It's the Impunity, Stupid | Hacker News Reader

It's the Impunity, Stupid

niedermeyer.io

33 pointsakkartik7 comments

Very interesting article, I am surprised that the author blames it all on apathy and stupidity, when greed at the regulators could possibly be a viable alternative explanation.

Yeah, there was/is? A lot of money in green washing and Tesla stock was great as well.

What is the "greed at the regulators" scenario you're talking about?

This illustrates a number of issues to I like to single out.

1) Note that it is illegal to manufacture under US environmental legislation. Tesla is something a little under half the market for electric vehicles, led the charge and did a lot fo the R&D. The author draws our attention to the reasonable point that the regulators should have shut big chunks of that down if they were doing their job and forced Tesla to spend more time on other matters.

2) It appears one of Elon Musk's competitive advantages is negotiating with government. By bypassing environmental legislation and taking cynical advantage of subsidies, he can get a manufacturing company up and running. This bodes very badly for manufacturing that isn't effectively corrupt.

3) Off topic bonus point. I have a quiet bet with myself that these dynamics are also the reason why China is good at solar panel production and the US is not.

There seems to be a hard trade off between environmental and manufacturing excellence. I expect manufacturing excellence actually drives improving long term living standards.

The author is foaming at the mouth by the end of this. Criticism of Elon is fully warranted, but criticizing him for what he's done at Twitter is unreasonable. He's the only tech executive that actually voluntarily revealed illegal government censorship.

Did you read the article? Are you not piping hot mad? Dozens of mg of major pollutants per liter when the legal limit is 0.1mg. Flouting clean air regulations with abandon. A massive campaign of illegal dumping. This isnt absurd, this is monstrous. And there seems to be no real motion towards them ever coming into any kind of compliance

What is so over the line for you about the authors ending place? Personally this seems more than deserved and honest, seems like a fair assessment of the wanton hell Tesla has been creating around them without pause or a care:

> But the more we’ve excused the more Tesla has taken license to ignore the law, the company’s legal compliance following the spiraling ego trip of its Chief Executive Officer. The monster turning Twitter into a Nazi CSAM hellscape, like his monstrous car company that is wantonly polluting the state that did so much to help birth it, are the products of our collective choices. Sure, both probably had a kernel of monstrousness in them from the very beginning, but both had to be nurtured with constant, repeated assurances that whatever they do is for the greater good, no matter what.

Telling people they need to be more polite in their criticism is a low form of criticism, bypassing all substance of the topic. What's happening here deserves a cast & mighty reckoning, and there's something wrong and sick with a leadership that would allow these indignities to stack up so high, that pollutes so viciously with such abandon.

I agree that this didn't have to be an Elon bash, but I'm in no way unsympathetic that it is. This seems like a previous long set of misdeeds, and responsibility here definitely goes to the top.

> Did you read the article? Are you not piping hot mad? Dozens of mg of major pollutants per liter when the legal limit is 0.1mg. Flouting clean air regulations with abandon. A massive campaign of illegal dumping. This isnt absurd, this is monstrous.

Although I'm an avid conservationist, I'm not emotional, because I'm desensitized to these kinds of things. Musk isn't a unique problem. He's a particularly famous problem. I do hope Musk and all similar polluters are brought to justice to the fullest extent.

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