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More and more I agree with this. Google and Facebook are boring monopolists. It makes sense that we enjoy their failures. But Tesla is a really amazing compan

More and more I agree with this. Google and Facebook are boring monopolists. It makes sense that we enjoy their failures. But Tesla is a really amazing company. The media coverage makes more sense when you realize that most journalists are deeply unhappy people who are, internally, banging their heads against the wall as a result of never having learned any practical skills. They viscerally hate the idea of progress, because by definition they will not be part of progress. They much prefer that the world be stuck.

nodesocket 8y ago
It's actually more simple than that, the media likes to vilify successful and wealthy people because somehow in the last couple of years Marxism and anti-capitalism spread like a wildfire throughout media and academia. When Elon pushed back about false reporting and abhorrent standards he wacked the hornet's nest with a stick.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Please don’t compare Musk to useless wealthy people. He’s invested almost his entire net worth in space travel and electric vehicles. Least terrible billionaire (no sleight to Buffet and Gates though, solid philanthropy effort of their part).
  - scarface74 8y ago
    If you look at most of the unicorns - ie Uber - they are living off of VC funding without any clear path to profitability. At every turn, Musk has put his money where his mouth is. He could have taken his billions years ago and sailed off into the sunset. He wanted to change the world.
    - Fricken 8y ago
      Uber is making money hand over fist. Their Yoy revenue growth is 60%. They would be fools not to be investing their capital in growth.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Revenue is nothing without profit or at least positive marginal revenue. Uber subsidizes rides. No one knows what will happen to Uber once they charge enough to turn a profit on each ride. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-must-raise-fares-and-do-5-more-things-to-survive-2017-06-22 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-must-raise-fares-and-...
  - rustcharm 8y ago
    As long as he's not calling you a "pedo". That's pretty terrible in my book.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      I’ve seen better people have more severe lapses of judgement. I’m not condoning what he said, but I can understanding what lead up to it.
      - rustcharm 8y ago
        Really? You can "understand" why a person, a public figure who runs several large companies, would make baseless accusations against a person he disagrees with, in an attempt to ruin this person for life? I can't understand that at all.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        People get angry, irrationally so sometimes. Live long enough and you come to understand (in my experience). I have seen people ruined for more petty disagreements.
- danso 8y ago
  "The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" is a sentiment that has been around for a lot longer than a couple of years. https://www.poynter.org/news/today-media-history-mr-dooley-job-newspaper-comfort-afflicted-and-afflict-comfortable https://www.poynter.org/news/today-media-history-mr-dooley-j...
- rich-and-poor 8y ago
  Marxism and anti-capitalism spread like a wildfire throughout media and academia Academia especially. There is a huge amount of anti-capitalist sentiment in our Universities and colleges. Elon Musk is a glowing icon, and living proof of the objective superiority of the capitalist system. It's no surprise that hordes of humanities-educated journalists are happy to write hit-pieces about him.
eganist 8y ago
Wait, what? If the world stayed the same, there wouldn't be anything novel to cover. The survival of journalism is inherently motivated by a need to keep things changing, which is why most outlets by-and-large are either progressive or reactionary: it's change either way.
- microdrum 8y ago
  Science journalists, of whom there are comparatively few, cover new things. Most journalists cover vituperation, politics, and angst.
  - some_account 8y ago
    They take press releases from Nasa, rewrites them, publishes. Profit.
- manicdee 8y ago
  For a car journalist, “new and exciting” is a slightly different interior, or a fresh layout for the expected knobs on the dashboard. When you start doing stuff like removing the binnacle, taking away the gear shift, and switching to a completely new Power train, they can’t cope anymore. They have a vocabulary of a few dozen superlatives, mostly related to internal combustion engines (turbo lag, musical exhaust, roar of a motor under load at full throttle, etc). None of that works anymore. They have to develop an entirely new vocabulary for the hums and whirs of an electric drive train with torque vectoring, full torque at 0 RPM, and no exhaust to modify for truly manly neighbour-waking noises, Electric cars have totally emasculated automotive journalism.
Tomte 8y ago
As long as they don't care that they are killing people, and will do so forever (with the current hardware), they are "amazing" in a different sense of the word. And please spare me the "if they can lower the number of car fatalities overall, they have every right to actively kill a few people here and there" spiel.
- donkeyd 8y ago
  > please spare me the "if they can lower the number of car fatalities overall, they have every right to actively kill a few people here and there" spiel Why? Instead of telling people not to make arguments, please make an argument against it. It love to read a well written argument. Until I do, I'll pick less accidents of a different kind over more accidents of the usual kind.
  - Tomte 8y ago
    Simple ethics. If I have saved someone from drowning I still may not kill an enemy. Unsurprisingly the state will still imprison me. Are you seriously arguing the opposite, under the guise of „just asking questions“?
    - donkeyd 8y ago
      I'm both asking a question and showing that I differ in opinion. There's no trying to hide it, it's pretty obvious. Ethiscs is a personal thing, so it's hard to argue in. Your argument though, is not in resonable. Tesla isn't willingly and actively killing people, like you write in your example. It's selling a product, that when used inappropriately, might cause accidents. Meanwhile, when used appropriately, it's saved many lives.
      - Tomte 8y ago
        The point isn‘t that some new technology leads to different failure modes. That‘s okay, and good if the total number of fatalities gets lower. But that isn‘t the case with Tesla. Tesla tries to get away with inadequate hardware and misleading advertising (I‘d even call it outright lies if you show a video touting the ease of unattended autonomous driving, and deep down on the page you bury in small print that availability depends on the jurisdiction — meaning „nowhere“) Tesla not only wants to make a lot of money, which means that getting adequate hardware is unattractive, they also need the „Elon as visionary“ nimbus, which also means they cannot concede that their initial estimate what they needed was simply wrong, and they seem to have money trouble on the horizon anyway. That‘s what makes the company scummy.
ErikVandeWater 8y ago
> The media coverage makes more sense when you realize that most journalists are deeply unhappy people who are, internally, banging their heads against the wall as a result of never having learned any practical skills. They viscerally hate the idea of progress, because by definition they will not be part of progress. They much prefer that the world be stuck. I think your overthinking this unless you have a trustworthy source; humans are just captivated by all drama related to the most successful. It's not that most people reading celebrity gossip know they will never have a successful long-term marriage and therefore buy magazines publishing the divorce of Brangelina.

nodesocket 8y ago

It's actually more simple than that, the media likes to vilify successful and wealthy people because somehow in the last couple of years Marxism and anti-capitalism spread like a wildfire throughout media and academia. When Elon pushed back about false reporting and abhorrent standards he wacked the hornet's nest with a stick.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Please don’t compare Musk to useless wealthy people. He’s invested almost his entire net worth in space travel and electric vehicles. Least terrible billionaire (no sleight to Buffet and Gates though, solid philanthropy effort of their part).
- scarface74 8y ago
  If you look at most of the unicorns - ie Uber - they are living off of VC funding without any clear path to profitability. At every turn, Musk has put his money where his mouth is. He could have taken his billions years ago and sailed off into the sunset. He wanted to change the world.
  - Fricken 8y ago
    Uber is making money hand over fist. Their Yoy revenue growth is 60%. They would be fools not to be investing their capital in growth.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Revenue is nothing without profit or at least positive marginal revenue. Uber subsidizes rides. No one knows what will happen to Uber once they charge enough to turn a profit on each ride. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-must-raise-fares-and-do-5-more-things-to-survive-2017-06-22 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-must-raise-fares-and-...
- rustcharm 8y ago
  As long as he's not calling you a "pedo". That's pretty terrible in my book.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    I’ve seen better people have more severe lapses of judgement. I’m not condoning what he said, but I can understanding what lead up to it.
    - rustcharm 8y ago
      Really? You can "understand" why a person, a public figure who runs several large companies, would make baseless accusations against a person he disagrees with, in an attempt to ruin this person for life? I can't understand that at all.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        People get angry, irrationally so sometimes. Live long enough and you come to understand (in my experience). I have seen people ruined for more petty disagreements.
danso 8y ago
"The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" is a sentiment that has been around for a lot longer than a couple of years. https://www.poynter.org/news/today-media-history-mr-dooley-job-newspaper-comfort-afflicted-and-afflict-comfortable https://www.poynter.org/news/today-media-history-mr-dooley-j...
rich-and-poor 8y ago
Marxism and anti-capitalism spread like a wildfire throughout media and academia Academia especially. There is a huge amount of anti-capitalist sentiment in our Universities and colleges. Elon Musk is a glowing icon, and living proof of the objective superiority of the capitalist system. It's no surprise that hordes of humanities-educated journalists are happy to write hit-pieces about him.

eganist 8y ago

Wait, what? If the world stayed the same, there wouldn't be anything novel to cover. The survival of journalism is inherently motivated by a need to keep things changing, which is why most outlets by-and-large are either progressive or reactionary: it's change either way.

microdrum 8y ago
Science journalists, of whom there are comparatively few, cover new things. Most journalists cover vituperation, politics, and angst.
- some_account 8y ago
  They take press releases from Nasa, rewrites them, publishes. Profit.
manicdee 8y ago
For a car journalist, “new and exciting” is a slightly different interior, or a fresh layout for the expected knobs on the dashboard. When you start doing stuff like removing the binnacle, taking away the gear shift, and switching to a completely new Power train, they can’t cope anymore. They have a vocabulary of a few dozen superlatives, mostly related to internal combustion engines (turbo lag, musical exhaust, roar of a motor under load at full throttle, etc). None of that works anymore. They have to develop an entirely new vocabulary for the hums and whirs of an electric drive train with torque vectoring, full torque at 0 RPM, and no exhaust to modify for truly manly neighbour-waking noises, Electric cars have totally emasculated automotive journalism.

Tomte 8y ago

As long as they don't care that they are killing people, and will do so forever (with the current hardware), they are "amazing" in a different sense of the word. And please spare me the "if they can lower the number of car fatalities overall, they have every right to actively kill a few people here and there" spiel.

donkeyd 8y ago
> please spare me the "if they can lower the number of car fatalities overall, they have every right to actively kill a few people here and there" spiel Why? Instead of telling people not to make arguments, please make an argument against it. It love to read a well written argument. Until I do, I'll pick less accidents of a different kind over more accidents of the usual kind.
- Tomte 8y ago
  Simple ethics. If I have saved someone from drowning I still may not kill an enemy. Unsurprisingly the state will still imprison me. Are you seriously arguing the opposite, under the guise of „just asking questions“?
  - donkeyd 8y ago
    I'm both asking a question and showing that I differ in opinion. There's no trying to hide it, it's pretty obvious. Ethiscs is a personal thing, so it's hard to argue in. Your argument though, is not in resonable. Tesla isn't willingly and actively killing people, like you write in your example. It's selling a product, that when used inappropriately, might cause accidents. Meanwhile, when used appropriately, it's saved many lives.
    - Tomte 8y ago
      The point isn‘t that some new technology leads to different failure modes. That‘s okay, and good if the total number of fatalities gets lower. But that isn‘t the case with Tesla. Tesla tries to get away with inadequate hardware and misleading advertising (I‘d even call it outright lies if you show a video touting the ease of unattended autonomous driving, and deep down on the page you bury in small print that availability depends on the jurisdiction — meaning „nowhere“) Tesla not only wants to make a lot of money, which means that getting adequate hardware is unattractive, they also need the „Elon as visionary“ nimbus, which also means they cannot concede that their initial estimate what they needed was simply wrong, and they seem to have money trouble on the horizon anyway. That‘s what makes the company scummy.

ErikVandeWater 8y ago

> The media coverage makes more sense when you realize that most journalists are deeply unhappy people who are, internally, banging their heads against the wall as a result of never having learned any practical skills. They viscerally hate the idea of progress, because by definition they will not be part of progress. They much prefer that the world be stuck. I think your overthinking this unless you have a trustworthy source; humans are just captivated by all drama related to the most successful. It's not that most people reading celebrity gossip know they will never have a successful long-term marriage and therefore buy magazines publishing the divorce of Brangelina.