
Free America Now (@elonmusk) - JeanMarcS
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1255380013488189440
======
dang
Please don't post like this to HN. It's off topic [1], against the spirit of
the site, and led to a wretched and utterly predictable flamewar.

HN is fragile. The idea here is to try to stave off the default fate of
internet forums [2, 3]. The forces pushing in that direction are far stronger
than the ones in our favor. It wouldn't take much to destroy this place, and a
thread like this is a real dose of poison.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[2]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

------
xenophonf
What a fool. And it won't be just other fools who get hurt or killed by this
foolishness.

------
cczizou
I struggle to take Musk seriously. He has too much to gain from getting people
working again.

His production operations are notoriously behind schedule and only accelerate
by throwing more (literal) bodies at the problem.

~~~
me_me_me
To quote the classic:

"Many of you will die, but I am ready to make that sacrifice."

~~~
Turing_Machine
Can we please stop pretending that economic destruction doesn't kill people?
Because it does.

If the food supply chain gets disrupted, as many fear that it may, that could
be a _lot_ of people.

~~~
me_me_me
Can we stop pretending Covid19 doesn't kill people?

~~~
Turing_Machine
No one is pretending that.

Now, does anyone care to address my point, rather than brigading down
something because you actually don't have a response?

~~~
me_me_me
No one cares to address point that have been addressed already.

If we talk about the numbers then opening up a country runs a risk of even
higher daily deaths and longterm economical damage due to lack of workforce
after the disease passes.

Americans want to be South Koreans without taking South Korean measures. You
simply cannot have a cake and eat it too.

------
SecurityMinded
Why do all the rich people want to "free America now" ? Would it be because
their factories are not running ? Get real people. Do not follow the wolf in
sheep's skin. If something happens to you because you contracted the virus,
you will be no more than collateral damage, as long as Tesla's roll off the
production line.

------
alkonaut
He needs to stop tweeting drunk it's as simple as that.

~~~
DagAgren
I think it might be more helpful if he just stopped being a massive asshole.

~~~
tandr
Why not both?

------
marvin
That doesn't bode well for Tesla earnings later today.

~~~
jacknews
Whole sectors of the economy are shut down, how come the wall-street gambling
dens are still open?

~~~
justaj
Maybe it's a dumb question, but isn't it possible to do most of what Wall
Street does from home?

------
mgoetzke
He might just want to do it as e.g Germany does it. i.e. basically opening
most smaller and some bigger businesses. shops with limited people at the same
time, masks, hygiene procedures etc. schools more or less closed until end of
summer.

Though Germany already has receding numbers for a while now, US is still a
little behind. Total number of cases vs deaths is (if counted and reported
correctly in worldometers) quite comparable (to my surprise). UK is way worse
in this respect.

Difficult to say what he really wants as he does NOT communicate well in this
respect. In longer interviews he is way more thoughtful.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I actually heard Germany’s infection rate has now increased directly related
to their reopening (before R0 was <1 now it is ~1?)

~~~
orwin
I read that too but actually the case augmentation is not statistically
significant yet (comparing d1 and d2 after the reopening is not enough).
You'll have to wait until at least d4 to have a better idea and i think they
can manage to wait until week two to decide to either go for herd immunity (at
R0 ~ 1 this is viable, deadly but viable for healthcare workers) or lock their
country for a month again.

------
ausbah
this definitely tops the list of crazy things musk has said, it would be funny
if so many people didn't take every word he says as absolute truth

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
he also "predicted" close to 0 covid cases by end of April (groan):
[https://twitter.com/JBauernberger/status/1255452046897135617](https://twitter.com/JBauernberger/status/1255452046897135617)

------
fernandotakai
wow, that's... bonkers. i wonder why the hell he's saying this kind of thing
-- it's not like his companies are having issues due to covid-19 (afaik).

~~~
jmull
He aspires to be a populist demagogue. I have no doubt he'll be running for
president one of these days.

edit: I'm dumb, he can't run for president of the US.

~~~
theboywho
You can't run for President in the US if you were not born in the US, even if
you are American.

~~~
woofyman
As long as your mother is American, it doesn’t matter where your born.

~~~
vinay427
This is an incorrect oversimplification of citizenship law and of the natural-
born clause.

There are residence requirements for foreign-born US citizens to pass on
citizenship to children born abroad, which already contradicts your statement.
This applies to mothers and fathers (with a paternity test if not married).
Furthermore, it hasn't been legally settled whether someone born a US citizen
abroad counts in this clause, though personally I suspect anyone born a US
citizen (not just, and not always, children of US mothers) would qualify if
challenged.

------
criddell
What's the context of this tweet? Is he just trolling?

~~~
DagAgren
He is mad that the lockdown is losing him money, and he wants to force people
to risk their lives to go back to work making him money.

~~~
hef19898
Isn't Elon wating for a _huuuuuge_ payday? One that could not happen if the
stock drops too much?

Which raises the question, whether or not, this Tweet is similar to the going-
private one.

~~~
zaroth
This is a great point of how SEC regulations violate free speech through prior
restraint when interpreted too broadly.

If it’s illegal for Musk to make political commentary like this, then that
doesn’t mean Musk broke the law, it means the law is unconstitutional.

------
smcl
Did this open up focussed on a tweet by a "Melissa A" with a reply by Elon
Musk saying "True" for anyone else? Took me a few seconds to realise that I
needed to scroll up to see the actual linked tweet (literally just the words
"FREE AMERICA NOW"). I tried on a few browsers with the same behaviour, looks
like this is _deliberate_.

~~~
JeanMarcS
Well if it’s the case I’m sorry about that. I just copy pasted on my iPhone
when I saw it, so may be the URL change when you scroll ?

In any way it was not deliberate

~~~
smcl
No no no I don’t mean that you did this - you used the correct URL for the
tweet.

I meant that this looks like another weird Twitter UX decision. And it seems
this is on Desktop (so FF, Chrome, Edge), I just looked on mobile and it was
fine.

------
DagAgren
Never trust a billionaire.

------
NautilusWave
Step 1) Widespread, compulsory testing.

------
JoeAltmaier
Wow he really likes his money. But not so much, people.

------
IgorPartola
Elon Tusk would never say this.

Also, yeah he really wants Tesla stock to tank today, huh?

------
woofyman
I love how billionaires with their private jets and 40,000 square foot homes
want every body else to go back to work

~~~
menacingly
and I love how many privileged middle class people are smugly calling to press
pause on civilization from the comfort of their homes which they can only do
because a faceless army of poor people keeps them fed and cared for

~~~
JoeAltmaier
You understand that they're at home too? Just look at the unemployment stats.

Most of American production is automated. Its middle-level folk keeping
America running. Cherry-picked examples notwithstanding.

~~~
menacingly
uh, no they're not. do you think the chicken fairy is depositing frozen birds
in your supermarket? your existence is secured by a chain of people who
haven't achieved the level yet for "is it safe for me to go to work?" to even
register as a question

~~~
650REDHAIR
And by non-essential workers staying home it frees more hospital beds for
those more at-risk and exposed.

That’s literally the point of shelter in place.

~~~
cpr
With hospitals shutting down, and doctors and nurses being furloughed for lack
of patients...

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...because we've done enough to slow the spread. Any responsible look at the
stats show that clearly. Here's a link in case the entire internet wasn't
enough:

[https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

~~~
cpr
...or because the dangers were exaggerated in the first place.

------
eklin
Quite the career change from cave diving rescue missions expert to expert on
how to handle pandemics.

------
dr_dshiv
Writing from the Netherlands. I believe the American rhetoric has fully been
divided between the "if you aren't careful, you are killing people" on the
left and "open the economy" on the right.

I'm surprised that it isn't clear why the left is in an extremely dangerous
position. They can't win unless lots of people are dying. Otherwise, the non-
zoom working class will vote in anyone who prioritizes the economy. Isn't
wholesale economic collapse a much bigger civilization-wide existential threat
than COVID19 itself?

I would have also thought that the left would be more scared of another 4
years of Trump (now with unlimited power and money) than his voter base dying
in droves. Just surprising, that's all.

~~~
Miner49er
From what I've seen, the non-Zoom working class is the group most against re-
opening. They're the one's most at risk from the virus.

~~~
dr_dshiv
Maybe it's different in the Netherlands. But here there seems to be a lot of
contempt for not being able to do construction, cut hair or otherwise work.

Luckily, the weather is nice, which generally puts people in good spirits.

~~~
Miner49er
Maybe I'm wrong, but in the U.S. it seems most people that want things re-
opened is a part of the Zoom working class and the upper classes.

In the US most blue collar work has been deemed essential anyway. Construction
for example, is deemed essential. Layoffs are still happening like crazy, I
suppose. I'd say the left generally wants to leave non-essential parts of the
economy closed, and give people UBI or freeze rent, etc to help out the
working class.

~~~
bJGVygG7MQVF8c
> in the U.S. it seems most people that want things re-opened is a part of the
> Zoom working class and the upper classes.

This does not seem accurate to me at all. The upper classes have fled the hot-
spot cities. The upper-class-aspirant professionals are stuck in the cities
working via Zoom. The risk of premature opening there is real, so they're not
pushing for reopening.

The people pushing for re-opening are mainly non-Zoom non-essential working
class people who are feeling the economic pain of the prolonged shutdowns in
places where they're not needed.

Also, to a lesser extent, people who object to the restrictions on freedoms on
cultural-ideological grounds, either on principle or on a cost-benefit basis.

------
ornornor
It feels like he’s angling to out-Trump Trump so that he can run against him
in the next election... and that might even work! It has before...

------
menacingly
"lol just don't work, it's for the best" is as tone deaf as "let them eat
cake"

------
generalpass
I tend to feel that what we are seeing is a society without any philosophical
understandings. The hard sciences have taken over, and we are to see a new
version of eugenics take over - a different name, a stated different goal, but
an equally immoral result.

Does anyone remember Hunter S. Thompson?

~~~
paypalcust83
_A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream._

But does anyone remember City Light Books? :hmm:

------
rishirishi
Easy to dismiss him because of his wealth or other prejudices you may have of
him. "Free America Now" raises an incredibly important debate that all
lockdown-ridden countries should be having. Were lockdowns constitutional?
Were lockdowns effective? Could other measured responses have achieved similar
outcomes?

Were lockdowns done in vain? And have we set a dangerous precedent?

Bunch of questions. Don't flame him or me. Just participate in the debate.

~~~
xenophonf
"Just participate in the debate" is the kind of nonsensical rhetoric
Creationists use to push their religious beliefs into science education. There
is no debate. There are no questions. The only dangerous precedent we're
setting is one of ignoring the expert epidemiologists tasked with protecting
the public.

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy-
less...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy-
lessons-1918-flu)

[https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3561560](https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3561560)

To summarize, during the 1918 flu pandemic, American cities that implemented
early and extensive non-medical measures (including quarantines) suffered no
additional adverse economic effects due to implementing those measures when
compared with cities that implemented measures late or not at all.

[http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20150111194407/http://www.hist...](http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20150111194407/http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/influenza_main.htm)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291414](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291414)

Again, to summarize, American Samoa and New Caledonia succeeded in preventing
even a single death from the 1918 influenza through effective quarantines.

------
aaron695
Points for not being a Silicon Valley coward blindly following the 'lockdown'
religion but he doesn't seem to have a clear handle on the virus to be saying
what he is.

I'm not sure he even noticed C19 in January or February.

virus OR coronavirus OR c19 OR covid OR covid-19 (from:elonmusk)
until:2020-04-29 since:2020-01-01

------
cwhiz
NY, NJ, PA, CT, and MA have 53% of cases. It’s time to stop treating this like
every state or region is in the same situation.

Edit: Some people apparently need to be reminded that Europe is a place.
Individual countries are reopening as they see fit based on how they are
handling the virus. It honestly is starting to feel like some people prefer
the pain than the idea of safely reopening certain states and regions.

~~~
benburleson
Very impressive that the virus acknowledges state boundaries.

~~~
cwhiz
People aren’t flying. Your comment is meant for laughs but states and regions
are in completely different situations.

And please tell your joke to Europe, and Germany in particular.

