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My cognitive dissonance is strong when it comes to Elon. I have trouble sometimes reconciling the obvious flaws in his character on the one hand (though none o

by tailspin2019 5y ago

My cognitive dissonance is strong when it comes to Elon. I have trouble sometimes reconciling the obvious flaws in his character on the one hand (though none of us are without flaws) and his extraordinary achievements on the other. He can be a bit of a dick, yes. He exaggerates, yes. He's also in my view one of the most talented and inspirational entrepreneurs of our generation. I don't see how people can call him an outright fraud with a straight face when you look at what he has delivered through Tesla and SpaceX. But he seems to elicit strong polarised opinions. And I get it. Lot's of noise about FSD, his constantly slipping timelines etc. I guess it depends what you choose to focus on.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
whoisthemachine 5y ago
He can be an impressive engineer and entrepreneur while also being a jerk. I think it's ok to condemn his behaviors when they're out of line while also admiring the progress him and his companies have made in the industries they've targeted.
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  Yep you summed that up better than I did.
- Kalium 5y ago
  I feel like I've seen this before. A man is a relentless and masterful self-promoter, encourages a very public cult of personality, and puts out what are broadly considered superior products from his companies. He's also an egotistical prick. It's the Steve Jobs approach.
  - shrimpx 5y ago
    Steve Jobs wasn’t a memelord shilling dogecoin on social media and tv.
fossuser 5y ago
I think it’s political tribalism more than anything else? It’s become more clear after this SNL thing. On Twitter people on the left claim vaguely that Elon is bad and why is SNL doing this etc. People on the right say Elon is great and SNL is normally unfunny. In the former case I think it’s just because people associate Elon with the right for some reason. The latter is easier to understand since a lot of SNL’s humor is explicitly political (not in a bad way imo). Part of me wonders if the irreverent tweets were an intentional way to broaden his appeal. He needed EVs to go from “liberal” Prius symbols about the environment to cool. That’s a Herculean task when you think about it. Even now there are still coal rolling truck drivers yelling at EVs, but the sentiment has definitely changed in a positive way. He did this without having to embrace trump (unlike Thiel for instance). I think his biggest miss was on covid, but he seems to agree that he was wrong. I suspect a part of the left dislike is also around the progressive anti-billionaire/anti-capitalist sentiment, it makes Elon an easy “enemy”. Putting all this aside and looking at what he’s building - it’s an exciting time to be alive. Most companies are fairly dull doing fairly dull things. Elon takes huge risks to try to pull the future down earlier. For the most part, he succeeds.
- hooande 5y ago
  This is the same thing people said about Trump. "Maybe he said X crazy thing as part of a masterplan to..." I've got bad news for you. There is no secret plan that explains the irrational behavior.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Just because it’s obviously false when it comes to Trump, doesn’t mean it’s false all of the time. Also Elon’s behavior isn’t that serious (and he’s not POTUS).
- nnamtr 5y ago
  > I suspect a part of the left dislike is also around the progressive anti-billionaire/anti-capitalist sentiment, it makes Elon an easy “enemy”. He IS an easy enemy in this regard, not only to the left. All his (mis)behaviour, naming his child like that, manipulating currency rates through tweets, that's not exactly what average people could afford. If he didn't fit this stereotype of billionaire, I'm sure he would be liked more.
omgJustTest 5y ago
Choose your own adventure !
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
He might be a very effective marketer and manager, but he gets credit for so so much more than that. Like he singlehandedly made electric cars a thing. It's the Great Man theory of history. Even then, effective marketing are often lies, so why value effective marketing? Effective management is so often toxic, so why value effective management? As far as I can tell, he's full of BS and his employees are treated poorly, so I really don't care so much that he's first to market. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  > As far as I can tell, he's full of BS This is the sort extreme polarised view I was referring to. All I can say is NASA doesn't agree with you on this. The problem is, if you go straight to "he's full of BS" it just kills all sensible debate. He's clearly not full of BS. He's delivering astronauts to the Space Station via his "startup". This is not something someone "full of BS" achieves.
  - ObserverNeutral 5y ago
    > He's delivering astronauts to the Space Station via his "startup". This is not something someone "full of BS" achieves. Great! What are the margins? Most likely terrible because you have to build real stuff. You know who ISN'T full of bullshit? Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. They just STFU, present modest outlook to set the stage for the company to knock it out of the park Quarter after quarter. I could care less about the rockets, the truth is in the boring numbers, not the showmanship
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    You're misunderstanding what I mean. Very uncharitably, if you think I somehow missed the fact he's delivering astronauts to the ISS and delivering cars. For god's sake, I agreed with you that he's very effective! You're seeing a much more "extreme polarized" statement that I wrote. I'm not saying every single thing he says is BS, like he's going around saying the sky is green and up is down. Just that he says a whole lot of shit that isn't true also.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

whoisthemachine 5y ago

He can be an impressive engineer and entrepreneur while also being a jerk. I think it's ok to condemn his behaviors when they're out of line while also admiring the progress him and his companies have made in the industries they've targeted.

tailspin2019 5y ago
Yep you summed that up better than I did.
Kalium 5y ago
I feel like I've seen this before. A man is a relentless and masterful self-promoter, encourages a very public cult of personality, and puts out what are broadly considered superior products from his companies. He's also an egotistical prick. It's the Steve Jobs approach.
- shrimpx 5y ago
  Steve Jobs wasn’t a memelord shilling dogecoin on social media and tv.

fossuser 5y ago

I think it’s political tribalism more than anything else? It’s become more clear after this SNL thing. On Twitter people on the left claim vaguely that Elon is bad and why is SNL doing this etc. People on the right say Elon is great and SNL is normally unfunny. In the former case I think it’s just because people associate Elon with the right for some reason. The latter is easier to understand since a lot of SNL’s humor is explicitly political (not in a bad way imo). Part of me wonders if the irreverent tweets were an intentional way to broaden his appeal. He needed EVs to go from “liberal” Prius symbols about the environment to cool. That’s a Herculean task when you think about it. Even now there are still coal rolling truck drivers yelling at EVs, but the sentiment has definitely changed in a positive way. He did this without having to embrace trump (unlike Thiel for instance). I think his biggest miss was on covid, but he seems to agree that he was wrong. I suspect a part of the left dislike is also around the progressive anti-billionaire/anti-capitalist sentiment, it makes Elon an easy “enemy”. Putting all this aside and looking at what he’s building - it’s an exciting time to be alive. Most companies are fairly dull doing fairly dull things. Elon takes huge risks to try to pull the future down earlier. For the most part, he succeeds.

hooande 5y ago
This is the same thing people said about Trump. "Maybe he said X crazy thing as part of a masterplan to..." I've got bad news for you. There is no secret plan that explains the irrational behavior.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Just because it’s obviously false when it comes to Trump, doesn’t mean it’s false all of the time. Also Elon’s behavior isn’t that serious (and he’s not POTUS).
nnamtr 5y ago
> I suspect a part of the left dislike is also around the progressive anti-billionaire/anti-capitalist sentiment, it makes Elon an easy “enemy”. He IS an easy enemy in this regard, not only to the left. All his (mis)behaviour, naming his child like that, manipulating currency rates through tweets, that's not exactly what average people could afford. If he didn't fit this stereotype of billionaire, I'm sure he would be liked more.

omgJustTest 5y ago

Choose your own adventure !

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

He might be a very effective marketer and manager, but he gets credit for so so much more than that. Like he singlehandedly made electric cars a thing. It's the Great Man theory of history. Even then, effective marketing are often lies, so why value effective marketing? Effective management is so often toxic, so why value effective management? As far as I can tell, he's full of BS and his employees are treated poorly, so I really don't care so much that he's first to market. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

tailspin2019 5y ago
> As far as I can tell, he's full of BS This is the sort extreme polarised view I was referring to. All I can say is NASA doesn't agree with you on this. The problem is, if you go straight to "he's full of BS" it just kills all sensible debate. He's clearly not full of BS. He's delivering astronauts to the Space Station via his "startup". This is not something someone "full of BS" achieves.
- ObserverNeutral 5y ago
  > He's delivering astronauts to the Space Station via his "startup". This is not something someone "full of BS" achieves. Great! What are the margins? Most likely terrible because you have to build real stuff. You know who ISN'T full of bullshit? Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. They just STFU, present modest outlook to set the stage for the company to knock it out of the park Quarter after quarter. I could care less about the rockets, the truth is in the boring numbers, not the showmanship
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  You're misunderstanding what I mean. Very uncharitably, if you think I somehow missed the fact he's delivering astronauts to the ISS and delivering cars. For god's sake, I agreed with you that he's very effective! You're seeing a much more "extreme polarized" statement that I wrote. I'm not saying every single thing he says is BS, like he's going around saying the sky is green and up is down. Just that he says a whole lot of shit that isn't true also.