4 ms·

Elon has the superpower that makes it so that regardless of the question asked/answered, the audience is 40-40 "always believe" and "never believe", the rest be

by serf 3y ago

Elon has the superpower that makes it so that regardless of the question asked/answered, the audience is 40-40 "always believe" and "never believe", the rest being skeptics or 'don't cares'. This often works to his advantages; the 'always believe' are loud.

Eisenstein 3y ago
The thing is that almost everyone believed him until it became known that many times he either: 1. didn't know what he was talking about 2. was over-optimistic about timelines to the point that there would be very little difference if it were a lie 3. objectively lied on purpose in order to further self interests 4. exaggerated or over-promised more than could be attributed to salesmanship 5. flip-flopped and refused to acknowledge the change in stance 6. stated things entirely to be vindictive, and let the truth of the statements be irrelevant The problem isn't that people 'never believe', the problem is 'whatever is said should be suspect to the point that if it is actually true then that is entirely a side-effect of the statement and not the point of it'.
- brandonagr2 3y ago
  Everyone believed what? You seem to be unaware or Elon time or how Elon has made predictions in the past, generally not that "this will happen by date X" but that "this cannot possibly happen _before_ date X". Which are very different statements. There is a contingent of people who want to retcon any statement ever to paint Elon as a fraud, when reality is much too subtle for trivial blanket labels like you want to apply.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  It's been obvious that he's inclined to talk nonsense for a _long, long_ time, tho. At this point, there are shades of him being E Lon Hubbard to the remaining believers; for most of them it seems totally unshakeable. (Humanity was extremely fortunate that the existence of L Ron Hubbard and the existence of the Internet did not significantly overlap.)
superhumanuser 3y ago
My favorite time on Hacker News was reading all the quasi-fortune tellers and intellectuals say his $44B bid for Twitter was never going to go through, either through his withdrawal or being rejected by the board. They were so set in their hubris that the only debate was whether the SEC was going to sue him after the bid inevitably fell through.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > either through his withdrawal Which, as I recall, he tried but the courts said 'no'.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  they were actually saying he would try to back out of it, which he did, and also that he would fail to do so, which he did

by serf 3y ago

Eisenstein 3y ago

The thing is that almost everyone believed him until it became known that many times he either: 1. didn't know what he was talking about 2. was over-optimistic about timelines to the point that there would be very little difference if it were a lie 3. objectively lied on purpose in order to further self interests 4. exaggerated or over-promised more than could be attributed to salesmanship 5. flip-flopped and refused to acknowledge the change in stance 6. stated things entirely to be vindictive, and let the truth of the statements be irrelevant The problem isn't that people 'never believe', the problem is 'whatever is said should be suspect to the point that if it is actually true then that is entirely a side-effect of the statement and not the point of it'.

brandonagr2 3y ago
Everyone believed what? You seem to be unaware or Elon time or how Elon has made predictions in the past, generally not that "this will happen by date X" but that "this cannot possibly happen _before_ date X". Which are very different statements. There is a contingent of people who want to retcon any statement ever to paint Elon as a fraud, when reality is much too subtle for trivial blanket labels like you want to apply.
rsynnott 3y ago
It's been obvious that he's inclined to talk nonsense for a _long, long_ time, tho. At this point, there are shades of him being E Lon Hubbard to the remaining believers; for most of them it seems totally unshakeable. (Humanity was extremely fortunate that the existence of L Ron Hubbard and the existence of the Internet did not significantly overlap.)

superhumanuser 3y ago

My favorite time on Hacker News was reading all the quasi-fortune tellers and intellectuals say his $44B bid for Twitter was never going to go through, either through his withdrawal or being rejected by the board. They were so set in their hubris that the only debate was whether the SEC was going to sue him after the bid inevitably fell through.

bigbillheck 3y ago
> either through his withdrawal Which, as I recall, he tried but the courts said 'no'.
ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
they were actually saying he would try to back out of it, which he did, and also that he would fail to do so, which he did