk cannot make mistakes. Musk cannot make mistakes because God cannot make mistakes.

For the past 10 years, everything Musk has done has been along this path. Everything he does seems to have indisputable legitimacy and a sense of the future; every concept he advocates seems to be full of innovation and dream elements; every appearance and performance he makes in public is trying to prove that he is a geek, a revolutionary who is committed to breaking all shackles. However, he is a speculator, an ambitious person who uses innovation and dreams to package dangerous games to manipulate human nature and the mental behavior of his followers, and a tyrant who regards himself as the center of the world and is dressed in the guise of a 1960s American West Coast hippie.

When Bitcoin is linked to the payment method for buying Tesla, when Dogecoin is linked to the crowdfunding of SpaceX's landing on Mars, many people will think it is too cool, will be in tears, and will be crazy about it. However, Musk can write off the matter of Bitcoin paying for Tesla. The use of Dogecoin as the "cosmic currency" for the expedition to Mars is even more of a game of thought. However, Bitcoin has risen and fallen, and Dogecoin has risen and fallen. The game of manipulating human nature and crowd behavior has succeeded, and it has succeeded in the name of innovation and dreams. Those who regard Musk as a prophet rather than an ambitious person, those who regard alternative digital currencies as a tool for liberating mankind rather than a gold equivalent, and those who regard Tesla cars as sacred objects rather than means of transportation have all been captured by Musk.

Musk's behavior today tells us that an individual with the characteristics of a "cult" leader can be packaged in the name of technology, innovation and dreams. Many well-educated people who have mastered advanced scientific and technological knowledge and are in an advantageous position in the distribution of social wealth cannot resist this "temptation" - in fact, intellectuals, businessmen and scientists who lack faith have always been the targets of a relatively high hit rate for groups and individuals with "cult" attributes.

In China, we have even more reason to be vigilant and curb the spread of the "Musk Cult."

There is no doubt that Musk has gained a lot of "believers" in China - this is even the basic base of Tesla's fan base in China. Tesla's "fan circle" to a certain extent in China is directly projected from Musk, the "idol". But when the idol god teaches, things change.

If the "Musk cult" spreads, the strange theory of "Why can't China produce a Musk" will be rampant, and the claim that "Musk should give more lessons to Chinese entrepreneurs" will be quite popular. The rumor that "Chinese new energy vehicles besieged Tesla Guangmingding to force Tesla out of China" will be widely circulated. To be fair, China may really need Jobs, but not Musk. There are too many people in China who try to be Musk, but their skills are not as "skillful" as Musk. Chinese entrepreneurs don't need Musk to be a teacher. Tesla's personnel loss and internal governance are not worth emulating at any level. In China, no Chinese new energy vehicle company is deliberately trying to squeeze out Tesla. Tesla's problems in China are an extension of its global problems in China, not new problems caused by China. Similar to the malicious rumors about "Baidu forced Google out" 10 years ago, the reappearance of Tesla has too profound implications.

Of course, China will not accept a "god" who is keen on manipulating the value and popularity of alternative digital currencies to hijack people's attention and faith, whether he is Musk or Elon Musk.