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Why do people always have to preface Elon praise with some initial criticism. The man has objectively created some incredible businesses.
by dsco 2y ago
Why do people always have to preface Elon praise with some initial criticism. The man has objectively created some incredible businesses.
- Wherecombinator 2y agoBecause he’s the worlds oldest 14 year old boy
- eitally 2y ago[flagged]
- azinman2 2y agoWith exceptionally more impact, both good (I’d say net good) and bad.
- WalterBright 2y agoWhat "exceptionally bad" things has he done? Has he killed anybody? Stolen candy from a baby? Framed somebody for a crime?
- ctack 2y agoAm sure you could make the argument that misleading FSD have killed a bunch of people.
- WalterBright 2y agoTesla's instructions say to keep one's hands on the wheel. (I don't have a Tesla so haven't read them myself.)
- azinman2 2y agoExceptional modified the quantity of impact, not the quality of good or bad.
- skybrian 2y agoBecause they want to be seen as a moderate rather than an uncritical fan. This happens for many online debates where extreme positions are common.
- yokoprime 2y agoBecause he is a complex human being with a very visible dark side and any praise of his achievements will make his terrible personality traits stain you like a soggy barf bag on an overnight flight
- sbuttgereit 2y agoBut you know... they're all complex. Even you are a complex human being... maybe not so visible as Elon Musk... but... so what? You know why people really do it? It has nothing to do with Elon Musk, but rather is a response to our own fears for our own social standing. We fear that if we say something good about a person that our social group has, in defiance of your complex human point, decided is "a bad guy" that we'll just as cavalierly be excluded or derided from that group. So when you acknowledge that complexity or something good that this "good for nothing" person has done, you have to start off with with virtual signaling: "oh this guy is terrible, but... ", (meaning "please see that I'm still one of you"). I find the whole act kinda craven, perhaps even moreso than a social group that demands it.
- edgyquant 2y agoThe hive mind has decided he’s bad, so you have to make sure everyone knows you hate him too otherwise you risk being ostracized as well
- lobsterthief 2y agoNah, I dislike him regardless of what the hive mind thinks.
- causality0 2y agoIt's very much a "religion of society". There is dogma, sins, shunning, confession, penance, blasphemy, heretics, etc. Just because it doesn't have a creation myth doesn't make it not religious.
- evilduck 2y agoA more gratuitous interpretation is that someone who does this is making an attempt to stave off the expected vapid replies that occur whenever you mention polarizing topics or people.
- marcusverus 2y ago[flagged]
- EricDeb 2y agoYes Musk broke the monopoly of leftists owning social media. Mark Zuckerburg of course being one of the most famous leftists /s
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jay-barronville 2y ago[flagged]
- kiba 2y agoHe has an extremely dark side that impedes him and everyone around him, regardless of the extraordinary success he experienced. That man need a therapist. The public hatred he has gotten is his making, ultimately.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y ago> He has an extremely dark side that impedes him and everyone around him, His dark side is out in the open for everyone to see. What you are saying is the people prefer someone who is apparently appears not have a dark side. IMO such people are just adept at camouflaging their dark side, politicians do it routinely. >That man need a therapist. Well, IMO it's mostly the public that needs therapists. Quote: It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti >The public hatred he has gotten is his making, ultimately. Agreed.
- diputsmonro 2y ago> you are saying is the people prefer someone who is apparently appears not have a dark side. IMO such people are just adept at camouflaging their dark side, politicians do it routinely. When this person owns one of the largest communication platforms on Earth and regularly spreads conspiracy theories, disinformation, and transphobia... yes, I would prefer they hide that. That rhetoric does real harm to people. Accusing someone of being a pedophile without evidence isn't something you just say "Well at least he's speaking his mind!" to. The richest man on Earth should be able to afford a therapist, or at least a PR firm. If his ego is preventing him from doing so, well, that's a fair thing to criticize.
- jay-barronville 2y ago[flagged]
- sumeno 2y agoHe's objectively ruined some incredible businesses as well
- WalterBright 2y agoLike what?
- sumeno 2y agoTesla and Twitter come to mind. Boring Company was always bad so I guess that doesn't count.
- WalterBright 2y agoHe created Tesla. Twitter is doing fine.
- sumeno 2y agoNeither of those statements are true
- WalterBright 2y agoTesla was a 6 month old company consisting of an office and a desk and a borrowed electric kit car, with no design, no money, no plan, no contracts. Then Musk came in with several million dollars and got it created in any real sense of the word. As for Twitter, what's your evidence that it isn't doing well? I use it regularly, and it works fine.
- rtpg 2y ago> The man has objectively created some incredible businesses Even this, you need to put asterisks on "created" because he spends so much time building out lies about the companies he runs/ran because the creation myth is so important. The amount of unforced errors behind his tenure at Paypal, a lot of it around trying to be taken as the guy who "made Paypal"... it's just very silly! And I think ultimately in a place like HN, where there are supposedly a lot of "builder" types, when you hear every Musk company say "yeah the way we stay productive is to keep Musk out of things...." everyone's natural bias against bullshitters kick in! I think it's hard to discount Tesla really pushing forward EVs. I think it's extremely easy to discount all of his other stuff if you're cynical (yes I include SpaceX in there, though it's easy for me because I think manned spaceflight, let alone "going to Mars", is extremely silly). But this stuff isn't really fungible...
- bboygravity 2y ago[flagged]
- cletus 2y agoElon literally cannot stop lying [1]. [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk...
- simondotau 2y agoThat's a weird article, because most of them don't even fit a reasonable person's definition of a "lie". The majority of them are overconfident predictions of the future, or differences of opinion between Musk and the author of this listicle. For a person who does and says so much in public, the notion that a "top ten" list of "lies" needed so much filler is, IMHO, a compelling case for the inverse assertion.
- haspok 2y agoLike when they faked the first Tesla self driving video, or when Musk boasted in 2017 (!!!) that they can drive the Semi in convoys so that it beats rail ("This is something we can do RIGHT NOW!"). Robotaxis that make the car appreciate, and not depreciate... etc. These are lies, but perhaps more importantly, should be considered fraud. To this day I don't understand how Musk can get away with all this... but hey, it's not my money (I'm not a US taxpayer).
- mschuster91 2y ago> The man has objectively created some incredible businesses. ... and since then called a rescue diver a pedo, got into quite the mess regarding his partnerships and offspring [1], burned dozens of billions of dollars in Twitter, seems to be doing the public customer service for a bunch of literal neo-Nazis on Twitter [2], and is apparently on a truckload of drugs on the regular [3]. It takes years to build up trust, but it's very easy to completely erode it in a few weeks. > Why do people always have to preface Elon praise with some initial criticism. Because otherwise, people might accuse one of being a Musk shill, and there's unfortunately quite a bunch of these, completely ignoring any of the countless issues with Musk. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Relationships_and_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Relationships_and_ch... [2] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2022/12/19/conspiracy-theorists-homophobes-neo-nazis-ten-accounts-that-embody-twitter-s-change-under-elon-musk_6008352_8.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2022/12/19/c... [3] https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1 https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e...
- peterfirefly 2y ago> apparently on a truckload of drugs on the regular He does remarkably well for someone on a truckload of drugs on the regular. Perhaps other CEOs should copy that? ;)
- randerson 2y agoNo doubt, but Tesla would not be where it is today without Musk's deceptive marketing, stock manipulation, disregard for labor laws, and just generally acting like he's above the law. One can admire the products he's had a hand in building without admiring the man himself. And the moment he got involved in politics it was inevitable that people would distance themselves from him.
- bhk 2y ago[flagged]
- tw04 2y agoBecause he’s an easy person to dislike. And he’s spent a lot of his career taking credit for other people’s work. He also has a section of people that are cult-like in their defense of him which adds fuel to the fire. “You’re jealous” or “you’re just angry he’s rich” or some other such nonsense seems to come out of the woodwork for anyone who has anything even slightly negative to say about him.
- shirro 2y agoI do it very deliberately and I think it is good practice. It ads nuance and balance to Internet discussions which often tend to be very polarised with people shouting at each other. In my view Musk is a very flawed person but that doesn't justify spreading misinformation about SpaceX's very real and important accomplishments. Crazed evangelism over SpaceX also doesn't negate Musk's troubling history of public statements and actions.
- WalterBright 2y ago> Musk's troubling history of public statements He says what he thinks. Unlike most public figures who filter everything through their PR person.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI’m not sure saying everything you think is necessarily a virtue.
- WalterBright 2y agoI didn't say it was a virtue. Nobody thinks virtuous thoughts all the time. But I do find Musk more engaging because the pablum coming through a PR firm is boring.
- melodyogonna 2y ago[flagged]
- meroes 2y agoAll this shows is his PR spin is being a 14 year old boy rather than a more wide appeal spin. And that it’s working on you
- melodyogonna 2y agoThere is no PR spin, there's just Elon saying whatever he thinks he should say, feelings of strangers on the internet notwithstanding.
- gfodor 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into generic flamewar. This subthread was noticeably even worse than its surroundings. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html