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People like Musk are necessary. You can't create great things without a mind outside of the norm, and a mind outside of the norm is often unstable. Most people
by dgut 8y ago
People like Musk are necessary. You can't create great things without a mind outside of the norm, and a mind outside of the norm is often unstable. Most people wouldn't manage (psychologically) to be in Musk's position, much less get to the point where he is now.
It isn't fair (what happened to this engineer), but hardly anything in life is fair. What's important is to realize this and be able to move on. As an engineer in the US, he is already one of the luckiest people on Earth.
- andrew_ 8y agoI agree. Without somewhat maniacal (of the obsessive enthusiasm variety) personalities grand achievements would be difficult to realize. It takes that kind of person. I tend to dislike hatchet-jobs like this article, as they're flush with stories that appear absolutely bonkers on the surface, and very light on detail of positive interactions of any kind. The man may be a bit bananas, but all great men and women are, at least a bit. As a cautionary tale, it's a powerful article. But I hardly see it has objective in it's reporting, and serving a somewhat click-baity audience already dubious of the man.
- dgut 8y agoDefinitely. At a meta level, this is quite dangerous. This deep hatred and misunderstanding of the outcasts will have us shrink as a society. A society of wimps will just be overtaken by another in time. We can't be a civilization without Musks.
- gilrain 8y agoThere are several billion people on this planet. If we push out the asshole savants, then there will be room for the respectful savants who have been there all along. There are too many well-educated, compassionate, clever people out there for “nobody else can do it but this specific abusive asshole” to stand up as an argument.
- dgut 8y agoIf you push out the asshole "savants", you must also say farewell to all great things our civilization has to offer today: art, architecture, literature, technology and so on. Great achievers have rarely been driven by compassion.
- gilrain 8y agoI wonder what great historical works we would have today had aggressive assholes not taken the space of more compassionate contemporaries. Or do you truly think nothing of value would have been created by the considerable non-abusive population?
- dgut 8y agoYou can't go through a great lot of pain without the competitive drive, the hunger for greatness. In other primates, it's expressed in form of strength, in humans in the shape of great accomplishments. If we were all nice people who don't mind being last, we wouldn't be "here" now. Of course, the "non-abusive population" (you name it) have done great things, they help maniacally driven people like Musk to archive things, but they are the ones who lack the assertiveness and initiative, they're the cogs in the machine.
- krapp 8y agoSo what are you then, dgut? You seem to believe society is divided up between great men who do and lesser men who serve. Are you a top or a bottom? Ubermensch or Untermensch?
- dgut 8y agoI'm just somebody who has lived enough to understand these complexities and appreciate people like Musk. In my mind, this guy should just have "walked it off". But I've developed a thick skin because of my past. The mind is delicate and fuzzy.
- deleted 8y ago