TRUST: "Trust us," different Voices have said!

FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2025

Who do (or should) you trust? People say (and believe) the darnedest things—and people always have!

It's a basic part of our human inheritance. Way back at the dawn of the West, one person tackled this alleged problem:

Plato

Plato (born c. 428–423 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.

Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. 

Concerning "the problem of universals" (click here), a sensible person might sensibly ask this:

Who is this "problem of universals" some sort of a "problem" for?

The practical answer would be "practically no one!" But with very few shoulders on which to stand, Plato also considered this:

Philosopher king

The philosopher king is a hypothetical ruler in whom political skill is combined with philosophical knowledge. The concept of a city-state ruled by philosophers is first explored in Plato's Republic, written around 375 BC. Plato argued that the ideal state—one which ensured the maximum possible happiness for all its citizens—could only be brought into being by a ruler possessed of absolute knowledge, obtained through philosophical study.

[...]

Aristotle, in his Politics...sets out his own ideas about how a perfect city should be governed. Rather than proposing, as Plato does, the establishment of a ruling class, Aristotle argues that all citizens should take an equal share in the administration of the city. However, in one passage, Aristotle does write that if one or more people happened to be found who far excelled their fellow citizens in virtue, it would be against the natural order for such people to be subject to the rule of their inferiors, and they should therefore be made "kings in their state for life."

Today, some people seem to believe that Donald J. Trump should perhaps be made king for life. At any rate, way back then, at the dawn of the West, Plato was able to picture rule by a person "possessed of absolute knowledge."

A practical problem might seem to arise. How can people of limited knowledge know how to spot this person possessed of absolute knowledge? 

Putting it a different way, how would this person of absolute knowledge come to be accepted as king?

"It's always something," a later savant once noted. But then, up jumped the men of "the technocracy movement"—people who seemed to believe, back in the 1930s, that the philosopher kings were them.

In her essay in Sunday's New York Times, Professor Lepore sketched the shape of their absolute wisdom:

The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk

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[M]any of [Elon Musk's] ideas about politics, governance and economics resemble those championed by his grandfather Joshua Haldeman, a cowboy, chiropractor, conspiracy theorist and amateur aviator known as the Flying Haldeman. Mr. Musk’s grandfather was also a flamboyant leader of the political movement known as technocracy.

Leading technocrats proposed replacing democratically elected officials and civil servants—indeed, all of government—with an army of scientists and engineers under what they called a technate. Some also wanted to annex Canada and Mexico. At technocracy’s height, one branch of the movement had more than a quarter of a million members.

Under the technate, humans would no longer have names; they would have numbers. One technocrat went by 1x1809x56. (Mr. Musk has a son named X Æ A-12.) Mr. Haldeman, who had lost his Saskatchewan farm during the Depression, became the movement’s leader in Canada. He was technocrat No. 10450-1.

Technocracy first gained worldwide attention in 1932 but soon splintered into rival factions....Across the continent, rival groups of technocrats issued a flurry of tracts, periodicals and pamphlets explaining, for instance, how “life in a technocracy” would be utterly different from life in a democracy: “Popular voting can be largely dispensed with.”

And so on from there. Once the technate had been established, we wouldn't have those old-fashioned names, nor would we have to vote. The brilliant men of the technate would simply take things from there.

In fairness, we'll assume that many adherents of this movement were fully sincere in their concerns and in their dreams of a better life within the new borders laid out by "the technate." That said, they had succumbed to a fairly common human notion:

They seem to have come to believe that the philosopher kings were them!

Alas! Highly skilled "scientists and engineers" may not have good judgment about much of anything else. To take one innocuous example, Albert Einstein was the greatest theoretical physicist since Newton—but as it turned out, he wasn't especially skilled as a popular writer.

Then too, there's Elon Musk, Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2021. In the magazine's fluff-filled feature, we were offered such snapshots as these:

Elon Musk: 2021 TIME Person of the Year

The richest man in the world does not own a house and has recently been selling off his fortune. He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver. With a flick of his finger, the stock market soars or swoons. An army of devotees hangs on his every utterance. He dreams of Mars as he bestrides Earth, square-jawed and indomitable. Lately, Elon Musk also likes to live-tweet his poops.

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This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad; a madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan, the brooding, blue-skinned man-god who invents electric cars and moves to Mars. His startup rocket company, SpaceX, has leapfrogged Boeing and others to own America’s spacefaring future. His car company, Tesla, controls two-thirds of the multibillion-dollar electric-vehicle market it pioneered and is valued at a cool $1 trillion. That has made Musk, with a net worth of more than $250 billion, the richest private citizen in history, at least on paper...

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A few short years ago, Musk was roundly mocked as a crazy con artist on the verge of going broke. Now this shy South African with Asperger’s syndrome, who escaped a brutal childhood and overcame personal tragedy, bends governments and industry to the force of his ambition.

To Musk, his vast fortune is a mere side effect of his ability not just to see but to do things others cannot, in arenas where the stakes are existential. “He was raised in a tough environment and born with a very special brain,” says Antonio Gracias, Musk’s close friend of two decades, who has held seats on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX. “Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people in that situation don’t come out of it. Some small percentage come out of it with the ability he has to make great decisions under extraordinary pressure and the never-ending drive to change the course of humanity.” 

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The toll his hard-driving style takes on staff is legendary. Former associates have described Musk as petty, cruel and petulant, particularly when frustrated or challenged. He recently separated from the experimental musician Grimes, the mother of his seventh son. “He is a savant when it comes to business, but his gift is not empathy with people,” says his brother and business partner Kimbal Musk. 

Musk has been a hugely successful industrialist. In that essay, his long-time friend, Antonio Gracias, described him as a person who was "born with a very special brain."

Within the past month, Gracias has arrived on the scene, helping Musk with his selfless attempt to direct something resembling a new technate. That said, the special brain to which Gracias referred was responsible for what President Donald J. Trump said last month when he addressed to a joint session of Congress. 

With apologies, we'll post his ludicrous statements again, It's important to see the fruits of that special brain—the sorts of extremely strange fruit the apparently timorous mainstream press has largely agreed to walk on by:

THE PRESIDENT (3/4/25): We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.  Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old.

It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119.  I don’t know any of them.  I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly.  

(LAUGHTER) 

3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129. 

3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139.

3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149.

And money is being paid to many of them, and we’re searching right now. 

In fact, Pam [Bondi], good luck.  Good luck.  You’re going to find it.

But a lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid, and nobody does—and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country.

1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159.  And over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old.  

We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby [Kennedy Jr.]. 

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229; one person between the age of 240 and 249; and one person is listed at 360 years of age—

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Joe Biden!  

(LAUGHTER)

THE PRESIDENT: —more than 100 years older than our country. 

But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty. 

By slashing all of the fraud, waste, and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors, and put more money in the pockets of American families. 

 (APPLAUSE)

No, you can't get dumber than that—but a certain "very special brain" was the original source of that fruit. In fact, that very special brain has spread one gong-show presentation after another across the fruited plain. 

This brain was extremely good for the task of building rockets, but perhaps not for anything else. Also, it can occasionally seem that this brain doesn't inspire its holder to be obsessively honest at all points in time.

Over the past few months, the fellow who was live-tweeting his poops has been cast in the role of the modern-day philosopher king—as the point of the spear of the modern technate, as run by his young "engineers." Within the past few weeks, his own Patroclus arrived on the scene to help him "sing the famous deeds of fighting heroes" as he "pluck[ed] strong and clear on the fine lyre" (Professor Fagles).

Gracias has helped Musk sing the songs of warriors. Also, he has helped him spread his latest alarming claims all around.

This person in question has been spectacularly accomplished in certain highly challenging (though narrow) areas. With respect to everything else, it almost seems that he arrives in an electric clowncar.

Certain types of (narrowly) accomplished people may come to see themselves as supermen. It's amazing how childish and dumb their wider thinking may turn out to be. 

Being merely human, these fellows may sometimes seem to be totally in awe of their own spectacular greatness. Lepore notes one recent example: 

Mr. Musk’s possible departure from Washington will not diminish the influence of Muskism in the United States. His superannuated futurism is Silicon Valley’s reigning ideology. In 2023 the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who helped staff DOGE, wrote “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," predicting the emergence of “technological supermen.” It consists of a list of statements:

We can advance to a far superior way of living and of being.
We have the tools, the systems, the ideas.
We have the will. …
We believe this is why our descendants will live in the stars. …
We believe in greatness. …
We believe in ambition, aggression, persistence, relentlessness—strength.

In a slightly saner world, these nitwits would be frog-marched into the countryside, where they would be lovingly served by a fully staffed re-education program.

That would be in a saner world. In our world, they're widely lionized as extremely wealthy bros who surely must have an array of brilliant ideas and insights. Also, our major press organs don't seem to be able, or possibly willing, to speak with frankness about them.

The person in question has been extremely accomplished in a narrow set of pursuits. Elsewhere, he has advanced one bungled claim after another in thoroughly blunderbuss fashion. 

He seems to have a very limited sense of traditional Enlightenment values. He tends to traffic in insults.

He doesn't always seem to be obsessively honest. Also, the major organs of the mainstream press have agreed, in the main, to walk on by his endless ridiculous conduct. 

On the one hand, they seem to be timorously avoiding a fight. Also, it's almost like they lack the language for discussing such a "savant."

Can you trust the sayings of Musk? Also, can you trust the fruits of the avoidance performed by the mainstream press?

"Trust us," various Voices have said and implied.  Johnny Carson was the first to address this concern:

Who Do [or Can or Should] You Trust?