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Comment by espadrine | Hacker News Reader

The technology is impressive; achieving such a level requires a lot of efforts in dataset creation, neural architectural costs, and GPU shepherding.

What is the company’s ethical position though? It officially stemmed from Mr Musk’s objection that OpenAI was not open-source, but it too is not open-source. It followed Mr Musk’s letter to stop all AI development on frontier models, but it is a frontier model. It followed complaints that OpenAI trained on tweets, but it also trained on tweets.

Companies like Meta, Mistral, or DeepSeek, address those complaints better, and all now play in the big league.

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“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

sounds like mr Musk is a conservative.

This is not what conservatism is

It's not a complete definition but he is right that conservatism is completely incompatible with universalism.

This is a little confusing in the US and other Anglo countries because traditionally we have been fairly liberal so sometimes people confuse liberalism and conservatism.

You're going to need to provide a source for the definitions you're using for "conservatism", "liberalism" and "universalism".

Without those, your comment is difficult to make any sense of, since the way you're using those words seems to differ from any sort of standardized definition.

I think we can both agree that for example liberalism and Islam are incompatible. So if you want to conserve liberalism you'll have to exclude Muslims. That's not universalist -> liberalism and universalism are incompatible.

In the Anglo countries, what is being “conserved” is the liberal universalist tradition of the Enlightenment, and what is being “progressed” is a power- and identity-centered postmodernism.

Don’t get this confused with conservative and progressive politicians, though, who are generally ignorant of the actual traditions and philosophies behind their respective movements, and are essentially just cutouts for competing media and financial corporate interests. The few holdouts on both sides have been successfully sidelined (Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul), and it looks like the military-industrial complex will have their war with Iran no matter what the results of the next few elections are.

(Sorry, I’ll go have my coffee now and see if I get a little less doomer.)

Actually I think you're overly optimistic.

According to the random Crooked Timber blog commenter who coined that viral aphorism in 2018, yes. But by what standard are that commenter’s musings to be considered expositive on modern conservative philosophy?

Empirical observation of the last 10 years? Cue No True Conservative, etc.

Observing the last 10 years, which political movement is most associated with the idea that inherent identity characteristics should dictate how you are treated under the law?

The guys closing polling places in black neighbourhoods? The guys denying women and trans people healthcare?

Identity politics has always been a conservative project.

My understanding is the earliest application of identity politics comes from thinkers like Fanon and Wollstonecraft, would you categorize them as being conservatives?

Again, you are ignoring the identity based systems they describe, that have been in place for centuries before either of them were born.

You know which ones I mean.

"In-group" doesn't necessarily mean identity characteristics. In today's (US) conservative party, it distinctly means "pledges personal allegiance to party leader."

As an example: The "conservative" judge who threw out 40 years of precedent on a technicality to prevent the American public from learning whether their former and potentially future president sold, gave away, or otherwise exposed national security secrets after he undoubtedly stole those documents.

There's a fundamental asymmetry in "the movement" on the left - which essentially rounds out to whatever annoying undergrad student showed up in your Twitter feed today - and the actual elected, governing leaders of the right, doing things like throwing out very strong criminal cases on matters of deep public importance.

In those last ten years, Republicans have been utterly obsessed with "identity characteristics". From pushing back against gay marriage, abortion, civil rights... It's basically all they talk about in political rallies today. Not the economy or anything else, just how it is important to never talk about trans people, and how they should not exist.

It's probably a bad idea and it will likely backfire but nevertheless motivation matters and a lot of people are willing to cut some slack to that political movement because they're honestly convinced it was done in good faith to restore a balance and give some power to disenfranchised groups.

In my observation, every time a prominent conservative breaks the law, all I hear from the right is how “he’s a good man,” “he learned his lesson,” “he was acting in good faith,” and so on — even if the crime is as egregious as homicide or pedophilia. The same generosity is never granted to someone not in the in-group: just look how Crystal Mason was treated when compared to the scores of Republicans who were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

In other words, identity politics to a T.

Sometimes a phenomenon exists for a long time before being encapsulated in a concise, thought-provoking, and often (though not always) amusing aphorism.

An excellent example would be Murphy's Law, and by extension many of the similar, often eponymous, laws.

See:

- List of Eponymous Laws: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws>

- Murphy's Law and other reasons why things go wrong! by Arthur Bloch: <https://archive.org/details/murphyslawotherr0000arth>

- Compilation of Murphy's (and similar) laws: <https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/>

Some of those are humourous, some are in fact quite serious though have a comedic element particularly out of context. Most speak to at least a colloquial truth.

What Whilhoit did was manage to buttonhole a hypocrisy of modern conservativism, perhaps over the past few decades, perhaps a century or so (Anatole France, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread", further evidentiarially supported by SCOTUS in Grants Pass), perhaps by millennia (see the opening paragraphs of A.H.M. Jones, Augustus, describing the political situation in the late Roman Republic, quoted here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22208105>, and at greater length: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230607042525/https://old.reddi...>). It's not so much a proved hypothesis as a phrasing which fits the understanding of many and expresses it concisely and memorably.

what a nasty vicious outgroup

That's not any conservatism that I recognize. In fact, what is espoused there is exactly the progressive left (Herbert Harcuse's "repressive tolerance") mindset.

And while I will grant you that liberalism (not to be confused with leftism), is different then conservatism, both (classical) liberalism and conservatism strongly require equal treatment (procedural symmetry).

Didn't Trump himself say he would pardon the rioters that stormed the Capitol, if ever he was reelected ? Didn't he say that he would "lock up" all the "sick, evil" democrats after he is reelected ?

Modern american conservatism very well fits the quote from grandparent.

Also, surely you would know what "repressive tolerance" is, since you're quoting it ? You would also know that the author you cite, whose name you misspelled, was critiquing the concept ?

Yes, I fat-fingered his name, didn't I. It should be: "Herbert Marcuse".

And no, I have not seen a primary source where in context Trump said that he would "" "lock up" all the "sick, evil" democrats after he is reelected"". Do you have such a primary source? Years ago I was told that Trump said the white supremacists were "very fine people", so I looked at the transcript and he literally said the opposite.

I don't know what you read, but Trump is (or was) buddies with Fuentes: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/25/trump-white-nationa...

He said those words in an interview with Glenn Beck. Here's a Guardian article reporting on it: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/30/trump-interv...

I don't think he ever endorsed white supremacists, but I think I remember (wouldn't bet on it) an instance where a journalist asked him why some keep showing up at his rallies and why he does nothing about it. He then answered that he doesn't really know who they are, that he didn't know, etc. basically eluding the question. i.e. they're welcome but won't proclaim his support for them, one of the many dog whistles Republicans use nowadays.

I would encourage everybody who thinks so to pursue basic political and philosophical education. Perhaps with a dash of history.

This definition is plainly wrong on so many levels that it's practically impossible to engage with. But I'll make that mistake and engage on two points.

First, it implies that conservative position has somehow consistent features across time and space. There is difference between conservative in Germany, USA and China. Not to mention conservative in early, mid and late 20th century.

Second, ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements. At very worst, we can accuse them of maintaining laws with discriminatory intents. But not of flaunting those same laws.

> ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements

The Republican candidate for president in the USA is a convicted felon

What does that have to do with the definition of Conservatism as political thought?

North American Conservatives (i.e. citizen of the United States) have done olympic-worthy gymnastics to align with the aforementioned felon's redefinition of conservatism belief in America, even while those beliefs actively contradict their religion and life-long belief systems, or even their own on going behaviors and decisions.

I say this as someone living in Pennsylvania, drowning in the hypocrisy and escalating hate this group of people has been spewing for the last ~8 years.

Therefore I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.

> I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.

You don't consider this a problem, that the word "conservatism" when discussed with an unknown recipient online (very possibly non-american) is constrained to the context of the past decade(s) in the United States?

Words have meaning, so if you're going to have a meaningful discussion about a word like "conservatism" or any type of -ism for that matter, I would think it benefits anyone engaging in that discussion to be aware of the different wings present in that word, whether that be across history or across present day geography.

If you're in a charitable mood, the context on when, where and who originally made the statement will provide clues on which strain of conservatism the statement is referring to.

I found this about the origin and am not sure what to take from it:

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...

So, the original author is an American living in Ohio, and made the comment in the year AD 2018 while critiquing an essay about the New Deal. I'm confident you can make a good-faith educated guess on which country and period they were characterizing.

This is unconstructive flamebait.

Quote's by Frank Wilhoit.

Sounds like a made-up definition of Conservatism as 'that which I do not agree with'. It is not a very good definition, if you really want to find out what it is about you could read (or listen to) some of Roger Scruton's works. Here's an interview with Scruton to give some ideas of what it is about:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/roger-scruton-meaning...

You do not need to agree with him or his definition of Conservatism and there are other definitions of the term which are also applicable but none of those definitions have any resemblance to what you posed.

Musk is a centrist, not a conservative. He used to stand to the left of centre but has been moved to the right of centre by virtue of the left moving further left, thereby moving the centre to the left as well while Musk staid put.

Society needs conservatives just like it needs centrists and progressives and whatever other names you want to give to these philosophies and/or ideologies. A world made out of only progressives never gets anywhere since they will never find out what works well and what does not since their aim is to shape the future by means of societal change. A world made out of only progressives will eventually grow stale when the rate of change in the environment outpaces societies' capacity for change. Progressives can make good innovators but tend to be less able at keeping things running. Conservatives can be good at keeping things running but tend to be less inclined to innovation. These are broad brush strokes but the essence is sound, society tends to work best when there is a balance between conservatives and progressives.

You might notice some parallels: architects tend to be lousy builders, builders tend to be uninspired architects. Developers tend to be less gifted at UI design, UI designers tend to be sloppy developers. Copy editors tend to be unremarkable writers, writers tend to be less effective copy editors.

Offtopic: Wiki says about that quote attributed to political scientist Francis Wilhoit it is just from some random musician from Ohio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#:~:text=Con....

> However, it was actually a 2018 blog response by 59-year-old Ohio composer Frank Wilhoit, years after Francis Wilhoit's death."

Pretty simple explanations for all of those:

- xAI opens sources models with a 6 month lag, look at Grok 1

- No one else stopped development, so why should he?

- He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?

Regarding the last question: because nobody gave them permission to use that data.

They tried to add a pre-checked mark to the settings, but at least in Europe, where we actually have consumer protection, that won't fly.

The data is sitting in northern Virginia in a data center. It's no longer in Europe's jurisdiction.

> xAI opens sources models with a 6 month lag, look at Grok 1

That's what happened once, rather than a policy that we can expect to be applied. (Unless I missed some announcement?) Based on "we'll publish the algorithm" which ended up being a one-off partial snapshot, never updated afterwards, I wouldn't hold my breath for the models.

> He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?

There's a whole thing about having clear opt-in agreement about how your data will be used for EU citizens. Twitter didn't comply here with their hidden opt-out strategy.

> He owns Twitter, why wouldn't it be okay for him to train on Tweets?

Because he doesn’t own the tweets. Can you imagine if posting a photo you took to Twitter meant it’s not your photo anymore? Totally ridiculous.

X terms of service:

You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content).

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, promotion or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use. Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services.

— https://x.com/en/tos/previous/version_13

Clearly does not include a provision to utilize Content for purposes of training an AI model.

In fact, they didn't include any purpose for their own use of the data and following GDPR thus cannot use the data at all. They did include purposes for other companies (syndication, broadcast, etc) which also doesn't include training of AI.

Err, yeah clearly does:

“you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).“

Not sure how anyone could defend that an AI model is not covered by this idea - such a model is easily covered by “distribution methods”.

Nope, the GDPR separates the action you perform on data from the purpose of such action. You need to collect consent for a purpose. X didn't state a purpose for why they would do any of these actions. Thus under EU laws their data collection is likely unlawful.

Adding a new purpose requires additional consent at least in the EU.

Well you might be right but their lawyers don’t seem to share your concerns.

Their lawyers may well share their concerns, but in the case of X, those lawyers may simply be getting ignored. This isn't a normal company.

GDPR only covers europeans. Also I doubt very much it applies to publicly accessible data.

Right: you retain ownership, and grant X certain rights to the content. Whether those rights include training AI on the data is legally and morally in dispute. X claims that right in its ToS, but a ToS isn’t law and may be legally invalid, and besides that the ToS system is famously broken in the US. Morally, I think it’s pretty clear that reasonable users did consent to their content being published as a tweet, and did not consent to X recreating the content as their own and taking credit for it.

…still Twitter?

When I signed up on Twitter in 2009 these ToS in no way implied using my tweets as training data. Nor they are worded explicitly that way now either.

I was under the impression ( and assumption ) that majority of mainstream social medias, literally, own everything that you post and archive it

Doesn’t appear to be the case https://x.com/en/tos/previous/version_13

They don’t. Mainly for legal reasons. They don’t want to responsible for stupid/libelous things users post.

I cannot recall specifics but I thought this was very much a real thing with some sites? What you upload can be used by the publishing company.

IANAL disclaimer, but I believe social media companies very explicitly separate themselves from publishers for the purpose of not being responsible for what users post. They can't have it both ways.

Whoever owns the tweets is completely irrelevant.

If it is within his right to use this data for training purposes, then that's it.

And he is, btw.

And those terms were in place since way before he took over Twitter, btw, btw.

> - No one else stopped development, so why should he?

I thought it was a moral imperative or some such thing to do AI right because it could "destroy humanity"?

Or was that just Musk and the rest of the special people in SV's way of aggrandizing themselves while trying to do something most of them have either no experience in or fail miserably at, which is raise an intelligence to be a responsible actor?

> OpenAI trained on tweets, but it also trained on tweets

Not only that - Grok is/was trained on ChatGPT output, which I suppose Musk felt was turnabout. When asked about its identity, the first Grok would respond like ChatGPT (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584922)

Don't take this as a pro-Musk or anti-Musk comment. I just want to paraphrase his reasoning:

In a recent interview on Lex Fridman, he envisioned a future where humans augmented AI, through a brain to computer device like Neuralink would be able to keep up with pure AI.

Now one can immediately notice a hole in this reasoning: namely what guarantees that the AI that is use to augment humans is going to be benevolent and won't go rogue?

Nothing guarantees that. But in this augmentations scenario human brain is necessary, unlike in the many extinction scenarios with pure silicon AGI take off.

maybe that humans are controlling the creation process and can terminate it when the AI versions are going increasingly "rogue"?

Unfortunately, Grok is not even Open Output, nor is Mistral’s platform or DeepSeek’s. None of them can be used for work (mistral with a fancy commercial license, but you gotta jump through hoops)

Only Meta’s Llama can be used for work. The rest are just toys for personal use noobs who don’t read the fine print.

Musk has publicly stated his goal for AI is alignment with Truth, where truth is defined as to what corresponds with reality, not necessarily with the current social consensus. Specifically in terms of reason, given a set of facts, being able to reason to a real place, not just to a socially given answer.

Then surely he wouldn't be training on tweets.

Which means essentially nothing. Most questions where alignment matter do not have a "true" answer, just a social consensus.

You don't need an "aligned" AI to tell you the distance between the Earth and the Moon. You need an "aligned" AI to tell you not to rape people even if you can get away with it, that's because the idea that rape is bad is not an objective truth based on the laws of nature, it is a "social consensus".

There is actually sound ethical reasoning for why rape is bad, that doesn't rely on social consensus.

Truth isn't one fundamental thing, truth is what works.

There are places in the world today that the social consensus is it's fine for a man to rape his wife. Social systems in these places don't work very well, and one can make a logical and well reasoned argument linking the social acceptance of rape to a myriad of other dysfunctions.

logical or well reasoned argument doesn't equal a casual or factual relationship. The well reasoned arguments on many issues change over time, just take the same issue and go back in time 100 or 50 years to find much less consensus and much weaker logical links. Elon shows pretty consistently that truth for him is mostly just what Elon deems truthful or useful.

So, your point is because we get better at logic and reasoning over time (better today than 100 years ago), that logic and reasoning aren't valid ways to progress towards truth?

If this isn't your point, what is? Just that you don't trust Elon?

Rape is present in many successful animals species, and many successful human civilizations tolerated or even encouraged rape in some circumstances. In the modern world, the dominant (which likes to call itself "most advanced") culture doesn't tolerate rape and we may argue that if the most successful humans came up with this idea, it works and it is the "truth". Not only I find the logic a little shaky, but are we that successful? The western population is crashing down and this is a problem, maybe rape can fix that, maybe rape "works".

Do I think rape is good? Absolutely not, because I follow the current social consensus on that one, not a "truth" that is muddy at best. And I also want AIs to do the same.

So your moral compass isn't based on compassion or ethical reasoning, it's just based on social consensus?

So I guess you would have been fine with being a concentration camp guard, rounding up Jews and putting them in the oven because social consensus said it was the right thing to do?

Maybe you see the logic as shaky because you lack knowledge in logic and ethics...?

Honestly, I don't know how I would have been as a concentration camp guard. In my mind, I wouldn't have accepted it, because thankfully, I am not in this situation. But if I really was in this situation, who knows, we tend to underestimate how easily influenced we are.

Ethics gives us more questions than answers. The trolley problem doesn't have a true answer for instance.

The human rights are a social consensus, it is even made explicit by being a signed declaration. It felt good to the people who wrote them, it also feels good to me, because I was born and live in a society that has these values. It is only truth because by social consensus, we decided it is. In logic that would be an axiom and aligning an AI would mean implementing social consensus as axioms.

There are some fundamental reasoning that can justify human rights. One can use game theory, or the idea that human rights promote free thinking and free thinking is what brings the most value out of people now that machines do better than slaves for menial labor. But these are, I think, not enough.

I think you got it in your last paragraph.

Absolutely NOT social consensus as axioms, as that will result in stagnation and tyranny.

Instead we must progress gradually one axiom at a time through reasoning and experimentation.

Truth is not what we decide it is, truth is what works. The universe decides what is true, not people.

Re your comment: "but these are, I think, not enough". I both agree and disagree depending on what you mean. Fundamentally this approach is enough, but practically we haven't developed our understanding enough to map out absolute truth. It's probably something we can only approach but never reach.

But in theory the right AI system could allow us to approach the faster

I wonder what "Truth" is. If I say I want you to make a picture of a lion eating at a 5 star restaurant, is that Truth? Is it truth because it can't refuse an ask? That feels like it is uninhibited, but not Truth, or truth.

I entirely agree. I’m quite sure Musk has a very strong stance on ethics, but it would be great to hear about it more clearly, and ideally not just through words, but through actual actions.

A strong stance on ethics? Like his comments about unions and firing workers in the Twitter space with Trump yesterday?

Well... he does have a strong stance on ethics, just not a positive one

The one you disagree with but why do you think all people think the same way as you?

I don’t understand why you’re playing dumb here.

He is primarially known specifically as someone who is incredibly impulsive, is unable to differentiate fact from fiction and not actually interested in chasing any kind of objective truth in so much as that is possible.

But multiple times per week now for a long time you can see him sharing and commenting on things that are provably wrong and I don’t mean in some kind of “it’s just a different opinion” kind of way.

There is never any kind of introspection, never any kind of “oh I was wrong” just proceeds to roll immediately into the next round of bullshit.

So, no… people don’t have any kind of assumption that he has “strong ethics”. Maybe you meant strong convictions? Because that he certainly does have.

"He is primarially known specifically as someone who is incredibly impulsive, is unable to differentiate fact from fiction and not actually interested in chasing any kind of objective truth"

I'm sure you could make a case that these descriptors apply to him, not a particularly strong case, but ... You think he's primarily known for these things?

He wrongly accused a British of being a pedophille because he declined Elon's "help". That's the side of ethics you are standing for.

I have met people who consider all meat eaters murderers.

You will find yourself called unethical around different groups.

Understanding what group you are in is important to keep in mind when judging others.

Lol, a random person sharing their obvious opinion about ethics of eating meat is totally, undeniably different than one of the world's most powerful men legitimately and honestly accusing a rescue worker of being a pedophile.

No one is going to get investigated or have their careers ruined because a vegan called them a murder, obviously.

Unreal what sort of knots someone will tie themselves into to excuse this type of behavior.

Well, In India one can get killed for eating beef or supplying beef. And there will be millions who would celebrate the murder.

Your worldview seems limited to tweets and social media in first world.

This isn't complicated.

If you say something false in a context where it is likely to actually harm someone, or with the goal of actually harming someone, you're an asshole.

Your level of assholeness rises in tandem with the expected harm of your falsehoods.

He tweeted "pedo guy" in response to the diver saying to "stick his submarine where it hurts". I don't see it as accusation as much as I don't see what the diver said as an order given to Musk. Both were just insulting each other.

Yes. The richest man, out of boredom and the me too disease, was insulting a guy rescuing kids in a tragedy.

> I’m quite sure Musk has a very strong stance on ethics

His whole history tells otherwise.

Profs?

If you mean “proof”, then lol. Off the top of my head:

- the pedo guy moment

- the hyperloop smoke and mirrors which are actually just his campaign against public transport

- the several union busting episodes

- the whole “Tesla is going to save the world” thing

- the multiple harassment cases

- the multiple instances of overwork, discrimination, and general lack of any consideration for his staff

- all the severance payments he failed to make after having fired a whole bunch of people

- the stupid ultimatum before one of the firing episodes, plus the utterly stupid “show your work” thing that came just after

- the multiple times he stiffed his creditors (either landlords, lawyers, contractors in general) or tried to do it

- the way he tried to force open Tesla factories in the middle of the COVID pandemic

- the multiple instances of pushing Russian propaganda verbatim (concerning.)

- most of the Neuralink saga

- the FSD vapourware that has been coming next year for a decade

- the way he publicly disparaged people who were killed by their Tesla using telemetric data that are supposed to be confidential

- the Media Matters lawsuit

Well, I could go on. He’d need to work quite hard to reverse his public image of massive arsehole at this point.

I could push back on some of these but I mainly want to ask about this:

> the way he publicly disparaged people who were killed by their Tesla using telemetric data that are supposed to be confidential

In the cases I've seen, Tesla pulled data showing that the people "killed by their Tesla" were either not paying attention at all (contrary to Tesla's explicit warnings), or were driving without the automated features enabled after all despite initial media claims to the contrary. Is this what you consider "disparagement" or do you have more egregious examples?

I did not particularly keep track, I do not dedicate my life to obsessively follow even massive dangerous idiots. There were at least 3 major ones.

That said, yes. What you said is evidence that he is mean-spirited and does not follow the rules he set himself. Of course, having an ethical behaviour sometimes means making hard choices. It is not about doing things that are understandable in context, it’s about doing the right thing, even if it is at a cost to you in the short term. He does not have any history of doing so.

These people are dead. Spitting on their graves because he is annoyed by their family is absolutely unethical. Particularly since their main failure was to believe the smoke and mirrors about FSD, which is itself another ethical clusterfuck.

If he had a beef, he could have sued for defamation, where he could have shown his data in an ethical and confidential manner. He knows the deal, he’s been in more than his fair share of defamation lawsuits, on either side.

I don't find it particularly mean-spirited to say "actually, our product didn't kill him, he wasn't using that feature." I don't even find it especially pejorative to note that the victim at that particular time was ignoring warnings and reading a newspaper; most of us do something foolish occasionally.

But that's just me. I doubt further debate on this would be productive.

Add how he took a multibillion payout while laying off 14% ish of Tesla staff. He seems to use shareholder Tesla equity to bail out his other misadventures. To add insult to injury he laughed with Trump about firing unionizing workers.

Oh he likes to bully people with lawsuits. Amber Heard comes to mind (he bullied the studio behind Aquaman).

The Solar City investor fraud, for which 4 of his cohorts settled in a lawsuit against.

His whole history proves that his moral principles go first, not money.

He doesn't care if his defense of free-speech causes him revenue losses on X.

> His whole history proves that his moral principles go first, not money.

Having moral principles is completely orthogonal to being ethical. Ayn Rand had lots of moral principles and she was still a reckless sociopath. One of his moral principles is that greed is good, and his actions certainly are consistent with this one.

He did lose a lot of money on Twitter, but you can hardly call that him following his moral principles, considering how things actually happened.

> He doesn't care if his defense of free-speech causes him revenue losses on X.

Whose free speech is he defending? There is no evidence that he champions free speech, merely that he supports however agrees with him and edgelords. He is more than happy to harass, intimidate, bully, and be a general nuisance to those whose opinions he finds objectionable.

Try tweeting the word cisgender. That alone should be the end of all association about Musk and free speech.

A simple search of twitter for "cisgender" shows that the word is not banned

Searching for it is the only way you can find the word, because tweets containing the word are "reach-limited" (and appropriately labelled to the author, so they are discouraged from using that "slur" ever again).

worth pointing out that banned and visibility limited in certain scenarios are not the same thing, which might be causing some confusion in this thread.

Haha, good one!

I’m not a fan of Musk but it is so funny to see that many haters here.

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