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paxys

So in the first two weeks of the year Zuck has announced:

- Replacing their global policy chief with the company's highest ranking Republican.

- Appointing Dana White to the company's board.

- Changing content policies to be aligned with the incoming administration.

- Elimination of DEI programs in hiring.

- Removing tampons from men's restrooms.

- Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the lack of "masculine energy" at the company.

- 5% layoff of low performers. Company needs to get "intense".

Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man?

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It's hilarious. Meta introduced stuff Democrats liked when Democrats were in charge, and it switched to stuff Republicans like precisely on the switchover to Republicans being in charge.

It's so transparent, perhaps part of the point is how nakedly self-serving and obvious it is.

What Meta actually wants to do is hoover up the world's data and sell it, get the world hooked on constant engagement, and erode their privacy until they have none left. To be the middleman getting paid in the entire world's engagement.

The left/right culture war stuff is just so the alien in the human suit can keep getting away with what he actually wants to do.

Related: Meta to move content moderators to Texas as part of plan to end fact-checking program

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/07/texas-meta-content-m...

Is he going to start wearing cowboy hats and buying up land in Texas now ?

I mean, yea, probably.

Elon did that but he ended up wearing the hat backwards

He is trying not to get Nuremberged.

He is a snake. I also live on Kauai and most of the locals don't want him here, he is trying to turn his image around but most people aren't really buying it or haven't really thought about it too deeply.

He, in my view, is desperate to hang onto 'his throne' but all it takes is the right person, with the right vision, at the right time...with enough support.

Why not just assume the simplest thing, the positions companies take under Democrats are fake and so are the positions under Republicans.

To imagine that, "the mask is off" is absurd.

None of those bullets points are crises.

> Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the lack of "masculine energy" at the company.

Was it as excruciatingly cringeworthy as it sounds? I don’t want to give them the view or spend three hours of my time on that, but I’d take a highlight of the weirdest moments.

> Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man?

It feels like he suddenly became a Musk fanboy and wants to mimic him. Maybe because Zuckerberg completely failed at going into politics when he dipped his toes in it in the past and Musk just got his candidate elected.

Supposedly he actually talked about both "masculine energy" and "feminine energy" being valuable as opposed to the modern corporate environment being "neutral" or "neutered," so take that for whatever.

No not really - it's quite a good interview. Here's the masculine energy bit if you want to judge for yourself. You only have to watch a couple of minutes to get an idea https://youtu.be/7k1ehaE0bdU?t=5329 To me "ranting" is not true. He calmly says he was brought up with girls and it's quite nice go get out and do martial arts for a change. To me that's normal and getting upset about 'men' not getting free tampons is kinda weird.

> Here's the masculine energy bit if you want to judge for yourself. You only have to watch a couple of minutes to get an idea

Thank you for the link, I did watch it.

> To me "ranting" is not true.

Agreed. That didn’t feel at all like a rant. Though from the little I watched I do disagree with him and think he doesn’t have a good understanding of the zeitgeist. He claims that culture has swung in the direction that “masculinity is bad” and “masculinity is toxic” when that’s not at the argument. The term “toxic masculinity” refers to specific traits of masculinity which promote destructive facets, it doesn’t mean that all masculinity is toxic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity

Note I’m not implying you yourself don’t understand the concept, I’m merely taking this opportunity to add my own comments on the segment, and the reply to the post where you graciously provided a link seems like a good place.

Thank you again for adding the context.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but seeing what seem to me to be colloquial, recently originating informal phrases linked to from Wikipedia seems a bit silly or giving conceited "get educated" vibes.

It reads as though that's somehow where it came from or is an authoritative source required to use or interpret it. In this case, the phrase vaguely associates toxicity with masculinity, and whether it's intended or not, if a more specific nuanced meaning is intended, then it should be articulated concisely with a different choice of language that probably should have been chosen in the first place; the intuitive interpretation is the one that takes hold.

In different contexts in real life, I've had people be outwardly racist, sexist, or otherwise prejudiced toward me, and when responded to in a very calm manner, they scoffed that "oh here's a book to read on why actually that's impossible" when actually nah we're all just using language, and if there's a progressive, genuine intention to create a space that's as equitable and as conflict-free as possible for all, than shit like that isn't going to fly.

> Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man?

His whole era of big name tech founders seems to be going through it.

Feels like the board trying to minimize risks in the new political-cultural climate. It's a pity, really.

It was equally a pity when they minimized them on the left in the last few years, wouldn’t you agree?

Given that true leftists genuinely want to create a better world and the GOP wants to do harm, I would not agree. I’m no saying it wasn’t fake bullshit then from Zuck. Just that it was fake but still made things a bit better for people rather than causing harm.

> Ranting about the lack of "masculine energy" at the company.

This one in particular feels very midlife crisis coded; weird insecure masculinity stuff. But, y'know, most men who have issues with that get by with an ill-advised car or something.

This behavior seems much in line with Musk.

The all in podcast has four high net worth people with a similar vibe.

Something disturbing is going on in the ranks of the "elite". I get these people are narcissistic, but the overt displays of contempt combined with authoritarian cowtowing is a bit frightening.

A trade war with China combined with other increasing consequences conflicts seems to be bringing the age of global free trade to an end, or at least a very different one.

The Ukrainian success with naval drones may mean the end of secure seas as well. Drones are cheap, anonymous, and effective.

That implies an disruption to the multinational corporate order, and an emphasis on domestic or near domestic production, and less of the government independence / arbitrage that the super rich have gotten used to.

But the ultras all seem to be going into these maniacal bond villain molds. Is Musk a symptom or a torchleader?

Are you implying there are no differences between masculine and feminine? If there are differences and you value diversity, you should want masculine to be represented.

Unless you mean masculine == bad, which would be a very bigoted take.

That's just how he's always been. He's an insecure little incel at heart.

Facebook's precursor was a HotOrNot clone that used female classmates' photographs without permission. It takes a certain type of person to build something like that.

??? He met his now wife when he was a sophomore in college and has an extremely normal family life as far as I can tell.

Facebook started as a project to grab photos of girls from his school and create a public ranking system on how hot they were.

https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a19746346/mark-zuck...

Which we all wish we started before him ... I mean god damn it all it took was knowing a bit of php and throwing a few html pages.

I think it's slightly creepy and displays a major lack of socialization and self-awareness and do not at all wish I had made.

this is such a weird comment. Sure, the HotOrNot clone was inappropriate. But "He's an insecure little incel at heart"? Where did that come from?

I know Zuck wasn't super popular on HN, but until these recent events, I saw him as someone generally reasonable and pragmatic.

I can understand that he had to compromise with Trump in order to protect his wealth and company. But it's clearly more than that. I wonder, does he even have values on his owns? will he reinstate the tampons if democrats win in 4 years?

My guess is that he's slowing been adhering to the Trump/Musk ideology (like a lot of people) and now is one of them.

He's a weak man that detached from reality and has no anchors to the real world anymore. He's just saying whatever shit he thinks will make him money

I think once he started working out and getting strong, he looked less like an android and more like a human male. His politics may have shifted as a result of building muscle:

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

* https://hbr.org/2013/07/mens-arm-strength-affects-thei

* https://www.psypost.org/strong-men-come-across-as-more-conse...

The bimbofication of society unironically has bad consequences for us all. I believe excess gym makes you less nerdy and more reactive, despite studies saying it 'makes you smarter'.

I'm far from a bodybuilder, but this is certainly . . . a take. Whatever happened to the ideal of a sound mind in a sound body? Why does our society have this stupid "jock/nerd" dichotomy where the smart can't be strong and the strong can't be smart?

As someone who enjoys lifting weights, I agree with you. However, I can easily imagine an argument based on all of the strange add-on effects you get from being immersed in "gym culture". Working out isn't just working out, it means you start getting fitness posts in your social media algorithms, surrounding yourself with a new group of people with potentially different views on masculinity, shilling supplements, etc.

Aka don't ignore the social side of fitness.

I learn what I can, apply it, and then try to run the hell away from the mostly online strength community at large. It’s a lot of drama, shilling, fragile egos, harmful advice, useless advice, mixed with some gems you can mine from it with some necessary filtering and vigilance. My local community on the other hand is amazing.

He was always athletic. I believe he was captain of the fencing team in high school.

He's also a pretty decent amateur runner, broke 20 minutes for 5k which is nothing to sneeze at, I'm still not able to do it after 1.5 years of training 4-6 days a week.

I mean, what do you expect? The dude asked Xi Jinping to name his unborn kid https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-...

You don't see being friendly to the new US administration being pragmatic ?

I don't like Zuckerberg at all but the counter point to this is that the Woke movement went too damn far to the point of creating a thought police and you can count this as part of the recent backlash we're seeing everywhere.

He just does what the government tells him to do. Now, before and in the future. I personally dislike any divide and conquer agendas, especially the woke one, and am happy that it bursts now.

> Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man?

He's the definition of a perpetual beta trying to be alpha.

I would love to spar with him in BJJ sometime. After you train for awhile you can lock up with someone and immediately feel who they are. An alpha stays calm and relaxed, never panicking even as they are being put to sleep [1]. He went into BJJ hoping to become alpha and it just highlighted even further he's not.

[1] BTW, this isn't a bullshit masculine/man/woman thing. I roll with plenty of women and many of them are more alpha than many men I know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN69JZ0X-2M

> He's the definition of a perpetual beta trying to be alpha.

That’s not a thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU

There's no better way to torch your credibility than to use the terms "beta" and "alpha" unironically.

The ironic part is that's what he's probably thinking and chasing (he talked at length recently about bringing 'masculine energy' back to Meta). He's literally one of the most powerful people in the world, but always comes across as wishy washy and unconfident.

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