4 ms·

> What’s with so much hostility? There's a popular and cynical meme that people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are just marketing bullshitters that don't actual

> What’s with so much hostility? There's a popular and cynical meme that people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are just marketing bullshitters that don't actually do anything useful. It's laughably false and easily disproved. And yet it seems to comfort cynical/pessimistic/unhappy/ignorant people, of which many exist, and so it prevails.

systemvoltage 4y ago
Hmm, weird, I find Steve Jobs and Musk truly inspiring.
- TheRealNGenius 4y ago
  Nice to know you find this guy "truly inspiring" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517707521343082496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1517707521343082496%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpatriotalerts.com%2F2022%2F04%2Felon-just-destroyed-bill-gates-in-the-funniest-tweet-everefbfbc%2F https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517707521343082496?ref_...
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I thought that was pretty hilarious.
    - otterley 4y ago
      OK, but is that the kind of character you think people should look up to and be inspired by? He’s not a professional comedian; he’s a billionaire businessman with a tremendous amount of power to inspire people to do things. Do we want people to be inspired to do great things or terrible things? With great power comes great responsibility.
      - systemvoltage 4y ago
        He is far more inspiring than the rest of business leaders. I find him genuine, funny, atypical and giving a hard time to people that want him to conform. Progressives hate him. I’ve never seen any logic behind it. It is just that Elon doesn’t share their vision of scarcity driven, alarmist, stagnant, crime ridden, woke, depopulating, unionized and equal-outcomes based society. The entire progressive platform has been hijacked, not the Obama era left-wing. Obama was pro-Elon Musk and privatization of Space industry. IMO there are no leaders that inspire more than Elon and late Steve Jobs. So here… I laid out the entire problem in plain words why people hate Elon. 100% political.
        otterley 4y ago
        You didn't really answer my question at all - you just went off on some side commentary about why you think people dislike him.
        systemvoltage 4y ago
        How so? I addressed exactly the points you raised. Provided you with reasons why I find him inspiring and others don’t.
        otterley 4y ago
        Those aren’t the points I raised at all. I was curious to know how you believe a person with tremendous wealth and power should comport him/herself, and whether Elon Musk's behavior is consistent with that.
SemanticStrengh 4y ago
OK I challenge you to try to engage and bring constructive evidence then. Give a summary of what steve jobs and musk have done to improve the human condition/world. While Apple has achieved some moderately useful advances you have to divide the amount of progress given by the amount of money captured. Apple has an almost negligible ratio in that regard. Musk has achieved even less.
- staunch 4y ago
  > OK I challenge you to try to engage and bring constructive evidence then What kind of evidence would convince you? Wikipedia has summaries. Of course, they necessarily lack the context required to deeply understand the topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Innovations_and_designs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Innovations_and_des... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Business_career > Apple has an almost negligible ratio in that regard. Musk has achieved even less. I challenge you to give evidence for these assertions. I would be convinced if you explained how you came to this conclusion and explained how you calculated the terms of this ratio.
  - SemanticStrengh 4y ago
    Thanks for engaging, I will try to write an answer when I get the motivation
Hasu 4y ago
"There's a popular and cynical meme" is another way of phrasing, "There are people who evaluate these people's contributions differently than I do" > It's laughably false and easily disproved. Then disprove it, instead of relying on an ad hominem assumption of what's going on inside someone else's brain. As it stands all you've done is claim that a criticism exists and that the people who state that criticism have moral failings, which does not make them wrong.
- staunch 4y ago
  > "There are people who evaluate these people's contributions differently than I do" That would presume we're talking about people with approximately equivalent knowledge that simply come to different, but reasonable, conclusions. But this is not the case. What I see in this meme is people betraying their ignorance and motivated reasoning at every turn. There's nothing knowledgeable or reasonable about their assertions. It's always highly vitriolic and dismissive toxicity. It's not that they're simply mistaken about certain facts, and can be corrected, it's that they're transparently ignorant and/or acting in bad faith. For example, it's extremely uncommon, maybe even unheard of, for someone with a deep knowledge of technology history to agree with these kinds of dismissals of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. I've never seen someone able to discuss the topic at a high level that won't readily acknowledge their contributions, even if they can be very critical of them in certain ways. As one example among many: historian and professor Walter Isaacson wrote well respected books about Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs. He is currently writing one about Elon Musk.
  - Hasu 4y ago
    So you don't have proof, just more ad hominem and appeals to authority.
    - staunch 4y ago
      I did reply in a sibling thread to a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31345710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31345710 But c'mon. You're really just playing dumb. We all know what SpaceX/Tesla and Apple have done, and (I think) we all know the role Musk and Jobs played in their success. And the reason we all know these things is precisely because of how important what they've done is. It's self-evident. So, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that you're not acting in good faith. And that's why I answered indirectly. But, okay, what "proof" would you find convincing?

systemvoltage 4y ago

Hmm, weird, I find Steve Jobs and Musk truly inspiring.

TheRealNGenius 4y ago
Nice to know you find this guy "truly inspiring" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517707521343082496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1517707521343082496%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpatriotalerts.com%2F2022%2F04%2Felon-just-destroyed-bill-gates-in-the-funniest-tweet-everefbfbc%2F https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517707521343082496?ref_...
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I thought that was pretty hilarious.
  - otterley 4y ago
    OK, but is that the kind of character you think people should look up to and be inspired by? He’s not a professional comedian; he’s a billionaire businessman with a tremendous amount of power to inspire people to do things. Do we want people to be inspired to do great things or terrible things? With great power comes great responsibility.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      He is far more inspiring than the rest of business leaders. I find him genuine, funny, atypical and giving a hard time to people that want him to conform. Progressives hate him. I’ve never seen any logic behind it. It is just that Elon doesn’t share their vision of scarcity driven, alarmist, stagnant, crime ridden, woke, depopulating, unionized and equal-outcomes based society. The entire progressive platform has been hijacked, not the Obama era left-wing. Obama was pro-Elon Musk and privatization of Space industry. IMO there are no leaders that inspire more than Elon and late Steve Jobs. So here… I laid out the entire problem in plain words why people hate Elon. 100% political.
      - otterley 4y ago
        You didn't really answer my question at all - you just went off on some side commentary about why you think people dislike him.
        systemvoltage 4y ago
        How so? I addressed exactly the points you raised. Provided you with reasons why I find him inspiring and others don’t.
        otterley 4y ago
        Those aren’t the points I raised at all. I was curious to know how you believe a person with tremendous wealth and power should comport him/herself, and whether Elon Musk's behavior is consistent with that.

SemanticStrengh 4y ago

OK I challenge you to try to engage and bring constructive evidence then. Give a summary of what steve jobs and musk have done to improve the human condition/world. While Apple has achieved some moderately useful advances you have to divide the amount of progress given by the amount of money captured. Apple has an almost negligible ratio in that regard. Musk has achieved even less.

staunch 4y ago
> OK I challenge you to try to engage and bring constructive evidence then What kind of evidence would convince you? Wikipedia has summaries. Of course, they necessarily lack the context required to deeply understand the topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Innovations_and_designs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Innovations_and_des... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Business_career > Apple has an almost negligible ratio in that regard. Musk has achieved even less. I challenge you to give evidence for these assertions. I would be convinced if you explained how you came to this conclusion and explained how you calculated the terms of this ratio.
- SemanticStrengh 4y ago
  Thanks for engaging, I will try to write an answer when I get the motivation

Hasu 4y ago

"There's a popular and cynical meme" is another way of phrasing, "There are people who evaluate these people's contributions differently than I do" > It's laughably false and easily disproved. Then disprove it, instead of relying on an ad hominem assumption of what's going on inside someone else's brain. As it stands all you've done is claim that a criticism exists and that the people who state that criticism have moral failings, which does not make them wrong.

staunch 4y ago
> "There are people who evaluate these people's contributions differently than I do" That would presume we're talking about people with approximately equivalent knowledge that simply come to different, but reasonable, conclusions. But this is not the case. What I see in this meme is people betraying their ignorance and motivated reasoning at every turn. There's nothing knowledgeable or reasonable about their assertions. It's always highly vitriolic and dismissive toxicity. It's not that they're simply mistaken about certain facts, and can be corrected, it's that they're transparently ignorant and/or acting in bad faith. For example, it's extremely uncommon, maybe even unheard of, for someone with a deep knowledge of technology history to agree with these kinds of dismissals of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. I've never seen someone able to discuss the topic at a high level that won't readily acknowledge their contributions, even if they can be very critical of them in certain ways. As one example among many: historian and professor Walter Isaacson wrote well respected books about Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs. He is currently writing one about Elon Musk.
- Hasu 4y ago
  So you don't have proof, just more ad hominem and appeals to authority.
  - staunch 4y ago
    I did reply in a sibling thread to a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31345710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31345710 But c'mon. You're really just playing dumb. We all know what SpaceX/Tesla and Apple have done, and (I think) we all know the role Musk and Jobs played in their success. And the reason we all know these things is precisely because of how important what they've done is. It's self-evident. So, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that you're not acting in good faith. And that's why I answered indirectly. But, okay, what "proof" would you find convincing?