Elon Musk documentary/factual tonight

[spacerfc]

I think the issue with these mega rich billionaires is not so much that they are totally good or totally evil - all of us humans have good sides and bad sides. We can all be selfish, selfless, whatever, we can all make silly mistakes or say silly things, and we all have capacity to do great good. The problem is when one person ends up with untold billions of dollars, all of these things are amplified massively, and affect tens of thousands of people. In democratic countries we see the need for checks, term limits and scrutiny for our elected officials, as power has a corrupting effect. Billionaires like Musk don't have these checks, so bad things, as well as good, can happen.

I guess what I'm saying is it's not good for so much wealth to be in one man's hands.

Last time I checked, billionaires still need to follow the law, so yes there is most definitely checks for them. If you don't like something they're doing, ask your representative to outlaw it, if you can't lobby for a law against whatever they're doing, it means unlike you, your fellow citizens don't think their actions are bad, so it's completely fair.

And government wield so much more power than billionaires, for example the US federal government spent $6.8 trillion last year, about 30 times of Elon Musk's entire net worth, and that's just the government spending for a single year. And let's not forget government is the only entity who can legally use violence, including the power to wipe humanity off this planet, so yeah having more checks on government is more than justified.

 

[Jason71]

So @InDaClub which bit of my post did you disagree with?
The bit where I said I like the science /tech stuff Elon does or the bit where I said I dislike him calling people he does not like pedos with no evidence.
I apreciate it is very much envogue now in the US to call any political opponent a pedo for no reason. So once again Elon was a trail blazer, but you are on the UK forum and we still find that inappropriate I'm afraid.

 

[spdpsba]

This. I think the guy is an arsehole and I hate how some people treat him as some kind of messiah and go around calling him “Elon” as if he was their best mate.

No, I will call him Musk, or Mr Musk. He's not "Elon" to millions of his admirers - and I am one - he's not a friend.

Do you know who Mr Galilei is? Not many people know who that is. But most of us who went to school know who Galileo is. Don’t make yourself of a fool by saying these things that doesn’t add one bit to the discussion. And for God’s sake, this is not the first time you are saying this!

And I am still expecting the moderator to do something about this personal abuse of a man who in his own way advanced science rather than just posting comments encouraging further abuse.

 

[EVMeister]

So @InDaClub which bit of my post did you disagree with?
The bit where I said I like the science /tech stuff Elon does or the bit where I said I dislike him calling people he does not like pedos with no evidence.
I apreciate it is very much envogue now in the US to call any political opponent a pedo for no reason. So once again Elon was a trail blazer, but you are on the UK forum and we still find that inappropriate I'm afraid.

You can agree that calling somebody a name or insinuating something without evidence ("pedo" in this case) is wrong but still disagree with your post and the general tone. The way you framed it: "Like using his bully pulpit to attack someone helping to rescue children trapped in a flooded tunnel." is the bit I disagreed with. I followed both sides of the court case related to this rather than the one-sided mainstream media account of the event. It then became clear that Vernon Unsworth is not the hero with purely good intentions that he was portrayed to be. No evidence of being a "pedo", but certainly hungry for money and lacking some basic morals. This is honestly indicative of a lot of the thoughts expressed in this thread. People who think they know Elon Musk based on the toxic bias presented by mainstream media, do not know him at all.

 

[15Peter20]

Musk is the epitome of the notion that one can be very very bright yet not have an equivalence in wisdom.
He has almost singlehandedly pulled the world into thinking about electrifying transport as a means of transforming society into renewables. He has pushed the boundaries of rocket science from the huge bureaucratic hugely expensive NASA paradigm to a reusable system. He has started Starlink - which may well be a mixed blessing from the scientific point of view.
In the process he has become quite well off - and good luck to him.
But on the way he has continually made expansive promises that he has spectacularly failed to live up to: tunnelling and FSD come to mind. The latter has pulled thousands of lesser mortals to "invest" probably something in the order of billions of dollars in a project which will probably not come to fruition in it's promised sense in the lifetime of many purchasers' vehicles.
He has fallen into the trap of thinking that just because something CAN be done it should be - the little boy syndrome. Yokes and cars deciding whether you want FWD or REV come to mind. Hugely complex programming that is updated almost weekly with sometimes unpredictable results which the average user cannot or will not appreciate.
No, I will call him Musk, or Mr Musk. He's not "Elon" to millions of his admirers - and I am one - he's not a friend.

I imagine the many folk who refer to our PM as 'Boris' aren't fans of his, it just feels like the easiest way to convey who you're referring to with brevity and minimal ambiguity.
'Musk' isn't very polite. 'Mr. Musk' seems overly formal. 'Elon Musk' seems excessive. 'Elon' doesn't seem to me to convey any particular emotion or bias.

 

[Zilla91]

I imagine the many folk who refer to our PM as 'Boris' aren't fans of his, it just feels like the easiest way to convey who you're referring to with brevity and minimal ambiguity.
'Musk' isn't very polite. 'Mr. Musk' seems overly formal. 'Elon Musk' seems excessive. 'Elon' doesn't seem to me to convey any particular emotion or bias.

Do you call the leader of the opposition “Keir”?

 

[Zilla91]

Elon Musk is an engineer, he's literally the Chief Engineer of SpaceX.

He certainly was in the past he most definitely isn’t today, not while he’s running X number of companies.

And he’s given himself a job title in his own company, so what? Didn’t he give himself a whacky job title at Tesla a while back? “Technoking” I think it was

 

[15Peter20]

Do you call the leader of the opposition “Keir”?

Dunno. The guy is a bit of a non entity to me. I'd probably say or type his name in full so as not to confuse him with the construction company, albeit spelt Kier, or the other labour Keir, Hardie.

 

[Graham J]

It is a unfortunate fact that most people lack the knowledge to really evaluate Elon Musk, most of what they heard about Musk comes from biased main stream media hit pieces like this supposed "documentary".

While true, he's also a prolific Twitter poster. That might not provide a complete picture but we can definitely glean his perspective on many issues and general attitude. Those tend to be at the core of much of the controversy surrounding him.

 

[Zilla91]

Dunno.

How do you not know what you call someone?

 

[WannabeOwner]

How do you not know what you call someone?

Unsure if it is rude to drop the "Sir" bit ... perhaps?!!

 

[EVMeister]

How do you not know what you call someone?

If you don't think or talk about that person much (if at all).

 

[Zilla91]

And I am still expecting the moderator to do something about this personal abuse of a man who in his own way advanced science rather than just posting comments encouraging further abuse.

Are you suggesting I be cancelled because I exercised my right to free speech to say something about someone who describes themselves as a “free speech absolutist“?

 

[Mark77a]

Which other individual is positively disrupting so many areas of human progress ?
(ok except maybe tunnels for cars, and some 'odd' tweets , but hey did I say human ) .
The whole ICE, and Fossil industry are not only scared but fund so much bad PR & FUD which haters and media just love.

Top of ‘rich’ (asset) list but near bottom of ‘consumption’ list.

Like Steve Jobs hated when alive by some, only appreciated dead

 

[15Peter20]

How do you not know what you call someone?

There are about 7 billion people in the world, mostly of zero interest to me, same as Mr. Sir Keir Starmer. This is literally the longest 'conversation' I've ever had about the bloke.
I have, however, had multiple conversations about the Rt. Hon. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson MP and Mr. Elon Musk esq.

 

[spdpsba]

Are you suggesting I be cancelled because I exercised my right to free speech to say something about someone who describes themselves as a “free speech absolutist“?

Right to free speech doesn’t give you any right to abuse others - online or in real life.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

The classic half full of half empty argument.

He’s done good stuff. He’s done bad stuff.

He’s progressed the cause for a sustainable future at the same time as throwing rockets into space (however efficient he’s trying to make it sound, the reusable rocket is only green in so far as the container doesn’t need to be remade, the fuel burnt is still horrific).

He bought crypto which someone calculated caused as much CO2 as all the Teslas he'd made had saved. (It's more complex than that, but don't let the absolute truth get in the way of a good story, Musk never has).

He’s also polluting the sky with satellites while trying to make communication omnipresent.

He believes in freedom of speach yet some of his supports try to shout down those that have a problem with him.

He believes in freedom of speach but really doesn't like being held accountable for what he says (funding secured, FSD timescales, cave diver etc etc). and he'll see you in court. And then the courts capitulate under the pressure of his wealth (and anybody that thinks the US legal system is fair has a strange idea of what "fair" means).

Calling himself chief engineer and actually being it are massively different things.

Musk is an ideas man who sets high targets, only some of those targets belong in comic books, some are genius.

Sometimes his goals are too ambitious. When he makes them he's a hero and moves the dial on progress, but when he fails, he's a villain.

So essentially some will only see the golden side, some will see the opposite. The truth is invariably somewhere in the middle.

You need to break eggs to make an omlette. Depends if you're a vegan or not to know whether thats a good thing or not.

 

[ACarneiro]

Right to free speech doesn’t give you any right to abuse others - online or in real life.

It rather does, actually.
What it doesn’t give you is impunity from the consequences of doing so.

 

[Zilla91]

Right to free speech doesn’t give you any right to abuse others - online or in real life.

But does it give me the right to call him a “pedo guy”, for example?

 

[ACarneiro]

But does it give me the right to call him a “pedo guy”, for example?

Of course it does.
But then you get taken to court and sued and all what-nots if he can be bothered to care about it…