Trump is going to win the election

[Emerald]

10 minutes ago, Joshe said:

and then intentionally making people think he designed the batteries and the rockets.

How is that not a con artist? He's not fleecing people out of money, but he's fleecing something else, and he does it all the time, with intent. 

He's being dishonest with that. That's true. And beyond that he has told other lies and been inconsistent in his stated values.

But a con-artist has a specific connotation that doesn't quite fit his more passive brand of intermittent dishonesty.

A con-artist is Trump-like where, if their lips are moving, they're lying. And it's a very active thing. And to be fair, that doesn't describe Elon Musk.

Think about a con-artist as a the quintessential used car salesman archetype where the guy's name is fast Eddie, and he's always trying to pull a fast on you.

Elon Musk unconsciously tricks himself way more than he consciously tricks others.

[Hardkill]

19 minutes ago, Emerald said:

He's being dishonest with that. That's true. And beyond that he has told other lies and been inconsistent in his stated values.

But a con-artist has a specific connotation that doesn't quite fit his more passive brand of intermittent dishonesty.

A con-artist is Trump-like where, if their lips are moving, they're lying. And it's a very active thing. And to be fair, that doesn't describe Elon Musk.

Think about a con-artist as a the quintessential used car salesman archetype where the guy's name is fast Eddie, and he's always trying to pull a fast on you.

Elon Musk unconsciously tricks himself way more than he consciously tricks others.

I think that if Musk values his life then he should be extremely worried about the very high likelihood of an immense violent labor strike happening at his company one day like what happened during the Gilded Age if he doesn't stop being so greedy.

He is a prime example of what a robber baron or corporate tyrant is in the 21st century. I wouldn't even be surprised if he becomes partially responsible for the next economic depression we will inevitably experience if the alarming levels of extreme economic inequality in our country doesn't reverse fast enough.

Edited August 13 by Hardkill

[Joshe]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Not a thing.

Stories like: "Elon Musk, Modern-Day Einstein..." flooded the media over the past 3 years. Notable influencers have called him the smartest person on the planet. If you talk to any of the millions of people who believe it, they literally think he's a physics genius. Do you think Musk just lucked up or do you think he might have played a role in the very popular narrative he's on the level of Einstein? 

If that's too speculative for you, you can then listen to him on video act like he is providing the team of rocket scientists valuable insights they couldn't come up with themselves. He walks around and acts like something he's not, ALL THE TIME! 

My right-wing sister is one of the millions who think he actually is in the lab with the batteries and the rockets. Musk knows a lot people see him this way and I think it's because he played a role in making it so. I suppose he could have gotten lucky and wasn't apart of the 3-year media frenzy that was monumentally beneficial for him, but nonetheless, he cons people to one degree or another. 

We need a scale of con artistry. 

[Leo Gura]

The lack of quality thinking here is so disappointing that I don't even want to bother reasoning against it.

Enjoy your Musk-trashing circle jerk.

I'll be watching you from the clouds, where the air is crisp.

Edited August 13 by Leo Gura

[Joshe]

Question: If for several years there's a significant surge in positive media coverage praising the intelligence and benevolence of the richest man in the world, and if, as a result, millions come to view him as the smartest individual with humanity's best interests at heart, then what are the odds that this man played no role in influencing that media narrative?

I mean, whatever happened to occam's razor? 

[Joshe]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The lack of quality thinking here is so disappointing that I don't even want to bother reasoning against it.

@Leo Gura I'll stop commenting. Just point me in the right direction of what I've missed and I'll go look into it. 

[Hardkill]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The lack of quality thinking here is so disappointing that I don't even want to bother reasoning against it.

Enjoy your Musk-trashing circle jerk.

I'll be watching you from the clouds, where the air is crisp.

I have a lot of respect for his brilliant accomplishments and incredible work ethic.

However, people like are still a great liability to our economy. Keeps me up at night.

Edited August 13 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, Joshe said:

@Leo Gura Just point me in the right direction of what I've missed and I'll go look into it. 

That's the wisest thing anyone has said here so far.

Go watch an hour-long interview of Musk talking about his work, and listen to it without judgment.

Edited August 13 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The lack of quality thinking here is so disappointing that I don't even want to bother reasoning against it.

Enjoy your Musk-trashing circle jerk.

I'll be watching you from the clouds, where the air is crisp.

What is it specifically that you disagree with in our discussion about Elon Musk?

You're not really providing any counter-arguments. You're just saying that we're giving "low quality stage green" perspectives.

But vague Spiral Dynamics grand-standing isn't going to work if you actually want to convey to us why we're supposedly misguided.

You're going to need to provide a clear counter-argument to be honestly engaged with if you want me to take your perspective seriously.

And I'm also pretty sure it's not your position that he's a totally honest actor.

Now, I conceded with you that con-artist isn't an accurate word to describe him because of the connotations of the word being more deliberate and all-encompassing.

But I have also provided you specific instances of him being dishonest. So, it isn't the most far-fetched thing when someone calls him dishonest.

If you disagree... then I await a more substantive rebuttal.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Emerald said:

You're not really providing any counter-arguments.

Go watch 10hrs of serious Elon Musk interviews.

That is my counter-argument.

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Go watch 10hrs of serious Elon Musk interviews.

That is my counter-argument.

That's not a substantive counter-argument. And it's intellectually dishonest for you to even suggest that it is.

If you can't rebut my claims, I'm not going to take what you say too seriously because you can't even articulate why you think I'm wrong.

[Leo Gura]

23 minutes ago, Emerald said:

why you think I'm wrong.

Because you lack experience of Musk.

My words cannot cure that deficit.

Edited August 13 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

52 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because you lack experience of Musk.

My words cannot cure that deficit.

First off... that's no excuse for you to not support your claims. It's a cop out and intellectually dishonest, and I know you know better.

Your argument is an authority-appeal fallacy... and you're naming yourself baselessly as the authority you're appealing to because you've watched interviews with him.

Secondly, I can tell you that the things I said about Musk are true about him being inconsistent with his values... purporting to value free speech as the reason he acquired Twitter and then actively censoring voices he dislikes while bolstering voices he agrees with.  And that he was also dishonest in sharing details about is trans-daughter's childhood to build a narrative that appeals to the anti-trans people he's trying to impress.

Those are things that I know for sure are true. So, watching 10, 100, or 1000 hours of interviews of Elon Musk isn't going to make me see these acts of dishonesty as honesty.

Also, my understanding is also that he's not the direct inventor of the innovations he's credited for. Most of his patents that his name is on are around the shape or design of the inventions. And he has people work under him to create the innovations. Or like with Tesla, he acquired the company from the actual creators of the Tesla and put it out to mass market. 

And I've seen this from multiple sources over the years. Though I welcome a rebuttal if you have contradictory evidence.

And of course, if I watch 10 hours of Elon Musk interviews... he's probably NEVER going to mention that he's not the direct inventor because that would hurt his image and his brand.

So I'm relying on you, Leo, to provide me with evidence that my perspective is as uninformed as you believe it to be.

Edited August 13 by Emerald

[Leo Gura]

@Emerald Your mind is stuck in that Green moralistic narrative.

[Greatnestwithin]

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Emerald Your mind is stuck in that Green moralistic narrative.

@Leo Gura what would a yellow or turquoise mind sound like as we address this topic? 

[Something Funny]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

@Emerald Your mind is stuck in that Green moralistic narrative.

Is it moralistic to say that he talks and behaves like an idiot?

You say that twitter posts shouldn't be used to judge a person, but why not? Do you see any actual smart and serious people have post history of a 14 year old troll?

The way I see it, anyone can say anything about themselves in an interview setting. Trump probably has some interviews that make him look very smart. But how they behave in their daily life is much more representative.

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

Is it moralistic to say that he talks and behaves like an idiot?

Musk's politics are crappy, but there is more to people than their political positions.

The key mistake of Greens is that they smear, judge, and dismiss anyone who opposes their Green ideals. This makes deep understanding impossible.

Edited August 13 by Leo Gura

[Something Funny]

@Leo Gura I understand your point, but don't you think that you need to be a certain type of person to have "crappy politics"?

Why don't you have crappy politics?

Also, I think that you don't give enough credit to people on this forum. You basically dismissed every argument in this thread as "you hate him cause you are stage green". Many people here are above green, or at the very least not just green. 

And most arguments weren't about him supporting trump or whatever, they were about him being a shitty person as a whole. Imo, musk has very low integrity and is immature, even if he is not a con artist per say, and that's what people here mostly criticized him for.

Edited August 13 by Something Funny

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

@Leo Gura I understand your point, but don't you think that you need to be a certain type of person to have "crappy politics"?

You just need to be biased, selfish, or unconscious.

Quote

Why don't you have crappy politics?

Because I care about epistemology and avoiding bias.

Quote

Also, I think that you don't give enough credit to people on this forum. You basically dismissed every argument in this thread as "you hate him cause you are stage green".

Because it's just obvious that the denouncements of Musk posted thus far were just a parroting of Green memes, not a serious independent line of thought.

These Musk narratives are so cookie-cutter, so unoriginal, that they might as well have been written by a chatbot from 2021. I can literally get a more original, accurate, and developed line of thought from an AI in 5 seconds.

Edited August 13 by Leo Gura

[Something Funny]

@Leo Gura why do they have to be original if they are still on point? This is not a contest of who can trash talk Musk better.

He is selfish, he has low integrity, he doesn't care about anyone but himself, he is immature. Those qualities make me not like him. Is there anything wrong with people being turned off by people like that?

Is that stage green or just common decency? I am pretty sure that there are stage orange and blue people who dislike Musk for the same reason.

And even if it's really stage green, is it really a bad aspect of stage green?

Because you can talk as much as you want about how cookie ctter and predictable it is, but in the end of the day, they are right: it is harmful for us as a society to let people like Musk have so much unregulated power.

Do you disagree with any standard left talking points on this? Taxation,wages, worker rights, etc.?