Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[frunk]

Guys, any guesstimates on the ETA of when you will arrive at an agreement?

Not before Musk has a coherent, actionable, broadly-communicated plan for Twitter's future.

I was going to say the heat death of the universe, but we might be talking about the same timeline.

[DGuller]

I was going to say the heat death of the universe, but we might be talking about the same timeline.

  I have to say, I just realized that the heat death of the universe has positive aspects to it.

[Legbiter]

Guys, any guesstimates on the ETA of when you will arrive at an agreement?

No idea. I guess they're going to continue using their supernatural clairvoyance to mind-read each other's evil, dark thoughts.

[grumbler]

Guys, any guesstimates on the ETA of when you will arrive at an agreement?

I hope not soon.  Watching OvB dancing the Weasel Dance is delicious.

[Zoupa]

Berkut, after reading this thread and with Musk's recent behaviour, do you still wish we had 50 of him?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I simply quote your actual words.

Repeatedly lying and saying I am saying things I have never said are not "quoting my words."

You were not quoting my words here:

I am glad you are admitting you lied about what I said,

The truth is you have defended Musk with bad takes and stupid comments. This shows that you are either a low intelligence person--which I had not previously thought, or you have serious intellectual blinders on due to being "in gaga" over Musk. Being a Muskie is the less terrible of the two, because with competent cognitive abilities you always have the possibility to improve.

I note that no one here has gone "ballistic" about your Musk arguments, I've only attacked you personally when you strayed into attacking my integrity by calling me a liar. What I have said is you find excuses or find ways to dissemble for Musk, which shows a pathetic little obsession with him. It seemed to upset your Musk-love when I posted the Twitter thread with well-sourced evidence of Musk's personal duplicity.

I certainly never expected linking to it would result in a multiple page digression. It was hard, fully verified evidence of Musk being a liar and a fraud--but relatively small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. It was just one of many critiques of him posted in the months this thread has been active. Inexplicably you chose this time to start arguing that it isn't a big deal for people to lie about their credentials or their technical competence over more than 15 years in multiple public interviews. Only you know why you chose to start a multiple page tangent on that badly thought out subject.

When called on it you threw a fit and started calling me a liar. Like I said, I now view you as a scumbag. I don't view you as wholly worthless like I do grumbler (who you may note I don't waste the time of response on), but I will remember in any future interactions you are a liar with no integrity, and are among some of the least reputable people on these forums and deserving of nothing but hostility and scorn.

[FunkMonk]

I'm going to post this thread on Twitter for Elon to read

[grumbler]

First Rule of Holes.

When you find yourself telling others what they think despite what they say they think, the hole is plenty deep enough.

Hey boomer, maybe you can focus more on joining the 21st century instead of posting weak ass insults. I know it was a shock to you earlier to find out undergrad business schools didn't operate the way they did back in the 1960s when you were in school, so maybe you should read up a bit on modern society before wasting your time with childish senile old man insults that seem to take up most of your time on these forums.

I don't view you as wholly worthless like I do grumbler (who you may note I don't waste the time of response on),

My bold.

[grumbler]

I'm going to post this thread on Twitter for Elon to read

He'll go "Woah!  Glad there's a place on the internet even more fucked up than Twitter!"

[Berkut]

Inexplicably you chose this time to start arguing that it isn't a big deal for people to lie about their credentials or their technical competence

You are lying again. I never made any such argument.

In fact, to the extent I said anything about his lying, I explicitly stated that that was indeed evidence of him being an asshole.

Just said that calling himself an engineer is not lying just because he doesn't have an engineering degree.

Why you decided that was just beyond the pale, I don't....oh wait, actually I do know. Or at least I have a pretty good idea.

[Jacob]

I'm going to post this thread on Twitter for Elon to read

Careful. He might buy languish and downsize us all.

[Grey Fox]

That be quite the negotiation between Musk and a former twitter employee.

[Berkut]

Berkut, after reading this thread and with Musk's recent behaviour, do you still wish we had 50 of him?

Well, maybe not 50 of him.

But I do wish we had more people who somehow manage to make profound, meaningful improvements in things like the cost of getting stuff into orbit. And if those people turn out to be contemptible assholes, I can live with that. It's not that I wish we had a bunch more assholes, it is that I wish we had a lot more innovative people who can drive change, and am willing to live with them being assholes if they are, rather then just passing on the innovation.

What I find interesting about your take is two things.

1. It seems like you liked Musk because of what you thought of the things he accomplished. OK. But then he started going all asshole like (he was actually always an asshole, BTW, it's just that nobody noticed), and now you don't just not like him, but you've decided his accomplishments are no longer accomplishments either. But there can be only two reasons for that conclusion:

A) You evaluated what he has done, and determined that he didn't actually do it. It was others, and he just took the credit. OK - if that is the case, then you should come to that conclusion regardless of whether or not he was an asshole. That is true regardless, right? Or

B) You are dismissing his accomplishments BECAUSE you've realized what an asshole he is - but that doesn't make sense either, unless you believe that assholes cannot accomplish things (which I guess is the OVB view? Not sure exactly). That goes back to my original point, that people are evaluating his accomplishments based on their emotional distaste for him as a person.

2. You said you think that Tesla would have happened without him, and that SpaceX would have happened without him. Again...ok. Not a ridiculous argument at all. But.....if he is not responsible for the success of Tesla and SpaceX, then is he responsible for the meltdown of Twitter? Again, it seems like there is some special pleading happening here. You can make an argument that people like Musk are just the face of things that are happening anyway, and hence do not deserve and particular credit for them. And if that is true, then we sure as hell don't need another 49 prominent douchebags.

But if that is the case, then it seems to me that we must apply that principle consistently. If Musk gets no credit for Tesla, does Martin Luther King Jr. get credit for his leadership of the civil rights movement? Should we stop talking about the genous of Leonardi da Vinci or Galileo or the Wright Brothers? Does Mussolini get to be spit upon for leading Italy into fascism, or was that all just inevitable, and the people involved don't really matter? De Gaulle not worthy of respect, because everything he did was going to happen regardless? 

And if that is true....then why get worked up over them? Again, they are just assholes in a world with lots of assholes, or good people in a world of other good people.

I am honestly not trying to "gotcha" you - I really am curious about whether you've thought this through. I suspect, and I apologize if this comes across as being dismissive, that you have not, and your views on Musk as a person (he is a piece of shit) are largely informing your views on Musk's accomplishments, and in fact you do recognize that individuals, for better or worse, do in fact accomplish things worthy of praise or anger.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Careful. He might buy languish and downsize us all.

Fuck that.  He already dicked me over once.

[Tonitrus]

I dunno...if he offers $40B for Languish, I say we take it and split the proceeds.