[vgoh1]

We need to stop this culture of taking single sentences and vilifying people over them. People get tired, they get mad, temporarily confused, and can be good people 95% of the time, and a bit of a jerk other times. But the internet never forgets, so we as a people need to learn to forgive a bit more.

[Lazare]

I agree with you very, very strongly. However...

...I don't think that applies to Musk. This isn't the case of someone making an ill-considered tweet and getting eviscerated; this is about dozens and dozens of tweets, lawsuits, and interviews. Even so, if Musk took responsibility and said he was going to change, I'd certainly say we should give him every opportunity to do so. But to state the obvious, that hasn't happened.

[ethbro]

As much as he's an amazing engineer, it's demonstrably obvious by this point that Musk has severe social issues.

But then, so do a lot of us. We just aren't in the media spotlight.

On the flip side, it's indicative that the company Musk is more closely running is experiencing high turnover at senior levels. While the one he's not as involved with isn't.

[Barrin92]

accusing specific individuals of sexually abusing children isn't some mild misstep, it can ruin the lives of people and in a fair world their would be significant legal repercussions for billionaires who think they can drag someone through the mud on twitter, where Musk has millions of rabid followers. The idea that Musk is the victim in this reminds me of that "affluenza" case with the drunk rich kid years ago.

There are a lot of high profile CEOs and executives who have very stressful jobs, Musk isn't alone in this. The overwhelming majority of them manage to behave in completely sane, professional manner.

I assume Nadella and Pichai and Bezos all have a lot of work on their calendar, curiously enough they don't go on rants on twitter.

[josefx]

It wasn't a single sentence on a single occasion, he doubled down on the accusations repeatedly. He went as far as saying something along the lines "why do you think he hasn't sued me?" He got his lawsuit.

[krapp]

95% of people aren't billionaires whose social media presence is followed globally and whose every public comment is repeated by the media, and 95% of people don't accuse someone else of being a pedophile because they're tired or mad or "momentarily confused."

Like it or not, we live in a society in which words have social and occasionally legal ramifications. Elon Musk trying to ruin someone's life for bruising his ego isn't something society should shrug off and forgive simply because "people aren't perfect."

[maxheadroom]

>...isn't something society should shrug off and forgive simply because "people aren't perfect."

...but isn't the recourse that society has agreed-upon the very same lawsuit that is going on? Is this not adequate? Wouldn't it be more "woke" to fix the aforementioned avenue of recourse, if not?

[krapp]

>..but isn't the recourse that society has agreed-upon the very same lawsuit that is going on? >Is this not adequate?

Humans are emotional and social beings, and we do not (nor should we want to) live in a society in which the proceedings of law, when found to be appropriate to remedy some social offense, become the only permitted form of public expression relative to it.

It's perfectly reasonable to find Elon Musk to be an objectionable person in the public sphere, regardless of the legality of his actions. Those are two different axes, and human beings don't live on only one.

>Wouldn't it be more "woke" to fix the aforementioned avenue of recourse, if not?

I don't know what "woke," is supposed to imply. I'm assuming (from the typical context of such things) that it's supposed to be a glib disparagement of something related to identity politics, which seems odd and inappropriate.

[maxheadroom]

>Humans are emotional and social beings, and we do not (nor should we want to) live in a society in which the proceedings of law, when found to be appropriate to remedy some social offense, become the only permitted form of public expression relative to it.

What does the form of public expression hope to achieve if the recourse is adequate? Emotional release? Were it that it was you that was directly wronged, I could understand your subjectivity on the matter; however, being a third-party to whom there is no direct or indirect impact, it makes no sense.

In other words, using your statement, there is some assumed emotional or social end-goal of the behaviour is there not? Isn't that n+1 from the recourse already defined from society? The behaviour is designed to illicit something, is it not? Otherwise, why would you do it at all?

>It's perfectly reasonable to find Elon Musk to be an objectionable person in the public sphere, regardless of the legality of his actions.

The OC wasn't about whether it was unreasonable to find him objectionable but whether it was unreasonable to continue the "hate campaign" (apologies for a lack of better turn-of-phrase at the moment).

>I don't know what "woke," is supposed to imply. I'm assuming (from the typical context of such things) that it's supposed to be a glib disparagement of something related to identity politics, which seems odd and inappropriate.

Woke seems to be common parlance for people who have "woken-up" to some perceived injustice and are fighting the good fight, as it were.

An example of how it is apt and applicable is when Beto O'Rourke was continually forced to apologise[0]. In this case, we can draw the parallels by your statement:

>It's perfectly reasonable to find Elon Musk to be an objectionable person in the public sphere...

At what point would he no longer be objectionable and/or for the behaviour to stop? His death? That doesn't seem to matter in the case of lot of people previously hated throughout history, correct? So what overall, overaching purpose does it hope to achieve? When in the history of history has it achieved any appreciably good and desired outcomes?

Even if he profusely apologised, prostrated with guilt and remose today, wouldn't the behaviour still continue?

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_Y-wbhiOGI&t=190

[krapp]

>In other words, using your statement, there is some assumed emotional or social end-goal of the behaviour is there not? Isn't that n+1 from the recourse already defined from society?

Society is not an algorithm whose purpose is to derive formal logical proofs of type "recourse" for any particular set of inputs. There is no n+1, nor is there necessarily an emotional or social end-goal.

>The behaviour is designed to illicit something, is it not? Otherwise, why would you do it at all?

Most people don't orchestrate their emotions in order to elicit a specific response. People find Elon Musk to be an asshole because he acts like an asshole, they find his behavior objectionable because they object to his behavior. There need be no more complexity to the matter than that.

>At what point would he no longer be objectionable and/or for the behaviour to stop? His death?

And now the slippery slope argument... I don't see anyone calling for Elon's death, do you?

>Even if he profusely apologised, prostrated with guilt and remose today, wouldn't the behaviour still continue?

Maybe. But then again, he could also eat an infant on live television and people would still defend him, so in the end it all seems to even out.

[gamblor956]

The pedo thing wasn't a single sentence. It was something Elon doubled down on. And repeated. Many times. He deserves to be vilified for trying to abuse his wealth to destroy a critic who was correct about his grandstanding during a crisis where people's lives were at stake.

[kentm]

It's a pattern with Elon. He found out Twitter critic's identity and called up their boss to try to get the guy fired. There's pretty credible allegations that he retaliates against whistleblowers as well.

Elon Musk is not a nice guy that has temporary blowups. He's vindictive.