I don't care what Elon Musk thinks anymore | Hacker News Reader

I don't care what Elon Musk thinks anymore

avthar.com

59 pointsavthar66 comments

Musk is exciting for what he does, not his bloviating.

He's a low EQ high EQ guy that has a bulldozer personality and work ethic. If you want to learn from watching what he does professionally, you'll probably learn a lot. If you try to learn from what he says, if it isn't about technical aspects of his machines, you're in for a bunch of poor examples of how to be a good person.

He reminds me a lot of Linus Torvalds, exceptional individual who contributions have changed the world, but like all of us humans, with a variety of warts in how he interacts with others.

Main thing to remember- from George Washington to Einstein to Ghandi- there isn't a human that you can model all aspects of your life on, no uber-virtuous genius- each of us has different strengths and weaknesses and we need to pick and choose examples for our areas of need.

He's got charm and appeal to the tech community on the one hand, but as with a few other leaders like him, he's ruthless and shameless; influencing the market by tweeting about taking the company private at $number, forcing his employees to work during a pandemic, and probably a whole slew of other underhanded techniques to try and nab his dank stock price target based performance bonus.

"Don't outsource your thinking"... here are 580 words with my thinking on what you should think about thinking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That, and a clickbait submission title by the author themselves (the title of the article itself is "Don’t outsource your thinking").

I see it got flagged.

I'm glad at least HN is cognizant of not giving into clickbait to get views.

That's absolutely hilarious. The blog post is all "I don't want to know what the 5 things are, and I wont watch the clip because I don't care what Elon thinks, because I should think for myself and do what matters to me even if it's not a major problem for civilization", and Elon's actual initial suggestion right at the beginning of the clip is saying _exactly_ the same thing.

Classic.

I love how people think Elon is "evil" when it's clear people who interpret his banter this way have 100% fallen for his trolling.

I chuckle at "journalists" / people who snidely respond to his tweets thinking he cares about their opinion. Twitter is obviously pure entertainment for Mr. Musk. And yes, I fully acknowledge Tesla is a shit show and would never want to work there - a good friend of mine works at Tesla and confirms this all the time lmao.

Doesn't this line of thinking lead to everyone being able to project any viewpoint on him by deciding which (different) things are trolling and which are not?

Are you really claiming it's hard to tell whether or not a facetious tweet like "we aren't going to follow earth laws on mars" differs from "can't wait to rollout new model Y features"?

This is first grade level perception, no? You're really arguing that what someone says is either always serious or always comical and meaningless? Living like this must be incredibly exhausting my friend...

> I love how people think Elon is "evil" when it's clear people who interpret his banter this way have 100% fallen for his trolling.

Not to veer into politics, but I've heard the same thing said about Donald Trump. At some point The Rule of Goats[1] applies.

[1] https://twitter.com/popehat/status/858722120620265473

Ironically, you could argue the same about some of Kamala Hariss' rhetoric.

This is easy to solve: Trolling is evil. Don't do it.

If a public person is pretending to be serious and is trolling they do not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone.

When anything you said can be turned into 'I was just trolling' you do not deserve an ounce of consideration. As your statements hold 0 value.

And yet, obviously you're still flustered about it so it seems like it still worked.

How on earth you came to that conclusion?

everybody outsources their thinking to some extent. It is nice if people can have a sort of overview of their own thoughts to understand how they have outsourced it.

Spot on, I think awareness of where you've outsourced your thinking is most important, vs not doing it at all.

The startup example was one where I wasn't aware that I'd outsourced my thinking and it came back to bite me in the long run

One think I think people really don't seem to grok about Elon is that fundamentally he's a pretty silly guy, just look at his Twitter, he may have accomplished a lot, but much of what he says and does is just not meant to be taken seriously and essentially pranking.

This just shows not everyone is perfect, and never will be. Twitter unfortunately makes it simple for people to output their unfiltered thought. I feel like we'd find something uncouth about anyone if we knew all of their unfiltered thoughts.

No one is perfect because everyone has a different definition of “perfect.”

Plenty of folks find his trolling and irreverence endearing.

Exactly what I was trying to get at.

> This just shows not everyone is perfect

I'll bet he knows intellectually what is and isn't diplomatic or good PR for himself and his companies on Twitter. He simply doesn't care to worry about it.

What is "perfect"? What do you think about Steve Wozniak? Is he "imperfect" because he is silly?

> Twitter unfortunately makes it simple for people to output their unfiltered thought.

That's one of the best things about the platform.

Perfect is completely subjective, which is my entire point. I personally enjoy the quirks of Steve Wozniak.

> That's one of the best things about the platform.

I disagree, we're lacking critical thought in many places and very influential people not thinking critically about what they are about to tweet is not helping anyone.

I think he never said a single intelligent thing on Twitter. It's 50% memes and 50% bullshit/lies. Prove me wrong.

Most of his SpaceX tweets are usually pretty informative, but there's a good amount of memes and jokes in there for sure.

Silly. Really? Using his fame to call a rescue diver a pedophile is silly? Is a prank?

Fuck that. Elon Musk is a narcissistic asshole.

Call me crazy, but I don't think narcissistic assholes are typically repetitive top donors to the ACLU without even mentioning it until they're called out on shit.

A narcissistic asshole would atleast make it known or brag about it when doing so :)

I never thought of Elon Musk as a narcissist, and I always assume most Elon Musk hate is political.

But the fact that he has supporters on the internet point out how he made public donations to the ACLU makes me begin to think maybe he is a narcissist.

Edit: I mean this specifically in the context of narcissism being a condition where a person tries to control the image others see of himself. Being able to make strangers say, "He's not a narcissistic asshole, he donated to the ACLU!" makes me think that's specifically an image he tried to project of himself onto others and succeeded for some.

But I don't know the man, so I'd rather think it was just a donation.

I'm not a musk supporter in the slightest. I really don't have much of an opinion of the dude other than the fact he mostly seems like a dude.

I don't exactly call this situation "controlling his image"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inverse.com/article/46184-a...

Sorry for the amp link - but maybe slightly look into things before posting. I don't think hed've ever said a damn thing about it if somebody didn't go "well why don't you donate to them"

> I don't exactly call this situation "controlling his image"

> https://www.inverse.com/article/46184-aclu-respond-to-elon-m...

So this all spawned from a Twitter thread in which he starts off with a link to a song by a band he likes and then says, "I hope the kids are ok." You've convinced me he is a full-blown narcissist, thank you.

If you wanted to change my mind, you failed at, "maybe slightly look into things before posting." Change your attitude and word usage when you engage with an already-neutral comment.

Saying "I hope the kids are ok." Implicates being a full-blown narcissist?

Absolutely breaking HN rules here, RIP me, but you're fucking insane and your mind wasn't going to be swayed any other way to begin with lmao. Impossible to tell how you've gotten to the point you are with that line of thinking, but I'd suggest seeking help for it. That's just outright toxic.

> maybe slightly look into things before posting

> suggest seeking help

Sure thing bud. Keep the personal insults coming, and then say I'm the one breaking the rules.

My apologies if it was not clear - I was saying that I am the one breaking the rules in what I was going on to post.

The thing I like about Elon, is that when he is attacked for not being perfect, everyone goes back to this one thing that happened.

If the worst thing you can bring up about him is that he called a rescue diver a pedophile this one time, he's pretty reliable. This is what, in space, we call an anomaly. They happen. It's ok, until they become a pattern.

His tweets show a trend of narcissistic behavior, the pedophile incident is merely the most egregious.

EDIT: Thanks, @brianlweiner

EDIT2: For the downvoters, whom I can only assume don't agree that he shows narcissistic asshole behavior:

Yeah, I lift a little … pic.twitter.com/UAJdv8qSw1

We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

I’m not at risk [of contracting Covid-19], neither are my kids

Everybody dies

Tesla stock price is too high imo

Pronouns suck

If I am a narcissist (which might be true), at least I am a useful one

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

FYI you probably meant 'egregious'

In this case both seem to apply.

Besides that fact that human perfection is not a meaningful concept, I personally consider that episode just a symptom of his personality - nothing more or less than a narcissist, who craves attention. I actually find it a genius, in a perverse way, in the fact that he turned the attention in a business model (although this approach is nothing new). Don't get me wrong, I credit him as a successful enterpreneur - just much inferior than the one he projects (and that a non-small audience believe he is).

The "pedophile diver" remark was the culmination of a series of tweets and actions where Elon "designed" a vehicle highly unlikely to help rescue the kids trapped in the cave and tried to convince the rescuers to use it while ignoring their judgement on the matter. It's not a little mistake, it's the culmination of an extended narcissistic rampage. He seems completely incapable of admitting that he might wrong about something when faced with pushback.

Oh, if it was the only bad thing he done - but the work conditions are terrible at his factories, he actively sabotages unions, he is absolutely just sells this engineer image of him: he is NOT a founder of tesla, he simply bought the title, he takes credit for his workers’ accomplishments, the only thing he engineered in tesla for example is some design work. He also sells himself as a self-made millionare, while his father has an emerald mine in South Africa.

So basically he is a narcissist scammer.

I second the narcissism diagnosis, and I'd like to add that naming his son after a formula (and a silly one, for that) is a proof - it's not going to be fun for the son when he grows up.

Are you honestly trying to tell us you've never called somebody something mean? Never said anything you've later regretted? Give me a break, people are imperfect.

If he'd taken back the statement, I'd agree that it was an outlier and forgivable. But he didn't; he doubled down on the pedophile label.

People are imperfect, but people who truly delight themselves in their own imperfections have a problem and aren’t role models. Give _me_ a break, after thousands of years of forming groups humans are going to forget how to toss the assholes out? Nope.

Saying he "called somebody something mean" is a somewhat reductionist way of referring to a months-long ordeal that included hiring a (fake) "private investigator" and trying to push his "findings" to the media.

If you or I spent $50,000 to smear someone because they weren't sufficiently servile to us we might face some social and legal consequences but of course the rules work differently for "heroes" like Musk with virtues such as money.

He's perfectly capable of that for sure, there's a streak of it in him that comes out from time to time, but I don't think it's his definitive trait and there are other times when it's not obvious at all. On that issue he definitely got it wrong.

He actually won at trial by claiming it was just a prank.

> Musk testified that Unsworth had proposed a physically impossible act that could not be taken literally. Likewise, he said, the pedo guy phrase couldn’t be taken literally. “Mother-effer doesn’t literally mean incest,” he noted.

He also, after apologizing, doubled down and called him a child rapist a month later.

In an e-mail to BuzzFeed marked "off the record", urging the journalists to investigate Unsworth's past, which the journalists then published while excusing themselves by saying "OTR doesn't mean OTR unless we agree too!". Musk accused Unsworth of taking a child bride, based on information from a con-man who tricked Elon into hiring them as a private investigator.

I think the full context paints a bit less evil picture than your summary. Also an unexpectedly convoluted story in itself.

"I dont care what Elon says" Writes blog about Elon

I have a lot of respect for his accomplishments, but I find his public persona quite obnoxious. That's not a particularly novel opinion of him, and there are a lot of famous people out there like that. After a little bit of reflection, I actually came to realize I'd probably be the same way, spouting unsolicited opinions and throwaway memes, if I had a massive internet following that considered me a genius. And it makes me a little glad I'm not famous. I much prefer my obnoxious opinions being tied to a random alias that nobody can be bothered to stalk.

He said in that clip that everything that creates value is valuable, it doesn't have to change the world in any big way. I donno, he specifically got asked the question and I think the answer is probably the most correct one as well.

If you just listen to what other people say and try to follow that yeah, that is outsourcing your thinking. But do people really study and start an AI company just because Elon Musk thinks this is a big thing for the future?

Thinking back to my teenage and college years, what "smart people" like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, said was important to work on guided the interests of myself and my friend group.

I don't think we were alone in that

Yeah maybe, but somewhere in that there was probably just a passion for stuff as well? There is a reason that you listen to someone.

It's not bad advice to listen to what smart people think is important or what problems they believe to be important to work on in the future. But somewhere along the way you must decide on what you want to do and I think most people have no issues in that. But if you're young and have no experience, it is IMO a good idea to try things that people with experience like Elon Musk say will be important for the future. Then if you dislike it, you can simply drop it for something else.

I've actually never read the phrase product-market-founder fit before. I've read product-market fit, or PMF, a million times.

It's something I picked up from Naval Ravikant (@naval on Twitter) [1]

"Marc Andreessen came up with the concept of the “product-market fit.” I would expand that to “product-market-founder fit,” taking into account how well a founder is personally suited to the business. The combination of the three should be your overwhelming goal." [2]

[1] https://twitter.com/naval [2] https://nav.al/work-hard

A sizeable portion this site is dedicated to the teachings of Josh Waitzkin, to whom the author (even if we're being very charitable) has clearly outsourced at least some thinking. I really think people would be better off cutting out productivity and startup porn entirely tbh, as much as I enjoy Josh's story.

Guilty as charged - much of my writing is processing my own thoughts and reminders to myself. My thinking is far from perfect and very much a WIP

Down-votes ahoy! I've never once cared with Elon Musk has had to say. The image he paints is one of a rich arrogant prick who creates false pedophilic allegations, spews immature humor to caress a younger crowd and snobs on the poor. He's a selfless-egotistic sociopath with money who doesn't care about anything apart from himself. He has no good nature; there is nothing about his personality that you should admire.

However I do make assumption you've got to own these traits if you ever want to make bank.

Prove me wrong.

You just need bank to make bank. He serves as a figure of greed to be idolized. If it wasn't him it would be some other (y)uppie in the valley.

Seems like every industry has their rockstar figures to pull in new interest. Good or bad, it's a talking point(I assume some modern marketing technique everyone eventually will read about).

You got me there.

True, but you still need an X-enabler to actually make the requirement to claim yourself as at least a millionaire. Who's honestly going to make themselves a millionaire when we are all being paid incomes that are worth a pittance after taxes and so on?

I'm just fed up with such people running the show and showing no compassion to those outside of such and getting away with it with no consequences. For someone who wants to reach a further planet and showing no care or decency for the planet we live on is just despicable. And a personality type of that such is just sad.

Do people really go loopy once you do reach $X?

Tweet, Buy, Tweet, Sell, Repeat.

TLDR Follow your own path. Don’t outsource your thinking.

I'd also add, be aware where you've outsourced your thinking, otherwise it can come back to bite you in the long run.

I don't have enough cycles to think everything myself. Outsourcing some things, in a conscious and well chosen and subject-to-revision manner, seems like a pretty important practice.

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