621–630 of 1001 posts
The comments in this thread are a gold mine. 1) Twitter doesn't ban people for wrong think! That's a myth! 2) Musk was accused of racism! 3) Musk isn't doing this for freedom of speech, he's only doing it for his own interests! I want to see the Venn Diagram of people who said one of these things, and were glibly sharing XKCD #1357 whenever someone got banned from Twitter that they disagree with. The tides have start…
Does HN crowd REALLY believe he is going to remove censorship and preserve the voice of the underclass ? Thats the most naive thing to believe.
My take on this is that he wants to bring back more of a wild west. I kinda sympathize with the sentiment to create a more relaxed version of Twitter where only the obvious in terms of free speech is excluded (like MMA/Vale Tudo - in terms of a "free fight"- not allowing eye gouging etc.) but this certainly isn't something for everyone. Not a lot of people can stomach 4chan taking this to an extreme. So how you go ab…
How does this happen though? When someone is "cancelled on Twitter" what does that mean? Is it Jack Dorsey going in a banning your account? Twitter suspensions, by the actual company, are relatively well reasoned. What most people don't like is the Twitter mob, who does not work for Twitter. Despite people saying they want "more free speech" what they actually want is to suppress the free speech of others so they can say what they want.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, banning users from posting a published news story is "permissive".
Since when is "published" a meaningful quality barrier to content? Any idiot with a WP site can "publish" a "news story". Besides, if I reply to your tweet, "My child just died in a fire." with an article about how fire deaths are among the most painful ways to die, it doesn't really matter much how "published" that "news story" is, it's hateful and has no place on the Internet.
I don't see how anyone could seriously sustain an argument that twitter is as permissive as they could be lawfully. (Nor would I argue that they should be /that/ permissive in any case, the law in the US is a very very low bar, in part because we recognize that there are other ways to deal with bad speech than prohibiting it by law)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All I see with Tesla is how government policy can successfully change markets. Tesla exists not because of Musk’s genius[0], but because of tax credits and carbon offset credits that allowed Tesla to be profitable early. Without Musk, someone else would’ve pulled it off, without the policy Musk would have done something else. 0 - Again, Musk didn’t found tesla, he did a hostile takeover and has tried to rewrite histo…
> Without Musk, someone else would’ve pulled it off, without the policy Musk would have done something else. You can use this argument to say that no one deserves credit for doing anything. Seems like a dead-end way of thinking about the world to me.
All I see in this “we wouldn’t have EVs without Musk!” discussion is a rehash of the old “great man of history” theory, something that’s generally been discredited in the historical fields. The whims and decisions of individual actors matters, yes, but they also act in a context that molds and constrains them. The specific circumstance that made Musk and Tesla took both his initiative, and a specific cultural and policy environment to support his actions. We overweight the former.
First, one must acknowledge that Tesla would’ve died on the vine without the policies I mentioned above. They finally turned a profit excluding emissions credits in Q1 2021. A feat, yes, but also one that was wholly dependent on public policy to survive and grow. You can give credit to Musk for recognizing the opportunity here, but he didn’t make it.
Second, there’s really nothing to suggest that nobody else would have taken this path if Musk had not, albeit a bit later perhaps. History is full of “great men” who discover and create, but dig under the surface and one will find dozens of uncredited inventors who were either a close second, or less lucky in marketing. Heck, there is no real reason to believe that Musk was even critical for Tesla; remember that he took it over, and we have no idea where it might have gone absent his involvement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since it happens so often, please provide two instances of this.
So accusing someone of being a pedophile once is OK behaviour? Interesting.
This is the biggest thing to happen to twitter since the trump presidency. Both big for twitter, and awful for society.
This development makes Trump being reinstated on Twitter more likely. His reinstatement would make a Trump presidency less likely, IMO. Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.
Maybe.
> His reinstatement would make a Trump presidency less likely, IMO.
That's...an interesting opinion, but I don't see any strong reason to believe it is true, or even more likely to be true than the opposite effect.
> Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.
For people (at least, US voters) generally that appears to be less true of Trump than literally every other potential candidate, as Trump currently is both the strongest by far polling candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024 against other potential Republicans and the strongest against potential Democratic opponents, winning my most general election head to head polls.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I give his tenure as CEO 6 months at most before he's forced out by the board, or resigns for ideological differences. The changing wind that Elon is going to usher in is going to be fundamental and sweeping, and I wouldn't be surprised to see an exodus of employees follow.
Parag was extremely lucky to have been appointed CEO despite his lack of qualifications. He's only ever worked at Twitter and was appointed CTO before ever holding a management position. He's not going anywhere because he won't get as lucrative of a gig anywhere else.
He probably won't have much of a choice in the matter
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working for someone who transforms industries? Many do enjoy that very much, clearly. Amazing engineers, who can work anywhere they want, choose to work at SpaceX and Tesla. And we all benefit from the electrification of the grid and advances in space.
Bad human beings can still contribute good things. That doesn't excuse bad behavior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly could not care less. Steve Jobs was the same. I think you are criticizing the very things that made them great.
The idea workers have to suffer under "great men" to produce things of value is provably untrue and just an excuse by those "great men" to act in unacceptable ways, while taking credit for the work done by those people. A good CEO can of course provide value, but pretending they are alone responsible for success, and abusing staff is a good way to achieve that success is just wrong. Burning out passionate people is a…
You people are crazy. Since when is hard work and ambition something to be scorned?
It's pretty easy for you now, from your obvious position of wealth and privilege, to now ridicule those values which built the very civilization you are now inheriting and trashing. Talk about not having skin in the game.