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Anyone else out there surprised to see Elon "zag" so badly on COVID, including this? I've always been impressed by his agility with ideas, zigging and zagging

• FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  Kill yourself.
• tachyonbeam 6y ago
  I think part of it might be that he's a really high energy kind of person, working 12-18 hour days everyday. Being forced to stay quarantined, to stop his life's work, probably drives him insane. He really wants to progress on his projects, which he considers to be very important for the future of mankind (which, let's face it, they could be). Besides that, he's a contrarian. With COVID, we're faced with a situation where there is an extremely strong pressure to conform. There's one narrative being pushed and there's no real dialogue. Elon has a contrarian narrative: our basic human rights have been taken away (freedom of movement, etc) in the name of the greater collective good. He argues that people should be given the tools to help protect themselves but that the government should leave it up to individuals to decide how they manage this. I tend to agree with him. We're told a vaccine could be two years away (or may never come). The fatality rate in my age group is about the same as the flu. I happen to be single, and at the moment, where I'm living, if I have a date with someone, I could technically be fined $1500 (and there have been a few reports of people going on tinder dates who have been). Since when has it been the government's business to legislate in these sorts of matters? I have been making efforts to socially isolate, but it's pushed me into a depression, I started taking antidepressants a month ago. I know two of my friends have done the same.
  • pvg 6y ago
    Since when has it been the government's business Weighing things like the lives of others vs a small disruption in your sex life seems right up government's (organized society's in general, even) alley.
    • tachyonbeam 6y ago
      I'm going to call your straw man. My sex life is obviously not worth the lives of millions of people, but how many times have you caught the flu, in your life? How many people have you infected? The flu kills older people too, so how many lives did you put at risk? Could you actually be indirectly responsible for one or more deaths without knowing? How can you quantify every time your activity has put the lives of other people at risk? Here we're talking about the mental health and wellbeing, the livelihood and life work (eg small businesses) of billions of people, being sacrificed in the hopes that this will save hundreds of thousands. You can argue that this is for the greater collective good, but how do you put a value on lives, or on everyone's mental health? For the sake of argument, how much is the lifespan of the average American due to job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc.? What kind of effect will isolation have on young children, who are being told that they can't play with other kids their age, during critical phases of their brain development? I think it's perfectly fair to ask where we draw the line as to what is too much government control in the name of protecting the collective greater good. How much do you think your government should be allowed to control your life in the name of the greater good?
      • pvg 6y ago
        I don't follow, which one of these is supposed to be the strawman of mine you are 'calling'?
        • crocodiletears 6y ago
          I wouldn't call it strawmanning, but your response bypassed his broader point, by fixating on one element of his personal anecdote which seems petty without the full context of his concerns. The previous paragraph had a more societally-oriented critique of lockdown measure, and the fact that the disruption has caused him and ostensibly two others so much distress as to seek prescribed medication in order to cope with it is far more salient within the latter paragraph, imo.
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  • igorkraw 6y ago
    First of, sorry for your depression, I hope you can break out of it. Now >Besides that, he's a contrarian. With COVID, we're faced with a situation where there is an extremely strong pressure to conform. There's one narrative being pushed and there's no real dialogue This might be a European perspective, but what do you mean with "no dialogue"? Our media has been full with people pushing the viewpoint that we should reopen faster, that the economy should go before saving lifes, that "Sweden is doing fine". These were given a voice and then everyone else told them it's a stupid idea and get lost. There continues to be dialogue about this. People are challenging rulings, suing governments for damages etc. Or maybe you mean that there hasn't been "the ability to do whatever you want without getting fined"?
    • odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
      I don't know where you are, but here (Portugal) even suggesting that a full on lockdown isn't the solution brands you as a bad person, only caring about work/money and not about people and you should just stay home and shut up. Interesting, now that some restrictions are lifting, the dialogue is changing and 'people shouldn't be so afraid of the virus' but before all you heard 'STAY HOME'. Trying to discuss even numbers would brand you as an heretic. Some specialists (and I mean heads of research/hospitals) were pretty much shut down by media in the beginning by suggesting that we should be wearing masks/avoid big gatherings, but still go outside and live a normal'ish life. They were shut down hard and talking parrots with 'stay home' replaced them.
      • pygy_ 6y ago
        Having everyone wear mask would have been a proper solution had there been enough of them for everyone. But the stocks were so badly depleted there were not enough of them for critical workers... Also, getting widespread compliance outside of Asia would have been hard before the lockdowns, when public figures left and right were minimizing the threat.
        • odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
          I don't think (if we had them) compliance would have been a problem if government just dictated their usage by law like they are doing now. You use it or you don't enter the shop, simple. But lying about it (we even have a meme with the head of the national health organisation screaming that masks don't work) made everything more difficult. Now because of that, some people actually think they don't work and try not to use them. But instead, as usual, instead of being truthful to people, lies were said because of lack of supplies, which takes any kind of credence for future rules/advice as people will (rightfully) suspect of them.
  • lvs 6y ago
    > I happen to be single, and at the moment, where I'm living, if I have a date with someone, I could technically be fined $1500 And well you should be, you selfish person. This is about keeping it from spreading to people who are in a high risk group. How hard is that to understand? Think for others, for a change, not just yourself.
    • tachyonbeam 6y ago
      How many lives could you have saved if you lived in a much smaller apartment, had no personal belongings, volunteered on top of your full-time job, and gave all your savings away to charity? Think of others, for a change, not just yourself.
      • vore 6y ago
        Is the argument you really want to use "two wrongs make a right"? Sure, society is exploitative all the way down: but, you can always choose to be less exploitative like... not doing selfish things that very very directly impact the actual life and death of other people, maybe?
        • tachyonbeam 6y ago
          He's saying I'm selfish for being upset that my freedom to meet people as I please is being restricted, for thinking of my own mental health and wanting to see people anyway. I'm responding that we're all concerned with our own well being. We live in a society where some people earn more than others. It's selfish to accept to get paid more. It's selfish to have a big apartment when there are homeless people out there, etc. You could be giving more money away and spending more time volunteering... But if you volunteered on top of your full-time job and gave all your money away, you might burn out, get into a depression, etc. There's some selfless sacrifices that you're not willing to make. Does that make you selfish? Is that bad?
          • lvs 6y ago
            > There's some selfless sacrifices that you're not willing to make. So, if I got it right, you're saying that your sex life is something you can't temporarily sacrifice to slow the spread of a potentially fatal disease. You make me sick. All the rest of your comments are just whataboutism. The world is full of moral wrongs, so your argument is that we should let it descend into a feeding frenzy. I shouldn't tell people they're acting selfishly if I've ever stepped on an ant. Completely absurd. Look in a mirror, bud.
  • trianglem 6y ago
    No, individuals would just carry on and everyone would get sick immediately. How can you be so short sighted? This is not about your pathetic sex life or whatever, this is about other people in the rest of society besides yourself.
    • tachyonbeam 6y ago
      Sweden employs a strategy without a lockdown (which doesn't mean that they have no containment measures), and they are doing okay, it's not the case that everyone got sick immediately, because people are still having less social activities and taking some precautions, even without a mandatory lockdown.
      • _n_b_ 6y ago
        Please look at this chart, showing deaths on a per-capita basis of Sweden and her neighbors: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-3-day-avg?tab=chart&country=SWE+DNK+NOR+FIN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi... I guess "doing fine" is in the eye of the beholder, but clearly more people are dying there than in neighboring Nordic countries.
        • greendesk 6y ago
          Please look at this chars, showing mortality across all causes. "Doing fine" is in eye of the beholder, but clearly more people are dying across all causes of mortality for the country-levels for Scandinavian countries. https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ Some countries have experienced higher than average mortality, but others experience lower than average.
      • Johnjonjoan 6y ago
        Swedish people are far more social than any other Western country I have visited. There is no doubt in mind that the reason they are fairing without lockdown is because they can be trusted to follow health advice. I do not think many other Western countries populace can be trusted.
  • brainless 6y ago
    It is interesting to read this. So let me say something as someone: - who is respecting isolation - been in depression for a decade and have been in 8 or 9 sessions of counseling Shut up! You are being so selfish that I can not imagine. The only reason I am not moving is because if I learn that I caused even one person to die by being asymptomatic - my life will completely derail. I have killed exactly 1 cat under my running car once (8 years back) and I still remember that incident when I could not act fast enough, it brings me into tears sometimes even now. The emotional burden will break my life into pieces. Depression my ass man, you have no clue what these mental issues are and to live with consequences.
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    • tayo42 6y ago
      It's been really interesting(and frustrating, I'm trying my best to not argue lol) to see some people so intensely defend their selfishness online. Pretending to be psychologist for a second, I wonder if these people know it's wrong, but trying to make them selves feel better about it. Otherwise if you truly think you're in the right, why defend your self so intensely to so strangers online
  • kenneth 6y ago
    You're exactly right. Everyone has been so quick to not only accept, but actually promote and socially shame others into accepting, a massive authoritarian shift to remove everyone's basic freedoms. It's completely unprecedented and has massive negative effects for a large part of the population. Even straying from the accepted lockdown narrative leads to furious mob attacks. It kind of blows my mind that it's come to this. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised given the last 5 years of outrage culture.
    • icebraining 6y ago
      Conscription is a much heavier restriction of rights than being told to stay at home, yet it's been used multiple times in the US during the 20th century. Seems ahistorical to pin this on some sort of recent cultural shift.
      • tachyonbeam 6y ago
        And it's also fair to ask whether we should be engaging into so much war that we need to force people to join the army.
        • icebraining 6y ago
          I've always heard that it was the opposite; relying on conscription makes war less likely, since it's unpopular to force mothers to surrender their sons. The creation of a volunteer army is essential for prolonged war. Looking at the history of the US, that seems about right.
  • watwut 6y ago
    > He argues that people should be given the tools to help protect themselves but that the government should leave it up to individuals to decide how they manage this. Ok, but he was systematically minimizing threat constantly and all the time. When you purposefully feed people wrong information, latch yourself on every cherry-picked outlier study that everything is fine, you cant then turn around and say "it is all just about people making own decisions". That is just not true, because you are simultaneously manipulating people into decision that benefits you. Also, Elon Musk did not advocate for setup where people who dont want to work keep unemployment benefits and people who do want to work can take their place either. None of that. > Being forced to stay quarantined, to stop his life's work, probably drives him insane. You know, when stay at home mom goes crazy after being suddenly all the time at home, she does not get that much of epical benefit of doubt. Seriously, some level of control over your emotional reaction could be expected from rich entrepreneurs too. And consequences are limited to husband and close family. Who typically tells her to stop the crap and she tries to figure out how to keep herself sane.
  • mola 6y ago
    A pandemic is a social situation. The fact that your age group isn't at risk and YOU can protect yourself doesn't mean there are no consequences for your actions. The government won't and shouldn't touch these issues unless a lethal PANDEMIC was going around. You are not the center of the world, to live in society we all make compromises all the time. childish egotistical tantrums are the number one cause for over regulation. If people would do their best and try and precieve situations from POV other than their own, most laws would be moot. It's the Trump and Elon of the world that make us have less freedoms, not the other way round.
  • gnramires 6y ago
    The lockdown is far from unobjectionable. Some say this COVID-19 is right about on the edge between clearly favoring lockdown versus no lockdown. The mortality numbers really are not so large comparing to other causes of death, and if secondary human effects are taken into account the decision becomes already very difficult. There are several ways to approach this (with varying degrees of criticism), I think the main ones are 1) Simply evaluating separately human impact (measured in several ways -- all cause mortality, QALY, etc.) and economic impact; 2) Economic-exclusive approach: accept costs compatible with as far as current acceptable QALY costs. Both depend on disease modelling and social dynamics forecasts of course. 1) Addresses criticisms of 'putting a pricetag on life'. To be fair comparing and giving value to ways of life and death is quite difficult, so any simple single measure can be unacceptable to any majority. 2) This approach takes into account already established acceptable trade-offs between economy and healthcare costs. Simply an extension of what we already do: we do not spend all our resources trying to save everyone from every malady, we make trade-offs (e.g. many patients don't receive expensive treatments that could save their lives because of lack of resources). The problem here is indeed how we measure it, you could argue this particular situation begs a more sophisticated approach that can be measured e.g. by QALY. Neither line seem lead to easy conclusions of lockdown. I haven't analyzed any of them in depth (would require tons of research and experience I don't have), but I think both approaches indeed currently suggest no lockdown except for extreme situations and keeping measures like mild social distancing and using masks. This calculus seems like something society could more or less agree upon and this would increase readiness for an eventual next crisis too, without destroying our economy or delaying necessary measures due to controversy. I truly believe either epidemiologists (which were the main consultants), health care professionals, politicians or economists alone didn't have the necessary expertise to tackle this. A wide interdisciplinary approach is necessary (which we weren't ready for).
    • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Sure but its not a question of lockdown/no lockdown. Its how long, how extreme, who and where. For all that you need information, which takes time. So we've spent some time, gotten some more information, and now we can make (more) informed decisions.
• lnanek2 6y ago
  What makes you think he zagged? He got the plant open a week early, and even got support from the president to do so. He seems to have been pretty solid for opening his factory as much as possible, not zigging and zagging. Not like he had much choice. Some other car factories reopened May 4, so Tesla was being held back vs. their competition, which is why he was tweeting about going to a different state.
• cma 6y ago
  Nothing can surprise after the cave thing, but this is actually dangerous on a huge scale.
• lazyjones 6y ago
  I don't mean to be rude, but it's getting a bit tiresome to read all the armchair psychologist opinions that read like they're commenting on some celebrities in a trash TV show. Whatever controversial thing Elon Musk does, it will always trigger a bunch of such gossipy posts in social media and unfortunately also on HN. They don't add anything to the public debate, because someone's gut feelings about someone else's character just aren't interesting and I've yet to see a qualified and reputable psychologist form his professional opinion based on a subject's Tweet. If you are truly concerned about him, you'll find more reasonable causes in his choice of partners. People take Twitter way too seriously...
• sjwright 6y ago
  I dispute that Elon "zagged" badly. Yes the manner in which he comports himself on social media is deeply unproductive, but he's not wrong and he wasn't the one who zagged—everyone else did. I'm sorry that most people forget this, but we didn't lock down our societies and place our economies on life support because people might die. We did it because it was absolutely critical that we didn't allow our hospital systems to be overwhelmed. We needed to flatten the curve. And we succeeded. Again, it was to flatten the curve, not because there was a greater-than-zero risk of death. But at some point between then and now, the narrative hs changed to talk about keeping people safe at any cost. At the same time we need to balance economic well-being, as having the economy shut down can destroy people too. We can remain as cautious as possible with high risk areas (e.g. public transport, cinemas, live sports, festivals, nightclubs) while moving rapidly to restore economic activity where risk is low. Perhaps the most obvious example of a low risk / high economic impact situation would be highly robotised manufacturing which can easily enforce PPE use and limit shared touch-points. While a Tesla car factory is not a zero-risk environment, it's still a much lower risk than visiting the local supermarket which would have far more people and far less compliance around distancing and PPE.
  • Traster 6y ago
    Elon Musk: > Kids are essentially immune, but elderly with existing conditions are vulnerable. Family gatherings with close contact between kids & grandparents probably most risky. That's just an outright false statement. And just an "Actually" on the rest of your comment, we all know about flattening the curve and people are pretty sick and tired of hearing about how this is all really just flattening the curve. We know. Public health officials know. You don't need to tell us, the lockdowns were openly stated as flattening the curve from the beginning as were the plans for reopening. Plans that according to Elon Musk are fascism, a man who operates factories in the US and China and decided the US is the one that has a fascist government.
    • vkou 6y ago
      > Plans that according to Elon Musk are fascism, a man who operates factories in the US and China and decided the US is the one that has a fascist government. He is also a man that was in mid-March, convinced, and was shouting at anyone who would listen, that cases in the US would somehow drop to essentially zero in April. I'm not sure that his primary motivation is laying out logical, well-thought-out, sensible arguments about the situation. I do think that his primary motivation may have something to do with keeping his factories running, and that he will say whatever it takes to get to that point.
• TLightful 6y ago
  Not really surprised. Just dissapointed.