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Of course none of this ever happened. Musk has repeatedly accepted responsibility for many of the problems at Tesla around excessive automation. But try to unde

by dnomad 8y ago

Of course none of this ever happened. Musk has repeatedly accepted responsibility for many of the problems at Tesla around excessive automation. But try to understand the sort of psychology at work when somebody projects a fantasy onto a figure like Musk. In this thread alone we have people attributing quotes to Musk that he never said ("unfair", "witch hunt") and others insisting Musk is paranoid in response to finding an actual saboteur. Frankly, Musk isn't a real person to these people, he's a puppet trapped in some made up morality play.

mmjaa 8y ago
True that. Plus, there is a great deal of jealousy involved in Musk criticism these days. He has pushed things far further than a lot of anyone in this particular crowd ever will, and there is no indication that the Musk event horizon has any end. So yeah, this particular crowd here on HN has the potential to let jealousy override rationality, and the more banal human emotions come to play instead. Personally, I think Elon Musk is an exceptional human being, who has somehow not let himself be limited in his actions by jealousy, hatred, intolerance, and so on. This is bound to make a lot of people upset - after all, humans have a long and sordid history with cutting down the taller poppies.
- kbenson 8y ago
  I suspect that if we were living and had easy access to information about any number of people from the past that had a large influence on history, we would find the opinion of the time much less one sides than it becomes after they are gone and their legacy (whether good or bad) has been largely decided by the culture. There's a whole literature category devoted to taking the caricatures of historical people and expanding them into much more complex and realistic depictions of the people in question. Frankly I think it's amazing that so many people can't imagine a complex person with competing goals and motivations when considering public personas, when this is true of literally everyone alive.
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    I totally agree with you. There is an occlusion of the collective will in all of these arguments. Its like, a surefire way to win any argument is to invoke the collective against an individual, since the collective whole is greater than the individual unit. But, there's also the fact that the collective holds itself back willingly and utterly, whereas individual desire seems to be unlimited in our species. I guess the mores of one over the other, drive the cycle forward, endlessly. Personally, I'm very glad that people such as Elon Musk exist, and on a more basic level, I hope to see Musk succeed in all of his endeavours. The collective sure isn't doing much of any interest, in the meantime...

by dnomad 8y ago

mmjaa 8y ago

True that. Plus, there is a great deal of jealousy involved in Musk criticism these days. He has pushed things far further than a lot of anyone in this particular crowd ever will, and there is no indication that the Musk event horizon has any end. So yeah, this particular crowd here on HN has the potential to let jealousy override rationality, and the more banal human emotions come to play instead. Personally, I think Elon Musk is an exceptional human being, who has somehow not let himself be limited in his actions by jealousy, hatred, intolerance, and so on. This is bound to make a lot of people upset - after all, humans have a long and sordid history with cutting down the taller poppies.

kbenson 8y ago
I suspect that if we were living and had easy access to information about any number of people from the past that had a large influence on history, we would find the opinion of the time much less one sides than it becomes after they are gone and their legacy (whether good or bad) has been largely decided by the culture. There's a whole literature category devoted to taking the caricatures of historical people and expanding them into much more complex and realistic depictions of the people in question. Frankly I think it's amazing that so many people can't imagine a complex person with competing goals and motivations when considering public personas, when this is true of literally everyone alive.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  I totally agree with you. There is an occlusion of the collective will in all of these arguments. Its like, a surefire way to win any argument is to invoke the collective against an individual, since the collective whole is greater than the individual unit. But, there's also the fact that the collective holds itself back willingly and utterly, whereas individual desire seems to be unlimited in our species. I guess the mores of one over the other, drive the cycle forward, endlessly. Personally, I'm very glad that people such as Elon Musk exist, and on a more basic level, I hope to see Musk succeed in all of his endeavours. The collective sure isn't doing much of any interest, in the meantime...