[UncleOxidant]

I keep oscillating between are they just stupid or are they malicious and I'm starting to settle on the latter given the kinds of actions this administration is taking. Ironic that their voters thought they'd be mAkINg AMeRIcA gREaT aGAin when in fact they're going to cause us to lose our leadership role in many areas.

[esalman]

It's a good thing you are "starting to settle" 2025. I mean before 2020 they disbanded federal bodies for pandemic prep and look what happened.

[gwd]

But was that malice, or stupidity? Do you think they disbanded pandemic prep because they wanted people to die in a pandemic? It seems much more likely that they were too stupid to realize that being unprepared for a pandemic is way more costly than being prepared for one.

There's certainly a lot of malice: asking for names of FBI agents who worked on Jan 6 cases, and in putting Tulsi Gabbard over the CIA, refusing to enforce the laws against offering bribes to foreign officials, cutting agencies regulating Trump's and Musk's businesses. But cutting pandemic prep, firing people working on basic technology... that shows that they're both malicious and stupid.

[freejazz]

It doesn't really matter what their intent is when the result is the same.

Also...

> Do you think they disbanded pandemic prep because they wanted people to die in a pandemic

Are you familiar with the term reckless?

[gwd]

> It doesn't really matter what their intent is when the result is the same.

I mean, yeah, people die regardless of the motive. There's some saying about how boys may throw rocks in jest, but the frogs die in earnest. That's why it's important that people in power try to be careful not to kill people, and why it's important to elect people who are careful and try not to kill people.

But somewhere up the thread, someone said "I'm beginning to think it's malicious and not stupid". If that matters to you, then it matters.

> Are you familiar with the term reckless?

Are they culpable for their decision? Absolutely. The Hebrew word in the Bible translated "foolish" doesn't actually denote a lack of raw brainpower, but a certain kind of flaw in moral character. You can be both intelligent and foolish, just as you can have below-average brainpower and be wise.

But foolish is not malicious. Malice means you intend evil; foolish means you willingly ignored reality to your own detriment. I don't think Trump wanted people to die; he just found the necessity of spending money for pandemic planning inconvenient, and so ignored it.

Packing the top military with loyalists? He certainly intends evil there.

[esalman]

Saying this is stupidity is an underestimation. One does not simply become the most powerful and the richest man on earth by playing stupid. In fact we are stupid for believing so- that's exactly what they want.

[zombot]

Still, "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

[ruytlm]

To put it simply: this is not adequately explained by stupidity.

[kgwxd]

I really hate that aphorism. Malicious people love it though. “Fool me once…”

[_DeadFred_]

Except these people have stated their intentions as malicious over and over and over so there is no need to 'ascribe' anything to them.

[naijaboiler]

in a practical sense, well executed stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

[throw0101c]

> Still, "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

¿Porque no los dos?

> “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

* https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/flo...

[freen]

Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

[_DeadFred_]

They have stated/published that their intentions are malicious over and over again. But for some reason people keep wanting to steelman their position into something different than what they say it is.

[lonelyasacloud]

The confusion is caused by a belief that it is Trump [0] who is making calling the shots.

[0] He probably believes it as well.

[Imustaskforhelp]

I genuinely believe that Elon Musk just "wants to do something , because he promised efficiency" , does the worst job at it because he's incompetent at such stuff and tries to oversell what he does.

I once saw a video of a guy explaining genuinely how elon can technically reach its number of $ tax payers saved, it required US to invest highly in a digital system like that of estonia.

But oh no , he's going to take your grandma s social security.

Elon musk is both stupid and malicious.

I am not pro billionare , I genuinely believe that there might be very billionaire who aren't ruthless in their business and even a little malicious.

I think its totally possible that Elon can be stupid and be the richest man in the world. I have gotten a Elon Musk biography and I really used to admire him untill he bought twitter and renamed it X. to me , it was something of a collosal waste of branding. Twitter is Twitter , not X , yet Elon made it X , what is its relation ? , its like facebook naming itself J or whatever , I don't know.

It has all been a bad show after that. I think he has shown signs of being both stupid and malicious. He called somebody a pedo without no reason I think. He has a fragile ego , I don't know .

I think we need to stop glorifying ruthless bussinessman like billionaires , I think its hard to say this on a startup forum.

I don't know , I think you can appreciate startups / the freedom it brings (if you are genuinely interested in some tech and feel limited by current employment opportunities) and also dislike billionaires if they are fragile ego.

These two aren't contradictory.