Elon Musk is a dick thread

[Elphenor]

criticisms of Elon were laid out itt

but here we go with the "attacking success", very typical

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

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.



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

dude i want to stop posting about this how am I supposed to control myself if I feel you're low key claiming victory

[smashingjj]

if you make all these well thought-out points about policies and whatnot and the reply you get is you're a fascist then yes, you win. but some other points have been made too, even if I didn't address every single one. I'm not a great debater, I'm still waiting for disco king to chime in and do his work here

firstly, I've been very outspoken in my criticisms about Biden/Harris, maybe not so much in this thread but in general on the board. The whole idea of having two viable options is stupid to me, it's barely democratic, especially with the electoral college in place. trump lost the 2016 election with millions of votes and he still wins. I've stated all these criticisms before and some people laughed about it. fuck that, it's not for no reason that America is 20 places lower on the democracy index than the netherlands. but American politics have an enormous impact on a global scale, Europe is often not far behind with whatever happens in the US, that's why I keep bothering.

about RFK, I saw that too that he said he vaccinated all his children, but he gladly hops on the "I distrust science" train so often that it feels like he's contradicting himself, at best. he has made a name for himself by further eroding the trust in modern medicine. also "I just want vaccines to be as safe as possible" might sound innocent in and of itself but considering how much research has gone into modern vaccines being basically the safest they could possibly be, chances that something goes wrong as a side effect are infinitesimally small, this statement still has the odour of misinformation. The same misinformation he wasn't afraid spreading in the years before. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo

Your sales pitch about Elon's work stemming from a deep love of humanity, I'm afraid is wishful thinking. I hope you're right, but it's not really measurable. The amount of wealth it gives him is measurable. The things he constantly post are measurable. Him being a fan of all kinds of far right policies. politicians, criminals, football hooligans etc etc is measurable. Again, I hope you're right, but I do not trust him in the least.

I was about to type stuff about still voting on Trump after all he's done and the endless amount of lies he spewed during his first four years, but I'll keep it at this: it's really hard to understand for me, even with the alternative being wack.

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by smashingjj

dude i want to stop posting about this how am I supposed to control myself if I feel you're low key claiming victory

Originally Posted by smashingjj

if you make all these well thought-out points about policies and whatnot and the reply you get is you're a fascist then yes, you win. but some other points have been made too, even if I didn't address every single one. I'm not a great debater, I'm still waiting for disco king to chime in and do his work here

firstly, I've been very outspoken in my criticisms about Biden/Harris, maybe not so much in this thread but in general on the board. The whole idea of having two viable options is stupid to me, it's barely democratic, especially with the electoral college in place. trump lost the 2016 election with millions of votes and he still wins. I've stated all these criticisms before and some people laughed about it. fuck that, it's not for no reason that America is 20 places lower on the democracy index than the netherlands. but American politics have an enormous impact on a global scale, Europe is often not far behind with whatever happens in the US, that's why I keep bothering.

about RFK, I saw that too that he said he vaccinated all his children, but he gladly hops on the "I distrust science" train so often that it feels like he's contradicting himself, at best. he has made a name for himself by further eroding the trust in modern medicine. also "I just want vaccines to be as safe as possible" might sound innocent in and of itself but considering how much research has gone into modern vaccines being basically the safest they could possibly be, chances that something goes wrong as a side effect are infinitesimally small, this statement still has the odour of misinformation. The same misinformation he wasn't afraid spreading in the years before. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo

Your sales pitch about Elon's work stemming from a deep love of humanity, I'm afraid is wishful thinking. I hope you're right, but it's not really measurable. The amount of wealth it gives him is measurable. The things he constantly post are measurable. Him being a fan of all kinds of far right policies. politicians, criminals, football hooligans etc etc is measurable. Again, I hope you're right, but I do not trust him in the least.

I was about to type stuff about still voting on Trump after all he's done and the endless amount of lies he spewed during his first four years, but I'll keep it at this: it's really hard to understand for me, even with the alternative being wack.

hey, i wasn't trying to draw you back in or sneakily claim a victory or something like that. i've read what you said, and the article you posted and have thoughts, but i think we've each said plenty (and neither of us are debaters), and so i'm happy to leave it with a gentlemanly handshake and say i appreciate you, and a discussion like this has in no way changed my positive thoughts and sentiments for you, mr. jj.

[redbreegull]

tonight Apartheid Clyde spoke to the AFD, telling them not to be ashamed of their past

[Disco King]

I haven't really read any of this exchange tbh because there have been a lot of posts, but I think it's fairly demonstrable that Elon Musk is both far-right and also just shitty independent of his politics, and I want to post a bunch of shit that demonstrates that demonstrable fact, but just like I still haven't had time to post that cited list of reasons that Elon Musk sucks that I earlier promised because I'm in crunch time right now with respect to my master's thesis (which isn't about Elon Musk btw), and I don't know when I will get the time to do this.

Has anybody posted the time where Elon Musk agreed with a guy claiming that Jews where bringing immigrants in to undermine the white race? And then he later apologized for his post being stupid, but then he later said he never apologized and that he stood by what he said, but that nobody understood it (offering an implausible interpretation of his original meaning given the context)?

Or how, despite Twitter implementing a policy under him to clearly label all AI-generated deepfakes, he posted an AI-generated deepfake depicting Kamala Harris as saying shit she never said without any clear label, indicating that he made an exception to his own policies for himself to suit his political ends?

[redbreegull]

we haven't even talked about his kids yet have we

[Disco King]

Or the time he called a rescue scuba diver a "pedophile" because that diver informed Musk that his special submarine wouldn't fit under the rocks or whatever

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Disco King

Or the time he called a rescue scuba diver a "pedophile" because that diver informed Musk that his special submarine wouldn't fit under the rocks or whatever

dude that's not fair, he was stimming

[redbreegull]

or was smoking grass with Joe Rogan I can't recall which

[Plasticine Rap Star]

He didn’t even bother apologising or giving an explanation after his two sieg heils, did he? He basically said “oh it’s so played out to call your political enemies Nazis” or whatever. Which 100% does not work in this instance, as it’s basically saying, “You can’t even twice perform what looks exactly like a Nazi salute without people pointing out you did something that looked exactly like a Nazi salute.” And then he doubled down, Musk-style, with some Nazi related puns on X, like King of the Edgelords.

[redbreegull]

Didn't he say it was a "Roman salute?"

I looked this up and based on what I could gather from Google in a few minutes, no one knows how the Romans saluted but the "Roman salute" (the Nazi salute) originated in the 18th century and has since been adopted by various authoritarian ideologies

[Elphenor]

somehow worse than just saying it was a Nazi salute

[redbreegull]

the Romans also committed a genocide against the Jews so same diff

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by Disco King

I still haven't had time to post that cited list of reasons that Elon Musk sucks that I earlier promised because I'm in crunch time right now with respect to my master's thesis

Really? At a moment like this?!

[MyOneAndOnly]

Meanwhile in Seattle

[Elphenor]

hell yeah

[ninsp]

Originally Posted by MyOneAndOnly

Meanwhile in Seattle

Finally, Seattle was of use

[BlissedandGone2]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Didn't he say it was a "Roman salute?"

"It's not a Nazi salute, it's the salute that INSPIRED the Nazi salute."

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Didn't he say it was a "Roman salute?"

I looked this up and based on what I could gather from Google in a few minutes, no one knows how the Romans saluted but the "Roman salute" (the Nazi salute) originated in the 18th century and has since been adopted by various authoritarian ideologies

I can't find evidence that Musk himself called it a "Roman salute," but his right-wing Italian friend Andrea Stoppa shared a clip of him doing the salute and enthusiastically stated that the "Roman Empire is back." His fans are also defending him, saying it was a "Roman salute," not a Nazi one.

That's probably even a worse defense than just saying "he was waving" or "he was awkwardly gesturing toward the crowd." As you say, nobody knows how the Romans saluted. The salute is chiefly associated with the Nazis, who claimed that they were carrying on Roman tradition, the same way they connected everything they did to some mythical, apocryphal version of the past.

Doing a salute that is exactly like the salute that has been associated with nobody but the Nazis for 80 years and saying "it was a a different salute" is like sporting a toothbrush mustache and claiming "nah, nothing to do with Hitler… it's a Frank McGee mustache." That is definitely a sus claim on the part of the supporters making it.

The people saying "it was just an awkward gesture" make a more plausible claim, but even that is a bad defense. How can they know that? The only way to know that would be to read Musk's mind, and if they're making guesses as to what was going on in his head at the time, how can they say their interpretation is much more likely than the people saying "it was a Nazi salute?" At best, they couldn't say "that definitely wasn't a Nazi salute," but just "I personally think it was just an accident, but idk." The fact that the Anti-Defamation League opined that it wasn't a Nazi salute doesn't constitute a lot of support that it wasn't, because their reasoning wasn't based on something like how the gesture has been used in the past, but speculation as to Musk's mental state. The Anti-Defamation League may be experts on antisemitic symbols, but they are not greater experts on reading people's minds than anybody else is. If they had instead said, "based on how this gesture has been used in the past, we think he wasn't doing a Nazi salute," then they might be using reasoning connected to something they could be authorities on (how frequently a gesture that is often an antisemetic hate symbol is used in contexts in which it is not an antisemetic hate symbol). Like, if they were like "multiple different people from multiple different political movements have used this gesture to mean different things, from liberals to socialists to Star Trek fans" then okay, I'd put some credence in that. Just "idk, we think he's just being awkward"— like wtf, does being part of the ADL make you a body-language expert or autism whisperer? "We know, we're just empaths like that."

The people who did cite the gesture's prior use in their reasoning, like historians of European history, have said "bro, that was def a Nazi salute. Almost only the Nazis use it." It's not like an eagle or something, which is used in iconography by many other groups other than Nazis. It's, like, a Nazi trademark.

He didn't move his wrist in a waving fashion. He didn't point at somebody in the crowd and say "YOU CAN DO IT" in a Rob Schneider impression. He did a very distinct gesture twice, pounding his heart in between. And then he used words that sounded kinda like part of the 14 words, which I wouldn't have connected to the 14 words if they didn't immediately follow what looks exactly like a Nazi salute. In any other context, I'd just go "well, a lot of people talk about securing the future."

For skeptics, I do wonder what the threshold is for thinking it's at least plausible that somebody did a Nazi salute. Not even the threshold for knowing for sure, but just the threshold for going, "you know, he just might have." Does the person have to say, "I am doing a Nazi salute. I'm a Nazi. I do Nazi things, such as the salute I'm doing now" as they do it?

[redbreegull]

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[ilikeplanets]

I don't really go here anymore, but was in a whole rage over recent political events combined with losing my liberal political home over the last couple years without finding that same home on the right. Displaced, and hating them both.

But anyway, reading this on a random Tuesday night reminded me of how genuine smashingjj is. I haven't forgotten how open you were to hearing my differing perspective, even though I didn't get you to understand it. I'm glad to see that you're still advocating for civil discourse, and I really respect that.

[redbreegull]

I understand why you don't come around planets, but I miss your presence on the board

[topleybird]

Musk led an actual coup this weekend and appointed a kid who goes by "Big Ballz" to oversee the Treasury and start rewriting the code that controls every payment in the country. Code that he cannot possibly understand. Big Ballz has your social security number. It all sounds like an absolutely wild conspiracy theory because it's so deranged and it's very, very cool and is going to help everyone

[Disco King]

How possible is it to fix this kind of damage four years from now?

[MyOneAndOnly]

It won't be. A lot of this will be effectively permanent.

[phang]

It does seem that America's only hope is the nazi tech bro falling out with the orange rapist. I know they're both using each other, but surely these two collosal egos can't sustain 4 years of each other.

Surely, right?

[Cool As Ice Cream]

and then what?

[smashingjj]

They will both explode and their residue shall be literal rainbows and unicorns and there will be world peace

[Toast]