
British cave diver considering legal action after 'pedo' attack by Elon Musk - duked
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-diver-in-thai-cave-rescue-stunned-after-attack-by-elon-musk
======
Slartie
Can totally understand that guy, and I hope he follows through on legal action
against Musk.

Having a verbal fight is one thing, even throwing around "dirty" language is
in some way acceptable among grown-ups, as long as both sides know the limits.
One of those limits is that you never, never, never, NEVER accuse your
opponent of socially stigmatizing behavior, especially not if you have no
basis for doing so (and even if you have evidence for it, it's still kind of
bad style to bring that up). Being a pedophile is probably the most
stigmatizing accusation possible in todays' society - just the accusation
alone, no evidence whatsoever necessary, can destroy the life of perfectly
honest people if it "catches on" somehow, and stuff like that quickly catches
on and develops a life of its own. Especially when publicized by some guy with
a cult-like following of 22 million people on Twitter.

If Musk was a kid, he should have gotten seriously disciplined by his parents
for this, in hopes that he'd learn where the limits are. For adults, it's up
to the legal system to do this job. To be honest, I have little hope for Musk
to learn any new tricks with regard to acceptable limits for his childish
temper tantrums, but I nevertheless hope he doesn't get out of this entirely
unscathed - this one was just way too far over the line.

~~~
ddalex
I think Elon Musk lacks the empathy to understand the damage he's doing to
those around him - family, employees, strangers on the internet - when he's
throwing away words like that; I genuinely think he's actually lacking these
social skills.

It doesnt' help that Silicon Valley basically made this behavior glamorous -
Steve Jobs is the primary exponent of a crass person getting a cult-like
following. While I think it's a useful trait while in pursuit of achieving
unreasonable things - like ground-breaking design innovation, sending cars in
space, expanding a niche car market to mainstream - all these guys, Musk,
Jobs, and so on are basically sociopaths, and we shouldn't be afraid to call
them as such.

~~~
masklinn
> I think Elon Musk lacks the empathy to understand the damage he's doing to
> those around him - family, employees, strangers on the internet - when he's
> throwing away words like that; I genuinely think he's actually lacking these
> social skills.

It's not just social skills that he lacks, the interview with his first
wife[0] where she notes that he regarded her grieving for their first kid
(SIDS death at 10 weeks) as "emotionally manipulative"[1] is something else
entirely.

[0] [https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-
start...](https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-
wife/)

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/YDYeRW0.png](https://i.imgur.com/YDYeRW0.png)

------
planetjones
I supported Musk after he released his e-mail correspondence showing the dive
team had requested he continue work with his submarine. I also think Musk
genuinely tried to help solve a problem; maybe not with the greatest
requirements gathering (though Musk is adamant the submarine would be able to
reach the cave and is planning to demonstrate this). Some of the attacks on
Musk were terrible and unnecessary.

However, he then sends this baseless tweet. And doubles down on it. It is
juvenile, petty and disgraceful behavior. It would seem that everyone is
deeply flawed in some way.

~~~
flexie
It's unworthy and completely wrong reaction, but it is understandable given
the diver's prior attacks on him. Not that it's an excuse.

~~~
blub
How can it be unworthy and wrong... yet understandable?

It's understandable to be pissed off and call the other guy an asshole. This
is totally fucked up and not at all understandable.

~~~
flexie
Musk is one of the most impressive entrepreneurs of our time. But he is also
just human. Sometimes "totally fucked up" as you put it is the way we react,
even when we shouldn't.

Musk could have chosen to ignore calls for help, but instead he exposed
himself to the risk of failure. Then he was told his efforts were just PR and
to "stick the submarine up where it hurts" by one of the now famous divers who
currently speaks from a position not much less public than Musk's. Being told
he had ulterior motives after repeatedly asking the person in charge of the
rescue mission if they were sure they wanted his help (as the email shows),
and after spending what is likely hundreds of thousands of dollars and days
trying to help, is extremely disrespectful. I agree that he should have
ignored it or simply rebuked it. But I understand he couldn't.

~~~
danso
Can you imagine a response that doesn’t involve libel? How many people did
Mark Zuckerberg call out as being pedos after his $100M attempt to save New
Jersey schools flopped?

~~~
flexie
No, he is very likely going to be sued.

------
erokar
Goes to show this was all about ego for Musk. Instead of being happy that all
the children were rescued, his ego got bruised since they didn't use his
submarine -- and he attacks the real heroes. Text book narcissistic behavior.

~~~
postmeta
Well the British diver guy, Vernon Unsworth, did start with the innuendo
attacks first, telling Musk "he can stick it where it hurts", referring to the
sub.

That's what Musk was responding to I think.

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-15/thai-cave-rescue-
diver...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-15/thai-cave-rescue-diver-says-
elon-musk-mini-submarine-pr-stunt/9995624)

~~~
icebraining
"Pedo guy" is not an innuendo. Plus Unsworth's words may have been crass, but
they weren't an accusation of anything. There's really no comparison.

~~~
obituary_latte
>Unsworth's words may have been crass, but they weren't an accusation of
anything

To be fair, he accused Elon’s effort of being a pr stunt. Doesn’t justify the
response but it was an attack of sorts.

------
oliwarner
I worry about Elon.

It's not just that he can go from zero to full-on character assassination in
three messages, not just that he doesn't care who he does that in front of,
but also that he very evidently values a dollar bill with his signature as
more than $1.

It's openly-expressed megalomania.

People have joked about him being one failure away from turning full super-
villain, but if he does stuff like this again, he really risks the stock
markets destroying everything. Tesla lives and breaths on outside funding at
the moment. It can be snuffed out.

~~~
glenra
>he very evidently values a dollar bill with his signature as more than $1.

Wait, is it not _objectively true_ that the autograph of a famous person tends
to add value to the things they sign?

Ebay has a category for Musk-autographed stuff. People post stuff in that
category, and sometimes it sells. Are you saying stuff advertised as having
been signed by him would be worth more without the signature? :-)

------
Traubenfuchs
Elon Musk seems to be a very undiplomatic, passive aggressive person. His
behavior makes it look like he is not used to repercussions for his socially
unacceptable behavior. His public social media self harming / suicide attempts
are bizarre.

Elon really needs a (social media) handler.

------
GenericsMotors
Musk gets told his PR stunt is unwelcome and should bugger off, and his
reaction is to call one of the people who risked their lives to save those
kids a paedophile?

What a narcissistic prick. Confirms his stupid sub was nothing more than ego-
stroking.

------
TorKlingberg
I love what Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX and Tesla, but he really needs to
constrain his ego on Twitter. He's a big time celebrity now, and people are
going to talk about him. Some of them will be negative, and some will be
uncharitable. Getting into fights all the time isn't going to help him archive
great things. (and his fans should stop cheering him on)

------
throw2016
This is so unbecoming and tacky. He has betrayed an unbelievable level of
egotism and immaturity and embarrassed himself permanently.

The problem seems to be he is convinced he is smarter than everyone else and
being dismissed obviously did not sit well with him. The most important thing
is all the children were rescued safely and obviously the rescuers have
distinguished themselves.

This is a lesson for all those convinced about their own smartness not to
assume everyone else is stupid, and the importance of humility and maturity.

------
Td5g
Everybody makes mistakes, he rectified it by deleting his tweet. /s

~~~
MrLeftHand
I don't know. How would you feel if someone would call you a pedophile on
social media, but deleted the comment after a couple of hours?

Especially by a person who has a huge following and every word he writes can
have a massive impact on peoples perception. As a lot of people pointed out,
the term pedophile can be very damaging on one's life. Now put these two
things together...

With great power, comes great responsibility. When you are a leader you have
to be careful what you say and do. Granted, we are all human, but deleting a
tweet doesn't even come close to an apology.

~~~
loco5niner
FYI - /s denotes sarcasm.

~~~
MrLeftHand
Later the day I was wondering about that.

Always learning something new then.

------
f137
Musk is a narcissistic asshole. That's all. I hope more people will see it
now.

------
pavlov
Why does Musk insist on pursuing a playground vendetta over this? The
submarine was a quick hack and turns out it didn't quite work. That's
perfectly ok -- that's what quick hacks are like. It would be forgotten in a
week as he moves on to the next shiny engineering challenge to keep his
audience thrilled.

Instead, he doubles down on every real or perceived slight against him. Donald
Trump does the same. It must be an effective PR tactic because these two
American luminaries do it, but it's frustrating to watch how this stuff
consumes so much media oxygen from real issues.

~~~
makomk
The short answer is, this article completely omits the part of the diver's
comments that actually made the headlines originally. He also said it was just
a PR stunt, and everyone latched onto this as proof that Elon Musk was an evil
person for even trying and that the dive team who'd actually rescued the kids
confirmed it. It was only after Elon's subsequent morally-bankrupt smear made
for a better avenue of attack that the media started downplaying the diver's
comments as just some minor technical criticism rather than iron-clad proof
Musk was a monster taking advantage of kids' peril.

------
curiousgal
One problem I have with the reception of this story is that most people think
he attacked one of the British divers that were the first to find the boys,
whereas in fact, the diver in question is a different person. The article
describes him as "instrumental" but that encompasses a lot of the people
involved, including the farmers whose lands got destroyed by the pumped water.
I am not trying to down play this guy's contribution by any means but he is
not who most people think he is.

That being said, both men engaged in a juvenile uncivilized exchange,
initiated by the British diver, so there's no need to get courts involved.

~~~
danso
There have been feature articles about Unsworth describing his role, but I
can’t find them since the top 50 google results are about Musk calling him a
pedo. IIRC, his role involved have expert knowledge of the caves, more or less
pinpointing the location of the soccer team, and convincing the Thai
government to call on the British divers who eventually found the boys. Seems
pretty substantial to me: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/10/family-
british-d...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/10/family-british-
diver-thai-cave-rescue-waiting-celebrate-car/)

