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Hey Elon… What was that about freedom of speech … I can’t quite hear you over the hypocrisy alert airhorn. Edit: Note for readers. I’m a political centrist not

Hey Elon… What was that about freedom of speech … I can’t quite hear you over the hypocrisy alert airhorn. Edit: Note for readers. I’m a political centrist not living in the USA and big Space fan and thus a big SpaceX fan. Elon is responsible for some cool shit happening that I really like… but it’s also incredibly hard to avoid seeing obvious negative behaviour he’s engaged in related to twitter and with everyone more angry at him than ever his attempts to be liked in public (the Chappell show thing etc) … I’d like the Elon of a few years ago back, he seemed more focused on just getting stuff done and less interested in reacting to the public perception of him personally… Also billionaires are a symptom of a broken society. No one needs more than 999 million even with current inflation rates eating up its real world worth it’s still more than anyone could ever use and we should probably just tax net worth over a billion at 100%.

notright8 4y ago
Kid is not expressing any idea. He's just promoting geo-stalking/gps tracking Elon. But he can still do it on Mastodon so his rights are not curtailed.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > his rights are not curtailed Nobody is saying that they are. They are saying, however, that this is a serious about-face from what Elon has claimed in the past. He rode into twitter on a high horse and has walked back pretty much everything he's said since.
  - wellthatsawrap2 4y ago
    How is this different then doxing?
    - nraynaud 4y ago
      Because airports have a giant security ring around airplanes, so you can’t physically get close to him with this information. And it’s transient, so you can’t lurk and wait to strike. It’s like a comedian doing a planned show.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Plus, the tracking is on Elon's jet, not Elon as a person. So nothing is preventing Elon from sending his jet to NY, while flying, charter or first class, to Miami.
      - nailer 4y ago
        A stalker could easily watch the exit for the suites (where private jets go from) at the airport.
        nraynaud 4y ago
        not different from a celebrity doing a planned appearance
        nailer 4y ago
        People's personal movements are not promotional activities.
        nraynaud 4y ago
        this is not tracking Elon Musk personal movements, this is tracking 3 corporate airplanes owned by Space X. There is some overlap, but it's the same as loitering in front of one of his companies HQ might help you find him.
        nailer 4y ago
        It’s literally called Muskjet. The purpose is to track an individual. Loitering in front of his company’s HQ would also be stalkerish.
        mcphage 4y ago
        I wonder what changed for him since last month when he explicitly said he wasn't going to ban @elonjet.
    - wolrah 4y ago
      > How is this different then doxing? Because it's public information that's literally broadcast to anyone listening by every aircraft above a certain size/speed. This isn't information that is considered secret or even that one needs to dig to expose, the aircraft is actively transmitting regular messages containing its location, heading, and speed to anyone within radio range which can be tens or hundreds of miles depending on altitude.
    - kevinmchugh 4y ago
      Many types of doxing are free speech
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > He rode into twitter on a high horse and has walked back pretty much everything he's said since. Rather like Keir Starmer and the UK Labour Party.
    - mcphage 4y ago
      Sorry, I'm a dumb American and don't understand this joke.
      - swores 4y ago
        It's not a joke, just an irrelevant (though accurate) comparison that doesn't belong in this thread. Starmer is leader of the opposition party in the UK, he was elected leader by Labour party members after making ten pledges, all quite socialist / left wing, but since becoming leader he's basically reversed every previous position he's claimed to have and is now taking centrist and even right of centre positions - upsetting many who voted for him (while others, though not me, say it's needed to attract more center/right votes in the next election).
        denton-scratch 4y ago
        It was sort of a joke - a wry aside that's true, and was meant to make the right kind of people smile. And you're quite right, it doesn't belong in this thread. Sorry.
      - atchoo 4y ago
        Not a joke sadly. The Labour membership is quite left wing (understandably) so Starmer's leadership campaign was structured around 10 left wing pledges, promises about nationalisation, the EU, unity and continuation of the 2017 Corbyn era manifesto. He has since abandoned the majority of pledges, waged an illicit war against left-wing candidates, kicked the previous leader out of parlimentary party, appointed a centre-right front bench and frequently says appalling anti-union, anti-migrant and authoritarian crap. He is one the most dishonest politicians in the UK but given a free pass by the press because punching left is celebrated by our media class and never considered a fault.
- techdragon 4y ago
  I can still bookmark Elon’s plane on FlightRadar or ADSBExchange… this doesn’t stop anyone “geo-stalking” … it just stopped one guy tweeting it. Oh and also hurt Elon’s free speech debate credibility.
clouddrover 4y ago
> Hey Elon… What was that about freedom of speech … I can’t quite hear you over the hypocrisy alert airhorn. Here's what Musk said about ElonJet six weeks ago (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456): "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk"
- arlort 4y ago
  > even though that is a direct personal safety risk Is he worried about his haters getting a hold of anti-air weaponry or something?
  - dontlaserplanes 4y ago
    Laser pointer is more than enough to endanger an aircraft.
    - rosnd 4y ago
      For some fairly absurd definitions of "endanger", yeah.
      - dontlaserplanes 4y ago
        It's enough to force an emergency landing, yeah. And that endangers the whole air traffic around by putting it into non-standard situation, yeah. You have some fairly absurd definition of "absurd".
        Avamander 4y ago
        It's really not enough, no. There are literally videos of pilots blocking the light with a piece of paper.
        rosnd 4y ago
        As long as we're talking about regular laser pointers, at worst this mildly inconveniences the pilot. There have been tens of recorded cases of this every day for decades in the US alone, but not a single recorded accident. The idea that someone could meaningfully endanger Elon by pointing a laser pointer at his private jet is pants-on-head crazy. What next? Oil slicks on his driveway? Perhaps slowly poison him by idling a car in front of his house? Second hand smoking?
cogman10 4y ago
By freedom of speech, musk means the freedom to post misinformation and antisemitic conspiracies, not the atrocity of publishing curated public information.
- icare_1er 4y ago
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  > not the atrocity of publishing curated public information. I'd extend that with: - Anything that makes fun of Elon. - Anything that calls out Elon or rebukes Elon's statements.
- wellthatsawrap2 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
bambax 4y ago
> and we should probably just tax net worth over a billion at 100% The reason people put these high limits is they think it will never concern them. But the reality is we should just tax net worth over a million at 100%; or maybe forbid wealth altogether. Or at least we should discuss that, instead of billion limits that may only affect a few people -- people who will never be part of the discussion in the first place.
- endymi0n 4y ago
  „If being rich is outlawed, only outlaws will be rich.“ – roughly after Phil Zimmerman Thanks, I don‘t like that future. Don‘t get me wrong, I‘m all for progressive and _way_ higher taxes, but this extreme would do the opposite of what you want.
  - bambax 4y ago
    Maybe. But my point is that it's that we should discuss this, and not super high limits of over 1 billion that 1/ only affects very few people, 2/ none of which are likely to be part of the conversation and 3/ would still leave them extremely rich by any reasonable standard.
    - sgc 4y ago
      I don't even understand your point. 1. A billion is 1000x more than a million. It is many times higher wealth and far beyond what could be considered required for a family to survive on for generations. 2. A million is not even enough to come close to retirement, it is way too low of a number, so it is not even enough for one person in one lifetime in the US (which we are presumably discussing since the billionaire in question is taxed here). 3. The affect on publicly available funds from taxing the 1% of the 1% would be equal to or more than taxing the 99% of the 1%. So regardless of what you consider the right answer to the question (it's pretty tough to support without major caveats in my opinion), they are not at all the same and it actually comes across as an subtle attempt to reduce any potential support by muddying the waters, regardless of what you were actually trying to do.
  - 4y ago
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
- notright8 4y ago
- techdragon 4y ago
  Not a reddit take, just common sense. At a billion your more powerful than several smaller countries, it’s millions of dollars a day in net worth growth, you could buy a new house smash the dining room wall in and use a brand new luxury car as a dinner table … every day… and still be making more money than you can spend… Being a billionaire is like ascending to a higher plane of financial being where the trivialities of normal day to day expenses no longer matter to you. Unless you do really stupid things with that money it’s almost impossible for a billionaire to get poorer. It’s a limit break on the functionality of capitalist society which regardless of the ethics of capitalism itself requires some sort of nerf/patch to prevent the billionaires from exploiting the rest of us and preventing us from striving to be what we want, wether that be a broke artist or a multi millionaire real estate developer.
  - notright8 4y ago
  - MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - giaour 4y ago
    > Unless you do really stupid things with that money it’s almost impossible for a billionaire to get poorer. "Really stupid things" like buying a social media company?
    - sgc 4y ago
      That is like the average FAANG-wealthy programmer buying a modest house with a loan. It has little effect on his wealth outside of the egregious display of his behavior.
afpx 4y ago
The current system enables the power law. Bring back predator-prey to keep the resources balanced.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  What do you mean by this?
  - afpx 4y ago
    just joking - had some extra karma I wanted to purge
mardifoufs 4y ago
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences. Plus, twitter is a private company and can change its terms whenever it wants.
- numbsafari 4y ago
  We can freely point out the hypocrisy and ignorance of the “free speech absolutists” like Musk. That would be a consequence of us exercising our free speech.
- brigandish 4y ago
  > Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences. Actually, the freedom is freedom from consequences (other than speech in return or being listened to or not).
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    That would require others losing their freedoms. If you're a dick, I need the freedom to say so, to encourage a boycott of your restaurant, to not invite you to parties, to protest your public appearances. All of those are consequences and important freedoms.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      That's the "speech in return" part.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        Then we need to discuss what definition of "consequences" you're using.
        brigandish 4y ago
        I gave the definition but I'll write it slightly differently if it wasn't clear before. Speech is free when the consequences are: - it is not listened to - it is listened to - there is speech in return to the speaker
koonsolo 4y ago
> No one needs more than 999 million It's not like anyone has the money in cash you know. You should rephrase your statement to "nobody needs more than a billion dollar stake in one or more companies". That is more realistic, and maybe a better discussion can come out of that one.
- luma 4y ago
  Oh I'm pretty sure the IRS could figure out a cash equivalent. WE DON'T NEED BILLIONAIRES
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- techdragon 4y ago
  To late for an edit now. And while just throwing the number out like it’s a bank balance is a bit of a hot take… I’m fully aware of the fact that any realistically useful proposal for this kind of wealth tax would require a lot of careful structural work to make useful and effective. It’s important to note that the USA is one of the only countries that expects overseas citizens to file tax reporting paperwork. Normally this is perfunctory stuff. But the key is that it’s law that living full time outside the USA doesn’t mean you have any loopholes for skipping the paperwork… The IRS is uniquely positioned under current law to enforce a global jurisdiction wealth tax on US Citizens … and since the USA already requires a payment for processing the renouncing of citizenship, you could just as easily place a punitive sized fee or fine for obviously renouncing citizenship to avoid paying billionaire taxes. But once one country moves toward this sort of law I think others would follow. We have international law organisations that are used for tracking financial criminals and if more countries had similar laws these international organisations would gradually be more and more useful in ensuring billionaires can’t just stash money in overseas banks markets trusts and assets.
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    My take is that billionaires are mostly made because they own a very successful company. So when you talk about wealth tax of these billionaires, you automatically talk about diminishing their stake in said company(-ies). And I think that is the main point that needs to be discussed.
constantcrying 4y ago
>Also billionaires are a symptom of a broken society. They are the symptom of any society which allows unlimited private ownership of cooperations. Just by probability alone some companies will grow by billions and any major owner will become a billionaire. >we should probably just tax net worth over a billion at 100%. Which, in this case, is totally equivalent to the government seizing Tesla or SpaceX. Billionaires do not have billions in cash, they are billionaires because they own assets, likely not very liquid, worth billions. I really hate to be shilling for rich people, but "disown them" is not the solution. The real problem with billionaires is that they are both extremely powerful and unaccountable. Both of which is the fault of the political class, which both shields the rich from accountability and gives them power. The informal power is the problem here. There is also a qualitative difference here. The billionaire who became a billionaire, because he built up a long term productive company and the billionaire who won in the positive EV Casino (the stock market) are not the same. The former might even be deserving (although I do not really like that word in this context) of some influence, as a legitimate representative of corporate interests.
- techdragon 4y ago
  Yes, but it’s nigh impossible to strip them of the informal power without stripping them of the actual power they hold by virtue of stocks and corporate control, assets and cash… all of which are readily fungible into political into political donations and all the other forms of legal bribery like funding opposition environmental studies to block competition or funding lawsuits to change laws they don’t like or anything else they can legally leverage that financial wealth for. As ideally we could separate these two forms of power and achieve the removal of the unaccountable informal power… but the sort of large scale socioeconomic and sociopolitical reforms needed to do this honestly seem harder to achieve than just taxing the billionaires till they aren’t billionaires anymore. Maybe then we’ll be in a position to try and start the reforms and could have the sort of world where money doesn’t buy you unaccountable power… but I think that’s not something that would be achievable in my lifetime.
  - constantcrying 4y ago
    >Yes, but it’s nigh impossible to strip them of the informal power without stripping them of the actual power they hold by virtue of stocks and corporate control, assets and cash… Why? >legal bribery like funding opposition environmental studies to block competition or funding lawsuits to change laws they don’t like or anything else they can legally leverage that financial wealth for. Make it illegal, you are literally listing the specific things which shouldn't happen. Where is the problem? >but the sort of large scale socioeconomic and sociopolitical reforms needed to do this You just gave a list of issues. Ban every billionaire from contributing to lawsuits. Ban them from "donating" to anything and actuslly punish them for violating the law. >just taxing the billionaires till they aren’t billionaires anymore. This is just seizing corporations by the government. And the problem is that you expect politicans to move against their benefactors.
LastTrain 4y ago
He needs to be cruel to liberals to sell electric cars to conservatives. It has worked brilliantly up to now. I am also a SpaceX fan, and a fan of electric vehicles, but my distaste for the 'cruelty is the point' culture is starting to outweigh that.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Given that the biggest grumbles coming out of conservatives is that they think Biden raised gas prices to make them buy electric vehicles, I don't see them lining up to buy Teslas anytime soon no matter how many Twitter liberals Musk puts in harms way.
  - LastTrain 4y ago
    You are explaining exactly why Musk has to do what he does to sell cars to conservatives. There is a huge amount of culture-wars baggage like what you describe that he must drill through to get them to even consider an EV. Being unabashedly cruel to liberals is the way. Liberals already buy his cars, because they are at this point in time the best EVs on the market - once that changes you will see a change in tone from Musk.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
Wanting to limit people’s potential sounds like a hellish idea of a society.
ru552 4y ago
No offense intended with this Do you ever wonder how the people with your mentality cope with moving the goal posts? RE: "billionaires are a symptom of a broken society. No one needs more than 999 million" Do you think that in the 1920s people said the same thing but changed it to millionaire and 999 thousand? How far back do you think we need to go in time before the same was said about a thousandaire? I would guess the 1200s.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Sure, this is why you account for inflation, like Social Security benefits do. 10% inflation? 10% increase in the benefit/limit.
  - techdragon 4y ago
    This is exactly how I think of it. It’s not complicated at all. No feats of mental gymnastics required just good old fashioned common sense.
kevinmchugh 4y ago
Musk made clear his personal commitment to free speech when he said Alex Jones would remain banned. Musk specifically cited his own personal experience and opinions as the reason Jones would remain banned.
- rideontime 4y ago
  And lied about the experience, too, stealing the story from his first wife: https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/ https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start... > He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it. I held him in my arms when he died.
rchaud 4y ago
> with everyone more angry at him than ever his attempts to be liked in public (the Chappell show thing etc) what continues to stun me is how tone-deaf his efforts are. Is he trying to be genuinely liked or is he trying to prove that he's funny" and "cool"? Popping up on stage unannounced at a comedy show of all places, to deliver a catchphrase from 2 decades ago was not going to end well.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Elon just craves attention, and he’s rich enough that he can get it wherever he wants. One day he wants to be a character on Rick and Morty, so they accommodate him. He wanted to be on SNL so he inexplicably gets to host and star in an episode despite being unfunny and untalented. He wanted to be on the Twitter board, they didn’t accomodate him, so he staged a hostile takeover of the company. Not to mention the cave incident where he tried to insert himself, was rebuffed, and then tried to ruin someone’s life. There’s a clear pattern of Musk forcing himself into places he doesn’t belong and no one wants him, and it never ends well for anyone involved.
  - tomhoward 4y ago
    There's some truth in this comment, and his reaction to the diver in Thailand was obviously not great, but at least on that topic there's a less scathing interpretation: In a desperate scenario in which it was considered highly likely that all those kids would be unable to be rescued alive from the cave by any means at all, Musk said something to the effect of I have engineering and production resources, we can try and come up with something in case it may be useful, and quickly built and delivered a device after close consultation with members of the rescue team on the ground, and also supplied various other forms of equipment and expertise. Luckily the kids were rescued and the capsule wasn't needed. That diver then said in a TV interview that Musk should 'stick his submarine where it hurts' - for absolutely no good reason. As I said, Musk's reaction was inappropriate and he's paid a big price for it, but it was hardly without provocation.
- q1w2 4y ago
  Why do any of you care what Elon says? People here spend an inordinate amount of time loving or hating him - when he has near-zero impact on their lives.
hackerman123469 4y ago
Much like you then I love what Elon Musk is the leader of but I despise him and hate him with every fiber of my body.
europeanguy 4y ago
> I’d like the Elon of a few years ago back Were you one of those defending him when he was calling random people on Twitter pedos to his 50 million followers?
- techdragon 4y ago
  I was not, I was one of the one’s hoping he would just shut up and get back to making electric cars and cool rockets to put people and robots and anything else we want into space.
  - europeanguy 4y ago
    He's not gonna send "cool rockets" anywhere. His business is hyping his stock. Were you also one of those who believed his cars were gonna drive themselves?

notright8 4y ago

Kid is not expressing any idea. He's just promoting geo-stalking/gps tracking Elon. But he can still do it on Mastodon so his rights are not curtailed.

mcphage 4y ago
> his rights are not curtailed Nobody is saying that they are. They are saying, however, that this is a serious about-face from what Elon has claimed in the past. He rode into twitter on a high horse and has walked back pretty much everything he's said since.
- wellthatsawrap2 4y ago
  How is this different then doxing?
  - nraynaud 4y ago
    Because airports have a giant security ring around airplanes, so you can’t physically get close to him with this information. And it’s transient, so you can’t lurk and wait to strike. It’s like a comedian doing a planned show.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Plus, the tracking is on Elon's jet, not Elon as a person. So nothing is preventing Elon from sending his jet to NY, while flying, charter or first class, to Miami.
    - nailer 4y ago
      A stalker could easily watch the exit for the suites (where private jets go from) at the airport.
      - nraynaud 4y ago
        not different from a celebrity doing a planned appearance
        nailer 4y ago
        People's personal movements are not promotional activities.
        nraynaud 4y ago
        this is not tracking Elon Musk personal movements, this is tracking 3 corporate airplanes owned by Space X. There is some overlap, but it's the same as loitering in front of one of his companies HQ might help you find him.
        nailer 4y ago
        It’s literally called Muskjet. The purpose is to track an individual. Loitering in front of his company’s HQ would also be stalkerish.
        mcphage 4y ago
        I wonder what changed for him since last month when he explicitly said he wasn't going to ban @elonjet.
  - wolrah 4y ago
    > How is this different then doxing? Because it's public information that's literally broadcast to anyone listening by every aircraft above a certain size/speed. This isn't information that is considered secret or even that one needs to dig to expose, the aircraft is actively transmitting regular messages containing its location, heading, and speed to anyone within radio range which can be tens or hundreds of miles depending on altitude.
  - kevinmchugh 4y ago
    Many types of doxing are free speech
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > He rode into twitter on a high horse and has walked back pretty much everything he's said since. Rather like Keir Starmer and the UK Labour Party.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    Sorry, I'm a dumb American and don't understand this joke.
    - swores 4y ago
      It's not a joke, just an irrelevant (though accurate) comparison that doesn't belong in this thread. Starmer is leader of the opposition party in the UK, he was elected leader by Labour party members after making ten pledges, all quite socialist / left wing, but since becoming leader he's basically reversed every previous position he's claimed to have and is now taking centrist and even right of centre positions - upsetting many who voted for him (while others, though not me, say it's needed to attract more center/right votes in the next election).
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        It was sort of a joke - a wry aside that's true, and was meant to make the right kind of people smile. And you're quite right, it doesn't belong in this thread. Sorry.
    - atchoo 4y ago
      Not a joke sadly. The Labour membership is quite left wing (understandably) so Starmer's leadership campaign was structured around 10 left wing pledges, promises about nationalisation, the EU, unity and continuation of the 2017 Corbyn era manifesto. He has since abandoned the majority of pledges, waged an illicit war against left-wing candidates, kicked the previous leader out of parlimentary party, appointed a centre-right front bench and frequently says appalling anti-union, anti-migrant and authoritarian crap. He is one the most dishonest politicians in the UK but given a free pass by the press because punching left is celebrated by our media class and never considered a fault.
techdragon 4y ago
I can still bookmark Elon’s plane on FlightRadar or ADSBExchange… this doesn’t stop anyone “geo-stalking” … it just stopped one guy tweeting it. Oh and also hurt Elon’s free speech debate credibility.

clouddrover 4y ago

> Hey Elon… What was that about freedom of speech … I can’t quite hear you over the hypocrisy alert airhorn. Here's what Musk said about ElonJet six weeks ago (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456): "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk"

arlort 4y ago
> even though that is a direct personal safety risk Is he worried about his haters getting a hold of anti-air weaponry or something?
- dontlaserplanes 4y ago
  Laser pointer is more than enough to endanger an aircraft.
  - rosnd 4y ago
    For some fairly absurd definitions of "endanger", yeah.
    - dontlaserplanes 4y ago
      It's enough to force an emergency landing, yeah. And that endangers the whole air traffic around by putting it into non-standard situation, yeah. You have some fairly absurd definition of "absurd".
      - Avamander 4y ago
        It's really not enough, no. There are literally videos of pilots blocking the light with a piece of paper.
      - rosnd 4y ago
        As long as we're talking about regular laser pointers, at worst this mildly inconveniences the pilot. There have been tens of recorded cases of this every day for decades in the US alone, but not a single recorded accident. The idea that someone could meaningfully endanger Elon by pointing a laser pointer at his private jet is pants-on-head crazy. What next? Oil slicks on his driveway? Perhaps slowly poison him by idling a car in front of his house? Second hand smoking?

cogman10 4y ago

By freedom of speech, musk means the freedom to post misinformation and antisemitic conspiracies, not the atrocity of publishing curated public information.

icare_1er 4y ago
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
> not the atrocity of publishing curated public information. I'd extend that with: - Anything that makes fun of Elon. - Anything that calls out Elon or rebukes Elon's statements.
wellthatsawrap2 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

bambax 4y ago

> and we should probably just tax net worth over a billion at 100% The reason people put these high limits is they think it will never concern them. But the reality is we should just tax net worth over a million at 100%; or maybe forbid wealth altogether. Or at least we should discuss that, instead of billion limits that may only affect a few people -- people who will never be part of the discussion in the first place.

endymi0n 4y ago
„If being rich is outlawed, only outlaws will be rich.“ – roughly after Phil Zimmerman Thanks, I don‘t like that future. Don‘t get me wrong, I‘m all for progressive and _way_ higher taxes, but this extreme would do the opposite of what you want.
- bambax 4y ago
  Maybe. But my point is that it's that we should discuss this, and not super high limits of over 1 billion that 1/ only affects very few people, 2/ none of which are likely to be part of the conversation and 3/ would still leave them extremely rich by any reasonable standard.
  - sgc 4y ago
    I don't even understand your point. 1. A billion is 1000x more than a million. It is many times higher wealth and far beyond what could be considered required for a family to survive on for generations. 2. A million is not even enough to come close to retirement, it is way too low of a number, so it is not even enough for one person in one lifetime in the US (which we are presumably discussing since the billionaire in question is taxed here). 3. The affect on publicly available funds from taxing the 1% of the 1% would be equal to or more than taxing the 99% of the 1%. So regardless of what you consider the right answer to the question (it's pretty tough to support without major caveats in my opinion), they are not at all the same and it actually comes across as an subtle attempt to reduce any potential support by muddying the waters, regardless of what you were actually trying to do.
- 4y ago

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

notright8 4y ago
techdragon 4y ago
Not a reddit take, just common sense. At a billion your more powerful than several smaller countries, it’s millions of dollars a day in net worth growth, you could buy a new house smash the dining room wall in and use a brand new luxury car as a dinner table … every day… and still be making more money than you can spend… Being a billionaire is like ascending to a higher plane of financial being where the trivialities of normal day to day expenses no longer matter to you. Unless you do really stupid things with that money it’s almost impossible for a billionaire to get poorer. It’s a limit break on the functionality of capitalist society which regardless of the ethics of capitalism itself requires some sort of nerf/patch to prevent the billionaires from exploiting the rest of us and preventing us from striving to be what we want, wether that be a broke artist or a multi millionaire real estate developer.
- notright8 4y ago
- MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
  [flagged]
- giaour 4y ago
  > Unless you do really stupid things with that money it’s almost impossible for a billionaire to get poorer. "Really stupid things" like buying a social media company?
  - sgc 4y ago
    That is like the average FAANG-wealthy programmer buying a modest house with a loan. It has little effect on his wealth outside of the egregious display of his behavior.

afpx 4y ago

The current system enables the power law. Bring back predator-prey to keep the resources balanced.

brutusborn 4y ago
What do you mean by this?
- afpx 4y ago
  just joking - had some extra karma I wanted to purge

mardifoufs 4y ago

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences. Plus, twitter is a private company and can change its terms whenever it wants.

numbsafari 4y ago
We can freely point out the hypocrisy and ignorance of the “free speech absolutists” like Musk. That would be a consequence of us exercising our free speech.
brigandish 4y ago
> Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences. Actually, the freedom is freedom from consequences (other than speech in return or being listened to or not).
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  That would require others losing their freedoms. If you're a dick, I need the freedom to say so, to encourage a boycott of your restaurant, to not invite you to parties, to protest your public appearances. All of those are consequences and important freedoms.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    That's the "speech in return" part.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Then we need to discuss what definition of "consequences" you're using.
      - brigandish 4y ago
        I gave the definition but I'll write it slightly differently if it wasn't clear before. Speech is free when the consequences are: - it is not listened to - it is listened to - there is speech in return to the speaker

koonsolo 4y ago

> No one needs more than 999 million It's not like anyone has the money in cash you know. You should rephrase your statement to "nobody needs more than a billion dollar stake in one or more companies". That is more realistic, and maybe a better discussion can come out of that one.

luma 4y ago
Oh I'm pretty sure the IRS could figure out a cash equivalent. WE DON'T NEED BILLIONAIRES
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
techdragon 4y ago
To late for an edit now. And while just throwing the number out like it’s a bank balance is a bit of a hot take… I’m fully aware of the fact that any realistically useful proposal for this kind of wealth tax would require a lot of careful structural work to make useful and effective. It’s important to note that the USA is one of the only countries that expects overseas citizens to file tax reporting paperwork. Normally this is perfunctory stuff. But the key is that it’s law that living full time outside the USA doesn’t mean you have any loopholes for skipping the paperwork… The IRS is uniquely positioned under current law to enforce a global jurisdiction wealth tax on US Citizens … and since the USA already requires a payment for processing the renouncing of citizenship, you could just as easily place a punitive sized fee or fine for obviously renouncing citizenship to avoid paying billionaire taxes. But once one country moves toward this sort of law I think others would follow. We have international law organisations that are used for tracking financial criminals and if more countries had similar laws these international organisations would gradually be more and more useful in ensuring billionaires can’t just stash money in overseas banks markets trusts and assets.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  My take is that billionaires are mostly made because they own a very successful company. So when you talk about wealth tax of these billionaires, you automatically talk about diminishing their stake in said company(-ies). And I think that is the main point that needs to be discussed.

constantcrying 4y ago

>Also billionaires are a symptom of a broken society. They are the symptom of any society which allows unlimited private ownership of cooperations. Just by probability alone some companies will grow by billions and any major owner will become a billionaire. >we should probably just tax net worth over a billion at 100%. Which, in this case, is totally equivalent to the government seizing Tesla or SpaceX. Billionaires do not have billions in cash, they are billionaires because they own assets, likely not very liquid, worth billions. I really hate to be shilling for rich people, but "disown them" is not the solution. The real problem with billionaires is that they are both extremely powerful and unaccountable. Both of which is the fault of the political class, which both shields the rich from accountability and gives them power. The informal power is the problem here. There is also a qualitative difference here. The billionaire who became a billionaire, because he built up a long term productive company and the billionaire who won in the positive EV Casino (the stock market) are not the same. The former might even be deserving (although I do not really like that word in this context) of some influence, as a legitimate representative of corporate interests.

techdragon 4y ago
Yes, but it’s nigh impossible to strip them of the informal power without stripping them of the actual power they hold by virtue of stocks and corporate control, assets and cash… all of which are readily fungible into political into political donations and all the other forms of legal bribery like funding opposition environmental studies to block competition or funding lawsuits to change laws they don’t like or anything else they can legally leverage that financial wealth for. As ideally we could separate these two forms of power and achieve the removal of the unaccountable informal power… but the sort of large scale socioeconomic and sociopolitical reforms needed to do this honestly seem harder to achieve than just taxing the billionaires till they aren’t billionaires anymore. Maybe then we’ll be in a position to try and start the reforms and could have the sort of world where money doesn’t buy you unaccountable power… but I think that’s not something that would be achievable in my lifetime.
- constantcrying 4y ago
  >Yes, but it’s nigh impossible to strip them of the informal power without stripping them of the actual power they hold by virtue of stocks and corporate control, assets and cash… Why? >legal bribery like funding opposition environmental studies to block competition or funding lawsuits to change laws they don’t like or anything else they can legally leverage that financial wealth for. Make it illegal, you are literally listing the specific things which shouldn't happen. Where is the problem? >but the sort of large scale socioeconomic and sociopolitical reforms needed to do this You just gave a list of issues. Ban every billionaire from contributing to lawsuits. Ban them from "donating" to anything and actuslly punish them for violating the law. >just taxing the billionaires till they aren’t billionaires anymore. This is just seizing corporations by the government. And the problem is that you expect politicans to move against their benefactors.

LastTrain 4y ago

He needs to be cruel to liberals to sell electric cars to conservatives. It has worked brilliantly up to now. I am also a SpaceX fan, and a fan of electric vehicles, but my distaste for the 'cruelty is the point' culture is starting to outweigh that.

kmeisthax 4y ago
Given that the biggest grumbles coming out of conservatives is that they think Biden raised gas prices to make them buy electric vehicles, I don't see them lining up to buy Teslas anytime soon no matter how many Twitter liberals Musk puts in harms way.
- LastTrain 4y ago
  You are explaining exactly why Musk has to do what he does to sell cars to conservatives. There is a huge amount of culture-wars baggage like what you describe that he must drill through to get them to even consider an EV. Being unabashedly cruel to liberals is the way. Liberals already buy his cars, because they are at this point in time the best EVs on the market - once that changes you will see a change in tone from Musk.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

Wanting to limit people’s potential sounds like a hellish idea of a society.

ru552 4y ago

No offense intended with this Do you ever wonder how the people with your mentality cope with moving the goal posts? RE: "billionaires are a symptom of a broken society. No one needs more than 999 million" Do you think that in the 1920s people said the same thing but changed it to millionaire and 999 thousand? How far back do you think we need to go in time before the same was said about a thousandaire? I would guess the 1200s.

ceejayoz 4y ago
Sure, this is why you account for inflation, like Social Security benefits do. 10% inflation? 10% increase in the benefit/limit.
- techdragon 4y ago
  This is exactly how I think of it. It’s not complicated at all. No feats of mental gymnastics required just good old fashioned common sense.

kevinmchugh 4y ago

Musk made clear his personal commitment to free speech when he said Alex Jones would remain banned. Musk specifically cited his own personal experience and opinions as the reason Jones would remain banned.

rideontime 4y ago
And lied about the experience, too, stealing the story from his first wife: https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/ https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start... > He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it. I held him in my arms when he died.

rchaud 4y ago

> with everyone more angry at him than ever his attempts to be liked in public (the Chappell show thing etc) what continues to stun me is how tone-deaf his efforts are. Is he trying to be genuinely liked or is he trying to prove that he's funny" and "cool"? Popping up on stage unannounced at a comedy show of all places, to deliver a catchphrase from 2 decades ago was not going to end well.

ModernMech 4y ago
Elon just craves attention, and he’s rich enough that he can get it wherever he wants. One day he wants to be a character on Rick and Morty, so they accommodate him. He wanted to be on SNL so he inexplicably gets to host and star in an episode despite being unfunny and untalented. He wanted to be on the Twitter board, they didn’t accomodate him, so he staged a hostile takeover of the company. Not to mention the cave incident where he tried to insert himself, was rebuffed, and then tried to ruin someone’s life. There’s a clear pattern of Musk forcing himself into places he doesn’t belong and no one wants him, and it never ends well for anyone involved.
- tomhoward 4y ago
  There's some truth in this comment, and his reaction to the diver in Thailand was obviously not great, but at least on that topic there's a less scathing interpretation: In a desperate scenario in which it was considered highly likely that all those kids would be unable to be rescued alive from the cave by any means at all, Musk said something to the effect of I have engineering and production resources, we can try and come up with something in case it may be useful, and quickly built and delivered a device after close consultation with members of the rescue team on the ground, and also supplied various other forms of equipment and expertise. Luckily the kids were rescued and the capsule wasn't needed. That diver then said in a TV interview that Musk should 'stick his submarine where it hurts' - for absolutely no good reason. As I said, Musk's reaction was inappropriate and he's paid a big price for it, but it was hardly without provocation.
q1w2 4y ago
Why do any of you care what Elon says? People here spend an inordinate amount of time loving or hating him - when he has near-zero impact on their lives.

hackerman123469 4y ago

Much like you then I love what Elon Musk is the leader of but I despise him and hate him with every fiber of my body.

europeanguy 4y ago

> I’d like the Elon of a few years ago back Were you one of those defending him when he was calling random people on Twitter pedos to his 50 million followers?

techdragon 4y ago
I was not, I was one of the one’s hoping he would just shut up and get back to making electric cars and cool rockets to put people and robots and anything else we want into space.
- europeanguy 4y ago
  He's not gonna send "cool rockets" anywhere. His business is hyping his stock. Were you also one of those who believed his cars were gonna drive themselves?