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Hacker News fell for it, hook line and sinker. The number of people saying "give him a chance" and "he actually believes in free speech" dominated those who wer

Hacker News fell for it, hook line and sinker. The number of people saying "give him a chance" and "he actually believes in free speech" dominated those who were like, "he'll probably just change who gets banned to be more in line with his personal beliefs."

jjulius 4y ago
>Hacker News fell for it, hook line and sinker. Were we reading the same threads? I've seen countless people on HN predicting exactly this sorta thing happening, even myself.
- Larrikin 4y ago
  My experience in threads about Elon and his companies, is there is a large number of people who are complete and absolute fanboys in the comments, that also heavily overlaps with a large group of people who have invested in tech stocks trying to get a return on their money. Any criticism I've ever said of Tesla or Elon usually initially gets up votes and then half a day or even a few days later receives a lot of down votes. I always assumed it was people invested in his stocks doing it on their own, but his antics on Twitter show he's the kind of person that might actually employ people to down vote people critical of him and his companies.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
JacobThreeThree 4y ago
If you're going to make a claim like "Hacker News X", can you please provide some evidence for this in the form of links to HN comments?
sk0g 4y ago
In true HN spirit, I've seen people critical (with good reason IMO) of every promise or goal he has announced. Now, some subset of people will be for and against anything, so if you filter selectively HN supports any and ever narrative.
wpietri 4y ago
I saw somebody call Musk "Phony Stark", and that seems to me a pithy summary of the cognitive biases going on here. This place is a magnet for would-be world-changing tech geniuses. Musk's level of technical skill is in dispute, but he's been incredibly good at hyping himself as Thomas Edison 2.0, and has been very effective in using that to attract cheap capital for gee-whiz projects. I get why he got the benefit of the doubt here. But the Twitter acquisition has blown some big holes in the myth. He talked a good game about free speech, but it was clear from his initial bid for Twitter that he didn't really understand the realities of the business or the difficulties of hosting speech at scale. And since he took over, he has stepped onto turf a lot of people here understand quite well: running a business, managing software development, and the dynamics of online forums and social media. And I expect this disillusionment will continue. Somebody described the Twitter acquisition as "fragile narcissist buys criticism factory", so I expect Musk will feel emotionally compelled to engage with Twitter personally, rather than doing the sensible thing and turning it over to somebody competent while turning his attention back to his at-risk car company. So look for more of him pursuing personal grudges and putting far-right political views (e.g. "The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters") into action with absolutely no regard to his pieties around free speech. In the US right, "free speech" is often code for "the powerful should never experience criticism or accountability". That may seem weird, but it's a specific instance of the more general point: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." Cross that with "free speech" and you get what Elon is doing: free speech for the right people, arbitrary deranking and account bans for the wrong.
- seanw444 4y ago
  > fragile narcissist buys criticism factory That's a succinct way to put it. I like that.
- starkd 4y ago
  He said from the very beginning that he would make mistakes. Anyone one person is going to be biased with decisions these decisions and is not going to make everyone happy all the time. The real test is whether he can establish systems that can patrol the speech, so that no one person is at fault. This takes time.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
We are not a monolith. I have many highly upvoted comments here pointing out that musks concept of free speech has always been half baked and would surely turn into “speech for me” once he’s actually running things.
ActorNightly 4y ago
Nobody "fell" for it. Musk is (self admittedly) on the autism spectrum, and his eccentric behavior in the past is well known, but his business ventures traditionally have been towards improving society, even if they are misdirected.
erlich 4y ago
Who is the group that is cheering for a future in which everyone's location is shared with the world at all times? I would argue there is not a single one. If someone can explain how this is damaging to freedom of speech I am very interested to know.

jjulius 4y ago

>Hacker News fell for it, hook line and sinker. Were we reading the same threads? I've seen countless people on HN predicting exactly this sorta thing happening, even myself.

Larrikin 4y ago
My experience in threads about Elon and his companies, is there is a large number of people who are complete and absolute fanboys in the comments, that also heavily overlaps with a large group of people who have invested in tech stocks trying to get a return on their money. Any criticism I've ever said of Tesla or Elon usually initially gets up votes and then half a day or even a few days later receives a lot of down votes. I always assumed it was people invested in his stocks doing it on their own, but his antics on Twitter show he's the kind of person that might actually employ people to down vote people critical of him and his companies.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

JacobThreeThree 4y ago

If you're going to make a claim like "Hacker News X", can you please provide some evidence for this in the form of links to HN comments?

sk0g 4y ago

In true HN spirit, I've seen people critical (with good reason IMO) of every promise or goal he has announced. Now, some subset of people will be for and against anything, so if you filter selectively HN supports any and ever narrative.

wpietri 4y ago

I saw somebody call Musk "Phony Stark", and that seems to me a pithy summary of the cognitive biases going on here. This place is a magnet for would-be world-changing tech geniuses. Musk's level of technical skill is in dispute, but he's been incredibly good at hyping himself as Thomas Edison 2.0, and has been very effective in using that to attract cheap capital for gee-whiz projects. I get why he got the benefit of the doubt here. But the Twitter acquisition has blown some big holes in the myth. He talked a good game about free speech, but it was clear from his initial bid for Twitter that he didn't really understand the realities of the business or the difficulties of hosting speech at scale. And since he took over, he has stepped onto turf a lot of people here understand quite well: running a business, managing software development, and the dynamics of online forums and social media. And I expect this disillusionment will continue. Somebody described the Twitter acquisition as "fragile narcissist buys criticism factory", so I expect Musk will feel emotionally compelled to engage with Twitter personally, rather than doing the sensible thing and turning it over to somebody competent while turning his attention back to his at-risk car company. So look for more of him pursuing personal grudges and putting far-right political views (e.g. "The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters") into action with absolutely no regard to his pieties around free speech. In the US right, "free speech" is often code for "the powerful should never experience criticism or accountability". That may seem weird, but it's a specific instance of the more general point: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." Cross that with "free speech" and you get what Elon is doing: free speech for the right people, arbitrary deranking and account bans for the wrong.

seanw444 4y ago
> fragile narcissist buys criticism factory That's a succinct way to put it. I like that.
starkd 4y ago
He said from the very beginning that he would make mistakes. Anyone one person is going to be biased with decisions these decisions and is not going to make everyone happy all the time. The real test is whether he can establish systems that can patrol the speech, so that no one person is at fault. This takes time.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

We are not a monolith. I have many highly upvoted comments here pointing out that musks concept of free speech has always been half baked and would surely turn into “speech for me” once he’s actually running things.

ActorNightly 4y ago

Nobody "fell" for it. Musk is (self admittedly) on the autism spectrum, and his eccentric behavior in the past is well known, but his business ventures traditionally have been towards improving society, even if they are misdirected.

erlich 4y ago

Who is the group that is cheering for a future in which everyone's location is shared with the world at all times? I would argue there is not a single one. If someone can explain how this is damaging to freedom of speech I am very interested to know.