Hacker News Reader

Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

> I just wish the guy in charge could apply the same systematic thinking to his approach to politics.

I actually think he is smarter than people give him credit for, politically.

One of the major problems right now is conservatives, who are about half the country, aren't into supporting renewable energy anything (but liberals will continue to buy Tesla products even if you piss them off a little). A lot of what's he's been upto lately is attempting to socially engineer renewable energy into the conservative world, which is a tough problem to crack to begin with.

View on HN

This comment is offensive and ridiculous.

There are many ways to increase adoption of renewable energy that don't involve putting down minorities, being racist, sexist and all around offensive and acting with the maturity of a spoilt teenager.

Two of them being through government regulation and incentives which are major contributors to Tesla's success.

It's possible to agree with both your comment and the parent comment, so I feel like you could be a bit more charitable in how you interpret the parent comment.

How has elon been racist or sexist?

Ad hominems aside. I am guessing you are working in the renewable energy industry since you are pretty confident in other ways of increasing adoption. I'm not familiar on the topic, so I would like to hear from an expert like yourself. Could you elaborate how?

Maybe the parent comment was edited, but I see no ad hominem there.

(Edit: if you're going to downvote me, please briefly explain what I missed, I can be reasoned with... lol)

> putting down minorities, being racist, sexist and all around offensive and acting with the maturity of a spoilt teenager.

That's not really an ad hominem, it's a criticism of the manner by which Elon (according to the commenter) goes about trying to achieve his objectives.

You can disagree with that characterization or interpretation, but it's not an ad hominem because it's the main subject matter in this context.

Ok, but is there actual evidence of Elon Musk behaving in a racist or sexist way? Because if not then this is just a generic attack on the man, not an attack on his ideas.

There are allegations (probably in the form of guilt by association), vaguely suggestive tweets (or tweets that have obvious potential for misinterpretation), and things like that.

I think you could make a very good case against that comment, but "ad hominem" isn't it IMO. I'd argue {{citation needed}}, "lacks substantiation", "slightly hyperbolic", or something like that.

Just a sample from before 2022:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-te...

And he has been significantly worse since acquiring Twitter.

Is anyone bothering to even click your “proof”?

Half of the list is “didn’t take covid as seriously as we think he should”.

The only potentially sexist thing on that list is calling Warren “senator karen”.

Ok so do you have proof of him being racist or sexist or not?

A partisan, prejudiced listicle is the online version of the Gish Gallop.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

You can say that the article is partisan, prejudiced, or even stupid, but neither the article nor the comment are a gish gallop.

Seriously people, if you're going to call out logical fallacies, make sure you don't call out the wrong thing.

Gish Gallop isn’t a logical fallacy, it is a debate tactic. Seriously people, if you’re going to call out misuse of logical fallacies, make sure it is one.

These blanket judgements and accusations at a good half of the population of the United States is why we’re in the social mess we’re in now. You’re contributing to the problem, the divisive rhetoric that isn’t useful for anyone on any side if we wish to come to common ground across the aisle. If either side wishes to make impactful change.

Already the world is moving away from the US dollar hegemony, a move that will impact our children, and children’s children if we as a country don’t participate in these evolving times. There’s numerous other examples of the world making decades-long plans that the US is not positioning ourselves appropriately for. We’re distracted by such tribalism on both sides.

The United States won’t be taken over by an outside power, no, we’re doing well enough eating ourselves from the inside.

The post you’re replying to is accusing Elon of acting a certain way, not half of the USA.

It suggests the behaviour is motivated by the desire to trick a bunch of unsophisticated rubes into doing something they are too stupid to realize is a good idea for ideological reasons. Seems pretty insulting to me.

Aren't the people who roll coal and hate green energy a bunch of unsophisticated rubes?

No more unsophisticated than the rubes that spend 20 minutes washing their zip lock bags "to do their part for the environment" and then hop on an airplane an generate more emissions than throwing out a lifetime's worth of plastic bags in a couple of hours.

You're missing the fact that the people who roll coal also often hop on airplanes.

Agreed... But is it implausible?

Casting blame where it is due does not seem like the problem, as much as people protest how harmful it is.

I have had the exact same thought, because I really want to believe that Elon is not as dumb as he seems on Twitter... But if I'm being honest with myself, I don't think it's that plausible.

More likely is that he doesn't sleep enough and/or is getting older and/or is under a lot of stress and/or is in a crazy trump-news-cycle-like feedback loop, and that he's just developed some pretty big blind spots, like any other mere mortal.

While I agree that he's very smart in some areas, I think that this is a lot of post-hoc rationale for bad behavior.

The country isn’t really 50/50 conservative and not conservative. The voting public is at some closer ratio to parity, but half the population doesn’t vote.

I think ford rolling out the electric F-150 will do way way more to move the conservative world toward electric vehicles than Elon posting memes on Twitter. Eventually someone they know will be talking about the low maintenance and good features, and no one likes high gas prices.

As a Tesla owner, I’m not buying a second one, but it has nothing to do with politics. The promised features of the car haven’t materialized and other manufacturers are much closer to the type of self driving that matters to me, hands off the wheel, I can do something else when I’m in traffic jams. That said, none of my friends who are proud conservatives would ever buy a Tesla, they revile the brand. Someone (liberal) in my family pointed to Elon’s antics as the reason they chose a mustang e. If he’s a genius at social engineering Tesla into the conservative brain, I haven’t seen any results in my little slice of the world. Not sure what’s happening in the rest.

Strange. Where are you all located? I'm in a conservative state, and I don't hear any anymosity against Tesla vehicles. The only gripes I get from all the conservatives I know about Tesla vehicles is that they cost too much for them.

FWIW and anecdotally, I'm in Canada and while I'm seeing a tremendous explosion of Tesla vehicles on the road, at least 80% of the people I speak to seem to think Elon is the devil incarnate.

(I 100% agree that he should be criticized for a lot of things, but nuance is not trending apparently.)

California, but I have friends spread over the country, former Marine buddies.

I hope he figures out how to get Republicans into luxury cars.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com