And so fades any chance that I’ll ever buy a Tesla vehicle. All this lunacy is rotting the brand from the inside, and nobody has the power to stop it. Especially galling because they were supposed to use technology to lead us to a better world, but instead they seem to be unable to escape one man’s hubris.
Getting Back to Work
41–50 of 332 posts
Re: Getting Back to Work
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Them wasting our tax dollars with a lawsuit.
Wasting? Tesla paid for those courts and associated costs with their taxes as well. They're meant to be used by all.
If I sue somebody for something that will in the end be thrown out and I know if but am only trying to cause a nuisance or maybe trying to pump up my ego then, despite my having paid taxes, I am wasting tax money. Since the tax money is pooled it is hard to say if I am wasting mine or others.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I admire Buffet and Munger, but the guys are 90 years old, Well, then you need to tell me your age, to know whether I should care about what you have written above.
Not OP, but mid 30s and I’m getting a bit tired of folks who are out of touch because of their age believing their past experience can extrapolate a future they don’t understand (Buffett in particular has done a very poor job understanding and investing in tech). It’s terribly ironic that they think Musk is just lucky considering Munger and Buffett were able to invest during one of the most prosperous times in Americ…
We'll have to see how many tech companies survive the coming depression before we can determine whether the long game at Berkshire is wrong or not :)
Indeed, we'll see if Tesla survives, not only the coincidental depression, but also the multi-hundred-billion-dollar war chest being leveraged against them by the other car companies with a century more experience each, more connections, and broader reach.
It's a bit early to be calling the game is all.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#44Three threads on this already:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127552
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23129216
Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN.
If you're about to comment here, could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html first and make sure what you're about to do is in keeping with the intended spirit of this place? Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Re: Getting Back to Work
#45What I didn't see mentioned that concerns me (although I admit it might be a concern born purely out of ignorance): No mention of whether employees would be provided with a minimum of 2 weeks paid sick leave should they show symptoms of COVID-19. Any employee who has a reasonable chance of becoming ill with COVID-19 at their work, and who does not also have a minimum of 2 weeks paid leave, should, by all logic I can…
"There is no winning play."
That's by design. There's no winning play for the line worker, because providing one reduces the returns for the investors. If it wasn't already obvious before this, the corona response by the US has thrown into sharp relief how stacked the deck is - from top to bottom - against the common worker.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#46Good. The economic devastation produced by the absurd government overreaction has destroyed orders of magnitude more net utility (measured in dollars, or imputed uniform-weight utils, or QALY, or whatever) than any realistic projection for the destruction caused by this virus. It's should now be abundantly clear to everyone what was clear to people who looked at the available data with a level head months ago: these…
Predicting the future is notoriously difficult and reviewing the past can only show what happened from a single course of action. There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened. There aren't even good examples of other countries that didn't lock down since basically everyone did. So, since I'm no an epidemiologist, I'll defer the expertise to those that are.
> There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened.
Actually, we do have data.
The SF Bay Area has very close ties to China, and corona likely arrived here via air travel in mid-Dec.
So anybody who actually wants to make the effort can compare before and after lockdown effects.
Also, it's common in large organizations for one dept. to not communicate to another dept. in a meaningful way, so relying on epidemiologists alone for analysis is not wise. There has to be daily, open conversation with local govt. and economists.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#47I’ve been planning to get a Tesla, but I can’t buy one anymore. Between this and all the crazy, and sometimes illegal, shit Elon says, I just cant do it.
Do you own products from companies that take part in illegal, corrupt, or morally questionable acts? My point is not to shame you, my point is to say what Tesla does is just not close to the behavior of traditional car companies, oil companies, or many Chinese manufacturers that make your favorite gadgets. It's just that Elon is a twat at times because he is obviously emotionally unstable.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#48Bold move, threatening to destroy local jobs (if he doesn't get what he wants), in one of the wealthiest economies in the world, when public perception of "businesses putting profit in front of human lives" is hitting an all-time low. This is going to be entertaining.
That's not very fair, since I could make the exact same argument about the the government's actions on this issue. Lockdowns didn't just threaten to destroy jobs -- they did destroy jobs. Calling out Elon Musk for making a decision that would do the same provides no contrast.
On top of that, Elon Musk is trying hard to get his workers back to work. If it means moving to a new state where workers are actually allowed and afforded work, it would be a net gain for the workforce.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most businesses aren't in a position to sue the county. If Tesla sues and wins, those other businesses will benefit as well. I'm not sure what you're objecting to here.
My point is that this is yet another case where it is Tesla who is in the news for some controversial conflict. Such as the many times it's attempted to fight the SEC, played fast and loose with health and safety regulations in its factories, attempted to manipulate markets to burn short sellers, or bricked the cars of second-hand sellers. Sure, one or two of those events could be explained. But there is a social com…
Elon plays fast and loose with his opinions in public discourse, but generally when Tesla makes an official move like this it seems to be more thoroughly considered by a larger group of people than just Elon. I have the same gut feeling that you seem to have when I first hear these stories, but the associated press releases seem to consistently have concrete foundations that I don't initially expect.
In this case, they point to their experience dealing with exactly this process in Shanghai, and running the Gigafactory over there for 3 months successfully since reboot. That gave me pause - they've seen this and dealt with it firsthand already, which isn't something nearly anyone commenting on this can say. Maybe they're lying, but that feels like a pretty serious unearned accusation.
I think everyone agrees that we should restart businesses if it's reasonable to, but it doesn't seem like anyone is evaluating what "reasonable" means outside of "what the local government is saying". And then you have to wonder why we're suddenly assuming the state/city government is competent in this case.
I don't know where I stand, but I know that I'm not assuming Tesla is in the wrong here. I know far less than they do and it would take a miracle to convince me that the local government is properly thoroughly evaluating the situation and making nuanced, reasonable decisions (as opposed to simply reacting to the political environment). It's increasingly difficult to figure out how to proceed, but at some point we have to decide that we're able to open businesses back up (with safety measures that we decide are adequate). It's scary, but we can't just wait around for a vaccine forever - it could be years out.
It's just a fundamentally hard problem.
Re: Getting Back to Work
#50It's obviously essential, critical work to fill up giant parking lots with new cars no one is going to buy. That's a great reason to resume work during the pandemic. I can't believe they even got shut down in the first place. If there aren't at least ten teslas for every American that can't afford them, we have failed as a society.
It looks like you got downvoted. There is a certain group of people that if they catch you outside without a mask or if you say publicly people should return to work, they'll post pictures of you on reddit and advocate for your murder, but as soon as Elon Musk says people should return to work they will immediately defend him because they think he is a God that is faultless.
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.