If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why. It may just be that you're an Ayn Rand villain.
0 - Again, Musk didn’t found tesla, he did a hostile takeover and has tried to rewrite history with him as the founder.
You can use this argument to say that no one deserves credit for doing anything. Seems like a dead-end way of thinking about the world to me.
All I see in this “we wouldn’t have EVs without Musk!” discussion is a rehash of the old “great man of history” theory, something that’s generally been discredited in the historical fields. The whims and decisions of individual actors matters, yes, but they also act in a context that molds and constrains them. The specific circumstance that made Musk and Tesla took both his initiative, and a specific cultural and policy environment to support his actions. We overweight the former.
First, one must acknowledge that Tesla would’ve died on the vine without the policies I mentioned above. They finally turned a profit excluding emissions credits in Q1 2021. A feat, yes, but also one that was wholly dependent on public policy to survive and grow. You can give credit to Musk for recognizing the opportunity here, but he didn’t make it.
Second, there’s really nothing to suggest that nobody else would have taken this path if Musk had not, albeit a bit later perhaps. History is full of “great men” who discover and create, but dig under the surface and one will find dozens of uncredited inventors who were either a close second, or less lucky in marketing. Heck, there is no real reason to believe that Musk was even critical for Tesla; remember that he took it over, and we have no idea where it might have gone absent his involvement.
To say that the idea of one person changing the world has been discredited is so wildly wrong I don't even know where to start. We can't neglect the background but we can't neglect individuals and the choices they make either.
What we can say is that Musk presided over the growth of a company that has sold 2 million EVs. We can't say "someone else would have done that if he had never been born," which is what you said. Unreal.
I was attempting to paraphrase a common sentiment, and should have been more clear about that. It’s pretty easy to find people stating a varient of this idea in sibling threads.
> To say that the idea of one person changing the world has been discredited is so wildly wrong I don't even know where to start.
You could start by actually reading what I said, rather than making up for yourself and then arguing against that. Everything you said here is unrelated to my point, and directly countermanded by my actual words.
Or in other words, the end justifies the means?
Not all of us share that philosphy.
To others, those things are in fact enough to say that Elon Musk is a shithead.
It's as if there are gradients of human behavior, and not everyone is always a cartoony villain or Dudley Do-right all the time.
> However, "being a troll, exaggerating, and sometimes lying" are not mortal sins.
Mortal sins are serious sins, venial sins are less serious sins. "Colloquial" doesn't mean you get to delete words you find inconvenient or don't understand.
In which alternate reality?
You just have to look at the pandemic to see what difference no combustion engine cars would make for the world. Cities that were covered in smog suddenly had clean air because of the stay at home directive.
Despite all of that, climate change itself has not been "significantly reduced" in any way, nor has there been any evidence that increased adoption of EVs has slowed down or altered climate change's progression.
Two years ago we needed to start reducing emissions by 4% every year. We didn't. We must now reach a whopping 50% emissions reduction by 2030 to limit temperature increases to 1.5C, because the current path we are on could increase temperatures by 4.4C by 2100.
Getting every nation to ditch their ICE vehicles has to happen, yes, but it's not that simple. You can't just ban the sale of new ICE vehicles and expect that 7% to drop to 0%, because everyone who already owns an ICE vehicle is going to keep driving it until they've decided they're done with it for whatever reason. So, the only way to get to 0% ICE vehicles by 2030 would be to make it illegal to operate one - today.
Politics is involved. Getting large swaths of America (or anyone in any nation with an affinity for an ICE vehicle, but this subset of folk is a great example) to give up their gasoline and their trucks and their mustangs is like asking someone to stop breathing. Asking developing nations with little money or ability to modify their infrastructure to support only ICE vehicles over the next eight years is an outstandingly daunting task. I could go on and on, and while I admire your hopefulness, what you're saying requires the entire world to accomplish the same goal in a far shorter amount of time than we actually have.
I want to view the future through rose-colored glasses. I want to have high hopes that EVs will save us.
They won't.
2. Tesla accounts for ~14% of EVs sold.
3. Passenger vehicles account for less than 7% of total CO2 emissions globally.
So, I'm going to reply to your comment but really, this is relevant to most of this thread (and nearly every thread about him), because I'm just tired of these conversations.
Yes, by many measures, he has been incredibly successful at both running businesses and amassing wealth. There are a lot of metrics that you could cite that support that assertion.
At the same time, by many measures, you could successfully - and easily - argue that he's a pretty shitty person.
And guess what? Both are true. I don't know what my ultimate point here is besides saying that yeah - some people think he's awesome, some people think he's shitty, and neither view is technically incorrect. Move on.
So absurd that anyone takes that argument seriously.
And you know what? That's OK. :)
You hint that Elon Musk treats other people badly. Has he raped anyone? Murdered anyone? Waged any wars? Are there abuse allegations? No, he's a troll on twitter.
I truly don't know how else to make my previous post any clearer to you. The simple fact of the matter is that everyone has their own personal reasons for putting more importance on one thing over another. Nobody ever owes you an explanation for why they might put more importance on how someone treats someone over how many units of a product they sell. I could speculate as to any number of reasons why that may be, but for the sake of this conversation, that's not my place. I will, however, say that I'm incredibly surprised and perplexed by your inability to understand that there are people out there who "place people over profits".
>You hint that Elon Musk treats other people badly. Has he raped anyone? Murdered anyone? Waged any wars? Are there abuse allegations? No, he's a troll on twitter.
As I've made clear in this thread, I am not taking a position on Musk. All I can say is that what I've alluded to, in regards to how he treats people and his employees, are all things that have been very publicly discussed in the past and should be surprising to nobody who has paid even a modicum of attention.
You literally called him a "shitty preson", and you're saying you're not taking a position on him. Are you joking?
>Yes, by many measures, he has been incredibly successful at both running businesses and amassing wealth. There are a lot of metrics that you could cite that support that assertion.
>At the same time, by many measures, you could successfully - and easily - argue that he's a pretty shitty person.
I simply said that there are reasons people could successfully argue that he's shitty. What I did not do, however, was take a position on those arguments. The phrase, "You could successfully argue" does not mean, "This is what I believe".
Have a nice day man. I'm not replying to you anymore.
I truly hope you have a pleasant day as well. :)
No one owes me anything. I'm asking a question and you're not answering it, you're just restating "some people value different things and we can't say why".
My point is that people should value Elon's accomplishments more than his attitude. The fact that they don't is bizarre and demands an explanation.
To them, your attitude is bizarre and demands an explanation. To them, you should value someone who is a decent person over any money they make.
OP wasn't saying Elon Musk is a shithead. S/he was pointing out that both things can be true - he can be a shithead, and he can create wealth and innovation. Both can be true, and some people will place value on one over the other, much as you have done.
We can't talk to each other because you're coming from a value-relative perspective ("people value different things, no one is wrong, and we can't say why"). To me this is insane. If someone values 5 dollars more than their life, we can question that. When people say Elon Must being a mean person on twitter outweighs everything he's built, we can question that.
And I never said anything about money.
>Your post is perfectly clear. It's just not answering the question. Ditto this post.
It does answer the question, you just don't like the answer. Notice how I'm not questioning the why behind why you choose to value how many units of his product he has sold over how he treats others? The simple fact of the matter is that many people put "people over profits" for many reasons - I am but one person and cannot answer for them. This is no different from why you can't speak to why every single Musk fan supports him, because everyone's reasons are different.
>No one owes me anything.
And yet you have repeatedly said...
>The fact that they don't is bizarre and demands an explanation.
I'm not sure how you can say people don't owe you anything when you've demanded it repeatedly.
>... Elon Must being a mean person on twitter...
Actually, I've been speaking broadly this entire time. When I reference how Musk treats people, I am referencing everything he does, not just his actions on Twitter.
I think what this ultimately boils down to is akin to the question you first posed in this thread - "If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why." I would like to ask you, why is it so important to you what other people think about Elon Musk, and why do you seem to let it bother you so much if they don't like him? He doesn't seem to let the court of public opinion bother him or hold him back from doing nearly whatever he wants, so he's going to keep doing what he's been doing regardless of what other people think. With that in mind, what does it matter to you - you, who isn't Elon Musk - if an internet stranger isn't a fan of him?
I never said business success outweighs how you treat people. I said, in the specific case of Elon Musk, what he has built outweighs his obnoxious attitude. That's a specific, not a generality.
Anyway, we've arrived at a conclusion. To you, values are relative. That's an answer but it's not acceptable to me.
Leaving aside the stunt where he called a rescue diver a pedophile, there has been enough and substantially bad racism at Tesla under his leadership that the company was ordered to pay 137 million dollars [1].
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/tesla-must-pay-137-million-t...
And yet here you are, engaging in one of them. I echo the parents request of a deep meditation on why you are feeling this way.
Pointing out the futility of a conversation is different than engaging in it.
>I echo the parents request of a deep meditation on why you are feeling this way.
Please highlight where, in this thread, I've stated my own feelings about Elon Musk.
[...]
>At the same time, by many measures, you could successfully - and easily - argue that he's a pretty shitty person.
Right here.
Kind of like how this very comment chain is going, no?
I don't think we in any way need to lionize the mythology of John Galt like figures to make progress and build a future better than the present.
> If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why.
I'm not a hater, but I can understand why others are. Like you said, he's obnoxious. And he lies. Which should be enough justification by itself. But he's also really fucking rich, which is a teeth-grindingly annoying combination.
I really admire what he's done for the Electric Vehicle industry, and the rocket industry, (and the satellite broadband industry) and I absolutely cannot wait for Starship to fly to orbit. That's gonna be amazing. He can execute on a vision like almost no-one else.
But he's a dick - I can't deny that. And for people who don't really care about EVs, or rockets, or satellite broadband (i.e. non-nerds), the "being a dick" part is what's going to stand out the most.
It's not because "they don't care about EVs or rockets," it's something deeper and uglier.
Tons of people care, an entire industry of celebrity gossip lives off of it.
Elon has just as much of a cult following as he has haters, the fact that you can’t see how perfectly this mirrors wider celebrity culture suggests that you are either very out of touch with pop culture, or are a part of the Elon cult.
You have a point. But what does it say about someone that they spend time hating celebrities? Do they think "this celebrity is a bad person, if I were rich and famous I would be a good good person!" Is that true? Or is it just childish resentment?
Do we defend the people who have a deranged hatred towards Anne Hathaway? No we find them bizarre and disturbed.
Probably about the same thing as people that spend their time defending and dickriding celebrities on the internet.
You seem to be under the impression that there is nothing legitimately off putting about Elon’s public persona.
> Elon Musk is kind of obnoxious. He lies (or "exaggerates"). But what Tesla has done is insane. It's happened so quickly, and that's leaving aside the rockets. The hard evidence that we can build new things, that we can progress and build a future that's better than the present is so important. If it takes a flawed man to show us that, I'll take it.
> If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why. It may just be that you're an Ayn Rand villain.
Please show me where I said "there is nothing legitimately off putting about Elon’s public persona".
You just come off as so aghast at criticism of the man.
Elon didn’t like how Twitter was being run, so he spent a relatively minor fraction of his overall wealth to buy a large stake in the company and get himself onto the board. This is beyond comprehension to the average person who is typically just a the will of these large corporations.
Elon is _extremely_ powerful, and as such he deserves to be held to a higher level of scrutiny, beyond even the level of some random celebrity.
Then stop hand waving with poor analogies and just say what it is then.
Musk is seen by many as a sociopathic narcissist who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Doing things like sending private investigators to try and dig up dirt on that rescue diver who criticized him hardly distances him from that image (and doesn't help his claims of being a "free speech absolutist" either). Those traits combined with tremendous power are generally not a good combination.
We don't owe him anything for his business ventures. He isn't running a charity. He isn't doing it for you and me. Electric cars and rockets are very cool, but are not moving humanity into some new dawn. The idea that he is some necessary component of "hard evidence that we can build new things" that deserves special treatment is borne straight out of a personality cult. Pointing this out is a far cry from "claiming his work isn't valuable."
You can argue that Tesla in particular is successful off the back of the taxpayer; are you advocating against government incentives for electric vehicles?
Who knows what costs we'll be exposed to as their somewhat suicidal 'self driving' functionality becomes exposed to more of the buysers they sold it to on the back of improbable promises (such as "your car will eventually pay for itself by acting as an antonymous taxi").
It may seem like an off-topic point, but I recently had a big wake-up call with the kinds of people you mention. The flip side of your flowery description is that they're often short-sighted, vicious people who can get worked up into a frenzy with little warning, or reason. Sometimes they want to for no reason.
You're trying to describe the nobility of people with no skills (valued by society). But imagine if the entire world were populated by them. Would you really want to live in it?
And if not, can they be called heroes of humanity?
I dont even think Rand would follow you there; I can't really think of any corollary to that sentiment other than fascist rhetoric. To know nothing of a group of people but how much they make at work, and to go that far in painting a picture of them... Its shocking! Haha
I'm sure you mean well, and are genuinely reflecting, but this is not a good look at all to anybody but the most rightwing people. What amounts Idiocracy lore is not a suitable or humane thing to ground political beliefs on.
Musk is rich on paper but the stocks are massively overvalued for various reasons. The idea that "billionaires are evil people who exploit innocent laborers" is false and it comes from a place of resentment.
And yes, billionaires absolutely build their wealth on the backs of others. There's simply no way to become a billionaire without exploiting a system and taking advantage of others in some way. It may be legal, but legality took a sharp turn away from morality a long long time ago.
I agree with her that some very smart people are completely consumed by resentment.
> And yes, billionaires absolutely build their wealth on the backs of others. There's simply no way to become a billionaire without exploiting a system and taking advantage of others in some way. It may be legal, but legality took a sharp turn away from morality a long long time ago.
You're just resentful of people who have accomplished more than you. What's stopping Bob, who makes less money than you toiling in a factory, from saying the exactly same thing about you? You're an exploiter, it's how you earn a living without getting your hands dirty.
Something, something terrorists and freedom fighters.