Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[PDH]

Background checking is more of an art than a science, it seems.

[DGuller]

Background checking is more of an art than a science, it seems.

I suspect it might also be part scam.

[Grey Fox]

Around here, engineer and engineers is a protected title. It's always a fun conversation to have with our immigrant workforce that they can't call themselves engineers legally without being part of the order.

[The Brain]

I don't know what Musk has claimed about his degrees, but it all seems like ancient history. If he has lied or not doesn't change much, he's not working as anything that requires a certain degree, and if he ever has then my impression is that it was a long time ago. Now lying about your degrees, if he has lied about them, indicates a lack of integrity. But we already know that Musk lacks integrity, based on all the crap stuff he has done openly (pedophilegate etc etc).

[Barrister]

Background checking is more of an art than a science, it seems.

I suspect it might also be part scam.

Background checking seems kind of classist to be honest.  You run checks on low-level employees, but someone applying for a high level job can be trusted.  That's why you see so many instances of academic fraud at academic institutions - they can't imagine that a fellow professor would falsify their CV.

I too have never been asked for proof of my education - though I guess by virtue of being a member of the Law Society they already know I do have a law degree.

Around here, engineer and engineers is a protected title. It's always a fun conversation to have with our immigrant workforce that they can't call themselves engineers legally without being part of the order.

Yeah someone calling themselves a lawyer who is not a member of the Law Society would find themselves prosecuted pretty quickly.

[DGuller]

I think in all the companies I worked at, background check is just part of the hiring process, period.  It wouldn't surprise me though that in the Wild West of startups, the process is less formal.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My grandfather was an engineer and never went to college. He just studied for the engineering exams through correspondence courses and passed them in an era you didn't a college degree to sit for them. He worked for the Florida road department for a time as an engineer on bridges around the state (he retired leading the safety division).

Hey! I had a grandfather with the exact same storyline, he started work cleaning tanks at a chemical plant out of high school and was a chemical engineer by the time WWII broke out. But note that as I mentioned, times change. The more established engineering disciplines (like ChemE) that is simply not possible today. With all the complex regulations, liabilities etc involved, no one would trust a smart guy willing to learn on the job at a chemical plant to go from being one of the blue collar workers to one of the engineers.

But I think you and Berkut know that, and of course are just finding ways to defend Musk. That's fine--just admit you are Muskies, that's your thing you like and you should embrace it, no reason to be ashamed of it.

I don't know what Musk has claimed about his degrees, but it all seems like ancient history. If he has lied or not doesn't change much, he's not working as anything that requires a certain degree, and if he ever has then my impression is that it was a long time ago. Now lying about your degrees, if he has lied about them, indicates a lack of integrity. But we already know that Musk lacks integrity, based on all the crap stuff he has done openly (pedophilegate etc etc).

As I already mentioned--if it was ancient history very few people would probably have anything to say about it. Mind you our current President in the United States some 30+ years ago got caught lying about his academic career. Interestingly so did his immediate predecessor--Trump claimed to have graduated "top of his class" which he did not.

I think it would be fair to ding Biden if he was still saying in the 2020s that he had the academic achievements he was caught lying about in the 1980s, because it would speak to his character.

Likewise when Musk goes onto the world's most listened to podcast and lies about his background and aptitudes, it must mean it's something Musk cares enough to lie about, and it is unlikely that he considers it unimportant.

No bullshit - I was simply stating that someone who does engineering work is an engineer, and I have people who work for me who are software engineers who do not have software engineering degrees. 

My point is simply that someone's job is not dependent on the degree they got, and like I said, a physics degree is not an engineering degree anyway - so how he doesn't have a physics degree seems quite irrelevant. So calling that "bullshit" seems rather obviously personal and misguided. Why?

Here's the thing--no matter what shitty Musk behavior people point out, with sourcing, you find reasons to say it isn't a big deal. Just admit you're a Muskie, admit you like him conning you, you think SpaceX and Tesla are really cool and you just aren't interested in hearing anything that suggests Musk is anything other than a really cool, awesome dude. That would be far more intellectually honest than the absolute bullshit you're spewing here, over literally dozens of posts, trying to say "oh I don't like Musk either, but here's yet another shitty and stupid argument about why X bad thing he's done isn't bad at all and you're just being irrational if you think it is." Please. Just put on your Team Musk hat and stand proud, we're all way too old for fake arguments.

"I am an engineer" is not the same claim as "I have a degree in engineering". You can be an engineer without having an engineering degree, just like you can be an accountant without having an accounting degree. It's a job, not a credential. There are very, very few jobs were the title implies the certainty of a degree, and the insanely broad category of "engineer" is not one of them.

Except you actually can't really be an engineer in aerospace or automotive without training. The fact you brought up software engineering--a discipline with lots of self-teaching in part because it is a newer field, is dishonest. Please point me to any car company or aerospace firm that hires mechanical or aerospace engineers who are college dropouts with no engineering experience or education.

Apparently Musk has never done any coding, or anything like engineering, and his entire skill set is simply that he is good at conning other incredibly smart people into giving him billions and billions of dollars.

Do you really think Musk was involved in engineering Tesla or SpaceX rockets? At least with Tesla there's tons of evidence he was not directly involved, because there have been lots of articles, lawsuits etc involving the founding and development of Tesla cars. You seem to suggest you work in some kind of technical field, so I'd hope you would know that a management type (c-level management no less) making high level approvals to the strategies of the engineering team is not actually the same thing as doing engineering work. It's the difference between 1995 Bill Gates, who literally never touched a line of code, and 1975 Bill Gates who was a person who spent much of his time computer programming.

As far as we know the only direct technical work Musk has ever done was when he started his first company--GlobalLink, he was doing the computer programming work for that company over the 8 months it was an independent entity, self-taught. Mind you that wasn't unusual in the mid-1990s as probably the majority of computer programmers at that time were self-taught. It also is wholly irrelevant to any kind of software development any of Musk's companies are involved in in 2022--30 years later. Especially if he has not maintained any hands on coding experience in that 30 year interim to maintain his skills and update his knowledge.

Note that Musk has literally been fact checked in the past on technical claims, specific computer programming and engineering claims about how things work as talking out of his ass. It's like just the other day he made a claim that Twitter was doing x thousands of Remote Procedure Calls and an actual Twitter software engineer chimed in that Twitter actually doesn't make RPCs at all (and was fired for it.) The dude is a businessman who thinks he's something else, and because you're in love with him and a giant Muskie mark you love him too. That's fine, just quite being a lying shill bitch about it.

[garbon]

My great great grandfather studied electrical engineering as part of the girst graduating class at hist University. I don't actually know what he went on to do as a job.

[The Brain]

As I already mentioned--if it was ancient history very few people would probably have anything to say about it. Mind you our current President in the United States some 30+ years ago got caught lying about his academic career. Interestingly so did his immediate predecessor--Trump claimed to have graduated "top of his class" which he did not.

I think it would be fair to ding Biden if he was still saying in the 2020s that he had the academic achievements he was caught lying about in the 1980s, because it would speak to his character.

Likewise when Musk goes onto the world's most listened to podcast and lies about his background and aptitudes, it must mean it's something Musk cares enough to lie about, and it is unlikely that he considers it unimportant.

I don't think Biden is a known no-integrity liar like Trump or Musk.

Musk thinks all kinds of stuff is important that I don't give two shits about.

[Razgovory]

My great-grandfather was an engineer.  He drove a train.

[Syt]

Old Trump tweet vs. Musk yesterday.

[The Larch]

WTH is the second one?

[alfred russel]

Hey! I had a grandfather with the exact same storyline, he started work cleaning tanks at a chemical plant out of high school and was a chemical engineer by the time WWII broke out. But note that as I mentioned, times change. The more established engineering disciplines (like ChemE) that is simply not possible today. With all the complex regulations, liabilities etc involved, no one would trust a smart guy willing to learn on the job at a chemical plant to go from being one of the blue collar workers to one of the engineers.

But I think you and Berkut know that, and of course are just finding ways to defend Musk. That's fine--just admit you are Muskies, that's your thing you like and you should embrace it, no reason to be ashamed of it.

I'm not a muskie.

[HVC]

How dare you disparage a noble fish. Call them elonites. On the plus side has a more cultish ring to it.

[Barrister]

How dare you disparage a noble fish. Call them elonites. On the plus side has a more cultish ring to it.

Am I the only one who associates "Muskie" with one-time Democratic frontrunner in the 1972 Primaries, Ed Muskie?

Anyone?