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I think the comparison between Elon Musk and Henry Ford starts to break down a bit towards the end of your comment. Elon Musk tweets plenty I don't like, but

I think the comparison between Elon Musk and Henry Ford starts to break down a bit towards the end of your comment. Elon Musk tweets plenty I don't like, but he's far from a Nazi.

mpfundstein 6y ago
he? maybe you should read again the post of your parent....
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I'm actually much more confused by your comment than the parent of yours.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I think that's an ungenerous interpretation of the parent comment. Saying they are comparable are not saying they have the exact same vices. But while they both did great things, IMO they also have done some pretty awful things, but more importantly, the awful things they did were given undue deference because of their greatness in other areas.
philwelch 6y ago
That's certainly true and I don't think you can compare magnitudes.
dleslie 6y ago
This is definitely a hindsight is 20/20 moment. In an age where radio was new, where televisions were even newer, where transcontinental news took hours, days or even weeks to travel, the knowledge that the Nazis were engaging in mass murder was not readily available. When allied troops liberated the concentration camps they filmed everything that they saw because they were concerned that without footage no one would believe them. Why? Because it was a shock, a shock so unbelievable in writing that only video and photographic evidence would suffice.
- jhgb 6y ago
  Wait, are you saying that people didn't notice that Nazis were mass-killing people until 1945? What had they been doing since 1939?
  - philwelch 6y ago
    The Nazis were in power for six years before 1939 and existed as a political movement since 1920.
    - jhgb 6y ago
      And they started mass-murdering people in 1939. The news were full of it.
      - philwelch 6y ago
        Most of Henry Ford’s Nazi sympathies took place prior to 1939. In fact it might be fairer to say that the Nazis were the ones inspired by Ford’s open promotion of anti-semitism.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Yup. In fact, there are various stories of people in late 1930s who tried to get the word out to the wider world about what's starting to happen in Germany, and they were generally ignored. The world truly didn't learn about the camps until Nazi Germany was conquered.
    - jhgb 6y ago
      Possibly, but the knowledge that the Nazis were engaging in mass murder has been readily available once they declared war on the rest of the Europe and went through with it. You didn't have to wait until discovering some camps to change your notions of them.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
the_rosentotter 6y ago
The slow ethnic cleansing and land theft being perpetrated by a close American ally, supported by many of the biggest American corporations and capitalists, seems a comparable situation.

I think the comparison between Elon Musk and Henry Ford starts to break down a bit towards the end of your comment. Elon Musk tweets plenty I don't like, but he's far from a Nazi.

mpfundstein 6y ago

he? maybe you should read again the post of your parent....

saagarjha 6y ago
I'm actually much more confused by your comment than the parent of yours.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I think that's an ungenerous interpretation of the parent comment. Saying they are comparable are not saying they have the exact same vices. But while they both did great things, IMO they also have done some pretty awful things, but more importantly, the awful things they did were given undue deference because of their greatness in other areas.

philwelch 6y ago

That's certainly true and I don't think you can compare magnitudes.

dleslie 6y ago

This is definitely a hindsight is 20/20 moment. In an age where radio was new, where televisions were even newer, where transcontinental news took hours, days or even weeks to travel, the knowledge that the Nazis were engaging in mass murder was not readily available. When allied troops liberated the concentration camps they filmed everything that they saw because they were concerned that without footage no one would believe them. Why? Because it was a shock, a shock so unbelievable in writing that only video and photographic evidence would suffice.

jhgb 6y ago
Wait, are you saying that people didn't notice that Nazis were mass-killing people until 1945? What had they been doing since 1939?
- philwelch 6y ago
  The Nazis were in power for six years before 1939 and existed as a political movement since 1920.
  - jhgb 6y ago
    And they started mass-murdering people in 1939. The news were full of it.
    - philwelch 6y ago
      Most of Henry Ford’s Nazi sympathies took place prior to 1939. In fact it might be fairer to say that the Nazis were the ones inspired by Ford’s open promotion of anti-semitism.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Yup. In fact, there are various stories of people in late 1930s who tried to get the word out to the wider world about what's starting to happen in Germany, and they were generally ignored. The world truly didn't learn about the camps until Nazi Germany was conquered.
  - jhgb 6y ago
    Possibly, but the knowledge that the Nazis were engaging in mass murder has been readily available once they declared war on the rest of the Europe and went through with it. You didn't have to wait until discovering some camps to change your notions of them.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago

the_rosentotter 6y ago

The slow ethnic cleansing and land theft being perpetrated by a close American ally, supported by many of the biggest American corporations and capitalists, seems a comparable situation.