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> I hope we can move away from the "elon sucks" v.s. "elon is a genius" dichotomy and into a culture of acknowledging accomplishment while insisting claims in o

> I hope we can move away from the "elon sucks" v.s. "elon is a genius" dichotomy and into a culture of acknowledging accomplishment while insisting claims in other areas be fully justified. Until then, I'll happily consider Elon's or even John Carmack's opinion over those of Elon's numerous, noisy but otherwise uninteresting critics on the Internet and elsewhere.

nutjob2 6y ago
How much weight should I give the opinion of someone who calls someone who disagrees with him "the pedo guy"? It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts. How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other people who do the actual work? Could another leader do a better job, given Elons unsteady behaviour?
- jdamon96 6y ago
  I mean the whole point of capitalism is another leader can try to do better, and if they do the market will allocate them resources. It’s not like Elon was handed spacex with 8,000 employees; he built it up.
- icelancer 6y ago
  Perhaps our opinions - positive and negative - are relatively meaningless?
- rowanG077 6y ago
  Let's be honest. You have never said something that is considered bad to someone you didn't like or disagree with? I doubt it. Does that now mean your opinion is null and void? Maybe people should recognize that failure in a domain doesn't mean that same person isn't otherwise highly competent.
- jokit 6y ago
  Anyone who does anything for decentralization is good in my book. That everything Elon does is to that end has me a big fan.
- Gollapalli 6y ago
  Well, you can try. See if you can build something to compete. And if you can't, well, then we know who the better man is.
  - laichzeit0 6y ago
    Exactly what you said. To critique is easy, but make damn well sure you can point to the examples where you’ve done better.
- lazyjones 6y ago
  > It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts. People are seriously confused these days. It's like doubting Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees and his credibility in general because there's a photo of him sticking out his tongue. > How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other people who do the actual work? Could another leader do a better job, given Elons unsteady behaviour? He should get full credit for what he does, not minus "Internet bad points" because someone somewhere didn't like something he said.
  - nearbuy 6y ago
    > It's like doubting Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees and his credibility in general because there's a photo of him sticking out his tongue. That's an unfortunate example to choose considering that famous statement ("If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.") wasn't actually said by Einstein and also isn't true.
    - lazyjones 6y ago
      > wasn't actually said by Einstein and also isn't true. There's no conclusive evidence either way, for both things. The actual alleged quote is 'Remove the bee from the earth and at the same stroke you remove at least one hundred thousand plants that will not survive.' by the way.
      - nearbuy 6y ago
        Edit: You added the quote in an edit, which is different from the one I thought you meant by "Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees". In my defense, I would still consider the quote I listed to be Einstein's famous statement about bees (it's the only quote you'll find in the Google search results for "Einstein bees"). ---------------------------- I forgot to link Quote Investigator before: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-bees/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-bees/ It's as close to conclusive as you can get for any quote misattributed to Einstein (and there are hundreds of quotes misattributed to him). You can't prove someone never said something. At best, you can prove someone else said the same thing earlier. As for whether it's true, 1) You won't find any scientific study or any evidence supporting it. It was just made up. 2) The evidence against it is that the vast majority of our food doesn't require bees. Grains and staples like corn, wheat, rice, and soybean aren't pollinated by insects. Meat doesn't require bees either, as animals tend to be fed grains or grass. Vegetables generally don't require bees. Many fruits can self-pollinate or aren't pollinated by bees (bananas, citrus fruit, etc.). Finally, even the fruits for which bees are currently essential (kiwis, watermelon) could be manually pollinated if necessary. But even if we lost those few fruits and nuts entirely, humans wouldn't go extinct in 4 years (or at all).

nutjob2 6y ago

How much weight should I give the opinion of someone who calls someone who disagrees with him "the pedo guy"? It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts. How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other people who do the actual work? Could another leader do a better job, given Elons unsteady behaviour?

jdamon96 6y ago
I mean the whole point of capitalism is another leader can try to do better, and if they do the market will allocate them resources. It’s not like Elon was handed spacex with 8,000 employees; he built it up.
icelancer 6y ago
Perhaps our opinions - positive and negative - are relatively meaningless?
rowanG077 6y ago
Let's be honest. You have never said something that is considered bad to someone you didn't like or disagree with? I doubt it. Does that now mean your opinion is null and void? Maybe people should recognize that failure in a domain doesn't mean that same person isn't otherwise highly competent.
jokit 6y ago
Anyone who does anything for decentralization is good in my book. That everything Elon does is to that end has me a big fan.
Gollapalli 6y ago
Well, you can try. See if you can build something to compete. And if you can't, well, then we know who the better man is.
- laichzeit0 6y ago
  Exactly what you said. To critique is easy, but make damn well sure you can point to the examples where you’ve done better.
lazyjones 6y ago
> It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts. People are seriously confused these days. It's like doubting Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees and his credibility in general because there's a photo of him sticking out his tongue. > How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other people who do the actual work? Could another leader do a better job, given Elons unsteady behaviour? He should get full credit for what he does, not minus "Internet bad points" because someone somewhere didn't like something he said.
- nearbuy 6y ago
  > It's like doubting Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees and his credibility in general because there's a photo of him sticking out his tongue. That's an unfortunate example to choose considering that famous statement ("If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.") wasn't actually said by Einstein and also isn't true.
  - lazyjones 6y ago
    > wasn't actually said by Einstein and also isn't true. There's no conclusive evidence either way, for both things. The actual alleged quote is 'Remove the bee from the earth and at the same stroke you remove at least one hundred thousand plants that will not survive.' by the way.
    - nearbuy 6y ago
      Edit: You added the quote in an edit, which is different from the one I thought you meant by "Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees". In my defense, I would still consider the quote I listed to be Einstein's famous statement about bees (it's the only quote you'll find in the Google search results for "Einstein bees"). ---------------------------- I forgot to link Quote Investigator before: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-bees/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-bees/ It's as close to conclusive as you can get for any quote misattributed to Einstein (and there are hundreds of quotes misattributed to him). You can't prove someone never said something. At best, you can prove someone else said the same thing earlier. As for whether it's true, 1) You won't find any scientific study or any evidence supporting it. It was just made up. 2) The evidence against it is that the vast majority of our food doesn't require bees. Grains and staples like corn, wheat, rice, and soybean aren't pollinated by insects. Meat doesn't require bees either, as animals tend to be fed grains or grass. Vegetables generally don't require bees. Many fruits can self-pollinate or aren't pollinated by bees (bananas, citrus fruit, etc.). Finally, even the fruits for which bees are currently essential (kiwis, watermelon) could be manually pollinated if necessary. But even if we lost those few fruits and nuts entirely, humans wouldn't go extinct in 4 years (or at all).