5 ms·

That's a long way to says he's a bit of a dick.

by fartcannon 4y ago

mekoka 4y ago
Your one liner totally fails to embody what was said.
- jyounker 4y ago
  While failing to provide a historical account, it summed up the result quite concisely.
  - mekoka 4y ago
    If you go back to the question that was being answered, you'll notice that the historical account was the point. > if he was always like that or grew into it at one point.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Yeah, no I agree with you. I would delete it if I could but the time has past. I guess I'm kind of a dick, too.
mmastrac 4y ago
Sometimes going the long way around is what's necessary.
- pm90 4y ago
  not this time though
ineedasername 4y ago
He's a divisive figure, and people who like him will tune out if someone doesn't like him, and people who don't like him will tune out when someone likes him. So, I tried to walk the line without using judgmental language. My own opinion is that he's a complicated figure. I can't come to a firm judgement on him because I don't know how much of what we see is truly him, how much of it is an act, and if it's truly him whether or not it's a representative small slice of him or not. I have a firm judgement on his his public persona, which I think makes him look like an asshole (the pedo guy stuff alone clinches that) but even if that's an accurate picture of him as a whole I still admire what he has accomplished.
- Y-bar 4y ago
  I'm not entirely sure these two opposites should have the same weight. Being a decent human should be the default and just some minor steps into shitty behaviour should be enough to justify significant criticism of a person. Consider the following generalisation on a random someone's behaviour: Someone is sexist against 50% of the people the interact with? They are sexist. Someone is sexist against 20% of the people the interact with? Still sexist. That someone is sexist against 5% of the people the interact with? Still sexist. The person does not stop being sexist/shitty/$negative_trait just because they most of the time are not acting on it. They become nice when they stop altogether, or at least make clear effort to stop. So, back to Elon, considering his recent praise of work/life balance and slave-like conditions in China, I see no reason to believe his nice side should be considered equally or more worthy of praise than his negative side be considered for criticism.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Something like sexism, racism, etc are in a different category than merely "shitty", I think. Putting Musk aside, I'd have to know a little more about what you mean by $negative_trait to agree or not. Everyone has negative traits, everyone is occasionally shitty. Frequency certainly matters, but assuming it's not very regular than maybe it comes down to what you said about "clear effort to stop". You have to be self aware enough to recognize it when it happens and work on doing better.
  - garbanz0 4y ago
    He is a complicated man and I think that's how history will look back on him. If he really does put people on Mars, I think that is about as big an impact on the history of the human race as one can have.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  Everybody is flawed at some level. Maybe when you get to a certain level of fame and/or wealth it just amplifies all the good and bad in you. I mean look at all the other “big names” in tech… Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. These are highly flawed individuals. Hell look at the entertainment industry… so many of the most famous successful people turn out to be hugely flawed. Take Jonny Depp for example—that dude has some major issues. Or to a much greater extent Bill Cosby. Cosby transformed TV in so many different incredibly positive ways and look how it ended… Fame and wealth does some weird stuff to people.
garbanz0 4y ago
I like Kara Swisher's take on Musk: "He’s obviously a visionary. I prefer dealing with him to others because he gives you genuine answers. He will call you back. He will have a beef with you when others run away because they’re cowardly. If he disagrees, he’ll be in your face, but at least he’s in your face. I’m perfectly fine with that. In a world where everybody’s making a lot of silly stuff, he’s not. Cars, rockets, solar, these are important things. He can’t be as silly or as fascist as people make him out to be. Maybe he does act like a stupid tech bro sometimes, but maybe he’s a little more complex than that? Thomas Edison was not a nice man. Many inventors were very difficult, problematic people — Steve Jobs, for example. The times we live in are so reductive that it’s really hard to be able to get our minds around a truly complex human being. And that’s what he is." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/kara-swisher-on-elon-musk-you-cant-pin-him-down.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/kara-swisher-on-elon...
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
  - ericmay 4y ago
    > All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated to enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually deliver. I literally drive a Tesla. I've watched SpaceX land reusable rockets and send people to the International Space Station. What you are saying here is factually incorrect and I'm really losing patience for this very obvious trolling and flame-baiting.
    - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
      > I literally drive a Tesla Congrats for being rich I guess? Your car brand is still as rare as Porsches, if you account for Europe it's still more rare on the road compared to Porsches. Musk has been at the helm of Tesla since 2002. In FY21 Tesla accounted for 1% of vehicles sold globally. 1% in 20 years I reapeat. 1% in 20 years. Hyper-growth for me (the stock market) , snail growth for thee (the American/global consumer)
staunch 4y ago
Every person is a bit of a dick in one way or another. And people who have done high impact things in their lives will have greater opportunity to have made mistakes, no matter how good, ethical, or smart they are. Most elite celebrities, politicians, and businesspeople simply put a lot of effort into pretending to be perfect, mostly out of vanity. They lie, hide, avoid all controversy, and employ teams of PR people to craft their public image using publicity stunts, bribery, philanthropy and all kinds of tricks that have been proven to work for thousands of years. If Elon Musk followed the elite PR playbook, a lot more people would like him, probably a lot of the haters in this thread. Which says more about them than him. Elon Musk offers a glimpse of what very powerful/successful, and basically good, people are often really like. I'd argue that: 1. Anyone who completely denigrates and dismisses Elon Musk is a blind hater. 2. Anyone who claims he's without flaws is a fanboy with rose colored glasses on. 3. And only people who agree with his own assessment of himself, that he's a "mixed bag", are assessing him clearly and with intellectual honesty.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  Exactly. Nobody is perfect and everybody has some deep dark skeletons in their closet. The mistake I think society makes is expecting celebrities / wealthy to be any different. Do they have a responsibility to set a positive example? Absolutely. Is that always achievable? Turns out probably not. I think society needs to learn to forgive. We got really good at canceling people, but we haven’t got very good at forgiveness. In the internet age where your entire life can be saved on the internet, it is important to realize people change, everybody makes mistakes (sometimes even very stupid ones) and people aren’t perfect. I don’t know… I guess they say you should never meet your heroes. I think now that we can peek behind the curtain and often see the “actual person” we have to come to terms with the fact that under all the fancy dress and act, even the “highest” in society are ultimately the same flawed, imperfect humans as the rest of us. None of us really know what the fuck we are doing… we are all making it up as we go along. Even the most successful amongst us.
  - macintux 4y ago
    I’m fine with forgiving most things, but not in the absence of any attempt at apology and recompense. The “pedo guy” accusation was beyond the pale and, so far as I remember, Musk doubled down on it vs making any sincere attempt at an apology.
caycep 4y ago
Granted, a friend of mine who met him at a party around 2011 or 2012 in SF, her opinion of him was a "total dick"
fartcannon 4y ago
I think he's fun, to be honest. Better than the other billionaires who made their money making everything worse.

That's a long way to says he's a bit of a dick.

mekoka 4y ago

Your one liner totally fails to embody what was said.

jyounker 4y ago
While failing to provide a historical account, it summed up the result quite concisely.
- mekoka 4y ago
  If you go back to the question that was being answered, you'll notice that the historical account was the point. > if he was always like that or grew into it at one point.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Yeah, no I agree with you. I would delete it if I could but the time has past. I guess I'm kind of a dick, too.

mmastrac 4y ago

Sometimes going the long way around is what's necessary.

pm90 4y ago
not this time though

ineedasername 4y ago

He's a divisive figure, and people who like him will tune out if someone doesn't like him, and people who don't like him will tune out when someone likes him. So, I tried to walk the line without using judgmental language. My own opinion is that he's a complicated figure. I can't come to a firm judgement on him because I don't know how much of what we see is truly him, how much of it is an act, and if it's truly him whether or not it's a representative small slice of him or not. I have a firm judgement on his his public persona, which I think makes him look like an asshole (the pedo guy stuff alone clinches that) but even if that's an accurate picture of him as a whole I still admire what he has accomplished.

Y-bar 4y ago
I'm not entirely sure these two opposites should have the same weight. Being a decent human should be the default and just some minor steps into shitty behaviour should be enough to justify significant criticism of a person. Consider the following generalisation on a random someone's behaviour: Someone is sexist against 50% of the people the interact with? They are sexist. Someone is sexist against 20% of the people the interact with? Still sexist. That someone is sexist against 5% of the people the interact with? Still sexist. The person does not stop being sexist/shitty/$negative_trait just because they most of the time are not acting on it. They become nice when they stop altogether, or at least make clear effort to stop. So, back to Elon, considering his recent praise of work/life balance and slave-like conditions in China, I see no reason to believe his nice side should be considered equally or more worthy of praise than his negative side be considered for criticism.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Something like sexism, racism, etc are in a different category than merely "shitty", I think. Putting Musk aside, I'd have to know a little more about what you mean by $negative_trait to agree or not. Everyone has negative traits, everyone is occasionally shitty. Frequency certainly matters, but assuming it's not very regular than maybe it comes down to what you said about "clear effort to stop". You have to be self aware enough to recognize it when it happens and work on doing better.
- garbanz0 4y ago
  He is a complicated man and I think that's how history will look back on him. If he really does put people on Mars, I think that is about as big an impact on the history of the human race as one can have.
spookthesunset 4y ago
Everybody is flawed at some level. Maybe when you get to a certain level of fame and/or wealth it just amplifies all the good and bad in you. I mean look at all the other “big names” in tech… Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. These are highly flawed individuals. Hell look at the entertainment industry… so many of the most famous successful people turn out to be hugely flawed. Take Jonny Depp for example—that dude has some major issues. Or to a much greater extent Bill Cosby. Cosby transformed TV in so many different incredibly positive ways and look how it ended… Fame and wealth does some weird stuff to people.

garbanz0 4y ago

I like Kara Swisher's take on Musk: "He’s obviously a visionary. I prefer dealing with him to others because he gives you genuine answers. He will call you back. He will have a beef with you when others run away because they’re cowardly. If he disagrees, he’ll be in your face, but at least he’s in your face. I’m perfectly fine with that. In a world where everybody’s making a lot of silly stuff, he’s not. Cars, rockets, solar, these are important things. He can’t be as silly or as fascist as people make him out to be. Maybe he does act like a stupid tech bro sometimes, but maybe he’s a little more complex than that? Thomas Edison was not a nice man. Many inventors were very difficult, problematic people — Steve Jobs, for example. The times we live in are so reductive that it’s really hard to be able to get our minds around a truly complex human being. And that’s what he is." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/kara-swisher-on-elon-musk-you-cant-pin-him-down.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/kara-swisher-on-elon...

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
- ericmay 4y ago
  > All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated to enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually deliver. I literally drive a Tesla. I've watched SpaceX land reusable rockets and send people to the International Space Station. What you are saying here is factually incorrect and I'm really losing patience for this very obvious trolling and flame-baiting.
  - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    > I literally drive a Tesla Congrats for being rich I guess? Your car brand is still as rare as Porsches, if you account for Europe it's still more rare on the road compared to Porsches. Musk has been at the helm of Tesla since 2002. In FY21 Tesla accounted for 1% of vehicles sold globally. 1% in 20 years I reapeat. 1% in 20 years. Hyper-growth for me (the stock market) , snail growth for thee (the American/global consumer)

staunch 4y ago

Every person is a bit of a dick in one way or another. And people who have done high impact things in their lives will have greater opportunity to have made mistakes, no matter how good, ethical, or smart they are. Most elite celebrities, politicians, and businesspeople simply put a lot of effort into pretending to be perfect, mostly out of vanity. They lie, hide, avoid all controversy, and employ teams of PR people to craft their public image using publicity stunts, bribery, philanthropy and all kinds of tricks that have been proven to work for thousands of years. If Elon Musk followed the elite PR playbook, a lot more people would like him, probably a lot of the haters in this thread. Which says more about them than him. Elon Musk offers a glimpse of what very powerful/successful, and basically good, people are often really like. I'd argue that: 1. Anyone who completely denigrates and dismisses Elon Musk is a blind hater. 2. Anyone who claims he's without flaws is a fanboy with rose colored glasses on. 3. And only people who agree with his own assessment of himself, that he's a "mixed bag", are assessing him clearly and with intellectual honesty.

spookthesunset 4y ago
Exactly. Nobody is perfect and everybody has some deep dark skeletons in their closet. The mistake I think society makes is expecting celebrities / wealthy to be any different. Do they have a responsibility to set a positive example? Absolutely. Is that always achievable? Turns out probably not. I think society needs to learn to forgive. We got really good at canceling people, but we haven’t got very good at forgiveness. In the internet age where your entire life can be saved on the internet, it is important to realize people change, everybody makes mistakes (sometimes even very stupid ones) and people aren’t perfect. I don’t know… I guess they say you should never meet your heroes. I think now that we can peek behind the curtain and often see the “actual person” we have to come to terms with the fact that under all the fancy dress and act, even the “highest” in society are ultimately the same flawed, imperfect humans as the rest of us. None of us really know what the fuck we are doing… we are all making it up as we go along. Even the most successful amongst us.
- macintux 4y ago
  I’m fine with forgiving most things, but not in the absence of any attempt at apology and recompense. The “pedo guy” accusation was beyond the pale and, so far as I remember, Musk doubled down on it vs making any sincere attempt at an apology.

caycep 4y ago

Granted, a friend of mine who met him at a party around 2011 or 2012 in SF, her opinion of him was a "total dick"

fartcannon 4y ago

I think he's fun, to be honest. Better than the other billionaires who made their money making everything worse.