What if someone like MLK Jr had skeletons in his closet that we discovered? Should we discard his legacy so we don’t “separate the artist from the art”?
Here’s a key difference: being a lousy husband (I include sidelining his wife for sexist reasons) tarnished his reputation but it doesn’t directly undercut the civil rights movement’s primary success. It does call into question the movement calling for equal rights on race but being marginal on gender, and quite a lot has been written about that.
In contrast, most of the damage Musk has done to his reputation has been undercutting the things he’s supposedly good at by demonstrating that he isn’t. His sexual harassment or family feuds are salacious but they didn’t spoil his companies’ reputation the way things like Tesla autopilot or basically everything at Twitter had done.
Twitter was far worse of a dumpster fire before Musk got a hold of it. Read the Twitter files. Just because Twitter doesn't tilt hard left anymore doesn't make Musk a villain, just a villain to you. There's a big difference.
> Twitter was far worse of a dumpster fire before Musk got a hold of it. Read the Twitter files.
I did, which is how I know you didn’t. There really wasn’t much there - even Taibbi eventually admitted that – and it requires some real dishonesty to come up with a “hard left” label.
I am no longer able to use the site because of his changes. 10 years of following links from articles or friends and then scrolling threads. I guess it cost more than the ad revanue my click would’ve generated but I can no longer visit the site to generate any more revenue now. So objectively twitter is worse under Musk’s stewardship as the site no longer works at all for me.
Did you even think about this comparison before you typed it?
Musk's pre-Twitter and unexagerated legacy is luxury cars and some vague stuff about space.
MLK Jr is a human rights icon who was assassinated.
Musk is still eligible for his legacy holding a science victory. For example if he can get something more substantial to happen on the moon/mars or kick start asteroid mining.
Right now his legacy is proving billionaires aren't geniuses and that meritocracy is a lie.
I do. I think a lot of people just like bitching and Elon is the current hotness. Bitchin' for clicks. I wonder if these people analyze their own mistakes as critically as they do others'. I'd be surprised if that was so.
>Elons bad behavior is his legacy now.
Yea, that won't age well 10-20 years from now, look at Steve Jobs' legacy. He was a huge dick at times, but people still buy Apple stuff like crazy. Who remembers the names of his critics? I sure don't.
Also, what adult uses terms like "superhero," and "supervillain" to describe a real person in professional journalistic writing? Too many movies. They should take their job more seriously. It's as if they can't think outside binary good/evil like a toddler. There's some criticism from me. They can take it as seriously as I take their's.
PS: Notice me too got ignored by the press as soon as Biden got accused? It died faster than Disco. Funny that. Unfortunate, but such is politics.
What we will find when we explore Mars is that we are Earth creatures. There are good reasons to doubt humans will ever travel to outer planets, nevermind to neighboring stars. Post-humans, maybe. Not us.
Having a decent life for all humans and minimizing the damage we do to the only habitat that supports human life is a vastly more important goal than crossing a void to reach an inhospitable rock.
We will gain knowledge and technologies in pursuit of space exploration. There are benefits. But humanity has higher goals.
objectively good according to whose system of morals?
Edit: my point in arguing this is that hn’s audience would worship anyone who has done a tenth of what Musk has - but the slightest bit of political nonconformity makes him a “supervillain”