Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment

They aren’t a government entity!!!

> I doubt that reasoning.

You can doubt what you want, but you seem like a lunatic if you accuse people who don’t doubt it of having a double standard based on your fantasies of what the secret reason is and your additional fantasy that they secretly share your view of the secret reason.

I understand you have a passionately held opinion about these matters, and it's unlikely I or anyone is likely to change your mind about much of it. But, as it's often said, you don't understand your own position thoroughly until you understand the other position thoroughly, so for the sake of you or anyone else who wants to be on solid ground, I'll put some responses. To declare my hand somewhat, when I said I have no dog in the fight, that refers to Musk; I don't find him a particularly admirable person, or someone likely to lead bringing about the changes I want to see in the world. What I bring to this is at least a couple of decades deeply exploring the question of how every/any person can live with maximum liberty and agency, and achieve an objectively satisfying life, no matter the circumstances of their birth or other issues over which they had no control. Musk doesn't have a huge amount to offer on that topic, so I'm not here to support or adulate him, but I do care about words like "authoritarianism" being used with a reasonable level of accuracy, and I always hate seeing people being portrayed negatively on largely false grounds.

I'll note that your previous response contains a lot of just-so argumentation ("He likes good little workers and no back talk. He likes the authority"), and ad-hominem attacks/character insinuations ("It's always fascinating to see people being unable to believe that Musk is what he is"). You need to cut out these swipes if you want to be seen as an objective, good-faith debater.

To respond to your main arguments in the last comment:

- On Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan: He just seems to be focused on ending these conflicts with minimal bloodshed and destruction. He didn't argue for Ukraine to just submit; he said there should be an externally supervised referendum so the people in the contested regions can self-determine which country they're in and that everyone can peacefully accept the outcome. That's as anti-authoritarian as you can get. In both cases of Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan, he sees that the worst case scenario is utterly catastrophic (all-out global nuclear exchanges), and wants to find ways to resolve these disputes before it gets anywhere near that. As divorce negotiators will tell you, when everyone is playing an all-or-nothing battle, everyone loses, whereas if you can find a way for everyone to get 75% of what they want, a peaceful result is much more likely. It doesn't follow that his desire for peace is authoritarian; generally it's authoritarians who like endless wars. He's advocating for the most effective way to end/prevent war. You can disagree with his position, but authoritarianism is not the issue here.

- "Sure there is. He likes good little workers and no back talk. He likes the authority": You've presented no evidence for this, it's a just-so story, though a familiar one; plenty of people will similarly assert that he just wants to fill his companies with sycophants. The thing is, sycophants and "good little workers" don't get reusable rockets working reliably, nor newly developed automotive technology. The evidence I can see is that he wants highly skilled people who know their field extremely well and will just get shit done, not waste their colleagues' time and energy with endless petty drama. When people spend a lot of time stirring up drama, it's generally a pretty good sign that they're not so good at their work. So again, it's not about authoritarianism, it's about getting good work done without drama.

- On COVID lockdowns; you can disagree with his position, accuse him of playing the victim, fine, whatever. It just doesn't have much to do with authoritarianism. Clearly, the governments/bodies mandating lockdowns and vaccinations were authoritarian. You can say it was justified authoritarianism, sure. I've been fairly comfortable with the lockdowns and measures imposed where I live in Australia, which many have described as being very authoritarian. But you can't say the people arguing against lockdowns were authoritarian. Any criticism for opposing lockdowns has to use words other than "authoritarian".

That's probably enough of a reply from me; the earlier reply from someone else covered the rest.

As I said I don't expect to persuade you but if you must respond, please try to do so without ad-hom and just-so story.

> Russia has invaded Ukraine. It's irrelevant what Musk's reasoning is. He is advocating submission to Russia's war aims.

It's very important what Musk's reasoning is. Multiple lines of reasoning can lead to similar solutions. There is not a one-to-one mapping from ideas on how to handle something and conclusions.

> Authoritarians always trot out platitudes to justify their authoritarianism. Trump, for example, claimed he was going to "make America great again" and save America from the "LameStream Media" which is, of course, the "enemy of the American people" and so on and so forth. Trump's latest idea is to terminate the constitution, so that's nice: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constituti...

Except "make America great again" is not a "platitude", it's an explicit nationalist goal with authoritarian innuendo. Unless you can somehow make the argument that any type of pacifist or non-violent request is arguing for authoritarianism then I don't know where you can go with this.

> Of course he did. What do you think a "special administrative zone" is? It's certainly not Taiwanese independence or Taiwanese sovereignty. How'd Hong Kong's "two systems, one country" work out for it? Not too good. China quickly became bored with the pretense.

Except he explicitly called out Hong Kong as an example of what not to do in that same message.

> Sure there is. He likes good little workers and no back talk. He likes the authority.

So do most bosses at any company. They're not authoritarian. It's human nature to feel good in commanding positions. It takes a lot of effort to cultivate people who will actually challenge you as you need to go against your natural feelings.

> Uh huh. So it's all a big conspiracy and Musk is a victim.

I never said it was a conspiracy. Tesla (not Elon) _was_ a victim of the situation though.

> Authoritarians do like to portray themselves as victims. They always have to do what they do because they have been victimized and they must right the wrongs in the world. And, what's more, they're doing it for our own good.

Almost all of what Elon has historically done has not been for his own good. He has a proven track record of creating products that better the world, save government money, and push technology in the industry forward. In terms of actual good for the world he's one of the most ethical leaders out there. He specifically rails on shareholders that ruin other companies by only caring about money. He actively praises other companies in the same industry when they achieve similar things.

> Weak and thin skinned for a self proclaimed free speech absolutist.

Last I checked, that person was still on twitter and hasn't had their speech restricted. He could have banned them from Twitter too, he didn't. If you attack your boss you affect the working environment as it makes working uncomfortable. I wouldn't want to work with a co-worker who was attacking my boss in public.

> It's always fascinating to see people being unable to believe that Musk is what he is.

I find it fascinating and depressing to watch the extent that people will go to defame one of the most important people of our era because of what he and his companies have accomplished, either through jealousy or misinformation or fear.

> I do believe public vs. private is relevant in terms of legal responsibility

The kind of “public vs. private” by which Twitter was once public is relevant in terms of whether or not they are subject to, say, certain SEC regulations, which are a form of “legal responsibility”, but it is not relevant to whether or not they are legally considered to be federal or state government entities under the 1st and 14th Amendments, such that they would be restricted from the kind of content-based restrictions the government is prohibited from imposing.