4 ms·

When Musk's offer of help to Thailand was first discussed here, I said I thought I didn't think it was a cynical PR stunt, because Musk gets into all kinds of m

by danso 8y ago

When Musk's offer of help to Thailand was first discussed here, I said I thought I didn't think it was a cynical PR stunt, because Musk gets into all kinds of musings/tinkerings, for better or worse, when people prompt him on Twitter. I think the self-meltdown he's had since the rescue bolsters my point, that his initiative was a gut reaction more than a thought-out PR ploy. It boggles my mind the number of people who argue, "Well, at least he helped!", as if attempts to help are always a net good. It's fine if he sent help, or if he were privately working on a solution. Tweeting his prototype as it was being developed, as if it were on the cusp of success, was not helpful. It put undue pressure on the rescue chief -- imagine if the operation had failed and children had died? Can you imagine the vitriol the chief would face by armchair critics for not waiting, or for not trying out Musk's solution? I can't be the only one who thought the rescue operation would end with some casualties (so soon after that former Thai SEAL died). But everyone was rescued, and it turned out the rescue chief/governor made the right call under pressure. Musk, who was accountable to no one, ripping into the rescue chief is the height of douchebaggery. Well, at least until this morning when he called one of the rescuers a "pedo".

kibibu 8y ago
One of the most interesting points about the submarine IMO was a comment on Ars Technica's article by an apparently qualified commenter: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/elon-musk-built-a-submarine-to-rescue-thailand-kids-heres-what-it-looks-like/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/elon-musk-built-a-su... > I certainly wouldn't be on the cave side of it (as opposed to the entrance side - when I was acting as a guide I wouldn't even be on the non-entrence side of fat divers if the system had restrictions) (restrictions means tight, bendy bits) If the long, rigid, metal sub got stuck in any way in the cave, the kids and divers behind it were also stuck, and probably doomed (good luck getting cutting equipment in there to dismantle it).
- petertodd 8y ago
  Thing is, what's the alternative? We're just lucky the plan they went with actually worked - strap the kids in tightly to a semi-enclosed stretcher with lots of anti-anxiety drugs and a positive pressure facemask. AFAIK rescuing people from a cave underwater who aren't already divers has never been done before at all, and I've heard of a few cases where similar rescues have failed with the deaths of the victims (e.g. someone getting stuck in tidal mud flats where a diver tried using a full face mask to keep them alive until the morning - they panicked, lost the mask, and died). Lots of things like the kids being in worse health than they were, or the combo of drugs and bravery/meditation not being enough could have made that plan fail. Just keeping those kids alive already killed one diver due to an accident - if the plan had failed even just resupplying them until conditions improved could have easily killed more given the bad conditions. Also remember that the rescue was willing and able to modify the cave with drilling (and even blasting) to make passages wider and easier to navigate (there's public footage of the rescuers doing this). This is an aspect of cave rescue that can be controversial and isn't often talked about, but I think it's totally justified here, and could have easily reduced the risk of the thing getting stuck (which happens to patients^H^H^H bodies too...). Unfortunately this was a really bad situation without a guaranteed good outcome.
  - jmts 8y ago
    Clearly, the alternative is to use a stretcher. I was exposed to vertical and (dry) cave rescue practices via my father for most of my upbringing. Every exercise I ever saw performed involved strapping a person into a stretcher and using multiple people to maneuver them to safety. This is the method they train, and this is the method they know. I have no doubt this is the method of choice for more good reasons than I can possibly think of. Now let's add cave diving to the mix, one of the most dangerous pastimes you can take part in. This is a situation where the most boring solution is the best solution. The fewer unknowns the better. These people have a background in rescue already, so they know their way around a stretcher. They have a background in diving, so they know their way around a mask. Dr Richard Harris, one of the divers involved is an anaesthetist, so he knows his way around sedating people. They've got this covered. Every person there already has experience doing what they're doing. To introduce a (relatively) large, heavy, untested piece of apparatus with which nobody has any experience working with to an already risky operation with a high chance of fatality is just ridiculous. Good on Musk for thinking about the problem and looking for a solution, but anybody claiming to know better than the people who actually pulled this off without any fancy contraptions is in need of a reality check.
    - petertodd 8y ago
      > Clearly, the alternative is to use a stretcher. edit: To be clear, I'm talking about what's the alternative if the stretcher doesn't work? That was a major risk. If I were in there position, I'd strongly consider a stretcher too. But I'd feel much better knowing there was a backup plan. > I have no doubt this is the method of choice for more good reasons than I can possibly think of. Indeed it is. But all those rescues were performed above the water, in breathable air. Adding water to that mix is a huge change. Heck, I know someone who was involved in a rescue from a very wet cave with a significant river flowing through it that was flooding. They said one of the hardest parts of the rescue was keeping the victim in a stretcher out of the water so they wouldn't drown. Yes, the sub was untested and nobody had any experience with it. But rescuing untrained victims with a mask was also untested and nobody had any experience doing it. I'm sure that uncertainty is why Musk was asked by Richard Stanton - one of the two divers who found the kids in the first place - to keep working on it. Incidentally, by caving standards all dive gear is a "fancy contraption" - dive gear is notoriously fragile by caving standards.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
> ripping into the rescue chief is the height of douchebaggery ... called one of the rescuers a "pedo" I haven't been following any of this very closely. Would you mind linking to primary sources, thanks.
- kibibu 8y ago
  Primary source isn't possible as he deleted the tweets. Here's some Google cache links to the tweets: 1. Claiming he's sus for living in Thailand: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2lG6zBilwf8J:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018494440648859648 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2lG6zB... 2. Straight-up calling him "pedo guy": https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zdx_Qw3LMtEJ:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018497953051258880 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zdx_Qw... 3. And doubling down: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qsVGLizOopUJ:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018513369404493824 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qsVGLi... Here's a Guardian article about it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...
  - userbinator 8y ago
    Needs to be archived.
  - gpm 8y ago
    Content of Elon tweets from those links Link 1 > Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves. Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave. Link 2 > Water level was actually very low & still (not flowing) — you could literally have swum to Cave 5 with no gear, which is obv how the kids got in. If not true, then I challenge this dude to show final rescue video. Huge credit to pump & generator team. Unsung heroes here. > You know what, don’t bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it. Link 3 > Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true
hndamien 8y ago
I've always been one to defend Elon, and all I will say here is I feel sorry he was so frustrated at the response. However, this comment from danso is the most measured analysis I've read and unfortunately, he has made some mistakes here.
rich-w-big-ego 8y ago
> self-meltdown he's had since the rescue what meltdown? > Tweeting his prototype as it was being developed, as if it were on the cusp of success, was not helpful... [if children had died] can you imagine the vitriol the chief would face by armchair critics for not waiting, or for not trying out Musk's solution? If you are in charge of getting someone out alive and they die, you're going to face vitriol. Some of the vitriol would include claims that the wrong method was used in the rescue attempt. This has nothing to do with Elon Musk at all! If he tweets about an exciting new piece of tech he's working on, and someone refers to that tech in an attack against a rescue chief, that can NOT be attributed to Elon. And like you said, the chief rescuer did make the right call under pressure anyhow. > Musk, who was accountable to no one, ripping into the rescue chief Wasn't the rescue chief actually a former Thai provincial governer, unrelated to the rescue effort? The real douchebaggery is that someone unrelated to the effort of saving children will take the opportunity to soapbox against Elon Musk, not unlike how you've done here. No relation to the effort, no real basis for your claims, but takes the opportunity to sling poison. Elon is not wrong or unjust in calling out that sort of bad behaviour. And the pedo comment. Look, Thailand is a sex tourism country. If you live in Thailand as an expat, people are going to think you're a pedo whether or not you actually are. And this expat already told Elon to stick his sub where it hurts. In my worldview, that makes you fair game to a comeback from Elon. Calling him a pedo is actually a devastating comeback, not "douchebaggery". It's "douchebaggery" to tell someone to "stick their sub where it hurts".
- danso 8y ago
  > Wasn't the rescue chief actually a former Thai provincial governer, unrelated to the rescue effort? You’re asking if the rescue chief was unrelated to the rescue effort?
  - rich-w-big-ego 8y ago
    Look, the dive team wanted the sub. The thai former governer who was sitting in the command centre, who gave a hot take on whether or not Elon's tech would be useful, isn't relevant.
  - 8y ago
soneil 8y ago
The whole "PR" stuff bugged me, because it honestly doesn't matter if it is. It's perfectly possible, and preferable for PR to be win-win. And it really doesn't matter if they didn't use it. More options is better than too few options. But his response to being called a "PR stunt" has been absolutely disgusting. Test it, validate it, prove it, and donate it to whoever it is that keeps big boxes of weird contraptions for when things go wrong. Then move on. Just .. not this. Quite the opposite of this.
- danso 8y ago
  I don’t mind if it’s PR either. He put his money where his mouth was. I doubt the rescue officials would be as annoyed with him if he developed his sub in private — and talked about it after the rescue was over.
- flukus 8y ago
  > And it really doesn't matter if they didn't use it. More options is better than too few options. No it really isn't. When people are fatigued, under pressure and facing some hard time constraints you want less options, options that the rescue team are familiar with and trained for. You don't want them thinking about whether this new contraption would work in the back of their minds. It's like having that boss that wants status reports every 5 minutes during a production issue, not only is it unhelpful but it does hamper efforts to resolve things. > Test it, validate it, prove it, and donate it to whoever it is that keeps big boxes of weird contraptions for when things go wrong. And do all of this before it's needed, don't wing it.
  - petertodd 8y ago
    > options that the rescue team are familiar with and trained for. Eh, don't overestimate how common this rescue was. The techniques they used in the end appear to be unprecedented underwater - cave diving is sufficiently dangerous that rescuing people who can't move under their own power is unheard of. So people don't train for that. Notably, while the the two cave divers who actually found the kids had done successful cave rescues before in dry caves, this appears to be the first time they've ever successfully rescued someone underwater - all their prior experience underwater was body recoveries (one of which following a failed attempt(1) to rescue a cave diver). Heck, there's a school of thought in cave diving that rejects the usual scuba diving practice of having a buddy in favour of diving solo. It's common for the rescue attempt to simply end up killing the dive buddy as well rather than saving a life: https://cavedivinggroup.org.uk/in-praise-of-solo-cave-diving/ https://cavedivinggroup.org.uk/in-praise-of-solo-cave-diving... 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stanton_(cave_diver)#Caving_and_rescues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stanton_(cave_diver)#C...
slavak 8y ago
Wow. I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhat but, no, he actually came out and randomly accused a guy he doesn't know and never met of being a pedophile, all for the crime of criticizing his mini-sub idea! Not just any guy, either, but one of the divers who risked their lives to get the kids out, not to mention was one of the first divers on the scene who helped find the trapped boys in the first place! And when this was pointed out to Musk, his response is... to double down? What in the actual fuck is going on with Musk? This kind of behaviour is inappropriate even for a random nobody on Twitter, let alone a celebrity billionaire CEO. What possible thought process leads an adult to not just think this, but then to also type it out and decide it's a good idea?! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-diver-in-thai-cave-rescue-stunned-after-attack-by-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-dive...
ksec 8y ago
>When Musk's offer of help to Thailand was first discussed here, I said I thought I didn't think it was a cynical PR stunt,......... people who argue, "Well, at least he helped!", as if attempts to help are always a net good. It's fine if he sent help,, .........? I think this precisely capture the difference in majority of audience thinking form Silicon Valley / US vs EU / UK. As per the article "The Silicon Valley model for doing things is a mix of can-do optimism" Calling someone who risk his life, saving children a paedophile because he felt he was insulted or attacked may have been perfectly acceptable in the land of freedom, but definitely not in UK. And generally speaking, it isn't very polite to decline help on offer or to flat out label something doesn't work, especially from the British. May be next time they should just replied "That is not quite what I have in mind.". [1] [1] https://twitter.com/soverybritish/status/517736334841352192 https://twitter.com/soverybritish/status/517736334841352192
- etrevino 8y ago
  > Calling someone who risk his life, saving children a paedophile because he felt he was insulted or attacked may have been perfectly acceptable in the land of freedom, but definitely not in UK. Not acceptable here, either. It's legal, but it's socially unacceptable. Now, if Musk goes beyond name calling and makes an actual effort to paint the guy as a pedo then, I think, it's illegal. (I think)

by danso 8y ago

kibibu 8y ago

One of the most interesting points about the submarine IMO was a comment on Ars Technica's article by an apparently qualified commenter: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/elon-musk-built-a-submarine-to-rescue-thailand-kids-heres-what-it-looks-like/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/elon-musk-built-a-su... > I certainly wouldn't be on the cave side of it (as opposed to the entrance side - when I was acting as a guide I wouldn't even be on the non-entrence side of fat divers if the system had restrictions) (restrictions means tight, bendy bits) If the long, rigid, metal sub got stuck in any way in the cave, the kids and divers behind it were also stuck, and probably doomed (good luck getting cutting equipment in there to dismantle it).

petertodd 8y ago
Thing is, what's the alternative? We're just lucky the plan they went with actually worked - strap the kids in tightly to a semi-enclosed stretcher with lots of anti-anxiety drugs and a positive pressure facemask. AFAIK rescuing people from a cave underwater who aren't already divers has never been done before at all, and I've heard of a few cases where similar rescues have failed with the deaths of the victims (e.g. someone getting stuck in tidal mud flats where a diver tried using a full face mask to keep them alive until the morning - they panicked, lost the mask, and died). Lots of things like the kids being in worse health than they were, or the combo of drugs and bravery/meditation not being enough could have made that plan fail. Just keeping those kids alive already killed one diver due to an accident - if the plan had failed even just resupplying them until conditions improved could have easily killed more given the bad conditions. Also remember that the rescue was willing and able to modify the cave with drilling (and even blasting) to make passages wider and easier to navigate (there's public footage of the rescuers doing this). This is an aspect of cave rescue that can be controversial and isn't often talked about, but I think it's totally justified here, and could have easily reduced the risk of the thing getting stuck (which happens to patients^H^H^H bodies too...). Unfortunately this was a really bad situation without a guaranteed good outcome.
- jmts 8y ago
  Clearly, the alternative is to use a stretcher. I was exposed to vertical and (dry) cave rescue practices via my father for most of my upbringing. Every exercise I ever saw performed involved strapping a person into a stretcher and using multiple people to maneuver them to safety. This is the method they train, and this is the method they know. I have no doubt this is the method of choice for more good reasons than I can possibly think of. Now let's add cave diving to the mix, one of the most dangerous pastimes you can take part in. This is a situation where the most boring solution is the best solution. The fewer unknowns the better. These people have a background in rescue already, so they know their way around a stretcher. They have a background in diving, so they know their way around a mask. Dr Richard Harris, one of the divers involved is an anaesthetist, so he knows his way around sedating people. They've got this covered. Every person there already has experience doing what they're doing. To introduce a (relatively) large, heavy, untested piece of apparatus with which nobody has any experience working with to an already risky operation with a high chance of fatality is just ridiculous. Good on Musk for thinking about the problem and looking for a solution, but anybody claiming to know better than the people who actually pulled this off without any fancy contraptions is in need of a reality check.
  - petertodd 8y ago
    > Clearly, the alternative is to use a stretcher. edit: To be clear, I'm talking about what's the alternative if the stretcher doesn't work? That was a major risk. If I were in there position, I'd strongly consider a stretcher too. But I'd feel much better knowing there was a backup plan. > I have no doubt this is the method of choice for more good reasons than I can possibly think of. Indeed it is. But all those rescues were performed above the water, in breathable air. Adding water to that mix is a huge change. Heck, I know someone who was involved in a rescue from a very wet cave with a significant river flowing through it that was flooding. They said one of the hardest parts of the rescue was keeping the victim in a stretcher out of the water so they wouldn't drown. Yes, the sub was untested and nobody had any experience with it. But rescuing untrained victims with a mask was also untested and nobody had any experience doing it. I'm sure that uncertainty is why Musk was asked by Richard Stanton - one of the two divers who found the kids in the first place - to keep working on it. Incidentally, by caving standards all dive gear is a "fancy contraption" - dive gear is notoriously fragile by caving standards.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

> ripping into the rescue chief is the height of douchebaggery ... called one of the rescuers a "pedo" I haven't been following any of this very closely. Would you mind linking to primary sources, thanks.

kibibu 8y ago
Primary source isn't possible as he deleted the tweets. Here's some Google cache links to the tweets: 1. Claiming he's sus for living in Thailand: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2lG6zBilwf8J:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018494440648859648 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2lG6zB... 2. Straight-up calling him "pedo guy": https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zdx_Qw3LMtEJ:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018497953051258880 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zdx_Qw... 3. And doubling down: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qsVGLizOopUJ:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018513369404493824 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qsVGLi... Here's a Guardian article about it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...
- userbinator 8y ago
  Needs to be archived.
- gpm 8y ago
  Content of Elon tweets from those links Link 1 > Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves. Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave. Link 2 > Water level was actually very low & still (not flowing) — you could literally have swum to Cave 5 with no gear, which is obv how the kids got in. If not true, then I challenge this dude to show final rescue video. Huge credit to pump & generator team. Unsung heroes here. > You know what, don’t bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it. Link 3 > Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true

hndamien 8y ago

I've always been one to defend Elon, and all I will say here is I feel sorry he was so frustrated at the response. However, this comment from danso is the most measured analysis I've read and unfortunately, he has made some mistakes here.

rich-w-big-ego 8y ago

> self-meltdown he's had since the rescue what meltdown? > Tweeting his prototype as it was being developed, as if it were on the cusp of success, was not helpful... [if children had died] can you imagine the vitriol the chief would face by armchair critics for not waiting, or for not trying out Musk's solution? If you are in charge of getting someone out alive and they die, you're going to face vitriol. Some of the vitriol would include claims that the wrong method was used in the rescue attempt. This has nothing to do with Elon Musk at all! If he tweets about an exciting new piece of tech he's working on, and someone refers to that tech in an attack against a rescue chief, that can NOT be attributed to Elon. And like you said, the chief rescuer did make the right call under pressure anyhow. > Musk, who was accountable to no one, ripping into the rescue chief Wasn't the rescue chief actually a former Thai provincial governer, unrelated to the rescue effort? The real douchebaggery is that someone unrelated to the effort of saving children will take the opportunity to soapbox against Elon Musk, not unlike how you've done here. No relation to the effort, no real basis for your claims, but takes the opportunity to sling poison. Elon is not wrong or unjust in calling out that sort of bad behaviour. And the pedo comment. Look, Thailand is a sex tourism country. If you live in Thailand as an expat, people are going to think you're a pedo whether or not you actually are. And this expat already told Elon to stick his sub where it hurts. In my worldview, that makes you fair game to a comeback from Elon. Calling him a pedo is actually a devastating comeback, not "douchebaggery". It's "douchebaggery" to tell someone to "stick their sub where it hurts".

danso 8y ago
> Wasn't the rescue chief actually a former Thai provincial governer, unrelated to the rescue effort? You’re asking if the rescue chief was unrelated to the rescue effort?
- rich-w-big-ego 8y ago
  Look, the dive team wanted the sub. The thai former governer who was sitting in the command centre, who gave a hot take on whether or not Elon's tech would be useful, isn't relevant.
- 8y ago

soneil 8y ago

The whole "PR" stuff bugged me, because it honestly doesn't matter if it is. It's perfectly possible, and preferable for PR to be win-win. And it really doesn't matter if they didn't use it. More options is better than too few options. But his response to being called a "PR stunt" has been absolutely disgusting. Test it, validate it, prove it, and donate it to whoever it is that keeps big boxes of weird contraptions for when things go wrong. Then move on. Just .. not this. Quite the opposite of this.

danso 8y ago
I don’t mind if it’s PR either. He put his money where his mouth was. I doubt the rescue officials would be as annoyed with him if he developed his sub in private — and talked about it after the rescue was over.
flukus 8y ago
> And it really doesn't matter if they didn't use it. More options is better than too few options. No it really isn't. When people are fatigued, under pressure and facing some hard time constraints you want less options, options that the rescue team are familiar with and trained for. You don't want them thinking about whether this new contraption would work in the back of their minds. It's like having that boss that wants status reports every 5 minutes during a production issue, not only is it unhelpful but it does hamper efforts to resolve things. > Test it, validate it, prove it, and donate it to whoever it is that keeps big boxes of weird contraptions for when things go wrong. And do all of this before it's needed, don't wing it.
- petertodd 8y ago
  > options that the rescue team are familiar with and trained for. Eh, don't overestimate how common this rescue was. The techniques they used in the end appear to be unprecedented underwater - cave diving is sufficiently dangerous that rescuing people who can't move under their own power is unheard of. So people don't train for that. Notably, while the the two cave divers who actually found the kids had done successful cave rescues before in dry caves, this appears to be the first time they've ever successfully rescued someone underwater - all their prior experience underwater was body recoveries (one of which following a failed attempt(1) to rescue a cave diver). Heck, there's a school of thought in cave diving that rejects the usual scuba diving practice of having a buddy in favour of diving solo. It's common for the rescue attempt to simply end up killing the dive buddy as well rather than saving a life: https://cavedivinggroup.org.uk/in-praise-of-solo-cave-diving/ https://cavedivinggroup.org.uk/in-praise-of-solo-cave-diving... 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stanton_(cave_diver)#Caving_and_rescues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stanton_(cave_diver)#C...

slavak 8y ago

Wow. I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhat but, no, he actually came out and randomly accused a guy he doesn't know and never met of being a pedophile, all for the crime of criticizing his mini-sub idea! Not just any guy, either, but one of the divers who risked their lives to get the kids out, not to mention was one of the first divers on the scene who helped find the trapped boys in the first place! And when this was pointed out to Musk, his response is... to double down? What in the actual fuck is going on with Musk? This kind of behaviour is inappropriate even for a random nobody on Twitter, let alone a celebrity billionaire CEO. What possible thought process leads an adult to not just think this, but then to also type it out and decide it's a good idea?! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-diver-in-thai-cave-rescue-stunned-after-attack-by-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-dive...

ksec 8y ago

>When Musk's offer of help to Thailand was first discussed here, I said I thought I didn't think it was a cynical PR stunt,......... people who argue, "Well, at least he helped!", as if attempts to help are always a net good. It's fine if he sent help,, .........? I think this precisely capture the difference in majority of audience thinking form Silicon Valley / US vs EU / UK. As per the article "The Silicon Valley model for doing things is a mix of can-do optimism" Calling someone who risk his life, saving children a paedophile because he felt he was insulted or attacked may have been perfectly acceptable in the land of freedom, but definitely not in UK. And generally speaking, it isn't very polite to decline help on offer or to flat out label something doesn't work, especially from the British. May be next time they should just replied "That is not quite what I have in mind.". [1] [1] https://twitter.com/soverybritish/status/517736334841352192 https://twitter.com/soverybritish/status/517736334841352192

etrevino 8y ago
> Calling someone who risk his life, saving children a paedophile because he felt he was insulted or attacked may have been perfectly acceptable in the land of freedom, but definitely not in UK. Not acceptable here, either. It's legal, but it's socially unacceptable. Now, if Musk goes beyond name calling and makes an actual effort to paint the guy as a pedo then, I think, it's illegal. (I think)