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Comment by mach1ne | Hacker News Reader

Why has even HN comment field lowered to nothing but blind hate? Say what you want but the man has reformed rocket technology and jumpstarted the world's shift to electrical vehicles, both against all odds. Hate-takes like this are silly.

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I do give him credit for those things, but the guy is one of the most powerful people in the world and uses that power to bully. He keeps using his position of power to punch down at people who usually don’t deserve it. It’s petty and pathetic.

For example, twitter’s former head of trust and safety had to leave his home recently because Musk told his fawning followers that he was a pedophile. It’s not even the first time Musk has called someone a pedophile unfounded.

> For example, twitter’s former head of trust and safety had to leave his home recently because Musk told his fawning followers that he was a pedophile.

Uh no. He simply posted a screenshot from the guy’s thesis.

He also misrepresented what the thesis was saying in the same tweet, deliberately playing into homophobic tropes associating gay people with pedophilia.

Ironically, digging up out-of-context history to disparage someone sounds like a “cancel culture” tactic.

I thought cancel culture was a positive thing.

What you and I think are not really important in this conversation. Elon believes that the Woke Mind Virus is an existential threat to mankind. Perhaps he has been infected.

Maybe he's infected. But he's certainly not entirely wrong on that claim. There's people academically smarter than him that share the same belief.

Is he not entirely wrong in warning “Cancel culture is bad” or not entirely wrong in Canceling someone?

Whatever you said he believes in on your previous comment.

What's out of context?

Don’t you see the irony here, though?

When a very powerful man with a large following “just posts a screenshot”, he is supposed to be unaccountable for the actions his followers take, even if his additional context dog-whistles to his fans that the guy is a pedo.

When a relative nobody “just posts already-public information about a physical object”, suddenly that’s not just worthy of a ban, but of a nuisance lawsuit.

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/dy79wm/elon-musk-yoel-ro...

No one is accountable for the actions of others if they where not explicitly directed.

And yet Musk is suing the @elonjet guy because someone attacked his car.

See what I mean by the irony?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603190155107794944?s=20...

> Uh no. He simply posted a screenshot from the guy’s thesis.

That is BS. Musk posted it with this false comment, which he knew would enrage his followers (and it did, I saw tons of "all pedophiles deserve to die" about Roth after this):

> Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis.

Which is, unsurprisingly, the exact opposite of what Roth was arguing for. Here is what the DailyMail (not exactly a liberal rag) said about Roth's thesis:

> Roth wrote that, as underage youngsters use the app anyway, an age-appropriate version should be created to offer help to LGBT youth

In other words, he specifically wanted to separate kids from an app that was intended for adults.

Now, people can definitely debate in good faith whether Roth's argument is a good idea or not - I think it's most definitely not. But it's not because of the absolutely false trope that Roth wants to make kids available to adults, which is basically what Musk has deliberately whipped up his followers into a frenzy about.

> Say what you want but the man has reformed rocket technology and jumpstarted the world's shift to electrical vehicles, both against all odds.

And now he is helping to spread racism and anti-semititsm:

* https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3709609-racist-antisem...

It's possible to think he has done good things in the past, but is doing bad things in the present. And to believe/worry that his present (and future) actions may cause his 'net effect' on the world to become negative.

Too many of the good things he’s done seem to be despite him.

With enough moneyed people making bets, a few of those bets will pan out. Elon shows that the lucky moneyed person doesn’t need to be good.

Adding to the "Too many of the good things he’s done seem to be despite him." - there was this tumblr post that passed by here on HN by someone who claimed to've been an intern on Space-X:

https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296...

I never understood the point of the cake story, and it all might be total BS, but the longer this current saga goes on the harder it is to totally disregard the bit about "managing Elon".

There are so many false headlines about him. It’s all just outrageous.

And a lot of people believe whatever NYT or The Hill says, when they are obviously out to get him.

Hate is not the opposite of worship - he can be great in some areas and a "dumbass billionaire" in others.

Looking at history, I can't imagine there's any useful technological advance (or adoption thereof) that depends on any individual - if EVs were meant to be successful I believe they would've been with or without Musk. Same goes for anything Space X does. Same goes for anything _anyone_ does. If you believe the world would be notably different without any one individual in it, that's what you chose to believe, I see no evidence from history for that.

Does he have valuable skills? I'm sure - if nothing else marketing and persistence. Was he involved in important stuff? Evidently. Did he get lucky? Absolutely. Does whatever perceived or actual good he did excuse the perceived or actual bad? Not in my opinion.

That's absolutely right.

Naive people and children fall victim of hero worship.

Adults and people who can think for themselves are beyond that and understand that it's humanity as a whole which progresses forward, humans just make a fuss and all sort of drama to be the person who gets the merit and gets to sign off the progress do jour.

Musk got to sign off the peculiar niche of EVs and rockets which are niches nobody else wanted because they are dependant upon political support.

No he hasn’t. The collective work of employees of companies he has stake in has.

Agreed. The workers provided value for him. He decided to take it all

Was there ever a successful collective of the kind that the Left dreams about?

If not, doesn't it indicate that CEOs are pretty important in the business scheme of things?

Do you mean was there any field that was advanced through the use of public funds?

Yes, a lot of scientific advancement comes from exactly that.

Yes. Mondragon.

Agreed. Surely the workers would have gotten together on their own, pooled their resources and achieved at least as much as they have if it weren't for Musk.

Seriously, this is just blind hate. He's a deeply flawed individual and I definitely think he's a jerk, but he's at least he's taking risk on creating something actually new.

The richest people I know made money on "safe" industries like civil engineering and plastic bag manufacturing.

Pushing the aerospace industry? Challenging the petrol status quo by making EVs viable? Credit where credit is due, he put in the investment and pushed people to make it happen. Obviously not single handedly, but surely accelerated it.

It’s not blind hate. People see the man for what he is, a douche bag and a charlatan, and are calling his behavior out. His luck in this world (and he has been incredibly lucky) is irrelevant.

I think it's fair play to call out the fact that "Mr. Work 20 Hour Days" has lots of rest and relaxation in his own life.

Anyone paying attention to his tweets can tell this is obvious fake front that he tries to maintain (one that actually works on a lot of folks). On some level it's probably technically true part of the time, counting long flights in his private jet as "working", etc.

Of course-- anyone with eyes can see that VC hustle culture is a grift.

To be fair, I do think there are people who work hard, especially founders. There are also vocal pretenders like Musk. My guess is that the folks who do work really hard are probably the least likely to go around broadcasting that fact. That was my experience, at least.

I was never VC-backed but I did a couple runs (combination of bootstrapped and angel investment) and I worked like crazy all the time. I never really thought about the amount of work I did until after (I was too busy worried about failing). I never discussed the amount of work I did with anyone, especially not publicly, because I never felt like it was anything to brag about (I still feel this way). This post is probably my first public mention of it TBH. :)

Helping to usher in the electric revolution does not absolve you from acting like, and being called out for being, a douche.

I'd much rather he wasn't behaving like a douche, but until he stops, I'll continue to refer to him as ... a douche.

That man literally didn't do that.

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