3 ms·

The wealthiest of society pump up those like Elon Musk and they wreak havoc

18 points by MBCook 4y ago

ETH_start 4y ago
>>TED continued to uphold and celebrate Musk long after he started engaging in batshit public behavior, from calling people "pedophiles" to peddling transphobic jokes. This is an extremely hyperbolic account. Yes, him calling a guy a "pedo" on Twitter during a back and forth spat was a mistake that reflected badly on Musk, but well within the realm of sane and forgivable behavior. Musk has never said anything "transphobic", and the author's claim that he has speaks to the kind of totally intolerant speech-compliance she demands. It speaks to someone too sensitive to tolerate views that deviate from those of a narrow ideological narrative, which explains why she 1. protects her tweets to not have to face criticism, 2. characterizes restoring free speech to Twitter as "wreaking havoc".
- DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
  restoring free speech to Twitter for a brief but memorable moment in history, Mario got his say!
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
  > It speaks to someone too sensitive to tolerate views that deviate from those of a narrow ideological narrative The only thing that's narrowly ideological is the blind idolization of the so called tech cult ehm...I mean thought leaders in SV. 4 times this guy went to speak at TED and 4 times he produced lies and exxagerations. It's fair to ask that the apex individual in the public sector (the POTUS, Senators and Representatives) and the pinnacle individuals in the private sector (the Forbes 400) behave with decorum. Musk has less decorum than Trump and it takes a whole lot to beat him in that category.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    >>4 times this guy went to speak at TED and 4 times he produced lies and exxagerations. You wouldn't even bat an eye if this wasn't Musk, and if Musk hadn't become person non grata amongst the circles that the author travels in. Of course TED talks are going to be aspirational, and present goals that are never realized. This extreme vilification of Musk is utterly disingenous and clearly motivated by something other than the content of his TED talks, and that "something" is his goal to restore free speech to Twitter, as the author alludes to with her "transphobic" and "wreaking havoc" references, which point to her wanting Twitter to be her safe space, with her own ideology's conception of things, like gender, being the only allowable basis for how people communicate. Given what Musk has achieved, he deserves credit, and not this bad faith hyper-critical lens that the author and her anti-"rich white guy" (her own words) ideology see him through. People like her, with her false accusations and extremist and ideologically motivated smear campaigns, need to be pushed out of polite society until her crowd realizes that it's not an acceptable way to behave as an adult.
- someNameIG 4y ago
  > but well within the realm of sane and forgivable behavior No it's not, especially given Musks position and influence, and also hiring a supposed private investigator.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    Yes it is. His position and influence does not preclude him from having spats on Twitter, that are obviously going to be taken less seriously than communications in other contexts. His behavior in the spat did reflect badly on him, but considering the kind of behavior that is regularly ignored and forgiven from celebrities still in the good graces of the social justice crowd, the insistence that it should lead to his social ostracization is insincere, and motivated by an ulterior agenda.
    - someNameIG 4y ago
      He is the CEO of multiple companies, the richest person in the world, not some random Twitter troll. His voice has far more impact and reach than most too, so what he said will be seen by many. Also many online places will get you banned for calling someone that in an argument. And what does the social justice crowed have anything to do with this? Bringing them up and their hypothetical behaviour is just some whataboutism, it's got no impact on Musks behaviour.
      - ETH_start 4y ago
        He is allowed to be human, and act in a personal capacity, with his personal Twitter account. People should be able to differentiate Musk the CEO fron Musk the man. Society doesn't need to be infantilized, with important people speaking like politicians lest they influence an allegedly impressionable and undiscerning public.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jerojero 4y ago
There was an interview, I think it might have been the financial times or maybe the new york times; but a big, respectable media outlet. In this article Elon Musk took the journalist to a nice mexican restaurant and they discussed all sorts of things. One of the things the journalist and Elon Musk discussed was government, or rather, governance... politics. What is the best way to run a country? For Elon, billionaires were where they are because they are extremely good at resource allocation and so on, they're visionaries, they're creatives, they're excellency. And so, it his view that it should be these people (of course, himself included) that should be running the country. Now, it seems pretty clear that a lot of these skills are not transferable. But this elitism that we encourage props the egos of people and imo makes them unable to take advice. In many ways, I think, the failure of the elites is precisely their inability to acknowledge that despite all their abilities, they are average at more things than the number of things they are good at. Chile is a country that has been run by technocratic elitism for a while, the conception of the educational, political and societal system can be resumed as follows: "If I'm good at reading markets, and everything is a market, then I'm good at reading everything.". I think this sums up the vision of people like Elon Musk very well.
- papito 4y ago
  Even on HN I think people will not dispute that those who are [monetarily] successful are not always the nicest people. Sociopathy is almost celebrated here and, you know what, that's fine. But let's not pretend that these people understand the idea of personal sacrifice or [shudder] PUBLIC SERVICE. This is not how they are wired. Keep them as far away from a democratic government as possible. And that's another thing, the authoritarian vibe is strong.
credit_guy 4y ago
> Elon Musk is not a genius. He passes off the work of others as his own, he treats his employees like garbage, and he has the impulse control of a teenager. Ok, Elon Musk is not a genius. And he definitely has the impulse control of a teenager, or of a teenager with impulse control issues. He may treat his employees like garbage (although probably not all of them, I hear he took about 50 Tesla engineers to Twitter's headquarters to check their code, those guys are probably well treated). But he does things that other people don't. Most other people would have been happy with Tesla at the Roadster stage. Luxury sports cars, in small volumes but large margin. Just like Koenigsegg or Lotus. Why risk a bird in hand for two in the bush? Because he's driven. He's not content. He's willing to bet the house. People who know how to take calculated risks get rich. People who are unwilling to take risks find this unfair. And they complain those who get rich are not anything special, they just happen to be luckier, or they exploit the work of their employees, or other stuff like that. Silly things like out of 1000 people who flip coins 1 will flip ten heads in a row by pure luck, but will claim he has a special talent to flip head (after the fact). Musk, and other people like him, are not coin-flippers. Well, Sam Bankman Fried is. But Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, those are not coin flippers. They have lots of qualities that people who are not close to them find easy to discount. They are not in the top richest club by pure chance. In a parallel life, they could have been less successful, but they would have been maga-millionaires too.
Zigurd 4y ago
Elon built a new car company that is, probably, at least as long-term viable as BMW. Though the valuation of 3X that of Toyota is outlandish. That valuation is based in large measure on the prospects of robotaxis. Similarly, the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon are huge successes. But the valuation of SpaceX is largely based on Starlink becoming a global telecom giant, and that, in turn, is based on 2nd gen satellites which can only be flown on Starship. What Musk's brief time at Twitter has shown everyone is that he can fail on a scale of tens of billions in less than a month. Betting on LEO telecom and robotaxis, nevermind tunnels, brain implants, and Mars colonies is high risk, and the last person you will hear tell of those risks is Elon.

18 points by MBCook 4y ago

>>TED continued to uphold and celebrate Musk long after he started engaging in batshit public behavior, from calling people "pedophiles" to peddling transphobic jokes. This is an extremely hyperbolic account. Yes, him calling a guy a "pedo" on Twitter during a back and forth spat was a mistake that reflected badly on Musk, but well within the realm of sane and forgivable behavior. Musk has never said anything "transphobic", and the author's claim that he has speaks to the kind of totally intolerant speech-compliance she demands. It speaks to someone too sensitive to tolerate views that deviate from those of a narrow ideological narrative, which explains why she 1. protects her tweets to not have to face criticism, 2. characterizes restoring free speech to Twitter as "wreaking havoc".

DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
restoring free speech to Twitter for a brief but memorable moment in history, Mario got his say!
Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
> It speaks to someone too sensitive to tolerate views that deviate from those of a narrow ideological narrative The only thing that's narrowly ideological is the blind idolization of the so called tech cult ehm...I mean thought leaders in SV. 4 times this guy went to speak at TED and 4 times he produced lies and exxagerations. It's fair to ask that the apex individual in the public sector (the POTUS, Senators and Representatives) and the pinnacle individuals in the private sector (the Forbes 400) behave with decorum. Musk has less decorum than Trump and it takes a whole lot to beat him in that category.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >>4 times this guy went to speak at TED and 4 times he produced lies and exxagerations. You wouldn't even bat an eye if this wasn't Musk, and if Musk hadn't become person non grata amongst the circles that the author travels in. Of course TED talks are going to be aspirational, and present goals that are never realized. This extreme vilification of Musk is utterly disingenous and clearly motivated by something other than the content of his TED talks, and that "something" is his goal to restore free speech to Twitter, as the author alludes to with her "transphobic" and "wreaking havoc" references, which point to her wanting Twitter to be her safe space, with her own ideology's conception of things, like gender, being the only allowable basis for how people communicate. Given what Musk has achieved, he deserves credit, and not this bad faith hyper-critical lens that the author and her anti-"rich white guy" (her own words) ideology see him through. People like her, with her false accusations and extremist and ideologically motivated smear campaigns, need to be pushed out of polite society until her crowd realizes that it's not an acceptable way to behave as an adult.
someNameIG 4y ago
> but well within the realm of sane and forgivable behavior No it's not, especially given Musks position and influence, and also hiring a supposed private investigator.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Yes it is. His position and influence does not preclude him from having spats on Twitter, that are obviously going to be taken less seriously than communications in other contexts. His behavior in the spat did reflect badly on him, but considering the kind of behavior that is regularly ignored and forgiven from celebrities still in the good graces of the social justice crowd, the insistence that it should lead to his social ostracization is insincere, and motivated by an ulterior agenda.
  - someNameIG 4y ago
    He is the CEO of multiple companies, the richest person in the world, not some random Twitter troll. His voice has far more impact and reach than most too, so what he said will be seen by many. Also many online places will get you banned for calling someone that in an argument. And what does the social justice crowed have anything to do with this? Bringing them up and their hypothetical behaviour is just some whataboutism, it's got no impact on Musks behaviour.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      He is allowed to be human, and act in a personal capacity, with his personal Twitter account. People should be able to differentiate Musk the CEO fron Musk the man. Society doesn't need to be infantilized, with important people speaking like politicians lest they influence an allegedly impressionable and undiscerning public.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jerojero 4y ago

There was an interview, I think it might have been the financial times or maybe the new york times; but a big, respectable media outlet. In this article Elon Musk took the journalist to a nice mexican restaurant and they discussed all sorts of things. One of the things the journalist and Elon Musk discussed was government, or rather, governance... politics. What is the best way to run a country? For Elon, billionaires were where they are because they are extremely good at resource allocation and so on, they're visionaries, they're creatives, they're excellency. And so, it his view that it should be these people (of course, himself included) that should be running the country. Now, it seems pretty clear that a lot of these skills are not transferable. But this elitism that we encourage props the egos of people and imo makes them unable to take advice. In many ways, I think, the failure of the elites is precisely their inability to acknowledge that despite all their abilities, they are average at more things than the number of things they are good at. Chile is a country that has been run by technocratic elitism for a while, the conception of the educational, political and societal system can be resumed as follows: "If I'm good at reading markets, and everything is a market, then I'm good at reading everything.". I think this sums up the vision of people like Elon Musk very well.

papito 4y ago
Even on HN I think people will not dispute that those who are [monetarily] successful are not always the nicest people. Sociopathy is almost celebrated here and, you know what, that's fine. But let's not pretend that these people understand the idea of personal sacrifice or [shudder] PUBLIC SERVICE. This is not how they are wired. Keep them as far away from a democratic government as possible. And that's another thing, the authoritarian vibe is strong.

credit_guy 4y ago

> Elon Musk is not a genius. He passes off the work of others as his own, he treats his employees like garbage, and he has the impulse control of a teenager. Ok, Elon Musk is not a genius. And he definitely has the impulse control of a teenager, or of a teenager with impulse control issues. He may treat his employees like garbage (although probably not all of them, I hear he took about 50 Tesla engineers to Twitter's headquarters to check their code, those guys are probably well treated). But he does things that other people don't. Most other people would have been happy with Tesla at the Roadster stage. Luxury sports cars, in small volumes but large margin. Just like Koenigsegg or Lotus. Why risk a bird in hand for two in the bush? Because he's driven. He's not content. He's willing to bet the house. People who know how to take calculated risks get rich. People who are unwilling to take risks find this unfair. And they complain those who get rich are not anything special, they just happen to be luckier, or they exploit the work of their employees, or other stuff like that. Silly things like out of 1000 people who flip coins 1 will flip ten heads in a row by pure luck, but will claim he has a special talent to flip head (after the fact). Musk, and other people like him, are not coin-flippers. Well, Sam Bankman Fried is. But Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, those are not coin flippers. They have lots of qualities that people who are not close to them find easy to discount. They are not in the top richest club by pure chance. In a parallel life, they could have been less successful, but they would have been maga-millionaires too.

Zigurd 4y ago

Elon built a new car company that is, probably, at least as long-term viable as BMW. Though the valuation of 3X that of Toyota is outlandish. That valuation is based in large measure on the prospects of robotaxis. Similarly, the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon are huge successes. But the valuation of SpaceX is largely based on Starlink becoming a global telecom giant, and that, in turn, is based on 2nd gen satellites which can only be flown on Starship. What Musk's brief time at Twitter has shown everyone is that he can fail on a scale of tens of billions in less than a month. Betting on LEO telecom and robotaxis, nevermind tunnels, brain implants, and Mars colonies is high risk, and the last person you will hear tell of those risks is Elon.