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Comment by cloutchaser | Hacker News Reader

This has nothing to do of course with Musk being quite visibly resistant to aggressive far-left tactics, and standing up to political rhetoric vs Sanders and Warren.

No, not a power game at all.

With the world we live in, and the high profile of Tesla, not to mention their great record on LGBT rights in the past, I literally find it impossible to believe this. Widespread racial segregation? Like which company would create it's own suicide by doing this? In Silicon valley, california, the most "progressive" place on earth? Which company or HR deparment in 2022 isn't terrified of even a hint of racism, and would jump and correcting it.

This is a hit job to show a rebel who's boss. Just like the wave after wave of attempts to get Rogan off Spotify.

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> ...not to mention their great record on LGBT rights in the past, I literally find it impossible to believe this.

It is a mistake to view all social issues as a monolith. In the US, the Women's Suffrage movement rather famously had a single-minded focus on getting white women the vote. Personally, I've met quite a few openly and unapologetically homophobic black people, as well as openly "I'm-not-racist-but"-anti-black gay people. That a company would try (and even succeed) along one axis and completely fail at another one isn't a surprise.

Concluding that this is a hit job assumes that Tesla is perfectly progressive (Musk is pretty vocally anti-progressive) both in its goals (company-level policies) and its actions (hierarchical manager-level fiefdoms). It sure sounds like individuals with enough evidence to make a case have a financial incentive to bring that evidence to the courts, though. I don't see that as a bad thing.

IIRC, some far-left African American groups were working with the KKK to promote the "Back to Africa" movement through the civil rights era. I forget if it was the Black Panthers or Black Hebrew Israelites / Black Zionists or something along those lines... but there's a significant amount of uncomfortable overlap there.

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There's also the famous pact between Hitler (far right Fascism) and Stalin (far left Communism).

Some people like to say that the left-right spectrum is a horseshoe. The far-left and the far-right start to get similar ideas and the "spectrum" bends back around like a horseshoe, meeting back in the middle. In many ways, its the moderates who disagree on the most number of subjects.

And while the language of the extremists (either left or right) are different, the extremists are more alike than their philosophies seem to indicate.

Yes, the differences between fascism and communism are mostly ideological and academic. To the people living under them it's the same experience. Sacrificing oneself for the good of the nation/party/body.

People make the mistake of thinking capitalism is incompatible with communism, but that is false. Marx wrote a lot about the role of technology in wealth creation. He thought that it would be technology that would bring abundance and set man free, and the best technologists where the free-market-capitalists.

Marx also said something along the lines that capitalism, unchecked, was bound to become centralised and monopolised, creating the necessary conditions for the revolutionary transfer to totalitarian dictatorship of the proletariat.

> Hitler (far right Fascism)

Hitler was nationalist but also heavily inspired by Marx, in Hitler’s own words.

>There's also the famous pact between Hitler

There's also the famous pact between Hitler and the Bush family.

> There's also the famous pact between Hitler (far right Fascism) and Stalin (far left Communism).

Lots of people recognize that depsite using “Socialist” in their name and coopting some socialist rhetoric, the Nazis were far right, like the Italian Fascists.

Fewer (but not no) people who aren't non-Leninist Marxists and/or Libertarian Socialists/Anarchists recognize the same thing about Leninism and it's vanguardist descendants (Stalinism, Maoism, etc.), but it's equally true of them.

In Britain, too, suffragettes only wanted upper class ladies to have the vote. Both male and female domestic servants, who made up the majority of the working class at that time, where intentionally excluded.

But "Votes for some women!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

This is debatable...

> I literally find it impossible to believe this.

Yeah, that was my reaction too. It makes zero sense. Suggesting that actual widespread, repeated 'racial segregation' is happening today in a high-profile, very large, publicly traded Silicon Valley company like Tesla is simply ludicrous. The atmosphere in the valley in recent years is pervasive hair-trigger vigilance from company boards, management, HR and employees against even the slightest appearance of any impropriety.

The current exponentially punitive environment and runaway social media amplification have made the downsides for a public company basically limitless. And what possible benefit could there be from permitting racial segregation? Tesla is nothing if not pragmatic. The "accused" is being pilloried for an alleged "crime" despite the absence of any evidence, motivation or opportunity. It's troubling how the "prosecution" of allegations can now be the punishment.

> Yeah, that was my reaction too. It makes zero sense. Suggesting that actual widespread, repeated 'racial segregation' is happening today in a high-profile, very large, publicly traded Silicon Valley company like Tesla is simply ludicrous. The atmosphere in the valley in recent years is pervasive hair-trigger vigilance from company boards, management, HR and employees against even the slightest appearance of any impropriety.

It must be nice living in a bubble, in a bubble that is Silicon Valley. There's A LOT of racism here once you leave the neat tech offices filled with highly educated people getting $200k out of college.

> I literally find it impossible to believe this

According to the article, there were hundreds of complaints from workers. But based on reputation you are willing to disbelieve them all and conclude that the state shouldn't follow up?

At this point I’ll believe a court of law, at the conclusion of the trial.

> Diaz was awarded $6.9m in damages for emotional distress and $130m in punitive damages, in what is believed to be the largest such verdict of its kind.

If I heard my company just did that, I'd make damn sure I'd have something to file a complaint about too.

> Financial motive

> Political motive

Certainly will raise doubts in the mind of any rational thinker.

Tesla respond quite well in their blog:

>Over the past five years, the DFEH has been asked on almost 50 occasions by individuals who believe they were discriminated against or harassed to investigate Tesla. On every single occasion, when the DFEH closed an investigation, it did not find misconduct against Tesla. It therefore strains credibility for the agency to now allege, after a three-year investigation, that systematic racial discrimination and harassment somehow existed at Tesla.

and similar.

It also aligns perfectly with my suggestion that this is a timed attack. And it’s also an attack on the issue where it’s most obvious to attack. Calling someone or a company racist is extremely hard to disprove and is the calling card the media and the establishment to pile on.

"To date, despite repeated requests, the DFEH has declined to provide Tesla with the specific allegations or the factual bases for its lawsuit."

"Over the past five years, the DFEH has been asked on almost 50 occasions by individuals who believe they were discriminated against or harassed to investigate Tesla. On every single occasion, when the DFEH closed an investigation, it did not find misconduct against Tesla."

https://www.tesla.com/blog/dfehs-misguided-lawsuit

>"To date, despite repeated requests, the DFEH has declined to provide Tesla with the specific allegations or the factual bases for its lawsuit."

What do you think would happen to those people providing information? You think they would still have jobs?

There is a difference between people complaining about other worker making comments and implementing racial segregation. Its hard to believe that a car plant in California was more racist then all those in the South.

>Its hard to believe that a car plant in California was more racist then all those in the South.

If it's run like an apartheid South African company, I dont find it hard to believe.

Relatedly, what one might call "climate policy proponents" tend to hate and criticize Musk and Tesla above all others, which is strange considering the tremendous positive impact he has enacted precisely in reducing carbon dependence and transitioning humanity to green technology.

Conflict is a lot more likely when people are similar but have minor differences, than when they are completely different.

See inter religious conflict as a great example (Shia-Sunni Muslims, catholic vs Protestant etc)

Can you provide any examples? I’ve never seen this and have a lot of connections to the field. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Rogan has removed over a hundred podcast episodes. Most of them this week. https://www.jremissing.com/

Motivation to listen to his show? If you don’t listen this today, you might not be able to tomorrow!

Has the DFEH sued anyone else? That's important context

Warren and Sanders are centrists. Centre-right and centre-left respectively.

Warren labeled a centrist is pretty rich considering she keeps yelling at clouds about corporate greed (her explanation for inflation)

That’s what centrists tend to say, yes. Compromise between capitalists and workers.

Someone on the left might speak about trade unions, collectivising industry, arming workers, etc.

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-t...

Is that center right?

Yes, quite literally Bonapartist compromise between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Compromise between business owners and workers. Workers are often capitalists. But yes that’s correct.

Capitalists, otherwise known as the bourgeoisie, make money from owning capital.

Workers, otherwise known as the proletariat, make money from their own labour.

Workers are by definition not capitalists.

No, people that support the concept of being compensated in response to the value they bring, ie capitalism, are capitalists. Including most proletariats.

Leftists are more about dismantling capitalism and legalizing all drugs.

Disliking corporate greed is not a left/right or political position, but a moral one. Wouldn't you say the same about other types of greed?

Well it is a bit strange that corporate profits are at record highs and CxO's keep talking about how they are driving increased prices on their investor calls during a time of record inflation.

I'm pretty sure sanders is the most left of all the dems. The rest of them were more center-left. If he's center left, then which dem is the farthest left?

Sanders, maybe AOC. There are no US Democrats further left than that.

You do have far-left organisations in the US, though. There's the CPUSA and the PSL, for example.

Just because electoral politics in a particular country lack one end of the spectrum doesn't mean the spectrum doesn't exist.

Left and right are relative, obviously. If we go according to the original definition of being opposed to the ancient regime in France then that would make essentially the entire United States decidedly left-wing. That isn't very useful.

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