5 ms·

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself. He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to w

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself. He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to work towards the goal of making humans a multiplanetary species, and he got into electric cars to work towards the goal of having a sustainable energy society. I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society, and if that threat isn’t addressed then the other goals don’t matter because society will collapse before they can be realized. From a near term business perspective his political actions are dumb, but from a personal motivation perspective they make total sense. Or in other words, Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex, not greed (which is unfortunate for investors).

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has, however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere. Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences of Elon Musk's deteriorating influence.
- jack_pp 2y ago
  What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism? Wokeism as it pertains to social media's discussion of the woke mind virus. Everyone has an opinion on it. But it's not of practical relevance to most people, certainly not most voters. Sort of like modern art.
    - jack_pp 2y ago
      Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans.
        jack_pp 2y ago
        I don't know man, I'm not even from the US and I meet a lot of people being concerned about wokeism being imported into our country, do you have any proof of your allegations?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot, especially by a particular core who gain money and influence from it. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans. It certainly doesn’t build one a national platform.
      - antonvs 2y ago
        It’s not an important topic, any more than any other moral panic.
- conradev 2y ago
  I do agree that he is hyper fixated on specific things like gender but – I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship. I don’t think that censorship has any place in a democracy, and I do think it is a problem we need to address. The executive branch asked Twitter to ban a NY Post story on the grounds that it was misinformation when it wasn’t. It was “malinformation”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation They didn’t correct the record, and Ro Khanna emailed Twitter to cut that shit out: https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-speech-concerns-over-hunter-biden-laptop-2022-12?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-... I really don’t like Elon, but I fear the previous Twitter censors more. Media is supposed to keep the government in check and not the other way around.
  - pavlov 2y ago
    Musk’s Twitter actively censors and promotes content based on the personal whims of the billionaire owner. Is that really better for democracy? The Twitter/X experiment seems to have primarily succeeded in demonstrating that nobody has good solutions for this problem, and just repeating words like “misinformation” and “free speech” doesn’t get us any closer to a solution. Props to Bluesky for trying something else, at least.
    - jokethrowaway 2y ago
      The opposite was true before Musk. Some friends have an ancap libertarian and they were targeted before. Woke content is not censored and you can find it on X, it's just that most left-wing people left for alternatives. I went to bluesky briefly and I was inundated by transgender explicit content. I didn't open it again.
      - pavlov 2y ago
        Musk censors mentions of his own daughter on X — the same person who he claimed was dead on a recent interview, but who is very much alive and posting on Threads. That kind of monarch-like behavior didn’t exist on Twitter before Musk. Their protocols for hiding and removing content may have been very flawed, but at least there was a process.
- jokethrowaway 2y ago
  The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime. The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids. I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves. Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Some countries in Eastern Europe actively opposes gender stuff (it is banned in education). I do not know why "gender" is being asked in the first place, it should be "sex", and that is biological. Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really? I can only think of two reasons: 1) Localised messages to and from the user. Not every language supports gender-neutral singular "you/they". 2) Demographic tracking e.g. for advertising: I've been given unskippable ads on YouTube for sanitary pads, and have forgotten which ad network presented me with one for dick pills.
      - johnisgood 2y ago
        Hmm, are you sure about the localized messages? They typically use 'you' instead of third-person pronouns like 'he' or 'she.'
        ben_w 2y ago
        85% sure: the claim here was that there are some languages where "you" itself comes in masculine and feminine forms. I'm told this applies to Hebrew and Arabic — אתה and את — but my ability to confirm this is limited to googling wiktionary. 85% is mainly how much I trust the sources: my experience has been kind of factoid is often true, but sometimes turns out to be "this source sounds like it means X, but actually it means Y" or worse "we made it up and you'll never check". That said, I ought to have written "I can only think of two *good* reasons", because the third reason is "whenever anyone makes a database of people, we automatically add gender without even thinking about it".
jdietrich 2y ago
I remember when the Toyota Prius was a potent symbol of everything that was wrong with smug liberals. Lazy comedians still use the Prius as a punchline. Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? Why don't right-wing conspiracy theorists consider Musk to be part of the "WHO/WEF globalist elite", despite the fact that he's a tech billionaire who is literally trying to plug people's brains into The Matrix and colonise space? By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan. Maybe he does really believe all of that stuff about "the woke mind virus", or maybe he realised that he can buy a priceless amount of political capital amongst people who would instinctively hate the goals of his project just by uttering the right incantations.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? When was the last time you were in a red state? Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement. > By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan Not how partisan affiliation works--think of someone who flip flops from one side to the other. They aren't seen as above the fray or non-partisan. Just unreliable (albeit, usually, useful).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - skrebbel 2y ago
    > Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement. This surprises me (I believe you though!). I've read lots of articles and fun facts lately about how places like Texas go fastest at installing solar panels, because solar is now the cheapest source of energy and all. I'd blatantly assume that those new solar field owners would be charging their cars with their own electricity, also purely for money reasons and not climate/ideological ones.
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
  Funny thing is that he is poisoning his own well by making leftwing people , who are much more likely to drive an EV, abhor him and Tesla. It’s not only happening in the US but has also started to happen in other countries like Australia.
FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
He believes the woke mind virus is a threat because he has a trans kid.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Yeah so much for supporting your children in their chosen life path :'( Imagine having to completely break contact with your own father because he hates who you are so much :'( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709
  - jokethrowaway 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - defrost 2y ago
      That's his description of events, as told to Jordan B. Peterson. "The child", now 20, responded that Musk was “cold,” “very quick to anger,” “narcissistic,” and described him as an absent father. and further said that her father’s comments had “crossed a line,” and she countered that he “knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment” when she was 16 ~ https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender... ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/business/media/elon-musk-daughter-interview-nbc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/business/media/elon-musk-... It's not so cut and dried as you make out, it's a heated issue with strong opinions on either side.
    - zoilel 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      That only works if you think transsexualism is a fad and people are talked into it. I don't agree and these treatments are not provided lightly.
  - deleted 2y ago
kelnos 2y ago
> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society The issue is that many people who feel this way (seemingly Musk included) swing to the other extreme and embrace policy positions that only serve to further support and entrench systemic racism. I'm not always comfortable with the methods and rhetoric of some social justice advocates, but I'm not going to present that as evidence that the movement they support is dangerous and we should strive for social injustice instead.
- valianteffort 2y ago
  [flagged]
janalsncm 2y ago
> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society If “woke” involves an understanding that media is mostly filtered through large corporations and crafts narratives used to serve the interests of the ruling class, I’m not surprised a billionaire owner of a media company would consider that a problem. Rather than identifying actual problems people are facing, media wastes our time with irrelevant distractions. Don’t worry about the opioid epidemic. Don’t worry about the fact that kids increasingly can’t even read after graduating high school. Don’t worry about corporate consolidation and monopolies. You should be worrying about “wokeism”.
lossolo 2y ago
> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society Musk blames 'wokeness' for his daughter rejecting him after he didn't accept who she was. His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue. He can't accept that he was rejected because of what he has done, so he needs someone else to blame and fight with. He bought X as his propaganda tool, he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions on society—he only wants to win. > Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex I don't think that's correct, it seems more likely that he was always driven by an inferiority complex.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  > His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue Extreme doubt. But that is probably the reason why he came out of the closet about his views. I think a lot of people have similar views to his, they just keep quiet. Because, well, look at what happens to you if you don’t.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has, however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere. Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences of Elon Musk's deteriorating influence.

jack_pp 2y ago
What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism? Wokeism as it pertains to social media's discussion of the woke mind virus. Everyone has an opinion on it. But it's not of practical relevance to most people, certainly not most voters. Sort of like modern art.
  - jack_pp 2y ago
    Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans.
      - jack_pp 2y ago
        I don't know man, I'm not even from the US and I meet a lot of people being concerned about wokeism being imported into our country, do you have any proof of your allegations?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot, especially by a particular core who gain money and influence from it. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans. It certainly doesn’t build one a national platform.
    - antonvs 2y ago
      It’s not an important topic, any more than any other moral panic.
conradev 2y ago
I do agree that he is hyper fixated on specific things like gender but – I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship. I don’t think that censorship has any place in a democracy, and I do think it is a problem we need to address. The executive branch asked Twitter to ban a NY Post story on the grounds that it was misinformation when it wasn’t. It was “malinformation”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation They didn’t correct the record, and Ro Khanna emailed Twitter to cut that shit out: https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-speech-concerns-over-hunter-biden-laptop-2022-12?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-... I really don’t like Elon, but I fear the previous Twitter censors more. Media is supposed to keep the government in check and not the other way around.
- pavlov 2y ago
  Musk’s Twitter actively censors and promotes content based on the personal whims of the billionaire owner. Is that really better for democracy? The Twitter/X experiment seems to have primarily succeeded in demonstrating that nobody has good solutions for this problem, and just repeating words like “misinformation” and “free speech” doesn’t get us any closer to a solution. Props to Bluesky for trying something else, at least.
  - jokethrowaway 2y ago
    The opposite was true before Musk. Some friends have an ancap libertarian and they were targeted before. Woke content is not censored and you can find it on X, it's just that most left-wing people left for alternatives. I went to bluesky briefly and I was inundated by transgender explicit content. I didn't open it again.
    - pavlov 2y ago
      Musk censors mentions of his own daughter on X — the same person who he claimed was dead on a recent interview, but who is very much alive and posting on Threads. That kind of monarch-like behavior didn’t exist on Twitter before Musk. Their protocols for hiding and removing content may have been very flawed, but at least there was a process.
jokethrowaway 2y ago
The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime. The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids. I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves. Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  Some countries in Eastern Europe actively opposes gender stuff (it is banned in education). I do not know why "gender" is being asked in the first place, it should be "sex", and that is biological. Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really? I can only think of two reasons: 1) Localised messages to and from the user. Not every language supports gender-neutral singular "you/they". 2) Demographic tracking e.g. for advertising: I've been given unskippable ads on YouTube for sanitary pads, and have forgotten which ad network presented me with one for dick pills.
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      Hmm, are you sure about the localized messages? They typically use 'you' instead of third-person pronouns like 'he' or 'she.'
      - ben_w 2y ago
        85% sure: the claim here was that there are some languages where "you" itself comes in masculine and feminine forms. I'm told this applies to Hebrew and Arabic — אתה and את — but my ability to confirm this is limited to googling wiktionary. 85% is mainly how much I trust the sources: my experience has been kind of factoid is often true, but sometimes turns out to be "this source sounds like it means X, but actually it means Y" or worse "we made it up and you'll never check". That said, I ought to have written "I can only think of two *good* reasons", because the third reason is "whenever anyone makes a database of people, we automatically add gender without even thinking about it".

jdietrich 2y ago

I remember when the Toyota Prius was a potent symbol of everything that was wrong with smug liberals. Lazy comedians still use the Prius as a punchline. Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? Why don't right-wing conspiracy theorists consider Musk to be part of the "WHO/WEF globalist elite", despite the fact that he's a tech billionaire who is literally trying to plug people's brains into The Matrix and colonise space? By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan. Maybe he does really believe all of that stuff about "the woke mind virus", or maybe he realised that he can buy a priceless amount of political capital amongst people who would instinctively hate the goals of his project just by uttering the right incantations.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? When was the last time you were in a red state? Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement. > By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan Not how partisan affiliation works--think of someone who flip flops from one side to the other. They aren't seen as above the fray or non-partisan. Just unreliable (albeit, usually, useful).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- skrebbel 2y ago
  > Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement. This surprises me (I believe you though!). I've read lots of articles and fun facts lately about how places like Texas go fastest at installing solar panels, because solar is now the cheapest source of energy and all. I'd blatantly assume that those new solar field owners would be charging their cars with their own electricity, also purely for money reasons and not climate/ideological ones.
FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
Funny thing is that he is poisoning his own well by making leftwing people , who are much more likely to drive an EV, abhor him and Tesla. It’s not only happening in the US but has also started to happen in other countries like Australia.

FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago

He believes the woke mind virus is a threat because he has a trans kid.

wkat4242 2y ago
Yeah so much for supporting your children in their chosen life path :'( Imagine having to completely break contact with your own father because he hates who you are so much :'( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709
- jokethrowaway 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 2y ago
    That's his description of events, as told to Jordan B. Peterson. "The child", now 20, responded that Musk was “cold,” “very quick to anger,” “narcissistic,” and described him as an absent father. and further said that her father’s comments had “crossed a line,” and she countered that he “knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment” when she was 16 ~ https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender... ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/business/media/elon-musk-daughter-interview-nbc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/business/media/elon-musk-... It's not so cut and dried as you make out, it's a heated issue with strong opinions on either side.
  - zoilel 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    That only works if you think transsexualism is a fad and people are talked into it. I don't agree and these treatments are not provided lightly.
- deleted 2y ago

kelnos 2y ago

> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society The issue is that many people who feel this way (seemingly Musk included) swing to the other extreme and embrace policy positions that only serve to further support and entrench systemic racism. I'm not always comfortable with the methods and rhetoric of some social justice advocates, but I'm not going to present that as evidence that the movement they support is dangerous and we should strive for social injustice instead.

valianteffort 2y ago
[flagged]

janalsncm 2y ago

> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society If “woke” involves an understanding that media is mostly filtered through large corporations and crafts narratives used to serve the interests of the ruling class, I’m not surprised a billionaire owner of a media company would consider that a problem. Rather than identifying actual problems people are facing, media wastes our time with irrelevant distractions. Don’t worry about the opioid epidemic. Don’t worry about the fact that kids increasingly can’t even read after graduating high school. Don’t worry about corporate consolidation and monopolies. You should be worrying about “wokeism”.

lossolo 2y ago

> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society Musk blames 'wokeness' for his daughter rejecting him after he didn't accept who she was. His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue. He can't accept that he was rejected because of what he has done, so he needs someone else to blame and fight with. He bought X as his propaganda tool, he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions on society—he only wants to win. > Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex I don't think that's correct, it seems more likely that he was always driven by an inferiority complex.

pfannkuchen 2y ago
> His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue Extreme doubt. But that is probably the reason why he came out of the closet about his views. I think a lot of people have similar views to his, they just keep quiet. Because, well, look at what happens to you if you don’t.