9 ms·

The proto-fascism of Elon Musk

77 points by jlpcsl 3y ago

gambiting 3y ago
Musk has fallen off the rails completely in recent years. I guess being constantly told that you are the smartest man alive over and over does that to a man. He is genuienly embracing some fascist ideas lately though, and that's worrying because he is a global celebrity with a huge following, not some drunkard in a pub that no one listens to.
- sschueller 3y ago
  Recent years? He hasn't changed, just the general public perception of him has.
  - rich_sasha 3y ago
    My impression is that he is certainly holding back less. He is certainly less cancellable than ever, owning Twitter and ingrained with the US government via SpaceX, so I suppose perhaps he feels he can now afford to be bold.
  - caeril 3y ago
    Indeed, watching Hacker News go from a nearly unanimous Musk Cheerleading Squad to the precise diametric opposite of that -- literally in the course of one month -- because he didn't echo CIA talking points about Ukraine was hilarious to watch.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      There's already been plenty of detractors, especially around the "full self driving" system. The big shift seems to have come more from when he made a very public ass of himself with the Twitter acquisition and subsequent clear hypocrisy on free speech issues.
    - Zigurd 3y ago
      I used to be an admirer if not exactly a stan. I was an optimist that pushing FSD would result in safer roads. I liked the cheeky touches like a virtual whoopie cushion. Many tech bros are small-l libertarian without being asses about it. Who doesn't want regulation to be simple and government to be non-interventionist where there is no benefit? Russia started a land war in Europe and Elon is an appeaser from the start. Not cool. The magnitude of Russia's aggression, and the extent to which it would have grown if appeased threatened to create a global conflict. From there, Elon went on a weird red pill journey, boosting racists and outright Nazis with replies on Twitter that made him impossible to excuse. The CIA is not the source of Elon's problems. He's got a screw loose.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      It's been way longer than a month, I stopped respecting him around the time when he kept pushing the idiotic self driving system in Teslas when it was already obvious that it's nothing more than a scam designed to extract your money. It was only downhill from there.
      - caeril 3y ago
        Sure. There were a few people, perhaps you, who tried pointing out how he was a charlatan, how Tesla's profits were wholly due to carbon credit sales and the core business was a disaster, how he rarely delivered on his insane promises, how the new Roadster, the Cybertruck, and the Semi were vaporware, how there was nothing revolutionary about SpaceX reusable boosters etc, who were roundly and consistently downvoted because the HN zeitgeist was to huff Elon's farts. Literally one month after his infamous Ukraine tweet, it was completely reversed. My comment really isn't even about Musk, it's about HN. HN doesn't care about facts or rational arguments, despite the relatively high IQ here. It's politics, and always has been. And this abrupt change demonstrated that quite well.
    - r00fus 3y ago
      It's not his position on Ukraine/Russia that's worrying. It's his retweeting of known white-nationalist content pretending it's not. It's his complete faceplant of "free speech maximalism" and numerous public moves that prove he's the exact opposite (latest being his currying favor with Erdogan by hiding his opponents tweets during voting hours). In short, it's him shredding his image and principles (even if that was a cover) that gave him any legitimacy in public discourse. I have to admit, I used to stan.
- systemvoltage 3y ago
  Have you wondered maybe the whole world is where it was and you’re veering off into an area of belief system that makes you think everyone else is Fascist?
  - foldr 3y ago
    Not really. The article documents his recent activity on twitter where he’s been promoting far right conspiracy theories.
    - systemvoltage 3y ago
      Remember when Covid lab theory was a “far right conspiracy”? Most of the conspiracies have just been a difference of opinion. And then they’re labeled in a gas lighting contest of political cultural war. HN was so hung up on Science(tm), that everyone was flagged suggesting even a hint of it in 2020. Then the entire thing mob made a U turn in 2021. Hell, I remember my comments were flagged for a mere suggestion of inflation when the dominant narrative was “transitory”. What an epic failure of a forum that’s suppose to espouse and foster difference of opinion.
      - foldr 3y ago
        Do you think the Texas shooting was a psyop? Or do you think that’s a nutty conspiracy theory?
      - cassepipe 3y ago
        To be fair, it's because of the HN front page that I have read about the possibility and credibility of a lab leak. A very well argued science based article with a reasonable timeline and explanation that allowed to me to know about a position made unhearable elsewhere. Broad statements on the "HN crowd" don't make much sense to me. It's the internet and there's much more diversity than most other subgroups, get used to it.
        systemvoltage 3y ago
- nerdchum 3y ago
  Can you provide any sources? Or is this just an emotion driven as hominem attack on him?
  - youngNed 3y ago
    Can you read the article?
    - nerdchum 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - gambiting 3y ago
        >>the article itself is an emotion driven ad hominem attack on Musk. How so? Please explain. >>you should look at yourself. What was it about ad hominem?
        nerdchum 3y ago
        would you say that article is fair to Elon? does it present numerous sides and possibilities for why Elon does the things that the article is attacking him for? Or does the article present a singular interpretation for Elon's behavior?
        gambiting 3y ago
        >>would you say that article is fair to Elon? So if you're describing someone's fascist behaviour, you now need to be fair to them? I'm sorry I didn't realize we have to find and explain the reasoning for someone's insane conspiracy theories - I guess next time Musk tweets that the moon landing was fake or some other crap, we'll have to find a reason why he thinks that, before being able to point out how stupid that is? >>does it present numerous sides and possibilities for why Elon does the things that the article is attacking him for? I'm really struggling to see how any of this is an attack. Is describing Erdogan's totalitarian practices also an attack on him? Or is it just when you don't preempt the article with a whole story as to why Erdogan behaves the way he does? >>Or does the article present a singular interpretation for Elon's behavior? Sure, it does. Like with any other article, you can read it and come up with a different conclusion, this is what the comments section is actually for. What isn't helpful is coming here and saying the whole article is an attack so should be dismissed - ok, cool, if you think Musk's general behaviour isn't leaning toward fascism lately then please explain why you think so, again, that's why we're here - to discuss.
- BobTheDestroyer 3y ago
  [dead]
- pupppet 3y ago
  He’s living proof no one is safe from being pulled into social media’s black hole of idiocy.
- hn2017 3y ago
  He has started embracing white supremacists, far right politicians and even qanon conspiracy theories. it's a terrifying and dangerous situation for something as influential as social media (as if it wasn't bad enough)
jruohonen 3y ago
"Bellingcat is hated by the far left and far right." Note that this claim mostly applies to the US and its loonies.
- orwin 3y ago
  'far-left' in the US mean tankies, and while some of them are anti-republican (not political party), the majority is not, so it would not be classed as far-left. And even those who are anti-republic want to go to a previous state, which is quite different from usual far-left who wants to go beyond republicanism, towards a libertarian commune (libertarian in the sense of anarchism/plateformism). I just realized that US politics captured a lot of political words that used to have a meaning, and changed that.
  - jruohonen 3y ago
    Yes, it is getting ever more challenging for trying to understand US politics, particularly at the fringes. Note that we have loonies too, sure, and what is interesting is that they pick their garbage mostly from US loonies, but this garbage does not fit well into the local settings, so that the result is often even crazier.
    - Zigurd 3y ago
      US cultural influence is enormous and there's no hiding from it. That means we export our right wing lunacy. You can see the influence in, for example, right wing gun fetishism even in places with strict gun laws. The US bears responsibility to not let so much of our pollution float into other countries.
nerdchum 3y ago
[flagged]
- romski 3y ago
  We don’t need to be “influenced by media” the tweets are there for everyone to see.
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    What tweets are you referring exactly? If youre not basing your argument off of sources that means you're influenced most likely by propaganda.
    - carabiner 3y ago
      You and the article author sound similar actually, just at different poles. Author doesn't bring up much other than saying that Musk isn't hardcore leftist and is kind of mean, therefore he's a nazi. You are along the same lines, that "with us or against us" attitude characteristic of extremely online types.
      - nerdchum 3y ago
        no I'm really saying if someone intensely dislikes Elon it's a good way to identify someone who is influenced by propaganda instead of reality
- tlegraph 3y ago
  He angered me by his tweeter posts. It's clear that he is under right wing influence. Things like attack on Belling cat, anti ukraine position, his constant endorsing of right wing people on twitter by replying them with one ward messages. It's clear that he is trying to push right wing views, and it's richest man on the Earth. You have you average right wing idiot as a most powerful buiseness man, It's fucked up situation.
  - 3y ago
ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
The article quotes Sartre: "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies". Slavoj Žižek's point is better however: even if all the things anti-Semites say are true (Jews control the banks, the movies, whatever), the anti-Semitic fixation is still pathological: they need this fixation in order to assert their own identity [1]. [1] Žižek repeats this point across interviews, as he often does, most recently, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkVoPljJiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkVoPljJiM
roenxi 3y ago
I don't mind people calling Musk names, but I dislike this because there is no sense of proportion. Musk isn't a unique evil, or even an unusual evil. Anyone wealthy enough to own their own PR firm deserves the same level of scepticism. The more power someone has, the more they do, the easier it is to write an article being nasty about them. The solution isn't to focus on Musk, it is to preserve systems that distribute power and reduces the damage any one person can do. But it is common to learn the wrong lesson, and respond to Musk by trying to create an even more powerful body (usually in the government) to "protect" people - which then doesn't protect anyone when the situation is analysed holistically and usually has a raft of second order effects that kills off any real chance for the situation to improve.
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  Very few people are “uniquely evil”, and even then, those folks tend to do very same things, albeit sometimes on a difference of scale determined by their resources they had at the time.
joduplessis 3y ago
Personally, I admire Musk for just getting out there and doing shit. Yes - he has a lot of money, but every other stupid-mega-rich person also has a lot of money. What I don't get, like with this article, is this weird obsession a lot of people seem to have with him - either thinking he is the messiah or a super villain.
areoform 3y ago
I'd like people to remember another quote, this one from Voltaire; > You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is injust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God‐ given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God‐ given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes which have overrun the world. It's why I genuinely believing in rancid conspiracy theories is dangerous. It's the prelude for what comes next. People start out at conspiracies hating some sub-group. They end up at the "Jewish question," or their cultural equivalent. Reason and reason alone is what protects us from the insanity that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time.
- Pyrobyte 3y ago
  True, very nice quote. Thanks a lot.
- ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
  "Reason and reason alone", it's a bit more complex than that, unfortunately. From Voltaire, Descartes (Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée [1], "Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for everyone is convinced that they are well supplied with it, and even those who are the most difficult to please in everything else are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they have."), and others, Enlightenment has risen. And there is a rather pertinent critique of enlightenment, as in the Dialectic of Enlightenment [2] by Adorno and Horkheimer. For them, the Nazis also think they must purify the race because it's the most rational thing to do, even if they view as the best leader a brown-haired, weakly-mustached, average height methamphetamine abuser. [1] "Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose, n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont.", 1637, Descartes, Discours de la Méthode; the French, only their guillotines are sharper than their words. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic_of_Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic_of_Enlightenment
reuben_scratton 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- orwin 3y ago
  I mean, a swastika and SS tattoo seems enough?
  - HKH2 3y ago
    You would think so, but I was told that doesn't make someone a Nazi in Ukraine.
- foldr 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Mexicanist_Action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Mexicanist_Act... > Operating under the motto of "Mexico for Mexicans", the organization called for the expulsion of Jews and Chinese from Mexico. > […] The organization received financial support from the Nazi Party of Nazi Germany, from the National Fascist Party of Italy, and from Mexican industrialists such as Eugenio Garza Sada.
davidguetta 3y ago
Was not the point of musk that there was no actual proof he was a nazi / white supremacy at that time and that a single report form a source which is extremely left wing to take with a grain of salt ? In some way I've always found it made no sense to take pathological people such as lone shooters, or even ISIS/"islamic" terror attack in europe and trying to make political analysis from this. It just doesn't make sense to me and I feel that people who do it are kinda manipulating events to advance their agenda or generation media attention. "Another crazy person shoot some people" is sure less catchy but maybe more true ? Not trying to defend musk, I'm 100% out of the loop and didn't even read his tweets, only trying to find another explanation that "he's a fascist" or "he's dumb"
- epakai 3y ago
  It's become a pattern of behavior with Musk to sow doubt this way. To me he doesn't just come off as a good steward. He's obviously aware of the ability of his tweets to direct a spotlight on things, and his bent becomes apparent after you watch him do it repeatedly. Sometimes it's random Doge pushes and TSLA rallies, other times it's used to direct his massive audience toward particular conclusions, but with some plausible deniability thrown in.
- aa_is_op 3y ago
  There you go: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/16/23726310/elon-musk-defends-texas-shooter-bellingcat https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/16/23726310/elon-musk-defend... Musk defending an actual Nazi. As an advice, if you're "out of the loop," maybe not try to defend a person everyone says has become a fascist sociopath. Unless you are very well in the loop, but the loop of casting doubt on all these accusations as the "far-left" going crazy, which I guarantee is certainly not happening.
  - davidguetta 3y ago
    Well not "everyone" says he is a fascist sociopath precisely and there are so many hyperboles thrown at each other in american political parties that doubt is nothing but sane. And I also stand by my other point, that calling a tatooed redneck with mental illness "white supremacist" as if he was a normal member of a political movement is maybe not the best apporach (and I say the same for "islamic" attacks). edit: Also i'm confused where he's "defending" the guy
mvellandi 3y ago
The more interesting conversation is about outspoken individuals with wealth, sustaining power, massive communication reach, and what ethical behavior responsibilities they have.
orwin 3y ago
The author is right on at least one point, we do not really have fascism in the west right now, it's only protofascism. Even the Italian 'postfascism' is in fact proto-fascism. Its quite easy to notice if you read enough political books of the early 20th century, and compare them to current day nationalists/supremacists. They don't have finished ideas. They don't have much ideas at all to be honest. It's mostly stupidity without a plan or vision. Their books (not a lot of them tbh) are either plain and dumb rehash of 1930s books, or interesting rehash of 1890s ideas (hello Renaud Camus, if you want, I know other books you can leech of, send me a message!). I think they're just a tool to get political power.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  The American far right is mostly too illiterate to understand, much less formulate a coherent fascist outlook. So we get social engineering hobbyists manipulating Christian White Nationalists to blindly, if incoherently, support fascism in return for support on taking the bodily autonomy of women, for example. This is an issue of very limited value to fascists except by way of coalition building.
  - orwin 3y ago
    Yes, I wrote a paragraph on that, but I removed it at it was caustic and a bit insensitive, but to me, this neo-fascism in the west and in the USA in particular have no aim, doesn't really change policy, and in general have no agency. At the most, its kind of the useful idiot of this weird Christo-conservatism.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That's interesting. It sees the beast and that the beast has no direction. But that could change at the drop of a hat and then suddenly you go from 'no problem' to 'lots of problems'.
drcongo 3y ago
Shame this has been flagged. I wonder what kind of person would flag this.
- dang 3y ago
  Probably some of the flaggers are tired of ideological flamebait and celebrity flamewar, which are both off topic here—especially when a theme has been done to death as much as this one has. Curiosity withers under repetition and fries under indignation. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
Voting to un-flag this one.
- aa_is_op 3y ago
  yeah, every time a topic exposing right-wing loonies in Silicon Valley is posted here, it gets insta-nuked... from a site owned by Graham, a known loonie himself
  - hn2017 3y ago
    Anything that can be done regarding this? Imagine if Paul Graham was defending a white supremacist murderer or spread anti-Semitic rhetoric or saying things were psyops conspiracies, would that be quickly outlawed and flagged here?
latchkey 3y ago
This post on Reddit always comes to mind when I think about Musk and what his wealth brings him. "What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?" https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/comment/cnnmca8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/comment/c...

77 points by jlpcsl 3y ago

Musk has fallen off the rails completely in recent years. I guess being constantly told that you are the smartest man alive over and over does that to a man. He is genuienly embracing some fascist ideas lately though, and that's worrying because he is a global celebrity with a huge following, not some drunkard in a pub that no one listens to.

sschueller 3y ago
Recent years? He hasn't changed, just the general public perception of him has.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  My impression is that he is certainly holding back less. He is certainly less cancellable than ever, owning Twitter and ingrained with the US government via SpaceX, so I suppose perhaps he feels he can now afford to be bold.
- caeril 3y ago
  Indeed, watching Hacker News go from a nearly unanimous Musk Cheerleading Squad to the precise diametric opposite of that -- literally in the course of one month -- because he didn't echo CIA talking points about Ukraine was hilarious to watch.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    There's already been plenty of detractors, especially around the "full self driving" system. The big shift seems to have come more from when he made a very public ass of himself with the Twitter acquisition and subsequent clear hypocrisy on free speech issues.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    I used to be an admirer if not exactly a stan. I was an optimist that pushing FSD would result in safer roads. I liked the cheeky touches like a virtual whoopie cushion. Many tech bros are small-l libertarian without being asses about it. Who doesn't want regulation to be simple and government to be non-interventionist where there is no benefit? Russia started a land war in Europe and Elon is an appeaser from the start. Not cool. The magnitude of Russia's aggression, and the extent to which it would have grown if appeased threatened to create a global conflict. From there, Elon went on a weird red pill journey, boosting racists and outright Nazis with replies on Twitter that made him impossible to excuse. The CIA is not the source of Elon's problems. He's got a screw loose.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    It's been way longer than a month, I stopped respecting him around the time when he kept pushing the idiotic self driving system in Teslas when it was already obvious that it's nothing more than a scam designed to extract your money. It was only downhill from there.
    - caeril 3y ago
      Sure. There were a few people, perhaps you, who tried pointing out how he was a charlatan, how Tesla's profits were wholly due to carbon credit sales and the core business was a disaster, how he rarely delivered on his insane promises, how the new Roadster, the Cybertruck, and the Semi were vaporware, how there was nothing revolutionary about SpaceX reusable boosters etc, who were roundly and consistently downvoted because the HN zeitgeist was to huff Elon's farts. Literally one month after his infamous Ukraine tweet, it was completely reversed. My comment really isn't even about Musk, it's about HN. HN doesn't care about facts or rational arguments, despite the relatively high IQ here. It's politics, and always has been. And this abrupt change demonstrated that quite well.
  - r00fus 3y ago
    It's not his position on Ukraine/Russia that's worrying. It's his retweeting of known white-nationalist content pretending it's not. It's his complete faceplant of "free speech maximalism" and numerous public moves that prove he's the exact opposite (latest being his currying favor with Erdogan by hiding his opponents tweets during voting hours). In short, it's him shredding his image and principles (even if that was a cover) that gave him any legitimacy in public discourse. I have to admit, I used to stan.
systemvoltage 3y ago
Have you wondered maybe the whole world is where it was and you’re veering off into an area of belief system that makes you think everyone else is Fascist?
- foldr 3y ago
  Not really. The article documents his recent activity on twitter where he’s been promoting far right conspiracy theories.
  - systemvoltage 3y ago
    Remember when Covid lab theory was a “far right conspiracy”? Most of the conspiracies have just been a difference of opinion. And then they’re labeled in a gas lighting contest of political cultural war. HN was so hung up on Science(tm), that everyone was flagged suggesting even a hint of it in 2020. Then the entire thing mob made a U turn in 2021. Hell, I remember my comments were flagged for a mere suggestion of inflation when the dominant narrative was “transitory”. What an epic failure of a forum that’s suppose to espouse and foster difference of opinion.
    - foldr 3y ago
      Do you think the Texas shooting was a psyop? Or do you think that’s a nutty conspiracy theory?
    - cassepipe 3y ago
      To be fair, it's because of the HN front page that I have read about the possibility and credibility of a lab leak. A very well argued science based article with a reasonable timeline and explanation that allowed to me to know about a position made unhearable elsewhere. Broad statements on the "HN crowd" don't make much sense to me. It's the internet and there's much more diversity than most other subgroups, get used to it.
      - systemvoltage 3y ago
nerdchum 3y ago
Can you provide any sources? Or is this just an emotion driven as hominem attack on him?
- youngNed 3y ago
  Can you read the article?
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - gambiting 3y ago
      >>the article itself is an emotion driven ad hominem attack on Musk. How so? Please explain. >>you should look at yourself. What was it about ad hominem?
      - nerdchum 3y ago
        would you say that article is fair to Elon? does it present numerous sides and possibilities for why Elon does the things that the article is attacking him for? Or does the article present a singular interpretation for Elon's behavior?
        gambiting 3y ago
        >>would you say that article is fair to Elon? So if you're describing someone's fascist behaviour, you now need to be fair to them? I'm sorry I didn't realize we have to find and explain the reasoning for someone's insane conspiracy theories - I guess next time Musk tweets that the moon landing was fake or some other crap, we'll have to find a reason why he thinks that, before being able to point out how stupid that is? >>does it present numerous sides and possibilities for why Elon does the things that the article is attacking him for? I'm really struggling to see how any of this is an attack. Is describing Erdogan's totalitarian practices also an attack on him? Or is it just when you don't preempt the article with a whole story as to why Erdogan behaves the way he does? >>Or does the article present a singular interpretation for Elon's behavior? Sure, it does. Like with any other article, you can read it and come up with a different conclusion, this is what the comments section is actually for. What isn't helpful is coming here and saying the whole article is an attack so should be dismissed - ok, cool, if you think Musk's general behaviour isn't leaning toward fascism lately then please explain why you think so, again, that's why we're here - to discuss.
BobTheDestroyer 3y ago
[dead]
pupppet 3y ago
He’s living proof no one is safe from being pulled into social media’s black hole of idiocy.
hn2017 3y ago
He has started embracing white supremacists, far right politicians and even qanon conspiracy theories. it's a terrifying and dangerous situation for something as influential as social media (as if it wasn't bad enough)

jruohonen 3y ago

"Bellingcat is hated by the far left and far right." Note that this claim mostly applies to the US and its loonies.

orwin 3y ago
'far-left' in the US mean tankies, and while some of them are anti-republican (not political party), the majority is not, so it would not be classed as far-left. And even those who are anti-republic want to go to a previous state, which is quite different from usual far-left who wants to go beyond republicanism, towards a libertarian commune (libertarian in the sense of anarchism/plateformism). I just realized that US politics captured a lot of political words that used to have a meaning, and changed that.
- jruohonen 3y ago
  Yes, it is getting ever more challenging for trying to understand US politics, particularly at the fringes. Note that we have loonies too, sure, and what is interesting is that they pick their garbage mostly from US loonies, but this garbage does not fit well into the local settings, so that the result is often even crazier.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    US cultural influence is enormous and there's no hiding from it. That means we export our right wing lunacy. You can see the influence in, for example, right wing gun fetishism even in places with strict gun laws. The US bears responsibility to not let so much of our pollution float into other countries.

nerdchum 3y ago

[flagged]

romski 3y ago
We don’t need to be “influenced by media” the tweets are there for everyone to see.
- nerdchum 3y ago
  What tweets are you referring exactly? If youre not basing your argument off of sources that means you're influenced most likely by propaganda.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    You and the article author sound similar actually, just at different poles. Author doesn't bring up much other than saying that Musk isn't hardcore leftist and is kind of mean, therefore he's a nazi. You are along the same lines, that "with us or against us" attitude characteristic of extremely online types.
    - nerdchum 3y ago
      no I'm really saying if someone intensely dislikes Elon it's a good way to identify someone who is influenced by propaganda instead of reality
tlegraph 3y ago
He angered me by his tweeter posts. It's clear that he is under right wing influence. Things like attack on Belling cat, anti ukraine position, his constant endorsing of right wing people on twitter by replying them with one ward messages. It's clear that he is trying to push right wing views, and it's richest man on the Earth. You have you average right wing idiot as a most powerful buiseness man, It's fucked up situation.
- 3y ago

ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago

The article quotes Sartre: "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies". Slavoj Žižek's point is better however: even if all the things anti-Semites say are true (Jews control the banks, the movies, whatever), the anti-Semitic fixation is still pathological: they need this fixation in order to assert their own identity [1]. [1] Žižek repeats this point across interviews, as he often does, most recently, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkVoPljJiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkVoPljJiM

roenxi 3y ago

I don't mind people calling Musk names, but I dislike this because there is no sense of proportion. Musk isn't a unique evil, or even an unusual evil. Anyone wealthy enough to own their own PR firm deserves the same level of scepticism. The more power someone has, the more they do, the easier it is to write an article being nasty about them. The solution isn't to focus on Musk, it is to preserve systems that distribute power and reduces the damage any one person can do. But it is common to learn the wrong lesson, and respond to Musk by trying to create an even more powerful body (usually in the government) to "protect" people - which then doesn't protect anyone when the situation is analysed holistically and usually has a raft of second order effects that kills off any real chance for the situation to improve.

jonathankoren 3y ago
Very few people are “uniquely evil”, and even then, those folks tend to do very same things, albeit sometimes on a difference of scale determined by their resources they had at the time.

joduplessis 3y ago

Personally, I admire Musk for just getting out there and doing shit. Yes - he has a lot of money, but every other stupid-mega-rich person also has a lot of money. What I don't get, like with this article, is this weird obsession a lot of people seem to have with him - either thinking he is the messiah or a super villain.

areoform 3y ago

I'd like people to remember another quote, this one from Voltaire; > You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is injust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God‐ given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God‐ given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes which have overrun the world. It's why I genuinely believing in rancid conspiracy theories is dangerous. It's the prelude for what comes next. People start out at conspiracies hating some sub-group. They end up at the "Jewish question," or their cultural equivalent. Reason and reason alone is what protects us from the insanity that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time.

Pyrobyte 3y ago
True, very nice quote. Thanks a lot.
ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
"Reason and reason alone", it's a bit more complex than that, unfortunately. From Voltaire, Descartes (Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée [1], "Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for everyone is convinced that they are well supplied with it, and even those who are the most difficult to please in everything else are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they have."), and others, Enlightenment has risen. And there is a rather pertinent critique of enlightenment, as in the Dialectic of Enlightenment [2] by Adorno and Horkheimer. For them, the Nazis also think they must purify the race because it's the most rational thing to do, even if they view as the best leader a brown-haired, weakly-mustached, average height methamphetamine abuser. [1] "Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose, n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont.", 1637, Descartes, Discours de la Méthode; the French, only their guillotines are sharper than their words. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic_of_Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic_of_Enlightenment

reuben_scratton 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
orwin 3y ago
I mean, a swastika and SS tattoo seems enough?
- HKH2 3y ago
  You would think so, but I was told that doesn't make someone a Nazi in Ukraine.
foldr 3y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Mexicanist_Action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Mexicanist_Act... > Operating under the motto of "Mexico for Mexicans", the organization called for the expulsion of Jews and Chinese from Mexico. > […] The organization received financial support from the Nazi Party of Nazi Germany, from the National Fascist Party of Italy, and from Mexican industrialists such as Eugenio Garza Sada.

davidguetta 3y ago

Was not the point of musk that there was no actual proof he was a nazi / white supremacy at that time and that a single report form a source which is extremely left wing to take with a grain of salt ? In some way I've always found it made no sense to take pathological people such as lone shooters, or even ISIS/"islamic" terror attack in europe and trying to make political analysis from this. It just doesn't make sense to me and I feel that people who do it are kinda manipulating events to advance their agenda or generation media attention. "Another crazy person shoot some people" is sure less catchy but maybe more true ? Not trying to defend musk, I'm 100% out of the loop and didn't even read his tweets, only trying to find another explanation that "he's a fascist" or "he's dumb"

epakai 3y ago
It's become a pattern of behavior with Musk to sow doubt this way. To me he doesn't just come off as a good steward. He's obviously aware of the ability of his tweets to direct a spotlight on things, and his bent becomes apparent after you watch him do it repeatedly. Sometimes it's random Doge pushes and TSLA rallies, other times it's used to direct his massive audience toward particular conclusions, but with some plausible deniability thrown in.
aa_is_op 3y ago
There you go: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/16/23726310/elon-musk-defends-texas-shooter-bellingcat https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/16/23726310/elon-musk-defend... Musk defending an actual Nazi. As an advice, if you're "out of the loop," maybe not try to defend a person everyone says has become a fascist sociopath. Unless you are very well in the loop, but the loop of casting doubt on all these accusations as the "far-left" going crazy, which I guarantee is certainly not happening.
- davidguetta 3y ago
  Well not "everyone" says he is a fascist sociopath precisely and there are so many hyperboles thrown at each other in american political parties that doubt is nothing but sane. And I also stand by my other point, that calling a tatooed redneck with mental illness "white supremacist" as if he was a normal member of a political movement is maybe not the best apporach (and I say the same for "islamic" attacks). edit: Also i'm confused where he's "defending" the guy

mvellandi 3y ago

The more interesting conversation is about outspoken individuals with wealth, sustaining power, massive communication reach, and what ethical behavior responsibilities they have.

orwin 3y ago

The author is right on at least one point, we do not really have fascism in the west right now, it's only protofascism. Even the Italian 'postfascism' is in fact proto-fascism. Its quite easy to notice if you read enough political books of the early 20th century, and compare them to current day nationalists/supremacists. They don't have finished ideas. They don't have much ideas at all to be honest. It's mostly stupidity without a plan or vision. Their books (not a lot of them tbh) are either plain and dumb rehash of 1930s books, or interesting rehash of 1890s ideas (hello Renaud Camus, if you want, I know other books you can leech of, send me a message!). I think they're just a tool to get political power.

Zigurd 3y ago
The American far right is mostly too illiterate to understand, much less formulate a coherent fascist outlook. So we get social engineering hobbyists manipulating Christian White Nationalists to blindly, if incoherently, support fascism in return for support on taking the bodily autonomy of women, for example. This is an issue of very limited value to fascists except by way of coalition building.
- orwin 3y ago
  Yes, I wrote a paragraph on that, but I removed it at it was caustic and a bit insensitive, but to me, this neo-fascism in the west and in the USA in particular have no aim, doesn't really change policy, and in general have no agency. At the most, its kind of the useful idiot of this weird Christo-conservatism.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's interesting. It sees the beast and that the beast has no direction. But that could change at the drop of a hat and then suddenly you go from 'no problem' to 'lots of problems'.

drcongo 3y ago

Shame this has been flagged. I wonder what kind of person would flag this.

dang 3y ago
Probably some of the flaggers are tired of ideological flamebait and celebrity flamewar, which are both off topic here—especially when a theme has been done to death as much as this one has. Curiosity withers under repetition and fries under indignation. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

DemocracyFTW2 3y ago

Voting to un-flag this one.

aa_is_op 3y ago
yeah, every time a topic exposing right-wing loonies in Silicon Valley is posted here, it gets insta-nuked... from a site owned by Graham, a known loonie himself
- hn2017 3y ago
  Anything that can be done regarding this? Imagine if Paul Graham was defending a white supremacist murderer or spread anti-Semitic rhetoric or saying things were psyops conspiracies, would that be quickly outlawed and flagged here?

latchkey 3y ago

This post on Reddit always comes to mind when I think about Musk and what his wealth brings him. "What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?" https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/comment/cnnmca8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/comment/c...