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Comment by Lewton | Hacker News Reader

Do you have to put "bad man" in quotes? It's possible to respect his achievements without lionizing the person

He's legit terrible as a person, someone who spends a significant amount of his time dedicated to trolling is not someone we should look up to

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He is absolutely not a terrible person. Trolling overly sensitive and authoritarian political-establishment followers doesn't make someone "terrible".

He acts out his irrational fears and amplifying it because of his wealth and social media.

But he gets a special pass from his little cult for being homophobic and having racist overtones.

He has never said anything homophobic or racist, but the left-wing cult does label anyone who doesn't subscribe to all of their ideological tenets as such.

A person trolling is a person with dark humor. I like persons with dark humor. These persons tend to be warm and humane as well. Dark humor comes from experiencing life kicking you in the guts early enough, so that you can start to joke about it. It's all a joke, but make the best out of it.

The difference between dark humor and trolling is that trolling punches down. I still enjoy some dark humor but my taste for trolling has massively decreased since I grew out of being an angsty self-hating teenage boy who thought misanthropy made me smarter.

Yeah, no, trolls don't tend to be warm and humane. Trolling is the opposite of that actually. And it usually stems from cowardice because sincerity makes you vulnerable and that takes courage.

Nope, that's just you redefining dark-humor/trolling in accordance with a left-wing preoccupation—which is to defend less powerful groups and attack more powerful ones.

He's a narcissist who also happens to be a right wing extremist though. And even if it was all a joke, through his position he has a huge influence on politics and a lot of people and it would be extremely irresponsible to make such jokes.

However, no matter how much I dislike the person I do appreciate the achievements at PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX in which he took part.

His trolling is directed at the ideological extremism you exhibit, where you smear anyone who criticizes the left-wing establishment's positions as a "right wing extremist".

This intolerance to dissent was responsible for billions of innocent people being imprisoned in their homes during the COVID pandemic

So sharing right wing fake news articles about Paul pelosi or defending white supremacists running amok doesn't count as right wing extremist anymore? I must've taken the wrong turn somewhere in the past.

No one is perfect nor should be expected to be. By being allowed to share the link, people were able to correct him, and he and the general public, became more knowledgeable as a result.

People being free to share wrong ideas has social value.

And no, sharing a false or premature report is not extremism. Demanding censorship is.

I mean, he deleted the tweet after it was shown that the article it shared was without merit. What else do you want?

> A person trolling is a person with dark humor.

Trolling is maximizing for being obnoxious

Dark humor is great, being obnoxious is not

Dark humor and trolling are a false equivalence; while both are symptoms of coping mechanisms, dark humor alone doesn't inflict damage. Trolling does, by actively wasting the attention of other people. That's it. There is nothing romantic about it.

Anyone who doesn't value the attention of their fellow humans is either underdeveloped or evil.

One man's biting social commentary is another man's trolling.

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