[wpietri]

Your example of somebody we could have a constructive dialog with is... Elon Musk? I think that's absurd. The guy obviously does not give two shits about consensus.

I think the biggest problem with Elon Musk is a lot of credulous people, helped by credulous tech media, treated him as a serious person. But he's obviously not interested in dialog with anybody who doesn't kiss his entire ass. Having a convenient contemptuous label like "tech bro" is absolutely helpful in undermining that unearned and dangerous false respect.

And I'd say the second-biggest problem here is people valuing civility above all else, which allows toxic narcissists like Musk to run rings around everybody that's supposedly pursuing consensus with people in positions in power. Strangely, you never see those people working very hard to get consensus with the less powerful people that they harm. Coincidence, I imagine.

[freetime2]

Tesla just negotiated a deal with rivals Ford and Rivian to allow access to Tesla's charging network. I don't know the extent to which Musk was personally involved in negotiations, but I see this is as pretty clear proof that yes, even Elon Musk is willing to work toward consensus with his rivals given the right conditions. The deals were seen as mutually beneficial to all three companies, and as someone who is generally for increased adoption of EVs in the US, I see it as a good thing too.

To be clear I am in no way defending everything that Musk has said or done. But I think that people are complicated, no one is either all good or all bad, and Musk has some traits that I admire and others that I detest.

Is "people valuing consensus above all else" really a thing? Can you give a specific example where you feel "people valuing civility above all else... allows Musk to run rings around everybody that's supposedly pursuing consensus with people in positions in power"? I'm sure you have something in mind, but I'm just not sure what you're referencing.

I certainly put a high value on consensus - but if consensus can't be reached then I can be supportive of more strong-armed approaches in order to achieve a desired outcome. Name-calling just doesn't seem that necessary or useful to me though. Hearing someone call Musk a "techbro" doesn't really do anything to convince me that Musk is a bad guy - if anything it makes me think "here's a fairly extreme and quite-likely biased opinion that I should approach with extra skepticism." Rather, the thing that has sullied Musk's reputation for me in recent years is simply reading the things that he himself has said and done... the facts, clearly stated, are more than sufficient in Musk's case.

Unfortunately I can't deny that name-calling does seem to influence people more than I would like. Democrats and Republicans seemingly engage in ever more name-calling and stereotyping for one-another, and yeah I suppose it gets people engaged and out to the polls to vote (or out to the capitol building for an attempted coup). But it's such a shallow form of debate, and over time the rhetoric tends to drift pretty far from reality as echo chambers form. There are probably a number of important things that people could agree on (like the bi-partisan infrastucture bill) if they weren't so caught up in name-calling and squabbling about (often) irreconcileable differences. This is the feeling that I got when originally watching the video and subsequently reading your comment that I initially responded to.

Speaking of shallow debate, I have read a number of your comments now about how Musk and techbros are ruining the world - and I honestly don't understand where you are coming from. Our frames of reference are different enough that when you say "techbro" it apparently conjures a different image in your head than it does in mine - and the word itself is not enough to convey your intended meaning, only your sentiment gets through. You haven't referenced a specific real-world problem or event that I can say "yeah I agree with that" or not - just a description from "tv tropes" that I maintain is only a stereotype and doesn't accurately reflect reality. (Is there some truth in it? Sure, but in reality people are not that one-dimensional).

I'm open to at least considering how people in the tech industry or even I myself am doing something harmful that I'm not aware of. I may even already be in agreement with you. And yet here we are somehow stuck debating whether stereotypes, name-calling, and consensus-building are good or bad.