
Elon Musk Needs to Stop Tweeting Things He Can’t Prove - kgwgk
https://slate.com/business/2018/07/elon-musks-attacks-on-reporter-linette-lopez-need-to-stop.html
======
sh1mmer
I really don't understand some people on HN's desire to shield Musk from any
criticism.

When I started in tech as a career nearly 20 years ago I was really excited
because I wanted to make the world a better place through technology.

In some ways Musk embodies the kind of person a younger me would have
considered a hero. Now increasingly I question his propensity to make
outlandish claims on all sorts of topics and then get defensive when he can't
substantiate them. The worst outcome of this kind of behaviour is Theranos.

Musk and his companies have achieved a lot. He should focus more on that (and
improving ethics in the manner in which they get their results), and less on
his appearance.

~~~
pbarnes_1
Yup. It's just a cult though.

~~~
kitsunesoba
That’s absolutely a factor but I believe there’s more to the issue than that.

For a certain segment of people, Musk represents one of precious few glimmers
of hope in several high impact fields. These people are sick of mega industry,
boundless bureaucracy, and financially incentivized shortsightedness stymying
progress and actively fighting to preserve the status quo. In their view, Musk
possesses the qualities, resources, and initiative necessary to succeed in
spite of these problems.

There aren’t many who fit that description or the or even give the appearance
of such. It’s exceptionally rare, no matter how you slice it. With this in
mind, it’s easy to imagine how some might feel inclined to defend Musk from
perceived threats, even if it’s criticism rooted in truth. More than Musk
himself, these peoples’ hopes are at stake, which naturally motivates strong
reactions.

Personally, I feel conflicted. I do wish he’d tone down his tweeting and
provide concrete proof of things like adequate factory safety, but I also feel
that SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company are all important for moving
humanity forward (especially the first) and would hate to see them unduly
impeded.

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arcaster
Journalists need to stop "commenting" or "sharing knowledge" on topics they
are woefully under-powered (both in terms of rhetoric and intellect) to
understand at even a basic cursory level...

Slate has tweeted a number of things they haven't been able to prove, some
that could even be considered slander...

~~~
nikofeyn
couldn't you say the same thing about musk?

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turc1656
Take a close look at the chosen Tweets in the article. None of them
_technically_ levy an accusation or claim that needs to be proven _by him_.
They are almost all formed as questions. The few statements that exist are
opinions (i.e. "this is not journalism"). He has carefully constructed his
Tweets to be free from legal requirements regarding slander, libel, etc. by
not actually making any non-opinion claims.

Basically, he's following Cartman's method of "asking questions" on South Park
to discredit someone by implying something without actually stating it or
providing any actual evidence to support the implied claim.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elRxbGJuCw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elRxbGJuCw8)

Anyone who utilizes these methods of underhanded, disingenuous attack should
be ridiculed and ignored.

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IOT_Apprentice
He needs to stop tweeting? Why should he? I don't get these articles calling
on people to stop saying something the author disagrees with. If Musk is wrong
then history will judge him. He will eventually have to deal with whatever the
consequences of his speech is.

~~~
craftyguy
> He will eventually have to deal with whatever the consequences of his speech
> is.

That may have been true in the past, but is no longer. Source: donald trump.

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dmode
This a weird article. I have been closely following Tesla for the last 5 years
and it has been the target of constant FUD and misinformation. Some very
powerful people are on a mission to take down Tesla. Look at the stream of
negative opinion pieces that come out of WSJ. Weirdly, when Musk fights back
against the FUD, the press claims he needs to "shut up". Well, maybe if the
press covering Tesla didn't have a clear agenda, may be he will shut up ?
Maybe Slate will write an article covering the agenda driven hit pieces
against Tesla ?

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dekhn
Better yet would be for the press to stop covering Musk-related activities
except when they are newsworthy.

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RikNieu
What's with all the Musk hit pieces lately? Complaining about his tweets?
Really?

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squozzer
I could no longer suppress the urge to troll on twitter. Before doing so, I
read maybe 100 tweets on a thread. It was a political tweet, so the standard
of truth was not that high.

Guess what I found? 100% of the tweets were not falsifiable. They were as
reliable as tarot reading, probably less scientific than same, and certainly
less entertaining.

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pulse7
If this can be generalized to "<Anyone> Needs to Stop <Saying> Things He Can’t
Prove" nobody would be able to say things like "God exists." or "God doesn't
exist." (because you can't prove this) and similar.

~~~
JadeNB
> If this can be generalized to "<Anyone> Needs to Stop <Saying> Things He
> Can’t Prove" nobody would be able to say things like "God exists." or "God
> doesn't exist."

So it can't be generalised to that. It means that factual statements about
real people with the easily foreseeable potential to do harm to those real
people shouldn't be made without proof (with which you can agree or disagree),
but that's less punchy.

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ilovetux
Is this where we are headed? Pretty soon we will be a world of endless flame-
wars. It works for Trump (someone I do not like) and it'll work for Musk
(someone I like). It might even work to the author of the article if they
manage to gather as large of a following.

I think this is a symptom of the effects of deindividuation. When your
communications are always broadcast to a large group you get to feel like the
head of an army but are actually closer to the ring-leader of a mob. One is
able to justify saying whatever they want because that is where it ends for
them, they have spoken their minds. In other words one is able to detach
themselves from the ramifications of their words because those are other
people carrying on the cause.

To end my rant, instead of telling people to shut-up and grow up which is
rarely effective, perhaps we can try to gain a deeper understanding of our
society and the side-effects of the rapid changes taking place.

------
bayfullofrays
I hate how people idolize someone who has a past built on the racist
exploitations of the South African system of apartheid, built a payment system
that creates a class of haves and have-nots, builds a luxury vehicle for his
white friends to virtue signal with, and now exploits a tragic situation
involving people of color to further his drilling company.

Slate has it right, Musk should stop tweeting.

~~~
mvleming
This sounds like it could be satire.

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gonesilent
A story about Trump would have been a better use of time.

~~~
tabtab
Maybe we all want a break from news/discussion about "that orange guy".

~~~
turc1656
Not me. Hate him or love him, Trump news is hilarious and easily the most
entertaining thing I've ever seen. I work in downtown Manhattan and despite
whatever despair anyone may be feeling at whatever the latest Trump antics of
the day are, we can all still share a good laugh at the absurdity of it.

I recall Dave Chappelle musing that "the news had never been so good" when the
Clinton scandal was the biggest thing.

"Baby, turn the lights down...the news is coming on". How true, perhaps now
more than ever.

~~~
dragontamer
Caustic indifference to newsworthy events on the national scale is not
something people should be bragging about IMO.

Trump is Trump. He's the President of the USA now. We should give him the
proper respect that his office demands. In his hands lie the future of the
North Korean / USA relations, US / China relations, the Supreme Court (which
lies the future of Roe vs Wade, Citizens United, and other such cases decided
by the court). US Border policy (at least for the next few years), etc. etc. A
wide variety of issues that determine the future of this country.

Its one thing to deeply care about the future of the country, be it on the
left or right side. But its another thing to simply not care about it and
laugh it off.

~~~
turc1656
You can deeply care about the country and where things are headed and still
find humor in the absurdity of a lot of his actions. This is quite literally
what every late night talk show host does every single day - Trevor Noah,
Colbert, Kimmel, etc.

If we are on the express to hell, I am at the very least going to enjoy the
ride. Just as I will make sure I vote.

~~~
dragontamer
And I'm beginning to have doubts that laughing at other people and making fun
of them has any useful purpose in the greater political discourse.

Colbert in particular is incredibly caustic, and almost exclusively caters
towards making fun of the other side and "how stupid / hypocritical they are".
As far as I'm concerned, this kind of trolling and sarcasm is part of the
problem. And while Colbert himself is relatively tame, the twitter / internet
goons who worship him are just as bad as Musk's online Twitter goons and
trolls.

But this is getting quite far away from Mr. Musk and the point of the article.
Bringing it all together: the general problem in today's discourse are the
hero-worshiping trolls who take a personality (be it Trump, Colbert, or Musk),
and take their fight to the internet to harass others.

And btw, Mr. Colbert was one of the first users of this methodology.

[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-
the-...](http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-word---
wikiality)

This was Colbert in 2006, so 12-years can change a person. I don't see Colbert
really unleashing the troll armies upon anyone else anymore. But it is good to
remember that Colbert was one of the first to launch a "media invasion" on the
online space.

In a very similar manner to what Mr. Musk is doing in the article.

~~~
turc1656
Oh, I agree that it's contributing to the problem. Or at the absolute minimum,
it's not helping. But it's funny. And that was all I was saying, really.

As for your larger point - yes, the online trolling is bad. People unleashing
their dogs, so to speak, is also very bad. But the real problem is social
media itself. I'm sure you've seen over the past year all the Silicon Valley
insiders coming out saying they knew what they were doing when creating
Facebook and things like that. This funnels into the whole "echo chamber"
concept. The real issue sitting on top of all of this is that social media
isn't designed at all, whatsoever, to increase communication, connectivity, or
"togetherness". It is designed entirely to engage and retain eyeballs on
screens, sucking up ad-revenue. Exposing oneself to opposing viewpoints is
rarely something people find entertaining enough to keep them clicking for
more. Just as the things that go viral are virtually never well-reasoned
debate - they are insult wars and snark for snark retorts that must be
contained within the 280 character limit.

