Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Berkut]

I just accepted the general narrative at that time, which was "this dude is a genius inventor that's going to bring us to Mars".

That is certainly as far as Berkut's brain has ever processed it.

You are lying. Again.

You know perfectly well that is not my position at all, since I've stated my position several times that does not amount to anything like that.

What is your purpose in just lying about what I believe? You don't even believe I believe that.

[grumbler]

I find the idea that Musk isn't already known as a liar and an asshole a bit weird.

Cool. I hope we don't talk about anything on Languish that is already known anymore. Some topics I hope we can all agree to never talk about again:

1. Trump being a liar / fraud / crook
2. Putin being a liar / criminal / evil autocrat
3. PRC being a human rights abuser
4. Saudia Arabia being a human rights abuser
5. Iran being a human rights abuser
6. The British Tories being politically incompetent
7. The Republican party being toxic and anti-democratic
8. The Democratic party being hopelessly bad at politics

I am sure we can think of a lot more topics to never discuss or elaborate on ever since they are already well known.

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.

[grumbler]

Not too sure about the use "Doctor" for a PhD.  Oex would know better than me.  I know "Professor" is the preferred term.

In the US, "Professor" is a job title, not an honorific. 

[Admiral Yi]

When I first started tracking Musk, around the time he had his (first) run in with the SEC and the Thailand cave pedo thing, I said he is not a bad guy, just kind of flaky and eccentric, and with a big blind spot for short sellers.  And whether he was personally drafting plans for Tesla batteries and SpaceX retro rockets or not, it was still very, very impressive to start up, or help start up the companies he did.

The aura started to dim when he said fuck you to the Covid restrictions governing his California plant, and when he jumped on the Gamestop pile.

Then when the Twitter takeover announcement came, and with it the rumors of unbanning Donald, warning bells started flashing.

Then this trainwreck of a takeover came and I have to agree with DGuller that he has gone mad.  And perhaps more importantly he no longer seems that bright.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I find the idea that Musk isn't already known as a liar and an asshole a bit weird.

Cool. I hope we don't talk about anything on Languish that is already known anymore. Some topics I hope we can all agree to never talk about again:

1. Trump being a liar / fraud / crook
2. Putin being a liar / criminal / evil autocrat
3. PRC being a human rights abuser
4. Saudia Arabia being a human rights abuser
5. Iran being a human rights abuser
6. The British Tories being politically incompetent
7. The Republican party being toxic and anti-democratic
8. The Democratic party being hopelessly bad at politics

I am sure we can think of a lot more topics to never discuss or elaborate on ever since they are already well known.

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.

[Zanza]

Eventually Twitter will have to fulfill the content moderation policies of the Google and Apple app store, legal requirements like the EU GDPR or California's CCPA etc.

Will be interesting how the free speech absolutist reacts to these external constraints.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I just accepted the general narrative at that time, which was "this dude is a genius inventor that's going to bring us to Mars".

That is certainly as far as Berkut's brain has ever processed it.

You are lying. Again.

You know perfectly well that is not my position at all, since I've stated my position several times that does not amount to anything like that.

What is your purpose in just lying about what I believe? You don't even believe I believe that.

Berkut is sad he has been exposed as a mindless Muskie, so it is time for him to enter that phase of discussion where he cries about how unfair the discourse is because people are actually pointing out the things he has said.

[garbon]

Going back to Musk's shenanigans at Twitter, today Marjorie Taylor Greene has been reinstated.

Do you think that is an obviously bad move?

Yes.

[Sophie Scholl]

Reinstating such horrible accounts is bad enough, but Musk posting on horrible account's posts and making posts begging for Trump to return is another level of awful. He wants so, so, so badly to be popular, cool, edgy, and liked it's honestly pathetic. He's become the posterchild for so many cautionary concepts about wealth and power.

[Sophie Scholl]

https://twitter.com/lawfulspice/status/1594817776992010240

Summary of Elon's posting from the video:
You cannot see attachments on this board.

[Berkut]

Going back to Musk's shenanigans at Twitter, today Marjorie Taylor Greene has been reinstated.

Do you think that is an obviously bad move?

Yes.

I tend to agree, but am not entirely sure.

Questions around speech, for me, are never that obvious.

It isn't obvious to me that the best response to the Marjorie Greens and Trumps of the world is to try to shut them up. I used to be where Musk claims to be now though - a "free speech" absolutist. I don't know that I am anymore though - social media and modern communication technology seems to have given stupidity and ignorance an inate advantage, and I am no longer so sure that good ideas win in the market place of ideas. Hell, this thread alone shows that the ranting, angry screamer yelling and insulting and telling people what they want to hear gets more traction then any nuance or rational thought.

And I supported Twitter's right, as a private company, to react to their user violating their rules by refusing to give people who do so a platform. So for that part, I think I have to also say they have the same right to change their mind.

I don't think it is obvious at all. But I think that if it were up to me, I would likely come down on the side of pre-Musk twitter, but I would not feel good about it.

[Berkut]

Hey boomer, maybe you can focus more on joining the 21st century instead of posting weak ass insults.

[grumbler]

Hey boomer, maybe you can focus more on joining the 21st century instead of posting weak ass insults.

He's just looking for attention.  Pay him no heed.

[Berkut]

Hey boomer, maybe you can focus more on joining the 21st century instead of posting weak ass insults.

He's just looking for attention.  Pay him no heed.

Oh, but his behavior is interesting. The way he is just lashing out and going utterly ballistic because he cannot respond objectively to someone who challenges his cherished beliefs with actual rational argument. It is such a excellent example of active cognitive dissonance and the power of group thinking and how it drives emotive attachment to an idea.

I mean, overall, this thread has like....20 examples of Musk being a complete and utter douchebag. Nobody even disputes that. But if you even point out that 2 of those examples are not really good examples, why, suddenly you are cannot be on Team MuskIsADouche, and the only possible other team that can be is WeLoveMusk so you MUST be on THAT team!

If you are not purple Drasi, you must be green Drasi! And we hate them Green Drasi so so much!

It is a little microcosm of shit like the Bernie Bros, who would rather sink the entire ship then compromise with their own side.

I don't even feel like my views on Musk are remotely controversial. He is a total asshole who has accomplished some rather amazing things. How is that even interesting?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Berkut, I've quoted your numerous posts in this thread--and let's note that I also provided a well sourced Google drive full of documents about Musk lying about his academic record (which is only a very small part of the criticisms that have been leveled against Musk in this thread.) Your posting history shows a clear sequence:

1. Dissemble. "Oh he sucks, but we need more like him."

2. Excuse. "Oh, he is doing bad things but it isn't really that bad, hell I have software engineers who work for me who don't have degree." (Ignoring the fact that almost certainly none of them lied to you about it when they were hired.)

3. Exaggerate his accomplishments--hilariously lumping him in with "creators" like Bill Gates / Jobs who both rather famously invented nothing of note.

You've a 1600 post thread of reasonable critiques of Musk or a few of his defenders (you chief among them) finding reasons to claim the critiques aren't valid.

Me pointing out that you appear to be a Muskie is fair play based on the body of your posts in this thread. There is no difference between your stance on Musk and the (rightly condemned) stance of people who support Trump while acknowledging his personal failures--often using some of the exact same language you use "he's an asshole, but we need more of them."

It's also been pointed out you appear to be buying into an unintelligent version of the "Great Man of History" ethos, which is a simplistic and juvenile way of looking at the world.

Your rhetoric is not surprising--the great men themselves have promoted these ideas for many years. The reality is in a capitalist society the very wealthy will be those who best deploy capital, and their heirs, for fully aware capitalists like myself that isn't a "problem." But part of being fully aware is understanding that is exactly what the great industrialists and businessmen are doing--they are reaping rewards through the market-efficient distribution of capital. Almost to a one, no great fortune in capitalism is made by someone who "creates" anything. It is made by men who recognize the value of something better than others and properly allocate capital resources toward them. These very men seem to intrinsically recognize that "efficient allocation of capital" doesn't generate the sort of cultural cachet they would like. It probably in part comes from that Christian ethic that looks down a bit on finance and the association of Jews with early financial houses.

This has led to enduring myths, some of which you have repeated in this thread. Many casual people think Henry Ford invented the assembly line (or even more inaccurately, the car itself), that Bill Gates or Steve Jobs invented the personal computer, or in the case of Steve Jobs the personal computer and the smartphone. These myths are being created in real time around Musk and the products of Tesla and SpaceX.

The History channel did a series of documentaries some years ago that almost perfectly encapsulates this common lie about history: "The Men Who Built America", which documents the lives of figures like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt et al.

The actual truth is these are the men who bought America, they and their kind are never and were never the men who built it. The men who built America were the ones who killed themselves working in the coal mines and iron mines that fed Carnegie's blast furnaces, who built the rail lines that moved their product, who dug the oil wells that fed Rockefeller's Empire, and who worked the high steel that built the cities. This is deemphasized I think in part because America fears touting too much the common man--as a country founded by wealthy white landowners and whose interests largely still accrue to the descendants of that class, it is often seen as dangerous to recognize that the sweat on the brow of many millions is what has made this country and everything important it has ever done. Recognizing the importance of the communal and societal over the "genius" individual. The men who organized it and got rich off of it by making shrewd investments serve an important purpose in a capitalist economy, but they are not paragons, they are not geniuses, they are not particularly innovative as a rule outside of their capital allocation strategies.

I refuse to be part of their hagiography; you revel in it. Perhaps because you aren't smart enough to know better, I don't know.