
Tesla superfandom becomes toxic, negative for electric revolution [op-ed] - doener
https://electrek.co/2020/05/12/tesla-super-fandom-becomes-toxic-negative-electric-revolution-op-ed/
======
cowmix
I'm pretty much as much of a 'superfan' and you can get in regards to all of
the Musk ventures. Elon's handling of the COVID19 thing, for me, has been a
bridge too far. While prediction models for the pandemic have been all over
the map, Elon's COVID-truther stance has been pretty incredible to watch. His
Twitter posts on the subject have not been well thought out and many have been
outright conspiratorial.

Depressing.

~~~
kristofferR
Yeah.

That being said, I got more sympathy when I learned how absolutely absurd
Gavin Newsom's reopening conditions were - halt reopening of a county until
"No more than one new COVID-19 case per 10,000 residents in the past 14 days"
and "No COVID-19 deaths in the past 14 days".

It seems much more logical to base it on the R-number (number of people
infected on average by each infected person), like we do here in Norway. The
more the R-number goes down, the more things can be reopened.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I do wonder if we will end up with R converging towards 1 in that case. Every
time it falls people get gun-ho and start going out, then it rises until we
see the figures get alarming again.

~~~
plantain
That's exactly the plan in many countries with the current caseload well
within the capacity of the healthcare system (i.e. Germany). Balancing
overloading the healthcare system with reopening business.

~~~
mcv
You can't keep everything shut down until there's a cure. We need to find a
way to live with it, and that means reopening those businesses that are the
safest and most urgent to reopen, while testing extensively and keeping a
close eye on whether it gets out of control again.

------
devy
I've been reading Electrek for many years, Fred Lambert is definitely a huge
fan of Tesla no doubt. When Fred wrote,

    
    
       Obviously, it’s ridiculous for Musk to call someone who is a Tesla investor 
       and who wrote thousands of articles about Tesla’s positive impact on the world “anti-Tesla” 
       simply because he didn’t like a few of my articles during a time when the company was making 
       some very questionable moves. Musk even ended up reversing some of those moves later that year.
    

It is painful to read that, as I am sure Elon surely knew how that felt, as
spoke at CBS 60 minutes about when Elon's own heroes dismissed him.[1]

One should always tolerate different opinions, as Ian Bremmer put it.[2]

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGqMZQAMio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGqMZQAMio)

[2]:
[https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/801590659291480068](https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/801590659291480068)

------
steeve
Elon Musk can be admired or despised for many reasons, but the merging of the
companies with his persona was always troubling to me. I find it deeply
unhealthy.

Same with Jobs I guess.

~~~
iratewizard
Running a company itself is deeply unhealthy. To me, his cult of personality
around his companies looks like his way of coping with that extremely high
stress.

~~~
ashtonkem
Most CEOs don’t behave like this.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
CEOs of other auto manufacturers don't last as long as Musk (he has the
longest tenure globally, by far). They also aren't product architect of their
company, nor CEO and lead designer of another large manufacturing company
either.

~~~
ashtonkem
He doesn’t have to do that, he made all of those choices.

------
oldsklgdfth
I don't follow Musk closely, but his ventures seem pretty interesting. I mean
who isn't impressed with those self landing rocket boosters from SpaceX
(obviously he has teams of engineers and to make this happen)

Periodically, I remember that Tesla has not be profitable for more than a few
quarters. And I end up wondering what is the end goal. I get that you can
perpetually raise money as long as you find investors.

This might not be the right place to post this question: In the long run, what
is the plan for making money at Tesla?

~~~
dontreact
The company is driven by the mission to accelerate the world's transition to
sustainable energy. Since that transition hasn't happened yet, taking profit
slows that mission. So their goal is to eventually look like one of the
world's largest energy companies in terms of making money.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_energy_compani...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_energy_companies)

~~~
new_realist
Is that why they sell pollution credits to the highest bidder, undoing all of
the environmental benefits from buying their cars?

~~~
oldsklgdfth
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions"

------
Traster
Lots of people make the point that there are just toxic people on twitter of
all persuasions and whether it's cancelling some movie producer or shouting
"TERF" at every female journalist, it's just a small group of bad people that
show up everywhere.

I think that misses the point that Elon Musk _is_ one of those bad people. He
_is_ the one spreading rumours that someone's a pedofile or that Tesla has a
secret deal to go private, or that Coronavirus is nothing to be worried about.
People didn't just happen to congregate around him, they're hanging out with
their friend.

------
freerobby
A big party will attract some small people.

------
mcv
This is not just a problem with Tesla, it's a problem with many, many issues
and causes. See the small group of vocal Bernie Sanders "superfans" who would
rather vote for Trump than for Biden, and consider Elizabeth Warren somehow a
traitor to the progressive cause.

I think this might also be related to the difference between patriotism and
nationalism. I've recently seen a bunch of memes about how patriotism is
wanting your country to be the best it can possibly be, while nationalism is
believing your country is best no matter what. The former is a drive to
improve and to fix problems, while the latter means that any constructive
criticism is taken as hostility. (I'm aware there are other definitions of
these words, but this is the one that works for me in exploring this issue.)

A blind belief in the infallibility of the thing or person you support, will
easily turn toxic. It's not a healthy kind of support.

~~~
bun_at_work
> See the small group of vocal Bernie Sanders "superfans" who would rather
> vote for Trump than for Biden,

While I agree with the majority of you comment and take on superfans in
general, I think it's important to note that a large amount of those
"superfans" for Sanders are actually astroturfing efforts.

I don't have sources handy, so take it with a grain of salt, but it seems
pretty clear to me that on Twitter and Reddit those "superfans" are just
trying to promote the idea that voters shouldn't vote for Biden as a way to
remove their vote in the general.

Again, I agree with what you said here, just want to point out the
astroturfing happening.

~~~
mcv
That's no doubt part of it in the case of Sanders, but I think that also fuels
the effect that turns real supporters toxic.

Also because you can see the same thing happen in other areas where people
identify extremely strongly with something. In fact, the history of
Christianity is filled with moments when Christians acted completely contrary
to their teachings due to toxic identification with their brand. Although I
guess in that case there were also politically motivated people pushing them
in order to take advantage of it.

~~~
bun_at_work
I agree here - obviously the astroturfing turns real supporters toxic in this
case, otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to do it.

------
rgbrenner
This article talks a lot about the superfans corrupting Elons point of view...
but Elon is so much like his superfans. Any criticism is met with attacks.
_Don 't want to use his plan to rescue kids in a cave? You're a pedophile._

Elon was like this before the superfans. They reflect his behavior, not the
other way around.

~~~
rsynnott
Yeah, I think the author is actually a different form of 'superfan' (or cult
member), who takes the stance that Dear Leader can largely do no wrong, and
any mistake they make is due to the malign influence of corrupt lieutenants.

> While we obviously don’t endorse this type of language, it then led to a
> good example of a Tesla superfan feeding misinformation to Elon Musk,
> corrupting his feedback loop.

This feels like pretty standard cult behaviour. It's never Elon's fault; it's
the fault of those other misguided (though ultimately righteous) believers.
You get similar stuff with dictatorships and religious cults; Netflix has a
rather good documentary on the Rajneeshpuram cult which shows this in action.

