Elon Musk is a dick thread

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by 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,

yeah for me the bubble dynamic of this board seems stronger than i realized. i'm glad we're able to have some good faith discussions on this stuff though. sometimes it feels like a fool's errand to me to type these things up and try to explain, but i wanted to at least give it a try.

i will say that your "However," feels ominous...

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by MyOneAndOnly

Whatcolor is a fascist boot licker.

For once, can we not? everyone was still at the more or less decent conversation stage. the ad hominems and stupidly bickering was completely to be expected, but would it be nice to just not, for once? or at least for a little longer? thanks!

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

yeah for me the bubble dynamic of this board seems stronger than i realized. i'm glad we're able to have some good faith discussions on this stuff though. sometimes it feels like a fool's errand to me to type these things up and try to explain, but i wanted to at least give it a try.

i will say that your "However," feels ominous...

again, I appreciate that you at least try to elaborate. there is hardly any conversation whatsoever and while it's confronting hard to wrap my head around why one would actually defend Musk let alone vote for Trump, I prefer trying to explain that to simply calling each other fascists. and no, we probably won't see eye to eye on this, but we can try.

I personally think the whole political system in the US is completely fucked and having either one really bad candidate or another even worse one doesn't seem like a system that could bring any meaningful change on a larger scale. 100% with you on the fact that the Dems overrode democracy by just choosing Harris without a primary. she seemed to do well at first though. eventually, she seemed just to redo the whole "I'm the non-trump option" again

having said that, I would have voted for the non-Trump option. Biden in his goodbye speech talked about the rise of oligarchy, which is stupid, it was already an oligarchy under Biden. He just didn't invite all the richest people in the front row

[smashingjj]

anyway, to me it's not really about Musk being a nazi or not, to me it's about having any morals whatsoever, there don't seem to be any dealbreakers anymore. I mean, richest guy on planet does hitler salute, what is anyone going to do? They're very much above the law and he knows it

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by 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

Trump has a massive chip on his shoulder because the residents of his home city think he's a joke...anywhere with culture laughs at him because he's an idiot

Elon's purchase of twitter has everything to do with the non-stop dunking he receives on there, and he's still obsessed with it

fiscal responsibility? It was all immigration and culture war

[Elphenor]

if American conservatives were smart enough to know what fascism means they would simply identify with it

it's not a scare word, it's acknowledgement that we've seen this show before, it's nothing new or special

[smashingjj]

of course it's a scare word, trump claims he has beaten tbe fascists

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by smashingjj

again, I appreciate that you at least try to elaborate. there is hardly any conversation whatsoever and while it's confronting hard to wrap my head around why one would actually defend Musk let alone vote for Trump, I prefer trying to explain that to simply calling each other fascists. and no, we probably won't see eye to eye on this, but we can try.

I personally think the whole political system in the US is completely fucked and having either one really bad candidate or another even worse one doesn't seem like a system that could bring any meaningful change on a larger scale. 100% with you on the fact that the Dems overrode democracy by just choosing Harris without a primary. she seemed to do well at first though. eventually, she seemed just to redo the whole "I'm the non-trump option" again

having said that, I would have voted for the non-Trump option. Biden in his goodbye speech talked about the rise of oligarchy, which is stupid, it was already an oligarchy under Biden. He just didn't invite all the richest people in the front row

i likewise appreciate you. something i try to keep in mind is how it must on some level be both annoying and tiring to have the politics of country other than the one you live in dominate so much of the discourse. :/

Originally Posted by smashingjj

anyway, to me it's not really about Musk being a nazi or not, to me it's about having any morals whatsoever, there don't seem to be any dealbreakers anymore. I mean, richest guy on planet does hitler salute, what is anyone going to do? They're very much above the law and he knows it

"it was 'my heart goes out to you'" says one side. "it was a 'hail hitler'" says the other side.

i agree with you on there not being any dealbreakers anymore. i remember in the 2000s, howard dean made a funny, triumphant sound when he was excited in a speech, and that was sufficient to end his campaign. that noise was a dealbreaker! it is wild to consider how much the standards of what's acceptable have changed since then.

and being above the law, i dunno man. minor point - if it were a nazi salute, which i do not believe it to be, that would not actually be illegal i think. (immoral, yes). but more importantly regarding the law, when he tried to back out of his purchase of twitter when it became clear that the user count figures were inflated due to prevalent bot accounts (possibly to negotiate a better price), the courts upheld the law, enforced the contract, and forced him to complete the transaction at the negotiated price. so he wasn't above the law there.

and when it comes to the bonus payment for tesla, which the board of the company approved in good faith - a judge basically went way outside her authority and voided his pay, which is an incredible overstep. but because judges have the power they do, and he's not above the law, that's what happened.

think for a moment about the principles of the thing -- he said, unlike nearly every other CEO ever, i do not want to get paid huge amounts, regardless of my results. i only want to get significant payment if i meaningfully improve the trajectory of this business, and generate incredible value for every shareholder in doing so. and so they structured the bonus payments in that way. if he did not hit performance goals that people mocked at the time they came out as unreachable, then he would not have received payment. yet against all odds, the company did achieve those targets. and yet, the judge went ahead and nullified this. that is just wild, and indefensible to me. it's still being litigated, but it's a technicolor example of where he absolutely is not free to do as he pleases, he is subject to the authority of law, even when the law is misapplied.

as for trump's morals, etc. - i don't have a lot to say there other than that people generally have been willing to look past moral failings in leaders in other situations in our lifetime, when things are going well (clinton, for example). but he's certainly an imperfect guy and on a moral level not the kind of person i would ever want my child to emulate or look up to

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

Trump has a massive chip on his shoulder because the residents of his home city think he's a joke...anywhere with culture laughs at him because he's an idiot

Elon's purchase of twitter has everything to do with the non-stop dunking he receives on there, and he's still obsessed with it

fiscal responsibility? It was all immigration and culture war

trump chip on his shoulder, sure, whatever. maybe that's true. but this idiot outmaneuvered his opponents pretty effectively, and has assembled a team this time around that is decidedly not made up of idiots.

on your comment about buying twitter, i really don't think that's right, but don't think it's really important either. from what i can tell, it was about preserving a place where the narrative is freeform, and not shaped by mainstream media, or interfered with by the government (aka, the things that happened that were disclosed in the twitter files). it was about preserving the sanctity of free speech. and here i'll concede that there are examples of where this is not a flawless execution (i don't know all the details, but i think there examples of him having some hypocrisy with free speech).

but on the balance, i think it's a big win to have a place where people can go direct.
because the media has been shown to willingly put their finger on the scales and distort reality. the "good people on both sides" thing is the most meaningful example and one that i know changed a lot of peoples' opinions. the media intentionally misrepresented things, specifically leaving out the part where he said "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally." and obama ran with that as well. so when people are willing to distort reality to that extent, to make us believe he is a nazi by misrepresenting things, then it makes me and others lose faith in them, and wonder what else we've been mislead on.

and on your last comment, of course there are intersections with fiscal responsibility and both immigration and various "culture war" topics

[Elphenor]

in the same way fascists of the past "outmaneuvered" their opponents with loud unintelligeble racist appeals to nationalism

[Elphenor]

Yes fiscal conservatism aka austerity is a product of the social belief that some groups of people are undeserving

[wHATcOLOR]

ok, not gonna bother trying to discuss this further with you Elphenor. i've tried to respond to the majority of the things you've said, and attempted to make several substantive points in return, nearly all of which you ignore. it's neither a serious nor worthwhile way to have a discussion

[Elphenor]

all that fluff about the media mistreating Trump...man CNN, NYT, whatever, they're so hesitant to call a spade a spade, they've totally failed in their duty to present what is so obviously the truth in the name of "both sides"

now they're top of Trump's shitlist anyway

[MyOneAndOnly]

[wHATcOLOR]

[smashingjj]

Can you think of any other instance anyone ever made this particular gesture to communicate "my heart goes out to you"?

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

ok, not gonna bother trying to discuss this further with you Elphenor. i've tried to respond to the majority of the things you've said, and attempted to make several substantive points in return, nearly all of which you ignore. it's neither a serious nor worthwhile way to have a discussion

The famous Elphenor effect

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by smashingjj

Can you think of any other instance anyone ever made this particular gesture to communicate "my heart goes out to you"?

It is only because it's a figure like Elon that bis followers will find excuses for this. Any video surfacing of a regular Joe doing this and you can imagine what the consequences would be.

Here, at least

[smashingjj]

And between the nazi salute, the replacing of government werkers with knowledge on their jobs by people who are simply ride or die for Trump no matter what, appointing someone who doesn't believe in vaccines whatsoever as the heath department leader and wanting to colonize Canada and Greenland, the word competence is not one of the first words that would come to mind, to put it mildly

[smashingjj]

Unless other people are gonna post some interesting perspectives on this situation (looking at you, Disco King), i should stop talking about this thing for mow cause it's too depressing

Wonder if i can manage not to watch too much news the next 4 years. I already saw Trumps predictably aggressive and childish reaction to the bisshop who simply asked for compassion and i think i already have had enough of it for the following couple years

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by smashingjj

For once, can we not? everyone was still at the more or less decent conversation stage. the ad hominems and stupidly bickering was completely to be expected, but would it be nice to just not, for once? or at least for a little longer? thanks!

did you think the conversation was going to result in a Trump/Elon supporter changing their mind?

as it goes on it just becomes more obvious how lost in the sauce they are, even if they were once a nice person or whatever

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

did you think the conversation was going to result in a Trump/Elon supporter changing their mind?

i am not that naive, no. as I said before, whatcolour at least takes the effort to write down his thoughts eloquently, unlike many of the conservatives who posted here before, is it so much to ask to try and act somewhat decent in return and not just cuss him out?

[Elphenor]

I still get emails from Shadowland here and there

[redbreegull]

as shocked as whatcolor was at the fact that I don't like the squad and believe in voting for the lesser of two evils, I'm gonna guess I'm a little more shocked by this

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by smashingjj

And between the nazi salute, the replacing of government werkers with knowledge on their jobs by people who are simply ride or die for Trump no matter what, appointing someone who doesn't believe in vaccines whatsoever as the heath department leader and wanting to colonize Canada and Greenland, the word competence is not one of the first words that would come to mind, to put it mildly

i meant competent as in effective at achieving his goals, producing results, getting things done. for example, winning the presidential election while spending a lot less money than harris. that's undeniable competence relative to his opponent. and for me, it's one of the most relevant skills at being a leader - deploying resources effectively to generate the results you're after.

as for replacing government workers with knowledge of their jobs -- it'd be useful for us to consider specifics, i don't know which ones you're referring to. but i can tell you from my own experience, existing knowledge and experience in a job is often overrated, especially if you want to change the way things are done. (with obvious exceptions, things like doctors, pilots, etc. etc. of course experience is vital and required. but knowledge workers, administrators, managers, and the like, that's different)

i don't yet have an opinion on the canada and greenland stuff yet, i'm not informed enough.

and on the RFK thing -- i really think that a big challenge here is we are all operating with different information, and unless we make the thankless and sometimes difficult effort to seek it out, it's very hard if not impossible to get something close to the full picture. you wrote that he doesn't believe in vaccines whatsoever. but here is a quote from a book of his:

"People who advocate for safer vaccines should not be marginalized or denounced as anti-vaccine. I am pro-vaccine. I had all six of my children vaccinated. I believe that vaccines have saved the lives of hundreds of millions of humans over the past century and that broad vaccine coverage is critical to public health. But I want our vaccines to be as safe as possible."

so it's not a fair statement that he doesn't believe in vaccines whatsoever. it's just not a true or accurate statement.

and for me, there are so many of these examples like this out there, where the prevailing perception we're given is one thing, and the truth is more nuanced or entirely different. the one i already wrote about, where the media here led all of us to believe that trump was supporting white supremecists by saying "there were fine people on both sides" and authority figures like obama ran with it -- i don't need to type all that up again, it's in an earlier post, but that stuff is happening in all directions, people are intentionally misrepresenting things to support a narrative that they hold already and want others to believe, mostly to make their side look better and the other side look worse. and many people, myself included, accepted this kind of information initially. but it's indefensible. and it should make all of us reconsider the credibility of the people and organizations who make misrepresentations like this.

shouldn't the truth matter more than trying to bolster one's chosen side? that's part of what i'm striving for here, to get as close as i can to understanding the truth (on the handful of matters where i'm able to make the time and dig in), and i'm striving to be more loyal to the truth than to any one side.

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

as shocked as whatcolor was at the fact that I don't like the squad and believe in voting for the lesser of two evils, I'm gonna guess I'm a little more shocked by this

i don't even know what that means. i don't think i've responded to any of your posts in this thread and i don't have any real perception of what your beliefs or preferences are. so what exactly are you trying to say here?

[MyOneAndOnly]

It means you're a fascist apologist 0

Or maybe just a fascist

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

shouldn't the truth matter more than trying to bolster one's chosen side? that's part of what i'm striving for here, to get as close as i can to understanding the truth (on the handful of matters where i'm able to make the time and dig in), and i'm striving to be more loyal to the truth than to any one side.

i agree.

i'm not sure how you can marry that goal with a vote for trump, though. that man doesn't give a fuck about the truth. or is that also just perception?

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

i don't even know what that means. i don't think i've responded to any of your posts in this thread and i don't have any real perception of what your beliefs or preferences are. so what exactly are you trying to say here?

I think he is referring to another thread but I don't think you were present.

and I'm out of here, hopefully someone else will be actually respond to the points you're making

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by Cool As Ice Cream

i agree.

i'm not sure how you can marry that goal with a vote for trump, though. that man doesn't give a fuck about the truth. or is that also just perception?

maybe i've not done a good job of making this point clearly, but neither of the options in this election have put truth or honesty above other things. it was not really clear who was making the decisions in the biden administration, but everyone insisted biden was "sharp as a tack" and in command, despite indications to the contrary. and until a debate made it so clear he was not either of those things. and then the democratic party subverted the democratic process and jammed harris in as the nominee with no primary. that wasn't placing truth above party, not even remotely. and on the other side of it, trump's willingness to exaggerate and lie is well documented.

so, given that neither side is pure in this regard, not voting for someone who's shown disregard for the truth means you vote for no one. so for me becomes a choice about policy and effectiveness and action. that's how i square it. harris looked to be a continuation of the previous administration. (and as i've explained, these progressive policies are enacted to the extreme in the state where i live, and it's been really, really bad, despite presumably positive intentions). and the way her campaign went supports that: spend more, and get less. and trump with vance and elon and andreesson and vivek etc. promised to be a big change away from the kinds of policies that we've been living with which really have not been great. and to be clear, i'm under no illusions this administration won't also come with problems, but to me it's preferable to continuing as we have been.

Originally Posted by smashingjj

I think he is referring to another thread but I don't think you were present.

and I'm out of here, hopefully someone else will be actually respond to the points you're making

i respect and appreciate you having a civil discussion with me, and i respect that you're done now. i'm pretty much talked out here as well. this thread is my first time even attempting to debate or discuss these ideas anywhere. but i will say, you made a statement that was untrue (rfk/vaccines). in the scheme of things it's not a huge deal, and i don't think you did this intentionally, it is most likely you've heard and read similar statements previously. but i provided evidence direct from the source showing it was untrue, and tried to raise a larger point about how we're all constantly being deceived in various ways and to consider the credibility of our sources. but neither the smaller point about the statement itself or the larger point about the broader climate of misrepresentation gets addressed. when no one addresses or responds to these things here, it makes it feel more frustrating to engage than it would otherwise i think.

same thing happened with elon supposedly being above the law btw, i brought up instances where he is definitely forced to follow the law, but there's no acknowledgement or discussion of that after i said it

more generally, not to smashingjj but the group as a whole, i've not seen one clear-eyed defense of or advocacy for the harris/biden side of things, just a lot of statements about how trump and elon are bad and evil and fascist, often supported with things that aren't true. if there's a strong case to be made about the virtues of harris and those kinds of policies, let's hear it.

lastly, it is wild and sad to me that people are so quick to tear down someone who's accomplished and still is actively accomplishing so much (elon). why? what does that serve? of course he's also flawed. but when exactly did attacking success become something that makes sense? and why do we attack grand ambitions? i think we ought to celebrate significant goals and achievements.

seacrest out