Categories
Graphic novels and comics

Graphic Novel: Investigation on Elon Musk

French graphic novel on Elon Musk by author Darryl Cunningham, Delcourt/Ancrages edition.
French graphic novel on Elon Musk by author Darryl Cunningham, Delcourt/Ancrages edition.

The Musk family

I appreciate real-life stories, and especially investigations that study human behaviour. Reading this graphic novel in French about Elon Musk, one grasps the character’s high level of initiative. He likes risking a lot when creating a new company. This characteristic is also present in the family genealogy, starting with the grandfather. However, they clearly act without concern for social norms.

Elon’s main desire is to use his talent and creativity to influence the course of the world, particularly when it comes to the Internet, renewable energies and space. As well as mentioning Musk’s successes, the graphic novel also highlights the grey areas that are too often overlooked.

Spacex

Considering that mankind will one day colonize space, Elon Musk looked to buy a rocket, but they were all too expensive. So he created Spacex and a team of Spacex scientists invented a rocket named Falcon 1, which the company succeeded in launching into orbit after six years’ work. In 2011, Spacex built the world’s first reusable rocket. A year later, the Falcon 9 equipped with a Dragon capsule refuelled the International Space Station (ISS). In light of this success, the government reinjected another $440 million into Spacex for development. I write “another $440 million” because this was not the government’s initial investment in the firm.

Companies narrowly saved

As we read the book, we realize how many times Musk’s businesses have come close to disaster, only to be narrowly saved by perseverance, lots of luck, top-level government relations and whimsical promises.

Just think of Tesla and Spacex, two endangered companies that were spared from bankruptcy by a sudden injection of public money in the form of a $1.6 billion contract from NASA. This was preceded and followed by substantial loans from the US government: “Without the support of American taxpayers, Musk’s fortune would not exist.”

The book also mentions a possible fraud, as the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filed a complaint for misleading tweets about Tesla. These tweets were said to have pushed up the share price by 6%. A settlement was reached a week later between Musk and the SEC. On this subject, Musk neither admits nor denies the allegations. “Musk and Tesla had to pay a fine of $20 million each and Musk had to step down as Chairman of Tesla’s Board of Directors for three years while remaining CEO.”

A page from the French graphic novel: Elon Musk: enquête sur un nouveau maître du monde.
A page from the French graphic novel: Elon Musk: enquête sur un nouveau maître du monde.

Whimsical Promises or Unfounded Announcements

Musk has talent when it comes to touting his products. But the author specifies this: “There’s no denying that Musk is determined, intractable and possesses a real gift for self-promotion. That said, he’s not an inventor, let alone a scientist.”

The book lists a number of whimsical promises, while pointing out that the media help Musk by passing on information that is not systematically verifiable or proven. The result is that the average reader is left with the impression that Elon Musk developed Spacex and Tesla all by himself: “The legend of the self-made billionaire will always be more seductive than the banal reality”.

As an example of whimsical promises, Musk announces that all battery recharging will be free for the Tesla Model S. This is nothing but hot air. He also declares that a Tesla will drive autonomously between Los Angeles and New York in 2017. At the time of writing, no such promise has materialized.

He also made other daring statements in 2016 when he founded Neuralink. This company has been criticized because the research it funds is poorly controlled. According to the book, it generates unnecessary animal suffering. In 2024, Elon Musk reveals that “his company has successfully implanted a device capable of ‘reading thoughts’ in an individual’s brain […]”. He gives no details of the location of the operation or the results.

Musk also makes unfounded statements about vaccination and the virulence of Covid-19. While he declares that this virus has a very low mortality rate and that he will not be vaccinated, the WHO announces in 2023 that the planet is at over three million deaths. He changes his mind and gets vaccinated. But what effect have his words had on recalcitrant Americans?

Elon Musk, Twitter and X

Since its takeover by Musk, Twitter (or rather ‘X’) has been a tool for promoting the interests, prejudices and conspiracy theories of the right-wing parties of the American political class. This bias has brought a tidal wave of racism, anti-Semitism, climate skepticism, LGBTQ+ hate and medical fake news to the site.

Elon Musk and Long-Termism

Long-termism and the colonization of various planets are themes dear to Elon Musk. Here’s what the book has to say about it: “Long-termism is an extremely dangerous ideology. It’s a secular religion built around the worship of ‘future value’ whose ethos absolves you from worrying about threats like climate change and global poverty, while making you a good person because you care about the future of humanity as a race that has conquered other planets.”

No one should have the discretionary power that Elon Musk enjoys, because he hasn’t earned it and he doesn’t owe it to himself alone. He doesn’t understand how much his success owes to privilege and luck. As a result, he thinks he’s much smarter than he really is.”

Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump

If the attitude and decisions that characterize Elon Musk in entrepreneurship are transposed to the state, they could undermine the American president’s aspirations regarding his vision of American politics and the actions to be taken in the face of future challenges.

For example, Musk is known for avoiding confrontation with the Chinese president, as China is Tesla’s second-largest market. But Trump didn’t hesitate in his first term to impose substantial tariffs on China. Musk has also “directly interfered in Ukraine’s fight against Russian invasion”. The strategic interests of the two individuals could diverge significantly at times.

But it must also be considered that the actions of the two men could come into phase, which would mean far more rapid and far-reaching upheavals than anticipated.

One thing is certain: the Trump/Musk duo’s solutions to America’s problems will surprise observers of the political and economic scene. The Musk family has never been concerned about the dust they kick up when it comes to pushing their ideas forward. And Trump’s reductive analysis of the cause of America’s problems will do nothing to reassure the various national and international players. This can be seen in his current comments on Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada.

The countries targeted by this duo’s initiatives will have to expect anything, and use their creativity, fighting spirit and composure to impose respect and restraint.

Click on the link for more graphic novels and comics in my blog.

Title: Elon Musk—Enquête sur un nouveau maître du monde.

Author: Darryl Cunningham

Publisher: Delcourt/Encrages, © 2024

ISBN: 978-2-413-08612-3

Categories
Graphic novels and comics

Accidental Czar

The graphic novel "Accidental Czar: The life and lies of Vladimir Putin".
The graphic novel “Accidental Czar: The life and lies of Vladimir Putin”.

Note: The excerpts are taken from the French version of “Tsar par accident” and re-translated into English using DeepL.

Author Andrew S. Weiss has worked at the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and so on. He points out: “If someone had told me at the time that a former KGB non-commissioned officer – who had never really shone – a certain Vladimir Putin […] – would be promoted from the back rooms of the Kremlin directly to the head of the country, I would have told you to get yourself treated”. He adds: “What we think we know about him is often a clever mix of counter psychology and misinterpretations of Russia‘s thousand-year-old history “. His staging as a tough guy “allows him to come across as more intelligent – and more competent – than he really is. […] “.

The graphic novel “Accident Czar” tells the story of how Vladimir Putin found himself in power at a time when his rather lacklustre career was destined for a lesser position. But the same could be said of some of the world’s dictators, presidents, kings and ministers over the ages who have been blessed with good fortune. They too have taken advantage of favorable opportunities to climb the ladder too high for their natural talent. The nation then pays the price until the person’s overthrow, exile or death.

Still, we have to give Putin credit for persisting, for hanging on, despite setbacks and rejections. To join the KGB, he was told to study or join the army. He did so and received his diploma.

In 1975, he joined the KGB. But it wasn’t the big missions he had dreamed of that awaited him, but local fieldwork. He failed to impress his superiors with the results he achieved. Following a brawl in the subway, he was transferred to Dresden in 1985, where his missions were meaningless due to lack of budget. In 1999, President Clinton was told that Putin would be the next Russian president. What had happened between 1985 and 1999 for Putin to suddenly emerge from obscurity and become President of Russia?

Credit must be given to his work ethic, but above all to his loyalty to his bosses in an organization that favors personal ties. Yeltsin, the president at the time, sensed his end was coming and offered Putin a deal. The author writes: “He would make him president if he agreed to protect him and his family“.

Just as Hindenburg believed he could manipulate Hitler by giving him access to the highest echelons of government, so Yeltsin thought he could do the same with Putin. In both cases, it was a costly mistake for Europe and the world.

The book reviews the rise of the Russian oligarchs, and the rapprochement of power for Putin’s friends. Andrew Weiss points out: “One of the points that foreigners don’t always grasp is that Russia is a society that operates on the basis of personal ties, rather than within the framework of institutions or the rule of law.

In the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, important sectors of the Russian economy were taken over by corrupt officials and KGB agents, as well as by the mafia. As the author writes: “Vladimir Kumarin, all-powerful boss of the notorious Tambov gang, ruled the country“.

Vladimir Putin’s support for the United States after the attacks of September 11, 2001 brought him closer to George W. Bush and his father George H. W. Bush, with whom he even went fishing in Kennebunkport. He hoped to revive the moribund Russian economy and gain the freedom to control the Russian media.

What’s most astonishing to me is that, during this period, Putin approved the highly controversial establishment of American and NATO bases across the former Soviet Union (Uzbekistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan). With this gesture, he was seeking stabilization with the West. With the causes of the September 11th 2001 attacks still being debated around the world today, especially in the most informed circles, Putin was later forced to reflect on the relevance and consequences of his decision to authorize new American and NATO bases near Russia.

The Russian president quickly realizes that he doesn’t carry much weight in the diplomatic balance against a superpower like the United States. He is not recognized as a player to be reckoned with. With a view to better understanding between the West and Russia, the author stresses the importance of better understanding the grievances of both sides. He points out that this is sorely lacking.

Especially since the Kremlin is convinced that “demands for political change are always the result of Western-backed conspiracies“. All the major nations, by dint of monitoring each other and trying to influence the internal management of other countries, are projecting their intentions and no longer believe that a protest can come from the bottom up, based on a serious desire to improve certain detestable policies.

The author takes a look back at the problems surrounding Russia’s territorial security through the ages, invaded in turn by the Mongols, Napoleon and Hitler: “[Russia] traditionally relies on annexed territories to act as a buffer between the motherland and any external threat“. He also discusses the Chechen conflict, the fight against terrorism, political interference in neighboring states and Russian involvement in the 2016 US elections.

Andrew S. Weiss covers a lot of ground, and other themes find their way into the book: the history of the Cold War, Trump, Snowden, Wikileaks, the Sochi Olympics and the work of Maria Butina, a Russian agent who managed to penetrate the upper circles of the American Republican Party.

It was his belief in the irreversible decline of the West that enabled Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.

The author concludes with a remark on the invasion of that country and the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets: “The world is beginning to understand that Putin was never the strategist he claimed to be. He is an improviser caught in his own trap”.

Allow me to make a comment about the invasion of Ukraine. This country is to receive fighter planes from the Allied States to protect its territory, which deeply offends Russia. However, I would like to remind you that during the Second World War, the Soviet Union accepted a great deal of outside help for its defense on the Eastern Front. To name just one aircraft and country, the Soviet Union obtained 877 B-25 Mitchell bombers from the USA.

Click on the link for more graphic novels and comics on my blog.

Title: Accidental Czar: The life and lies of Vladimir Putin.

Author: Andrew S. Weiss. Illustrator: Brian « Box » Brown

Edition: Macmillan Publishers

ISBN: 9781250760753

© 2022

Categories
Controversial subjects Geopolitics

In our America, all people are equal.

With the current divisive administration in the United States under Donald Trump, citizens are more than ever willing to express their political opinions. In 2019 in Boston’s Brookline suburb, a quick walk in the neighbourhood allowed me to take the two following pictures.

In our America, all people are equal.
In our America, all people are equal.

In case your cell phone screen cannot clearly show what is written on the sign above, here it is : « In our America, all people are equal. Love wins. Black lives matter. Immigrants and refugees are welcome. Disabilities are respected. Women are in charge of their bodies. People and planet are valued over profit. Diversity is celebrated. »

On the sign below, the message is clear : « No kids in cages. »

No Kids in Cages 2019
No Kids in Cages 2019

Click on the link for other pictures of United States on my blog.

Categories
Human behavior

Human behavior: “The Psychopath Test”

“The Psychopath Test” is a very interesting book for those who want to demystify what lies behind the term “psychopath” or “sociopath”. The author also writes about what leads to a medical misdiagnosis of a mental illness in a person. Despite the fact that writing on psychopaths is a serious task, the text is written with a bit of humor and derision, the author often putting forward his own insecurities and neurosis.

Although the book’s main theme is about psychopathy, the spectrum of subjects is quite large and all the stories are interesting, if not surprising. Numerous cases that have made the news throughout the years are brought back to memory, but with new details that allow a deeper understanding.

Jon Ronson's "The Psychopath Test" Book Cover
Jon Ronson’s “The Psychopath Test” Book Cover

Misdiagnosis

It is quite surprising to realize how easy it is to make mistakes in the diagnosis of mental illnesses. There are also several mental illnesses that can be attributed to individuals who do not have a behavior that is considered as strictly “normal” in our society. But since what is standard and acceptable vary throughout the years and societies, it seems obvious that a mental illness can be attributed to a person who is not really sick.

It is quite troubling to realize that mental illnesses will be attributed to children while the particular symptoms of those illnesses are known to become apparent only when a person becomes an adolescent or adult.

Faking madness to avoid prison time is not particularly wise…

The author shows how different personal interpretations by all kinds of “specialists” on the multiple criteria used to diagnose several mental illnesses sometimes result in a person being sent wrongly to a mental institution where she will be heavily medicated for a very long period.

A particularly interesting story is that of a man who faked madness after having committed a violent crime in order to avoid being sent to jail, thinking that he would instead be sent to a psychiatric institution where life is relatively comfortable. He was sent, like he wanted, to a psychiatric institution, but not the one he expected. He spent more than twelve years at Broadmoor, in England, an institution where serial killers and pedophiles are imprisoned.

In his case, the Robert Hare’s list was used. This is a list which is used to determine if a person is a psychopath. His luck turned when the “specialists” considered that he met most of the criteria on the list. He then had to fight for years to prove that he was victim of a wrong interpretation…

Some particularly weird psychotherapy sessions

The author mentions some of the weird experiments that went on to heal patients, experiments that were destined to fail before they even started. For example, the reader learns of psychotherapies where the patients were nude and under LSD influence. Another experiment involved criminals who had to heal each other: they could not stay away and distant from each other as they were taped together, like this serial killer of three children in Toronto who was taped to a car thief…

The negative effects of psychopaths that are highly placed in society

The author tries to verify, using the Robert Hare’s list, if it is true that psychopaths are ruling the world. He admits he partially failed. This seems reasonable since there is about 1% of the population that is composed of psychopaths, and that percentage grows to 3% with politicians and corporate leaders. So, from 3% to 100%, it seems obvious that this was a tall order to start with.

The author quotes one of his sources, Essi Viding, who studies psychopaths: “Psychopaths don’t change. The best you can hope for is that they’ll eventually get too old and lazy to be bothered to offend. And they can seem impressive. Charismatic. People are dazzled. So, yeah, the real trouble starts when one makes it big in mainstream society” (p.60)

Active psychopaths on the stock market can be as dangerous as psychopaths that are serial killers. As Robert Hare writes it: “Serial killers ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies” (p.112)

"The Psychopath Test" book back cover by author Jon Ronson
“The Psychopath Test” book back cover by author Jon Ronson

The twenty-point Hare PCL-R Checklist to establish if somebody is a psychopath

Here is a summary of the twenty points included in the Robert Hare’s Checklist. If a person scores 30 or more out of 40, she is considered as a psychopath:

1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
4. Pathological lying
5. Conning/manipulative
6. Lack of remorse or guilt
7. Shallow affect
8. Callous/lack of empathy
9. Parasitic lifestyle
10. Poor behavioral controls
11. Promiscuous sexual behavior
12. Early behavior problems
13. Lack of realistic long-term goals
14. Impulsivity
15. Irresponsibility
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17. Many short-term marital relationships
18. Juvenile delinquency
19. Revocation of conditional release
20. Criminal versatility

The psychopath Emmanuel (Toto) Constant and Haiti

Talking of American politics, the reader discovers Emmanuel (Toto) Constant and the consequences of his actions for Haiti. He is a mass murderer, psychopath, who was working for the CIA in Haiti. He was released from jail when he implied that he would reveal secrets on the American foreign policy in Haiti. Emmanuel Constant “profoundly altered Haitian society for three years, set it spiraling frantically in the wrong direction, destroying the lives of thousands, tainting hundreds of thousands more.” (p.129)

Reality TV and selected mental illnesses

The author also develops the reality TV theme, where guests face each other and fight aggressively, verbally or even physically. He interviewed a person who was in charge of finding the appropriate guests for each program. He learned that the candidates were chosen according to the type of drugs they were taking to stabilize their mental illness. This is not done without making some mistakes and he learned that a member of a family killed herself because she felt guilty about the way she behaved in preparation for the TV program.

Are you a psychopath?

Are you a psychopath? “If you’re beginning to feel worried that you may be a psychopath, if you recognize some of those traits in yourself, if you’re feeling a creeping anxiety about it, that means you are not one” (p.114). The psychopath has no emotions about his own situation: he is not sad about it, does not question himself as to his situation no more than is he happy to be classified as a psychopath.

The financial interests of huge pharmaceutical companies

Obviously, huge financial interests are at play when it comes to prescribing medication to millions of patients susceptible to be diagnosed with a specific mental illness: the role and pressure exerted by pharmaceutical companies are rightly raised in the book:” There are obviously a lot of very ill people out there. But there are also people in the middle, getting overlabeled, becoming more than a big splurge of madness in the minds of the people who benefit from it” (p.267)

Some personal comments

On few occasions, the author’s reasoning surprised me. For example, he founds abnormal to take the time to write articles on a blog since there is no pay to be expected. Should I assume that every act of creativity in society has to be done in exchange for money, otherwise it makes no sense? In another chapter where there is a mention of the 9/11 attacks, he writes: “9/11 obviously wasn’t an inside job”. The word “obviously” replaces what should be an appropriate research on the subject since half of the American population still has unanswered questions about those attacks.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, here is quote that, I think, best resumes the author’s thoughts: “There is no evidence that we’ve been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather interesting things” (p.271).

Title: The Psychopath Test
Author: Jon Ronson
Edition : First Riverhead
©2012
ISBN : 978-1-59448-575-6