5 ms·

I find it odd to completely disavow someone because you don’t agree 100% with their politics. I mean Werner Von Braun was a Nazi party member and knowingly use

by refurb 9mo ago

I find it odd to completely disavow someone because you don’t agree 100% with their politics. I mean Werner Von Braun was a Nazi party member and knowingly used slave labor. Doesn’t make his rocketry advancements any less impressive. Or Charles Darwin’s views of superior races. Or Gandhi’s gray area views of pedophilia. I mean if you’re going to discounted every person with a view you find distasteful your list of people you admire is going to be blank. You may find Musk’s views distasteful but he’s had an enormous impact on EV’s, rocketry, hell space in general. I think it’s pretty awesome.

tick_tock_tick 9mo ago
Purity tests are extremely common in left wing politics in the USA.
- imtringued 9mo ago
  And the point of the purity test isn't to establish guilt. You're already declared guilty and the purity test is an attempt at finding or creating evidence of your guilt.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
  I wasn't aware that there is a left wing in USA politics. The view from an outsider is that you have extreme right-wing and a fascist right-wing.
rl3 9mo ago
>I find it odd to completely disavow someone because you don’t agree 100% with their politics. "politics": https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/ https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund... https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- refurb 9mo ago
  Those links are all political views. Beyond the veracity of those numbers, it is a political decision whether or not the US should be spending $150B on foreigners or Americans.
  - risingsubmarine 9mo ago
    The manner in which that decision is executed is very much a reflection of moral character.
    - refurb 9mo ago
      Whose morals? Yours? And from what I remember, we weren't supposed to force others to follow our morals.
      - rl3 9mo ago
        Unfortunately, fully understanding GP's comment requires one having a soul. This is also known as basic empathy in some circles.
  - rl3 9mo ago
    >Those links are all political views. Yes, Harvard and The Lancet are just wildly political. >Beyond the veracity of those numbers ... In addition to being incompetent slouches. Unfortunately, we can multiply any given figure by 0.01 and still get something that amounts to mass murder. >... it is a political decision whether or not the US should be spending $150B on foreigners or Americans. A proper political decision wouldn't have involved an abrupt rug pull on a bipartisan program that's been operating for the better part of a century. There's this thing called continuity that's usually taken very seriously. Especially when hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives are hanging in the balance.
abc123abc123 9mo ago
This is the nuanced view. In todays polarized world, it is sadly completely unacceptable. At least there are two of us now! ;)
ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
And Hitler painted some nice watercolours.
- dzhiurgis 9mo ago
  But the history is written by victors.
  - ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
    Glib answer, but it's usually historians.
ben_w 9mo ago
As a non-American, even the US Democratic party is waaaay to the right of my Overton Window. While the US is arguing about if the 2nd Amendment should be restricted in cases like "fully automatic weapons" or "people with felony convictions" etc., I'm from a nation where the police aren't routinely armed and don't want to be, not even with pistols. This doesn't mean I can't admire NASA, that I have to dismiss the Hoover Dam, that I think every act by Obama or Bush was heinous. Likewise, I can look at Falcon 9/Heavy, at the progress with Starship, and applaud. But. His "Paint is Black" video, and what he claimed about it, was a lie. He himself is pretty awful, and already fits amongst the others you list given the revealed preferences shown by Grok, and by his reactions to criticism of Grok's behaviour. The bonus-target market-cap of 8 trillion only makes sense with a very optimistic view of the AI Tesla's developing for both FSD and Optimus, and by "very optimistic" I mean "FSD turns them into a monopoly supplier of cars worldwide; or both FSD and Optimus together displace a significant fraction of the US low-skill jobs market while also getting a monopoly on industrial robots and a monopoly on cars in just the USA". It's the kind of thing I expect we'll be putting into history lessons next to Enron and Dutch Tulips, with laws passed to prevent whatever investigators find out to be the key mechanism behind it. Even with SpaceX, it's impressive, but not because it actually hits Musk's goals, rather because everyone else in space is "over optimistic" about their schedules even harder than Telsa is.
flowerthoughts 9mo ago
GP dislikes Must because s/he felt Musk duped them. What does that have to do with ad hominem? There's no objective argument to dislike; GP dislikes the way the objective arguments were put forth.
senordevnyc 9mo ago
I'm in the market for a car right now, and on paper, a Tesla makes the most sense. I won't be buying one. I'm happy to leave a little utility on the table just to avoid being associated in any way with Musk or his companies. Some might find that "odd", but I really don't care. I don't want to look down at my steering wheel and see the Tesla logo and have to justify to myself why it's OK that I gave my hard-earned money to someone who is actively working to destroy things I hold dear.

by refurb 9mo ago

tick_tock_tick 9mo ago

Purity tests are extremely common in left wing politics in the USA.

imtringued 9mo ago
And the point of the purity test isn't to establish guilt. You're already declared guilty and the purity test is an attempt at finding or creating evidence of your guilt.
ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
I wasn't aware that there is a left wing in USA politics. The view from an outsider is that you have extreme right-wing and a fascist right-wing.

rl3 9mo ago

>I find it odd to completely disavow someone because you don’t agree 100% with their politics. "politics": https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/ https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund... https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

refurb 9mo ago
Those links are all political views. Beyond the veracity of those numbers, it is a political decision whether or not the US should be spending $150B on foreigners or Americans.
- risingsubmarine 9mo ago
  The manner in which that decision is executed is very much a reflection of moral character.
  - refurb 9mo ago
    Whose morals? Yours? And from what I remember, we weren't supposed to force others to follow our morals.
    - rl3 9mo ago
      Unfortunately, fully understanding GP's comment requires one having a soul. This is also known as basic empathy in some circles.
- rl3 9mo ago
  >Those links are all political views. Yes, Harvard and The Lancet are just wildly political. >Beyond the veracity of those numbers ... In addition to being incompetent slouches. Unfortunately, we can multiply any given figure by 0.01 and still get something that amounts to mass murder. >... it is a political decision whether or not the US should be spending $150B on foreigners or Americans. A proper political decision wouldn't have involved an abrupt rug pull on a bipartisan program that's been operating for the better part of a century. There's this thing called continuity that's usually taken very seriously. Especially when hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives are hanging in the balance.

abc123abc123 9mo ago

This is the nuanced view. In todays polarized world, it is sadly completely unacceptable. At least there are two of us now! ;)

ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago

And Hitler painted some nice watercolours.

dzhiurgis 9mo ago
But the history is written by victors.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
  Glib answer, but it's usually historians.

ben_w 9mo ago

As a non-American, even the US Democratic party is waaaay to the right of my Overton Window. While the US is arguing about if the 2nd Amendment should be restricted in cases like "fully automatic weapons" or "people with felony convictions" etc., I'm from a nation where the police aren't routinely armed and don't want to be, not even with pistols. This doesn't mean I can't admire NASA, that I have to dismiss the Hoover Dam, that I think every act by Obama or Bush was heinous. Likewise, I can look at Falcon 9/Heavy, at the progress with Starship, and applaud. But. His "Paint is Black" video, and what he claimed about it, was a lie. He himself is pretty awful, and already fits amongst the others you list given the revealed preferences shown by Grok, and by his reactions to criticism of Grok's behaviour. The bonus-target market-cap of 8 trillion only makes sense with a very optimistic view of the AI Tesla's developing for both FSD and Optimus, and by "very optimistic" I mean "FSD turns them into a monopoly supplier of cars worldwide; or both FSD and Optimus together displace a significant fraction of the US low-skill jobs market while also getting a monopoly on industrial robots and a monopoly on cars in just the USA". It's the kind of thing I expect we'll be putting into history lessons next to Enron and Dutch Tulips, with laws passed to prevent whatever investigators find out to be the key mechanism behind it. Even with SpaceX, it's impressive, but not because it actually hits Musk's goals, rather because everyone else in space is "over optimistic" about their schedules even harder than Telsa is.

flowerthoughts 9mo ago

GP dislikes Must because s/he felt Musk duped them. What does that have to do with ad hominem? There's no objective argument to dislike; GP dislikes the way the objective arguments were put forth.

senordevnyc 9mo ago

I'm in the market for a car right now, and on paper, a Tesla makes the most sense. I won't be buying one. I'm happy to leave a little utility on the table just to avoid being associated in any way with Musk or his companies. Some might find that "odd", but I really don't care. I don't want to look down at my steering wheel and see the Tesla logo and have to justify to myself why it's OK that I gave my hard-earned money to someone who is actively working to destroy things I hold dear.