Elon Musk is a dick thread

[Squish Squash]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

I don't even think toast is real. he's not actually insane enough to be a real Trump supporter. just some silly guy who thinks he's really funny but you know loneliness is a hell of a thing

Loneliness seems to be a theme of Trump supporters, but I think the main reason they're so lonely is they alienate everyone around them by being bigoted pieces of shit.

[ovary]

it's actually pretty well documented that US conservatives consistently report higher happiness and life satisfaction than liberals.

this poll doesn't ask about political leanings, but blue states pretty clearly correlate to more loneliness.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/473057/...emic-high.aspx

[BlissedandGone2]

Originally Posted by ovary

it's actually pretty well documented that US conservatives consistently report higher happiness and life satisfaction than liberals.

this poll doesn't ask about political leanings, but blue states pretty clearly correlate to more loneliness.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/473057/...emic-high.aspx

I haven't looked into this at all, so grain of salt or whatever, but doesn't the fact that this is a pandemic-specific poll make it very disconnected from your first statement? Like, I think there's probably a stronger correlation to states that had less quarantining and isolation during the pandemic showing less loneliness than this somehow proving that conservatives in general are happier, more satisfied people.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by ovary

it's actually pretty well documented that US conservatives consistently report higher happiness and life satisfaction than liberals.

this poll doesn't ask about political leanings, but blue states pretty clearly correlate to more loneliness.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/473057/...emic-high.aspx

it's also well-documented that conservatives report happiness at higher rates but engage in far fewer joyful or satisfying activities, as well as literally experiencing emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust at higher rates than their liberal counterparts

[Disco King]

I also wonder how relevant it is that conservatives in general may be happier than liberals when I don't think anybody was talking about the average conservative being driven by loneliness and sadness, but the kind of hardcore MAGA Twitter troll. Like, nobody makes "triggering the libs" their whole personality if they're happy with life.

[Disco King]

I have been meaning to look more into research about happiness (not necessarily related to political orientation). Like, I think I remember reading or hearing something about people who have children reporting less happiness and more stress than people who don't, but also reporting more life satisfaction. I found it interesting that the two things can come apart and have been meaning to look into how researchers conceptualize and operationalize those things (I mean, I'm guessing it can't be any more complex than asking people "how happy are you" and "how satisfied are you with life," and taking "happiness" and "life satisfaction" to mean "whatever it is those terms seem to be successfully tracking when we ask people those questions," because even when psychologists can't tell you what the fuck something is, they can still show evidence that it's real thing if it meets statistical tests for criterion validity and shit).

Like, it makes sense that "happiness" and "life satisfaction" could be different under certain philosophical perspectives of welfare. Hedonists say that the only intrinsic good is pleasure. Preferentialists say that the only intrinsic good is having your desires satisfied. Thought experiments like the Experience Machine help illustrate the different directions these two views pull in (although when it comes to literature in the philosophy of mental states, some people think pleasure is just "any sensation that the person desires to have while having it" and some people think a desire for something is just "a disposition to get pleasure from having that thing," so I haven't really thought through the implications for the hedonist/preferentialist debate if you adopt one of these positions in their own debates).

And then yet another welfare account is the "meaningfulness" view, which is that at least part of what increases welfare is "living a meaningful life."

If what psychologists measure when they're measuring "happiness" and "life satisfaction" are different, I wonder if they map onto the things philosophers are talking about in their theories of welfare.

[Disco King]

I'm more just rambling and thinking aloud than making any kind of point here.

[Disco King]

Looking at the Philpapers survey, it seems that most philosophers endorse the objective-list theory of welfare. Rejecting that there is one intrinsic good that all other good things reduce to, and saying that there's a list of intrinsic goods (of course, the philosophers may still disagree on what goes on the list).

https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5206

On the one hand, that sounds plausible to me. It could be that pleasure and satisfied desires both make you better off, and not in virtue of one of them producing the other. They can both independently make you better off.

But on the other hand, if multiple things are all "good," what do they share in common that makes them all "good?" Wouldn't the feature that they have in common and that unites them all constitute the intrinsic good that all the other things on the list are just instrumental in achieving? So, instead of a list of objective instrinsic goods, there would still just be one, just like hedonists and preferentialists say there is just one.

[MyOneAndOnly]

MAGA conservatives are also degenerate fucking liars

[Squish Squash]

Originally Posted by MyOneAndOnly

MAGA conservatives are also degenerate fucking liars

They're currently denying someone made a Nazi salute despite it being blatant so yeah

[wHATcOLOR]

i think we see what we want to see. so that i'm clear, is the claim that the gesture looked like a nazi salute? or is it that people believe he made an actual nazi salute because he actually holds nazi beliefs?


when prominent jewish authorities like the anti-defamation league (https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403) and benjamin netanyahu (https://x.com/netanyahu/status/1882392668497756279) and ben shapiro (https://x.com/benshapiro/status/1881595273291690401) are all saying this is not what people are saying it is, why is it that folks here (and elsewhere) have decided they know better?

it's clear elon is not an actual nazi. his actions netanyahu mentioned are one proof point. also he posts unfiltered thoughts on twitter like 60 times a day for years. if he were a nazi, that would have been abundantly clear by now.

yet, people here and elsewhere insist they know better

[topleybird]

This is accomplishing exactly what it's meant to: distract from the actual facts. We can go around and around debating what it was; I'll throw in that actual, literal neo-Nazi groups celebrated the salute as a counterpoint to the "Palestinian flag is antisemitic" ADL, the dude committing a genocide, and far-right and sexually untalented Ben Shapiro, if we're going by opinions by far-from-objective outsiders. But none of that changes the fact that, actually, yes, it has been abundantly clear he's a Nazi by now, specifically because of his tweets. You've already ignored him endorsing the neo-Nazi part in Germany, so I'm not inclined to go through and point out countless other things he's said that make it clear. There's no point debating tweet by fucking tweet when the cumulative total makes it beyond a reasonable doubt.

How are his DOGE cuts going so far? Do you feel like he's cutting the fat and leaving the important infastructure/programs intact?

[wHATcOLOR]

on your points, im stating the obvious here but neo-nazis celebrating it doesn't meant it is meant as a nazi salute. neo-nazis of course want it to be, but that doesn't mean it is.
adl having that aggressive perspective would imply that they're quick with the trigger to call something anti-semetic, so them not doing so here should be meaningful, it strengthens their words, not diminishes them
netanyahu's genocide/war is from his view in defense of israel, so i don't think we can say he's predisposed to defending "nazis"
and ben shapiro is incredibly defensive of aggression against jewish people, same point - he's not in the business of defending nazis.

i'm happy to leave it aside, it seems like viewpoints are pretty entrenched and neither of us is convinced by the other's counterpoints

as for doge, i'm not up to speed on it - i've been mostly occupied with evacuating from wildfires (emergency evacuation from palidades fire, and then went to northern california so the air won't mess up my son's lungs, and then last night an arsonist set a 45 acre fire a mile from our LA house, forward progress of that fire stopped). been trying to understand california and los angeles politics better so i can make sense of the compounding decisions that got us here. we have an arsonist who's an illegal immigrant who's been arrested 17 times before, but we are unwilling to deport him because we're a sanctuary city. we spent way less on wildfire preparedness than on benefits for illegal immigrants, and now thousands of homes are toxic ashes. it's devoid of any common sense. our mayor actually seems to think she's doing a good job, and the governor seems to be more concerned with his image than sensible actions. the mayor was in africa when the fires started, despite saying she would not leave the country when she took office. the firefighters chose not to ask anyone to work an additional shift the night of the fires, despite the incredibly strong winds that began earlier in the day. insurance just dropped coverage for our home because the state interferes with the free market and regulates how much insurers can raise premiums, etc. there's a video of a los angeles firefighter who's an overweight woman saying that people feel better in an emergency when someone who looks like them arrives, and if she can't carry a man out of the fire, then the man shouldn't have gotten himself into that situation. it's madness in every direction and i've not carved out time to get up to speed on doge

of the limited things i've seen from doge, they seem primarily to be calling out obviously wasteful spending, but i'm not sure what actions theyr'e taking. examples i remember ******* calling out spending of nearly $900m on an embassy in south sudan, and pointing out that it costs $0.03 for the US mint to manufacture a penny. mandating return to office for federal workers seems reasonable. it's the first week of this administration, so hoping some more substantial actions are on the way

and for what it's worth - these are clearly loaded topics. even when i'm caught off guard by the distance between my view and those of people i like and respect, i still have the same respect and fondness for them

[smashingjj]

there's simply no accountability for these people. Trump pardoned 1500, many of them violent, criminals and Elon will happily join along. he's literally the richest and one of the most powerful men in the world. he can do whatever he likes and get away with it: he can do an actual (like a precise, exact nazi salute) at a United States presidential inauguration and for some reason there's this "debate" about it, was it a nazi salute? no, he would never, his autism is thrown in for whatever reason, whereas everyone has seen him do it. Trump said he could shoot someone in the middle of New York and get away with it and he's right, and this is also exemplary of that whole mindset.

he knows it would get this attention and he loves it.

and no, ben Shapiro isn't defensive of aggression to jewish people, he's very defensive of Israel and its actions, be they whatever they are (and everyone knows by now what they are) that seems like a distinction people don't make anymore and it's problematic.

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

on your points, im stating the obvious here but neo-nazis celebrating it doesn't meant it is meant as a nazi salute. neo-nazis of course want it to be, but that doesn't mean it is.

I agree with this, and by that same logic it does not mean it wasn't a nazi salute if the ADL says it wasn't. it might also mean that they're just afraid of lawsuits.

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

also he posts unfiltered thoughts on twitter like 60 times a day for years. if he were a nazi, that would have been abundantly clear by now.

he reinstates actual nazis on twitter, he agrees with them on specifically antisemitic subjects and harmful (and simply retarded) conspiracy theories like the great replacement theory, he agrees with people who say hitler was right, he amplifies Nazi accounts, he tells everyone to listen to a holocaust denier on a podcast. the fact that he supports the German AfD party isn't even of the stronger arguments, but it doesn't help either. I'm guessing the other 55 unfiltered tweets a day aren't about saving the nature all people being equal. I don't care whether you call it actual nazism or not but he's made abundantly clear that holds a shitload of shared beliefs specifically with Nazis.

I'm guessing his main belief isn't nazism but capitalism, but since capital and the far right are in bed together more and more all over the world, there also don't seem to be any moral boundaries or care for ethics.

[redbreegull]

the ADL has become a joke and conflates anti-zionism with anti-semitism

Elon Musk purposely did something that looked like a Nazi salute but that he could "plausibly deny." Same gaslighting tactics Trump's people have been using for years.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

i think we see what we want to see. so that i'm clear, is the claim that the gesture looked like a nazi salute? or is it that people believe he made an actual nazi salute because he actually holds nazi beliefs?


when prominent jewish authorities like the anti-defamation league (https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403) and benjamin netanyahu (https://x.com/netanyahu/status/1882392668497756279) and ben shapiro (https://x.com/benshapiro/status/1881595273291690401) are all saying this is not what people are saying it is, why is it that folks here (and elsewhere) have decided they know better?

it's clear elon is not an actual nazi. his actions netanyahu mentioned are one proof point. also he posts unfiltered thoughts on twitter like 60 times a day for years. if he were a nazi, that would have been abundantly clear by now.

yet, people here and elsewhere insist they know better

I hope you don't think Netanyahu or Ben Shapiro are reflective of Jewish sentiment as a whole because uh.....

those guys are also both fascists. and the far right in the US is obsessed with Israel and Zionism. They also hate Jews. This is possible because like many things, prejudice is intersectional.

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by smashingjj

there's simply no accountability for these people. Trump pardoned 1500, many of them violent, criminals and Elon will happily join along. he's literally the richest and one of the most powerful men in the world. he can do whatever he likes and get away with it: he can do an actual (like a precise, exact nazi salute) at a United States presidential inauguration and for some reason there's this "debate" about it, was it a nazi salute? no, he would never, his autism is thrown in for whatever reason, whereas everyone has seen him do it. Trump said he could shoot someone in the middle of New York and get away with it and he's right, and this is also exemplary of that whole mindset.

he knows it would get this attention and he loves it.

and no, ben Shapiro isn't defensive of aggression to jewish people, he's very defensive of Israel and its actions, be they whatever they are (and everyone knows by now what they are) that seems like a distinction people don't make anymore and it's problematic.



I agree with this, and by that same logic it does not mean it wasn't a nazi salute if the ADL says it wasn't. it might also mean that they're just afraid of lawsuits.



he reinstates actual nazis on twitter, he agrees with them on specifically antisemitic subjects and harmful (and simply retarded) conspiracy theories like the great replacement theory, he agrees with people who say hitler was right, he amplifies Nazi accounts, he tells everyone to listen to a holocaust denier on a podcast. the fact that he supports the German AfD party isn't even of the stronger arguments, but it doesn't help either. I'm guessing the other 55 unfiltered tweets a day aren't about saving the nature all people being equal. I don't care whether you call it actual nazism or not but he's made abundantly clear that holds a shitload of shared beliefs specifically with Nazis.

I'm guessing his main belief isn't nazism but capitalism, but since capital and the far right are in bed together more and more all over the world, there also don't seem to be any moral boundaries or care for ethics.

i agree with your point as well, adl saying it's not doesn't automatically make it not.

trump and elon are (like everyone else) flawed people. i don't understand or keep up with everything either of them does. those pardons as an example, are hard to justify. that said, pardons generally seem to have gotten out of hand, biden as well pre-emptively pardoning his family.

but on the balance, trump and elon are pushing to move us forward in ways that are more clear-eyed than i've seen elsewhere recently. they have the will to act to try to improve things, with an eye towards pragmatism, which the previous administration did not in my opinion have. i didn't see myself supporting trump 8 or 4 years ago. never voted anything other than democrat before this election. but the progressive policies from the democrats, which are enacted to the extreme where i live, to all of our detriment, has changed that. i just have more hope that this high-agency set of people will get us onto a path that is more sustainable and based on first-principles. and i fully concede there are flaws and things that are hard to explain or justify that come along with this crew.

i'm confused why the opinion of any of us on elon's alleged naziism, who do not know him personally, should count more than the opinions of people who do know him. no one who knows him believes he is a nazi. several have made it clear he is not one.

and to one of your comments, i don't even think capitalism is what's most important to him. it happens to be the system in which he's able to operate effectively and accomplish what he has. but money doesn't even seem to be his primary motivator, from what i can tell., it's a byproduct of creating tremendous value for people. he's trying to create a future for mankind that is inspiring, where we can use energy sustainably and become a multiplanetary species. this does not stem from a hatred for large groups of humanity. it stems from a love for humanity.

it's a worldview based on hope and optimism. i'm not intimately familiar wiht the ins and outs of naziism but i'm not under the impression those are shared underpinnings

i think that maybe it's that elon, trump, et. al. have stood up to woke ideas and policies that has got some people tilted. those policies, in most cases rooted in empathy i think, have just been so destructive in many cases. (it's the same with the environmentalist groups who've helped create the conditions that've allowed california to burn like it has - that's not their intention, but it's the result)

i dunno man, on the balance, a guy who's bought the world reusable rockets and electric cars, and is also working on restoring quality of live to stroke survivors and paralyzed people -- i'm not getting riled up by this gesture, which i will admit does look like a nazi salute, because there's nothing about the thrust of his actions and goals that is actual naziism

and i asked claude.ai to help me get a clear understanding of what it means to be an actual nazi in today's world and this was the reply: "Key indicators someone may be a neo-Nazi:

Uses Nazi symbols, slogans, or gestures
Promotes racial segregation or ethnic cleansing
Calls for violence against minorities
Actively participates in white supremacist organizations
Explicitly endorses Nazi ideology and historical figures

Simply being politically conservative, nationalist, or expressing controversial views on immigration/race does not automatically make someone a Nazi. The term should be reserved for those who specifically embrace Nazi ideology and its core tenets of violent white supremacy, antisemitism, and authoritarian ultranationalism."

he made a gesture that some believe is a nazi salute and some don't. but is he promoting ethnic cleansing? no. is he calling for violence against minorities? no. is he actively participating in white supremacist organizations? no. is he explicitly endorsing nazi ideology? no. he's not embracing violent white supremacy or antisemitism or authoriatiarianism

and on the distinctions between jewish people and israel, etc. -- i'll just bow out of it, i do not feel qualified to debate or discuss those nuances, i don't have a deep understanding of them

[MyOneAndOnly]

If you do a Nazi salute 3 times in a row in front of the entire nation, to the president... You're a goddamn fascist.

Yes he has advocated for extremist fascist politics and authoritarianism. He runs a propaganda platform and spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to swing elections.

His wealth alone makes him one of the worst monsters on earth. Even without the fascism

[MyOneAndOnly]

The defense of Musk is basically:

You're calling him a Nazi but he doesn't admit to being a Nazi

His politics are blatant fascism. he supports the most powerful fascist on earth. He endorses a German neo fascist party. He has posted pro fascist propaganda from his own Twitter account so many hundreds, maybe thousands of times, that you would have to be an imbecile to ignore it.

[MyOneAndOnly]

MAGA is a fascist movement that seeks to enshrine a permanent authoritarian fascist ruler and destroy all constitutional guardrails to fascist undemocratic rule.

It is different from Naziism. But it's still fascism. Just like Franco wasn't a Nazi. But he was a fascist. Just like Musillimi and Szalasi weren't Nazis. But they were fascists.

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by MyOneAndOnly

His wealth alone makes him one of the worst monsters on earth

a statement like makes it nearly impossible for me to take anything else you say seriously

[redbreegull]

I am like seriously having a mental block trying to understand in what universe did he not do what he did on purpose, in front of actual white supremacists, for a nativist right wing president who admires authoritarianism. after going through an alt right transformation over the last years, surrounding himself with right wing nutcases, amplifying their voices on social media including some who are blatantly white supremacists and adjacent to white supremacists, repeating replacement theory multiple times. oh and his family got rich on apartheid. ok so. this guy. in this set of contexts. this guy didn't do the salute on purpose to trigger people or see what he could get away with. he did it because he's awkward and autistic

I mean that's fucking gaslighting

[smashingjj]

i will say, in times of polarisation, people stuck in their bubbles and us still being on this ancient-ass board with mostly lefties and liberals, it's valuable to see someone argue in good faith on the reasons he defends the actions of the people who are politically on the other side. we were used to fuzzy and omega concern, maybe one or two of hardcore christians, and now toast, all of whom post in a way that was near impossible to take seriously. you actually explain your thoughts cohesively and I admire that and it's a damn shame that actual conversation is happening so little instead of just the usual bickering or trying to make the others look crazy.

However,

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Elon Musk purposely did something that looked like a Nazi salute but that he could "plausibly deny." Same gaslighting tactics Trump's people have been using for years.

this is it

[Elphenor]

no matter how much power and influence these guys accumulate, they're still thin-skinned insecure crybaby losers deeply hurt that the majority of Americans reject them

so badly does Elon crave recognition that he went as far as to pay people to make him look good at video games

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

I am like seriously having a mental block trying to understand in what universe did he not do what he did on purpose, in front of actual white supremacists, for a nativist right wing president who admires authoritarianism. after going through an alt right transformation over the last years, surrounding himself with right wing nutcases, amplifying their voices on social media including some who are blatantly white supremacists and adjacent to white supremacists, repeating replacement theory multiple times. oh and his family got rich on apartheid. ok so. this guy. in this set of contexts. this guy didn't do the salute on purpose to trigger people or see what he could get away with. he did it because he's awkward and autistic

I mean that's fucking gaslighting

Whatcolor is a fascist boot licker. It's not a valid argument. But their whole schtick is to say "I'm not a Nazi! See, there's no swastika on my arm" while they kill, ruin, and destroy.

[MyOneAndOnly]

[IMG][/IMG]

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

no matter how much power and influence these guys accumulate, they're still thin-skinned insecure crybaby losers deeply hurt that the majority of Americans reject them

so badly does Elon crave recognition that he went as far as to pay people to make him look good at video games

help me understand what you mean that the majority of americans reject them? trump won the popular vote, so that seems demonstrably false

[Elphenor]

he won the majority of votes of those that voted

a significant amount of Biden voters didn't vote this time

the big cities, where 60% of the population live, pretty much always go to Democrats

[wHATcOLOR]

ok, well if someone didn't vote, you can't justifiably say that they rejected someone, and you can't quantify it. so your claim that the majority of american reject these guys is not a claim that makes sense.

and a point more generally, not directed just at you, but addressing the claims of fascism, etc. consider how the democrats handled dean phillips, who i found to be incredibly competent and full of good ideas, a bright light. articulated a good, clear vision, and has a proven track record in the private sector and more recently in government. they basically gave him no air, shunted him to the side. and yet had it been phillips vs trump, its quite possible i and many other first-time trump voters would have voted phillips.

but the democratic party chose to override the democratic process, and just swapped harris for biden, without giving anyone a say in it, without a primary. think about that for a minute when lashing out with the fascist label, which is silly.

one side spoke convincingly about fiscal responsibility, and ran a campaign that served as a proof point of their effectiveness there. the other side, harris, spent way more, for a worse result, and after the results were in, still bragged about how much money they had raised, as if that was what mattered. it was like the men vs the boys when it comes to effectively deploying resources, which is a huge part of governing, and this is the sort of thing that makes me feel optimistic.

an obvious point here is that in elections, we're given a binary choice, a or b. if you think about issues one by one, and not as part of a party platform, it's likely no candidate is going to align 1 for 1 with all of our tastes and preferences and ideas. but we choose what's most important to us, and collapse it down to a single vote. and after the election is over, we can either try to make the best of it, or whine, obstruct, and call names. personally, making the best of it is the choice that's best for me, but we all get to make that call for ourselves