Elon Musk Needs to Stop Tweeting Things He Can’t Prove
slate.com
slate.com
When I started in tech as a career nearly 20 years ago I was really excited because I wanted to make the world a better place through technology.
In some ways Musk embodies the kind of person a younger me would have considered a hero. Now increasingly I question his propensity to make outlandish claims on all sorts of topics and then get defensive when he can't substantiate them. The worst outcome of this kind of behaviour is Theranos.
Musk and his companies have achieved a lot. He should focus more on that (and improving ethics in the manner in which they get their results), and less on his appearance.
For a certain segment of people, Musk represents one of precious few glimmers of hope in several high impact fields. These people are sick of mega industry, boundless bureaucracy, and financially incentivized shortsightedness stymying progress and actively fighting to preserve the status quo. In their view, Musk possesses the qualities, resources, and initiative necessary to succeed in spite of these problems.
There aren’t many who fit that description or the or even give the appearance of such. It’s exceptionally rare, no matter how you slice it. With this in mind, it’s easy to imagine how some might feel inclined to defend Musk from perceived threats, even if it’s criticism rooted in truth. More than Musk himself, these peoples’ hopes are at stake, which naturally motivates strong reactions.
Personally, I feel conflicted. I do wish he’d tone down his tweeting and provide concrete proof of things like adequate factory safety, but I also feel that SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company are all important for moving humanity forward (especially the first) and would hate to see them unduly impeded.
That is generally possible for an immigrant, college dropout with $100K in student loans only if they aim crazy and fail upwards.
Try that for a change. It works.
Slate has tweeted a number of things they haven't been able to prove, some that could even be considered slander...
Basically, he's following Cartman's method of "asking questions" on South Park to discredit someone by implying something without actually stating it or providing any actual evidence to support the implied claim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elRxbGJuCw8
Anyone who utilizes these methods of underhanded, disingenuous attack should be ridiculed and ignored.
That may have been true in the past, but is no longer. Source: donald trump.
How will history judge? I don't mean "what will the judgement be?", but "what will the mechanism of judgement be?". The calls for (what is or what is perceived to be) undesireable speech to stop are the judgement of short-term history. In the long term, I believe that the consensus in good historiography is that later judgement must be based at least in part on contemporary perceptions, which won't be available if people silently wait for history to judge.
Guess what I found? 100% of the tweets were not falsifiable. They were as reliable as tarot reading, probably less scientific than same, and certainly less entertaining.
So it can't be generalised to that. It means that factual statements about real people with the easily foreseeable potential to do harm to those real people shouldn't be made without proof (with which you can agree or disagree), but that's less punchy.
I think this is a symptom of the effects of deindividuation. When your communications are always broadcast to a large group you get to feel like the head of an army but are actually closer to the ring-leader of a mob. One is able to justify saying whatever they want because that is where it ends for them, they have spoken their minds. In other words one is able to detach themselves from the ramifications of their words because those are other people carrying on the cause.
To end my rant, instead of telling people to shut-up and grow up which is rarely effective, perhaps we can try to gain a deeper understanding of our society and the side-effects of the rapid changes taking place.
Slate has it right, Musk should stop tweeting.
I recall Dave Chappelle musing that "the news had never been so good" when the Clinton scandal was the biggest thing.
"Baby, turn the lights down...the news is coming on". How true, perhaps now more than ever.
Trump is Trump. He's the President of the USA now. We should give him the proper respect that his office demands. In his hands lie the future of the North Korean / USA relations, US / China relations, the Supreme Court (which lies the future of Roe vs Wade, Citizens United, and other such cases decided by the court). US Border policy (at least for the next few years), etc. etc. A wide variety of issues that determine the future of this country.
Its one thing to deeply care about the future of the country, be it on the left or right side. But its another thing to simply not care about it and laugh it off.
If we are on the express to hell, I am at the very least going to enjoy the ride. Just as I will make sure I vote.
Colbert in particular is incredibly caustic, and almost exclusively caters towards making fun of the other side and "how stupid / hypocritical they are". As far as I'm concerned, this kind of trolling and sarcasm is part of the problem. And while Colbert himself is relatively tame, the twitter / internet goons who worship him are just as bad as Musk's online Twitter goons and trolls.
But this is getting quite far away from Mr. Musk and the point of the article. Bringing it all together: the general problem in today's discourse are the hero-worshiping trolls who take a personality (be it Trump, Colbert, or Musk), and take their fight to the internet to harass others.
And btw, Mr. Colbert was one of the first users of this methodology.
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-...
This was Colbert in 2006, so 12-years can change a person. I don't see Colbert really unleashing the troll armies upon anyone else anymore. But it is good to remember that Colbert was one of the first to launch a "media invasion" on the online space.
In a very similar manner to what Mr. Musk is doing in the article.
As for your larger point - yes, the online trolling is bad. People unleashing their dogs, so to speak, is also very bad. But the real problem is social media itself. I'm sure you've seen over the past year all the Silicon Valley insiders coming out saying they knew what they were doing when creating Facebook and things like that. This funnels into the whole "echo chamber" concept. The real issue sitting on top of all of this is that social media isn't designed at all, whatsoever, to increase communication, connectivity, or "togetherness". It is designed entirely to engage and retain eyeballs on screens, sucking up ad-revenue. Exposing oneself to opposing viewpoints is rarely something people find entertaining enough to keep them clicking for more. Just as the things that go viral are virtually never well-reasoned debate - they are insult wars and snark for snark retorts that must be contained within the 280 character limit.
Disagree 100%.
Blind respect for your country's leaders leads to dark paths.
That includes the primary vote (if Trump is defeated in the Republican Primary, the game is effectively over), in both the Republican and Democrat races. The general election vote, and so forth.
Finally, if you disagree with Trump's Executive Orders, or the laws that come about through his administration, then I guess a bit of civil disobedience can be fine. But you need to ensure that whatever civil disobedience you do actually furthers your point and improves your political sphere. Any 2014-like "Occupy" situations is a waste of effort. "Occupy" without a plan to vote or otherwise obtain power in the future elections is a futile waste of time and effort.
(On a completely unrelated note, are you a PDXLAN attendee? If you are, I've met you and we were on the same Overwatch team a year ago, I think. If not, nevermind, just someone else that uses a "dragontamer" alias)
> I don't merely disagree with Trump. I think he's a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic demagogue. He's a terrible human being that isn't worthy of respect.
A wild animal, like a shark, bear, or lion, needs to be treated with respect. They're apex predators who are mostly selfish. They don't give a care about you and are prone to aggression, downright killing people who get in their way.
And yet, if you see a wild bear, you better give it the respect it deserves.
You can completely disagree with a man while being forced to give respect to their position of power.
> You can completely disagree with a man while being forced to give respect to their position of power.
But neither of these is your original statement (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17492143), which is that Trump should be given the respect due the presidency.
The first statement, that someone (or something) should be given the respect it deserves, is a tautology; I think most people would agree that Trump should be given the respect he deserves, with only the question of how much respect that is.
The second statement says that respect is given to the position of power, which is different from giving it to the man. Respecting the presidency as an office is different from respecting the president who is its current office-holder.
Respect, as you rightly say, is due to the office, but not necessarily to the person occupying it.