The number of people trying to defend what is, at best, extremely childish behavior is fascinating to me. Would you really go up to your city counselor in real life and tell them you wish death on them and their family, and pretend it's OK because it's an obscure reference to 90s rap (mind you the rap song WAS an actual death threat)? Do you think you'd be met with laughter? Do you actually consider that socially acceptable behavior?
If you dislike their politics, so be it - donate to campaigns or personally run against them. Write a letter explaining how you'd like them to vote.. But the amount of absolute crass behavior people allow "because it's the internet" is mind boggling.
General rule of thumb -- if you're tempted to say anything that references "Hit Em Up" [0], don't do it on main.
Or, you know, just be drunk off of Twitter?
Elon barely gets away with it, and everyone else isn't that rich.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ugD3_yt756w (goes without saying, but NSFW)
Elon getting away with it is the problem. Broken windows theory and all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
Is it though?
Lots of people seem to have poor opinions of Elon specifically because he does this sort of thing.
That seems to be working as intended.
And we're never going to fix the "money buys away consequences" problem. F.ex. I'm not beholden to chefs' opinions of me, if I can throw 100x average salary to get one to work for me.
Do these poor opinions really matter? He companies are still the top desired destinations for STEM graduates. Endless supply of people to grind that results in him providing products/services that others can't provide. This results in increased dependance on his companies and him.
I would say his personality absolutely creates headwinds. It reduces sales of vehicles, and public sentiment and visibility drives extra regulatory scrutiny on SpaceX. You have reporters asking the POTUS what he is doing to investigate Musk, and an angry stockholder just got a 50 billion ruling against Musk.
Lets break this down one by one
Has it really? His cars achieve supposed ~30% profit margins: some of the best in the industry. They have dropped prices beating inflation while competitors cannot. They also got the best software stack of any EV with additional value add such as Sentry mode. Im in the market for a new car and I am baffled as to why every car hasn't copied all the good things from Tesla yet. Its just software!
so what? Its not like they can drop SpaceX for some other competitor waiting in the wings? If SpaceX says no to the government, the government is the one to lose out.
More performance art just like the SEC's investigations. Who wants to be the one to be blamed for destroying the golden goose? Definitely not the SEC and Biden is just performing like he always does to please his base so Musk gets away with stuff that would land others in prison.
Yeah that was a nice victory but it remains to be seen if he appeals it and/or it has dire consequences for Delaware. So far Delaware has been a small bright dot in an otherwise hopeless situation as this is not the first time they managed to stick it to Musk.
My point is that his actions have had material real world consequences to things he cares about. I'm not making the case that they are running him out of business, or anything else.
I know several people who love tesla cars, but wont buy them due to Musk association, so I am going off that. 30% margins on more cars is better than 30% margins on less. Owning a tesla is a scarlet letter for many democratic owners I know.
Similarly, the DOD is not going to stop buying from SpaceX, but is slowing down development that he wants.
Similarly, Musk wants twitter to be successful, and hostility to and from the political left has made that all but impossible.
Early musk benefitted greatly from his social reputation and hype. My perspective is that his public persona since ~2019 has been more of a drag than boost.
Im not sure where you stand. Are you arguing that his public persona is currently a net benefit to his corporate objectives? That they are so small they cant be quantified? That the consequences fall short of what would happen in a morally just world?
I am going to quote your post out of order to answer easier(hopefully you don't mind).
The reason I broke it down is to make the point that I feel those real world consequences are minuscule enough to the point where it does not matter. Maybe I should have clarified more in my prior post.
Its funny as I know multiple college professors with the same mindset. They ended up buying 80-100k BMWs or Mercedes Benz instead of Tesla. The market above 50k represents a small portion of the market. I call this the managerial class price tier. The further you go down the more people become price sensitive and that is what Musk is counting on.
He was never going to own 100% of the car market in the US, there are just too many players with more entering soon(The Chinese). So if some(maybe even the majority of) liberals refuse to buy Teslas, I am not sure if it would matter long term. The demographic makeup of his buyers may shift but the absolute numbers wont (once the numbers settle after the Chinese enter the market). His cars are just so much more competitive vs everyone else and selfish interests will sway enough buyers especially when the majority of buyers are price sensitive above all else. Its like that old push in the 70-80s to "Buy American" as the Japanese flooded the market with much better products at way better prices. In the end GM saw their market share crumble from ~50% to what it is today (~17%)
Ditto for everything else. The DOD working less with him is only a net negative to themselves. Its been 1+years since the announcement of the twitter takeover. If anything would have changed at DOD we would have seen it by now. Instead efforts at SpaceX have only accelerated since he exposed his views on Twitter.
Just as a small example: In 2023 1 year post twitter: World record for launches of any rocket in a single year (96) beating the second best record (Soviet Union at 60 launches) and anything the US govt has done, Falcon heavy improvements surpassed the world record for heavy lift vehicles(Saturn V). A record number of those launches have also been private for the government. I dont see any evidence the DOD is slowing down with them. They are speeding up.
Source of the above claims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8GZ0H0xSFo
There are theories that he wanted to move twitter in this direction as it killed the only major way for people to push back against the powers that be. Just think of how many revolutions started on Twitter and sustained itself due to the real time nature of the platform. Now we are seeing Pro-Palestinian people being banned. I really don't know what his plan is for Twitter and it is still baffling that he continues to execute brilliantly in his other companies yet this remains a dumpster fire.
I was part of the Tesla "skeptic" community from 2016-2020. I saw first hand how so many industry experts were shouting from the rooftops at how terrible Musk was as a person. The Left only discovered this side of Musk when it was inconvenient for them. Before that they were happy to ignore the actual people working in industry and enjoy this "real life tony stark". The skeptic community was continually wrong about him. Every giant pitfall that they said was coming did indeed come but he always found a way around it. He has proven (to me) that in this country, the kind of success he has gotten makes his public persona not important in the grand scheme of things. Until something drastically changes, (maybe an extreme anti-corporate government that is just impossible until at least 2028) he is going to keep flying further and further forwards regardless of what people think of him. Hell this year is the year I finally started believing that landing someone on Mars will happen and he will be the one that makes it possible. If that happens no one is going to remember the leftists that criticized him in the history books.
I don't disagree with 90% of what you said, I just dont understand what you think the criteria for "mattering" is. What would mattering look like or not? If the question is if Elon's flamboyant behavior has impacted his bank account, I think the answer is clearly yes, to the tune of 10s of billions of dollars.
If the question is if the consequences of his behavior are terminal for his companies, then I think chances are miniscule that any of it will matter. If meaningful consequences would be Elon plagued by regrets and misery, I think the answer is obviously not.
My criteria would be is he hindered in a material way from his goals. Clearly loss of income from liberals does not matter given the resources he and his companies have already.
If he were in Europe, i'd imagine there would have been attempts to break up his companies way before it got to this point. That would force him to choose what he really wants to do.
Maybe attempts to restrict him or people like him from getting to this point where he has so much sway. There is this idea on the left that "billionaires are a failure in policy".
The actions the Swedish union are taking against Tesla are very late but are a positive step towards clawing back some of that power but the actual pain that Musk has to endure has to come from the US.....and it will not be coming any time soon.
Thanks for clarifying what criteria you were talking about. I agree that he seems to be able to pursue his goals without major setbacks due to lack of funding. That said, I'm not inside his mind, and dont know what he would like to be doing, but is in some way has to compromise or is prevented from doing so.
Also, just to add on, having to buy Twitter.
If he hadn't publicly knee-jerked on price and due diligence, he likely could have closed at a much lower price.
Which would have led to him maintaining more ownership of Tesla.
It is. A bunch of vocal people having loud opinions online doesn't really matter and that's what he demonstrates perfectly: people are mad, but tesla's are selling like hotcakes, spacex is still successful and his money keeps multiplying. Other people see that and feel no need to maintain appearances. This will only get worse as more and more people catch on.
If the metric by which we gauge society's acceptance of someone is their wealth... Elon isn't the first nor will be the last to be a rich asshole.
Making lots of money, and keeping that money, is independent of goodwill. Especially if you're starting rich enough to bypass needing many random people to help you.
I can't agree that Elon showing his ass on Twitter is fundamentally changing social acceptance of doing so.
I would argue he's the first to just buy one of the biggest social platforms so that he can show his ass on it. Probably not the last one, that we can agree on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_World (1883)
This newspaper didn't even have reach outside US, are you seriously comparing it to fucking twitter?
That's because the quality of Tesla and SpaceX's products have nothing to do with Elon himself being an obnoxious ass. Steve Jobs was a horrible human, too, yet Apple is a going concern.
If I remember correctly, Steve Jobs did try to maintain non-offensive outward persona. At least from what I remember, the people who he was an ass to were mainly people physically near him: family, coworkers. Scaling that to whole social platform is rather different in scale.
We are seeing that with all the layoffs. Elon normalized treating engineers like garbage. Feels like only way for us to go back to the old mentality is for his methods to end up crashing and burning his enterprises. As it stands the opposite is happening.
Freedom of speech entails allowing for speech you dislike and find abhorrent. Just be honest and say you are against freedom of speech, and you are in favor of compelled speech. SV types have this weird politeness shtick.
Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences. You can't say whatever assholish thing you want and then claim freedom of speech as a shield when it inevitably pisses people off.
This is not a freedom of speech issue, it's a "CEOs shouldn't be idiots" issue.
Why do people always say this? Yes, it’s true - and it’s also just flexing your power and ability to crush any speech you deem should have “consequences”.
Free speech advocates are trying to push for a consistent, fairly applied position (which is very noble but imo untenable - I’m not a free speech advocate) and often met with a response that’s essentially “you have no power and I do, so if I dislike what you’re saying I’m going to crush you”.
There's a difference between what type of consequences we're talking about.
Individuals judging you and making personal decisions on how to relate to you?
Or society making decisions to withdraw necessary services?
This is where firmly distinguishing between (individual freedom to associate / decide) and (social responsibility to deliver a necessary service) needs more clarity.
Should I be allowed to picket on public property in front of someone's house I disagree with? Or refuse to provide a service to them because I don't like them? IMHO, probably.
Should the city be allowed to turn off their electricity and water? IMHO, probably not.
Should VISA and Twitter be allowed to ban them? ... oof. That's a toughy.
I agree except the last part. Of course they should. It's _their_ freedom of speech. Otherwise you'd compel them to spread speech they don't agree with.
Would you say there's any scale / level-of-necessary-ness at which a private party should acquire must-serve responsibilities?
Such responsibilities at some point seem an inherent consequence of running an economy where (1) companies are allowed to grow as big as they want & (2) "social" functions (i.e. services to all) are sometimes only provided by private parties (there is no government/public alternative).
* Leaving aside the protected-classes argument
My personal opinion is a bit complicated.
I'm a socialist that thinks that companies should be transitioned into public ownership once they grow big enough.
It fixes the issue you describe in addition to the myriad of other issues associated with ever-increasing privatizion of what should be the commons.
That's certainly an answer.
And I really agree that the crux is "big enough" -- at some point, a phase change happens and regulation for social good needs to change too ('too big to be free'?).
We could pro/con public vs private-but-regulated management, but that's a dead horse and they're both valid options.
I don't see this in practice. These "free speech advocates" really just want their speech to be mainstream and for everyone else to go away. See Elon and his banning of pro-Palestinian or leftist voices.
What an odd response. I don't read it that way at all. It just seems to make the very obvious point that being in the legal right doesn't mean anyone is going to want to be associated with you.
Death threats are not free speech.
Is that really a death threat? There’s no specific threat of violent action against an individual.
We’ve all said things we aren’t proud of in the heat of the moment, especially under the influence of mind altering substances. And perhaps he was making an (albeit poor taste) joke? We’ve become far too sensitive these days.
The comments here are pretty clearly protected by the 1st amendment. It's not a "true threat" by the standards of US jurisprudence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat
However, just because it's narrowly legal to say something doesn't mean it's a good idea; this kind of thing does tremendous self harm to the speaker's public reputation.
... yes and no?
It's debatable.
Imminent exhortations of others to break the law should be illegal.
Past that, it's a slippery slope to pre-arresting people for thought crime.
As abhorrent as some of the language is, it seems... dicey... if the US had simply banned gangster rap, NWA, fuck-the-police style music. And it's a tenuous line from threat to actual violence.
Which is why "credible" is usually the standard for charging. I.e. did you make a threat and take actions to realize the threat?
You completely missed the point, in its entirety.
A. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences.
B. Just because you CAN say anything you want doesn't mean you SHOULD. Part of living in society is acting... civilized.
Suggesting you should treat others with respect is now equated with hating freedom of speech? I guess our country really is in trouble...
The city’s board of supervisors is wasting police resources on a joke somebody said on X instead of fixing the problems of their city. Our country is way past the point of really in trouble.
Absolutely.
But freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech.
Like people judging what you say.
I'm a free speech absolutionist, but I still think neo Nazis are assholes. I think they should be allowed to say it (absent violence), but anyone who chooses to say it is going to drastically change the way I think of them.
I am conflicted on this because I like to speak my mind. Having said that, I am a nobody so usually no one cares. My wife always tells me "It's not the what but the how you say it". Gary being such a popular figure probably should have worded it better. However, I do worry that there is too much criticism these days when someone speaks their mind.
EDIT: I see people making a fair point about "too much criticism" as it sort of contradicts what I said about "speak my mind". I guess my worry is not about free speech or other people just criticizing but more of the woke crowd that just wants to cancel you because they disagree. I should have clarified that in initial comment.
You don’t need to feel conflicted. Just think of that “too much criticism” as people who disagree with the initial take as speaking their mind in response.
I was just thinking that.
How can you be in support of Freedom of Speech,
and at the same time be out here saying there is "too much criticism"?
It doesn't make any sense.
You’re getting really close to understanding.
The first is about rights to do something, the second is opinion on what others should do.
e.g. "I support the right of people to eat what they want, but really wish they ate less junk food."
With respect to criticism, I tend to agree in general. I wish people spent less time giving importance or fixating on random dumb or offensive things people say.
I think that misses the point that most people have on this topic.
You can support the right of people to express their opinions, but disagree and regret what those opinions are.
His comment was beyond the pale and inexcusable. Not because of his political position, but because expressing the wish for a slow death of people because you disagree with them is never OK, regardless of what your politics are.
What does inexcusable mean?. It seems like nearly everything thinks it wasn't cool and dumb, so what next?
"Inexcusable" means that there is no valid excuse for it.
I guess what I meant to ask what the implications or consequences of it being inexcusable are. When someone says that, what do they want to happen?
Do they just want people to acknowledge it was bad, and then everyone goes on with their life? Do the police make them wear a scarlet letter or send them out into the wilderness. Does it mean they are no longer invited to dinner parties?
Getting drunk and posting death threats on a social media platform beloved by unhinged bigots isn’t “speaking your mind”, it’s incitement.
What's wrong with the "woke crowd?" Is that not merely a nebulous group of people who have political opinions with which you disagree? What's wrong with them wanting to "cancel" you? Is that not an exercise of free speech and free association? Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences. "Cancellation" just a social consequence, is it not?
Behind each of these question marks is nuance: I like Ken White's treatment of the topic: https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-sham...
I like to speak my mind as well, but I haven’t ever listed a bunch of colleagues names and then wished death on them. Actually I’m not sure he could have worded it better: what’s the good way to deliver that message?
I don’t understand your premise. Criticism is other people speaking their mind. It sounds like you want to speak your mind and dislike when others do in response. What is your thought process exactly?
I’ve received death threats from representatives of local non profits for advocating to build more houses in San Francisco. It’s not that surprising when people observe that the outrage over this incident is arguably insincere, even if the original tweet was inappropriate.
This is the main reason I'm not currently registered to vote. The f-ers at the voting offices leaked my address without my permission, and then I de-registered and moved.
I don't currently have anything worthy of a death threat but if I ever do in the future, I'd prefer the public not know where I sleep.
Also, f all forms of KYC. Half of those companies end up getting hacked or leaking data at some point in the future.
Voter registration information, including voter address, is public information. Nobody leaked it. They gave your address to someone who asked, in accordance with the law.
People keep parroting this but it shouldn't be public information. Personal safety is more important than the law, as is established in the universal unalienable rights. Where I sleep is emphatically NOT public information. Period.
Until the law is changed to ensure my physical safety I see no reason to re-register.
Shouldn't and is required to by law are two different things. So yeah, maybe it shouldn't be public information, but the fact that it is, and is legally required to be, means that your information wasn't "leaked".
No, it was leaked, against my consent.
The government doing something against my personal safety and consent in the name of the law doesn't make it not a leak.
Surely the takeaway here is "death threats bad", not "death threats good"?
Those aren’t the only options. “Death threats bad, but this one overblown for political reasons” is perfectly within the realm of reasonable opinion. Across the bay, an actual supervisor resigned last week due to real and persistent death threats. Yet somehow that is not getting nearly the attention that a retracted tweet is. Similarly, Scott Wiener the local state senator has been harassed by online trolls for years and has needed a security detail posted at his house. Yet the same politicians crying foul over a tweet could not bring themselves to pass a resolution condemning death threats against him by actual psychos because Wiener is not in their political faction.
Because the supes didn’t formally pass a resolution about Scott Wiener, it’s hypocritical of them to informally criticize any kind of dear threat?
No that’s not what I said. Also, they haven’t “informally criticized” a death threat. They’ve asked the city attorney to draft a law against it and filed police reports, in addition to having their favorite reporters prolong the news cycle. Don’t downplay the extent of the pearl clutching.
I don't even think it's "because it's the internet." "In Real Life" political discourse has been getting significantly more and more crass and more and more belligerent in the last 10-15 years. Go over to YouTube and bring up some Reagan-Mondale or Clinton-Bush debates and compare their tone and temperament to what we see today. People still felt strongly about the issues back then, but we weren't so constantly hurling threats and potty-mouth insults all over the place like today.
Reminded me of a fascinating video I recall; Bush and Reagan debate illegal immigration in 1980's primary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok
They sound more liberal than half of today's Democrats.
As classic liberals, they actually were.
That's cool and all, but I didn't say classical liberalism.
Sorry if i wasn't more specific. I was intending to highlight the commonality and overlap between classic liberal philosophy what we identify as modern upper case Liberals.
I think the video does a good job of highlighting how many classic liberals actually had the same tenants and objectives, such as respect, compassion, and human development.
The positioning to me (which drifts over time) is less interesting than the higher quality of the discourse.
Granted, this was in a smaller venue, but seeing H.W. actually consider the question on the spot and deliver an on-topic, detailed answer outlining his position was... refreshing.
Presumption that the question is valid and interesting, the asker is to be respected, and supporters of the platform espoused and opponents have good points and should be respected.
Empathetic disagreement is not something you typically see anywhere recently. It's been boiled down to staccato sound bites.
We've had things like a sitting vice president kill a secretary of the treasury (and Founding Father) in a duel, over political insults. I make two points with this. The first is that obviously the past was far from some era of restrained gentleman, but the second is that I think words used to have a lot more meaning.
And that's because in modern times we've been rapidly diluting the meaning of basically everything by endlessly resorting to inappropriate hyperbole. This makes it difficult to express things and practically impossible to express an extreme feeling without resorting to the sort of hyperbole that makes hyperbole look restrained, which is what this thread is ultimately about.
It'd be nice if we returned to the era of words having meaning, but the era of the internet probably makes that impossible.
Really amusing aside. This article, "Shitshow! Britain’s potty-mouthed parliament", was just published: https://www.politico.eu/article/britains-potty-mouthed-parli...
That stiff upper lip has, perhaps, become a bit more relaxed.
When the center repeatedly fails to deliver meaningful reform, the extremes will attempt to fill the void.
"In Real Life" political discourse has been getting significantly more and more crass and more and more belligerent in the last 10-15 years.
Just ask Paul Pelosi. IANAL, I don't know what the legal definition of a credible threat is, but I completely empathize with these politicians who might be wary of what someone with the resources of Tan may do directly or incite.
This isn't your neighbor, you don't owe politicians any kindness.
Yes, but death threats are a crime, so we owe it to everyone, including ourselves, to not stoop to that level.
Just to add some nuance here, Tan's comments weren't a death threat in the legal sense (or at least don't constitue a crime). It is perfectly legal (if inadvisable) to say something along the lines of "Politician X should die a slow painful death." It only becomes a crime if it is a highly specific threat. E.g. "I am going to shoot Politician X on Tuesday evening after they leave City Hall."
Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not wrong.
I mean, he can legally say it for sure, and I wouldn't argue that the law should prevent him from that. But once said, everyone else has every right to condemn him for it.
Local politicians are neighbors
Yesterday, I read someone mock HN as "Corporate Apologism News". Quite accurate in this case.
Silicon Valley is fun that way - tons of smart people who’s eyes slowly shift out of focus and minds slip into a stupor when confronted with their participation in helping the most horrible people alive ruin the world.
Money blinds. The price for those nice comp packages is complicity in the descent into neofeudalism.
The funny thing is the money doesn’t even go that far in Silicon Valley! You’d often be better off making less comp but living nearly anywhere else in the world.
My theory is the real reason for the return to office mandates is to keep employees stuck in a situation where they are compelled to chase big comp and compromise whatever morals they once had just to put food on the table.
Silicon Valley is just an inefficient value transfer mechanism from society (by digitizing everything) to SF land owners.
Neither of these do much, honestly. The government already steals enough of my money, I'm not handing them more. And as a silicon valley nerd I'm not going to attract votes by personally running.
But yeah, wishing death is immature.
It seems like you’re implying that donating to a campaign somehow goes to the government?
They also think their voter information was "leaked" when they registered to vote, so it doesn't sound like they're very civically informed...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39206679
It certainly doesn't help his case.
I agree. We need to bring civility and basic respect, for the institution, back into our public discourse.
Unfortunately social media doesn't recompensate those using a measured tone to communicate with others, civility seems to be ineffective nowadays if your objective is to produce any political impact because outrage (as a conduit for discourse) spreads more easily.
imo the biggest issue was not the content of the tweet itself but the getting really mad and drunk tweeting. neither particularly professional nor politically wise for someone who is the head of a major institution in the startup world and a figurehead for (much-needed) political reform in sf. the actual words having crossed the line is sort of downstream of firing tweets from the hip while mad and drunk.
he basically needs to step down from the podium now or he's going to hurt the cause of making sf better, which is really unfortunate.
I disagree, it's the content. While I don't think many would interpret as a legitimate death threat... it is adjacent, and quoting what was more or less a death threat which contributed to murder.
Altering consciousness is a human trait which I support in the end. Doing unreasonable things while in altered states is a consequence, and likewise fine as long as things as nobody really gets hurt.
Saying strange things or stirring up controversy by having unpopular opinions or hurting someone's feelings a little... not a big problem. Apologize and move on.
What happened here is pretty far across the line, though.
It was pretty close to a death threat and served to encourage others to get even closer. I'm not quite sure if it should be illegal, but it should get a public figure fired.
While I am not going to say that there is a phenomenon akin to sycophant Olympics performed for the benefit of an audience of a single dunce king going on here,
I don't understand the rant either. Tan already has a platform. If he wants to "hurt" someone, wouldn't cold facts and logic work the best? What's the point of ranting some nonsense?
I think people downplaying it is better than trying to make more out of it than it is, or being part of an online pile-on. It's not great behavior but it's in the realm of "did something dumb", not more.