Elon Musk

[AnxietyRanger]

The problem with that kind of reasoning is that there are more than 2 sides in this equation. It might be a win for Elon and Trump, but what about that 88 year old grandma from Iran and the hundreds, thousands, or millions of other innocent people in Iran, Iraq etc. who are more or less affected by Trump's policies? Especially the few hundreds who had very direct, traumatic interactions with border control agents recently.

Trump is not the first American president to issue bans for Irani and Iraqi citizens - Obama actually had a longer one for Iraq (six months) and Iran got a similar ban in the 1980s. The seven countries listed come from a law which was instated under Obama administration as sponsors of state terrorism or countries of similar concern. I think it will take time to assess Trump's policies, currently there is just too much partisan (and partisan media) noise and raw emotion clouding the issue IMO.

And nevertheless, Elon is making Trump look great. This is the problem.

If your politics are to avoid Trump looking great then I agree, association with Elon and his goals might be against your politics. My points were in the context of advacing Tesla's and SpaceX's goals. I respect your different opinion, of course.

Your kind of reasoning was probably used by Daimler in the Third Reich. Hitler helped Daimler earn money (free "workforce" / slaves, lots of deals for manufacturing Blitzkrieg equipment, ...) and Daimler can help Hitler with winning World War 2. Win-Win. In some cases, you need to take more than the 2 winning parties into account. While Trump is not Hitler, and Elon is not Nazi Daimler, the same is true in this case.

Perhaps, I agree many companies employed questionable realpolitik during the Nazi era - and some were run by Nazis as well. But I do not believe either that Trump is Hitler or that Elon is Daimer or that either are Nazis. If I did, I would have a different opinion.

Obviously I would not support collaboration with a Nazi/Fascist regime. I guess our difference comes from the fact that I do not believe this is one (and I have read extensively on the WWII era history, bit of a bistory buff that I am).

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I agree Trump must tread carefully in the current political climate, lest #DumpTesla start happening anytime soon.

 

[jkn]

What does a person's view on climate change have to do with being Sec.of State? Tillerson is not being considered for EPA.

The facts are that Exxon is the largest holder of oil reserves in Russia, something like 80/90% of Russia's total reserves. This is a conflict of interest that Musk endorses. The concern is that Tillerson will put the best interests of Exxon ahead of the best interests of the US in order to curry favor with Russia.

He might do that. We don't know yet. He is not working for Exxon now. It also good to have somebody who understands Russians.

Personally, the major reason I bought the model S85D was its energy efficiency. I'm not claiming that I don't enjoy its power, but I could have bought something else for power with far, far less efficiency. Tesla rightfully markets its cars touting their environmental advantages and promoting the concept of an EV future. It is really disappointing to have him tweeting support for Tillerson, CEO of a mega-oil company whose profits depend on fossil fuel CO2 emissions. He may be a good businessman, based on success at Exxon, but how can we believe his motives on climate change are in our favor?? Elon tweets that he'll be on America's side - how does that fit with the Tesla world view?

I though Tillerson is ex CEO. Unfortunately Tillerson might be only one in Trumps government who understand climate change.

To be fair our favorite analyst Trip Chowdhry agrees

Chowdhry: Climate Change Is A Hoax, But Tesla Investors Shouldn't Care

He views climate change as a “complete hoax” but sees Tesla as the real deal.

Chowdhry pointed out that the scientific community was constantly talking about the coming Ice Age back in the 1970s before consensus opinions shifted to global warming in the 2000s. He believes the scientific community can “find the data to fit any theory.”

Chowdhry further suggested today’s concerns about global warming will prove just as overblown as fears about global cooling in previous decades.

Over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. So I can make scientific prediction that ice age is coming! Back in the 1970s several studies predicting ice age were published. In same time more papers predicting climate warming because of increasing CO2 were published. (I might find a link about this if somebody wants.) Of course denialists ignore those. I suspect studies predicting ice age were financed by fossil fuel industry.

The point is to point out that we do not live in a democracy, and the people did not elect Trump, the electoral college did.


There is plenty of evidence in the form of many years in the public eye: Trump has shown himself by his words and his actions, throughout his career, to be petty, vindictive, avaricious, and contemptuous of facts.

I agree with second part. But not with first. System is democratic even if not direct.

He's paving the road to hell with his good intentions. Collaborating with the regime only encourages Trump, who interprets Elon's actions as fealty. Is time for Elon to show whether he has principles, or cares for any interests but his own.

Elon cannot change president of USA. He might be achieve small change in politics. He must try. Trump changed his opinion of NATO quickly (or I have seen fake news). This proves that Trump can take advice from experts.

I'm a Democrat, but that was before I found out how rediculously fanatacal the Democrats are. You guys are acting like a bunch of babies. Please deal constructively with what was voted into office.

For some messages here I would have pressed 'troll' button if it existed. Troll could be Republican.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Funny you should mention that. Everybody I talked to in the last few days said, when the subject came to Trump's inauguration speech, that they thought they saw the re-incarnation of Hitler. The gestures, the mannerisms, the gist of his paranoid rants, the lot.

I would say that is a terrible exaggeration. We have decades on who Trump is. Trump may be a narcissistic, bad mannered, ill-tempered business man, who knows no political correctness, but he is also a product of the democratic west. Hitler was, by 1933, of a completely different kind of making and so were his goals.

To suggest otherwise is to not know history IMO. I know Germans have a careful preoccupation with anything of that era, and I respect the self-reflection of the nation, but the comparison of Trump and Hitler is just too rich.

I guess we will see in four years, but I am rarely as confident as I am now when I say Trump will not turn out to be Hitler - and he will not turn out to be Putin. Now, he may turn out to be a bad president, even a bad human being, but that's different.

 

[AustinPowers]

Just as a side-note, I didn't say that I agree with those that said he looked like the re-incarnation of Hitler, but I cannot help noticing quite a few disconcerting similarities between the two myself. Of course they come from a very different historic, sociologic and ecomic background, but other than that:

Blind nationalist - check
Blatant racist - check
Homophobe - check
Violently ill-tempered - check
Surrounded by an armada of corrupt and highly dubious yes-men - check
Agenda to put his own country above all other no matter the consequences - check

Just because he is a product of a democratic society doesn't mean he must therefor cherish its values.
At the moment he seems to do anything but.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Just because he is a product of a democratic society doesn't mean he must therefor cherish its values.

Of course not, but it is not that single anecdote I am extrapolating on here. Trump is 70 years old and has been in massive public limelight since the 1980s at least. The Art of the Deal is no Mein Kampf. We do know a lot about him and what we know about him is very different from what Hitler was like before or around his ascension.

I guess what I'm saying, one should not reduce Trump to a caricatyric interpretation of his speech. I doubt that is an accurate interpretation, let alone when artificially juxtaposed with some assumed historial comparison (Hitler). It just gets misleading very fast if you try to read Trump in the same way as you would read Hitler.

Judge Trump as Trump. Exaggerated comparisons can be harmful to legitimate arguments and concerns. IMO.

 

[hockeythug]

Just as a side-note, I didn't say that I agree with those that said he looked like the re-incarnation of Hitler, but I cannot help noticing quite a few disconcerting similarities between the two myself. Of course they come from a very different historic, sociologic and ecomic background, but other than that:

Blind nationalist - check
Blatant racist - check
Homophobe - check
Violently ill-tempered - check
Surrounded by an armada of corrupt and highly dubious yes-men - check
Agenda to put his own country above all other no matter the consequences - check

Just because he is a product of a democratic society doesn't mean he must therefor cherish its values.
At the moment he seems to do anything but.

Sounds like you agree with them. You prolly watch too much CNN if you believe the things you listed including being a homeophobe. Trump already 1000 times the leader of Merkel - Check

 

[AnxietyRanger]

By the way, I do get it why one would feel opposed at Elon working with Trump if one believes Trump is Hitler.

I guess there is not much we can say but agree to disagree in such instances.

I for one do not believe Trump is Hitler or Nazi/Fascist, and thus I support Elon working with the administration to advance the valuable goals of Tesla, SpaceX and the climate. I think it has the potential to be useful - and at the very least, more potential upsides than downsides.

I respect others who may disagree on Trump and thus have a different opinion on Elon.

 

[WarpedOne]

if one believes Trump is Hitler.

Modern medicine could help, I'm sure.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Elon is weighing in again. Seems to be taking a fairly pragmatic or even a bit towards centrist view on this, as I've said. I guess that is surprising to a lot of people - myself included. I guess I too had assumed (but not thought too much about it) that Elon's politics might be further to the left.

 

[hockeythug]

Elon is weighing in again. Seems to be taking a fairly pragmatic or even a bit towards centrist view on this, as I've said. I guess that is surprising to a lot of people - myself included. I guess I too had assumed (but not thought too much about it) that Elon's politics might be further to the left.

View attachment 212561

Can't believe we are talking about this when Elon's finger is literally on the button to nuke Mars. This generations Harry Truman. Do you not see the similarities?

 

[AustinPowers]

Sounds like you agree with them. You prolly watch too much CNN if you believe the things you listed including being a homeophobe. Trump already 1000 times the leader of Merkel - Check

Actually I don't watch any CNN as it is like Channel 567 or whatever on our TV. To be more precise, I watch very little TV anyway.
And about Merkel: I didn't vote for her party and will be glad once she is gone. But to call Trump a leader is stretching it a bit. He is the American equivalent of what the British call a "school bully" mixed with a lot of petulant child and bad sport, and shows very little of the qualities a leader in the modern world has to have.

I of course respect the opinions of those who stand by Trump and believe that he will be beneficial to the future if the US.
Let's see in four years who was right.
I hope I can watch the inauguration speech of the next American president on the center screen of my Model 3 (while being parked of course )

 

[AustinPowers]

Can't believe we are talking about this when Elon's finger is literally on the button to nuke Mars. This generations Harry Truman. Do you not see the similarities?

There are statements that are funny. And then there are ones like this one of yours.

 

[AustinPowers]

Judge Trump as Trump.

I believe I did when I listed those checkboxes. Or did I miss even more? Which one I listed was not true?

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I believe I did when I listed those checkboxes. Or did I miss even more? Which one I listed was not true?

My point was against the Hitler comparison you and others brought up. I do not think it is accurate or useful (quite the opposite, actually).

Discussing your list is probably beyond the scope of this forum, but I agree Trump is a nationalist, his values are, for most part, fairly conservative (with a slight New York twist though) and that he has bad manners and holds grudges. Obviously he intends to put the country he represents as first priority - he is no globalist. I am personally not convinced he is as blind or as religiously conservative or as irritably crazy as some portray him to be, but time will tell.

For Trump to be Hitler, though, there would have to be a heck of a lot more on that list. Being a conservative, protectionist patriot does not automatically a Hitler make - even if one has a bad temper, short fuse and no manners.

Now, people are of course free to debate the merits of nationalism and globalism, but neither are inherently good or bad. Both have led to plenty as well as plenty of disasters in the past and likely both will continue to. It comes down to the application.

 

[daniel]

... System is democratic even if not direct. ...

No, it is not. The difference is in the winner-take-all system state-by-state. If candidate A wins a state by 80% to 20%, or wins it by 51% to 49%, or even wins it by 34% to 33% to 33% in a three-way race, the result is the same: All the state's electors go to candidate A. The effect is the dilution of the majority votes in states with a large majority for one candidate and the magnification of the majority votes in states with close races. In a democratic system the majority rules. In our system, the majority is often completely excluded from power and the minority rules.

Something similar happens due to gerrymandering at the state level in the election of representatives to the House: Voters of one party are systematically concentrated into a few districts, and voters of the other party are strategically placed in districts where they will win by small majorities, and the result is that the party with fewer votes gets more of the representatives.

Gerrymandering and the Electoral College subvert democracy, systematically giving power to the minority party. This is the opposite of democracy.

Can't believe we are talking about this when Elon's finger is literally on the button to nuke Mars. This generations Harry Truman. Do you not see the similarities?

The definition of "literally" is that a statement has the actual meaning of the words. Elon's finger is not literally on the button to nuke Mars. For one thing, there is no button to nuke Mars. For another, nuking Mars is merely a suggestion (in my mind an utterly impractical one which would not have the desired effect and would actually render the planet uninhabitable). I am certain that after the idea is thoroughly analyzed Elon would see the folly of it and drop the idea.

Your statement is as ridiculous as the idea itself.

 

[ohmman]

Sounds like you agree with them. You prolly watch too much CNN if you believe the things you listed including being a homeophobe. Trump already 1000 times the leader of Merkel - Check

I know you likely have a good cohesive argument about these things, because you show up in a lot of threads that devolve into politics. Any chance you'd care to share a well written argument with us instead of your signature one to two sentence dismissive posts?

For those who care to delve a little bit into the China policy, globalism, the TPP, and a little bit of Trump's stance on those, it's worth listening to the most recent Freakonomics. I've generally taken the long-time economic line on globalism (raises all ships), but there are some good points in this article about the absorption capacity of China over the last decade or so which have added data points to the economic theory.

 

[kort677]

The majority of civil servants are good, hard-working people who believe in what they are doing. Like any enterprise, there are those who should be fired. The government is no different. But to believe that a massive departure of the bi-partisan folks who have departed is a good thing, is to not understand the void that is now left behind.

do you know of any business that when a new management team takes contolr of the business that doesn't bring in their own people to be in leadership positions? we aren't talking lower level career civil servants in this case, we are talking high level management that has been asked to leave.
there is a new team in charge now, and regardless of whether you favor them or not, they will bring in their own people to implement the changes that they feel that is necessary to bring the leadership in line with their views of how things are to run, changing upper management is common whenever there is a change in leadership be it governmental or private business.

 

[bonnie]

do you know of any business that when a new management team takes contolr of the business that doesn't bring in their own people to be in leadership positions? we aren't talking lower level career civil servants in this case, we are talking high level management that has been asked to leave.
there is a new team in charge now, and regardless of whether you favor them or not, they will bring in their own people to implement the changes that they feel that is necessary to bring the leadership in line with their views of how things are to run, changing upper management is common whenever there is a change in leadership be it governmental or private business.

Actually, yes I do know of companies (some Fortune 500, one Fortune 100) where management is not asked to leave with a change. In fact, I've personally twice benefited from being given a 'stay bonus' to NOT leave because a new CEO was coming in.

More typically, I've watched a new CEO come in and wait at least a few months to evaluate their direct team before making changes. Usually they'll bring one trusted person along (and some face plant stories along those lines). But the majority of the team has stayed intact, most likely because of the harm that would result with just getting rid of all the top people. A good CEO would understand these people got in their positions through knowledge (typically), very likely have team loyalty, and understand nuances that might not be obvious to a new person, no matter how good their qualifications might be.

I'd feel much better if the people coming in had resumes to support their new position. But with a few exceptions, they do not.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Elon getting quite the pusback on Twitter for his notorious suggestion that people... read.

Threats of Model 3 cancellations etc.

If this is not proof positive how things have gone overly emotional instead of rational, I don't know what is.