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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

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.
- sjwright 6y ago
  I didn’t say everything Elon has ever said on this subject is accurate, defensible or even sensical. He is a greatly flawed person who happens to be very competent at a few interesting things. Like many of us. I was only defending the reopening of highly robotised manufacturing, not how Elon has comported himself in public.

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.
sjwright 6y ago
I didn’t say everything Elon has ever said on this subject is accurate, defensible or even sensical. He is a greatly flawed person who happens to be very competent at a few interesting things. Like many of us. I was only defending the reopening of highly robotised manufacturing, not how Elon has comported himself in public.