[imgabe]

> But it can certainly influence other people's perception of you... I think what we all have to decide though is how much that matters to us, should we decide to buy one anyway.

Yes, this is a concern, and it's a direct result of the phenomenon I'm talking about. There are violent, stupid people who will attack you because they think that buying a product means you endorse every political opinion every person who made that product ever had.

I'm actually looking to buy a car soon, and I've considered this in regard to Tesla. Do I want to deal with having my car keyed or painted or set on fire because of what someone thinks about Elon? Do I want to potentially put myself or my family in danger because someone thinks that attacking a random Tesla consumer is the best way to effect change in the world? And, frankly, no, I don't. But that's what I'm talking about. If you find yourself attacking strangers or destroying their property because you disagree with the politics of some CEO the person you're attacking has never met, you are in fact the bad guy.

[ModernMech]

I agree with you, up until the point that CEO is a verified Nazi. If you see a man give multiple Nazi salutes behind the presidential seal, and your response to that is to hand over your money to him, are you a good or even neutral person? Not in my eyes, sorry. We have to have some standards in this society. Look around, fascism is flourishing. What you are doing now is what you would have been doing as a German in the 1930s.

[imgabe]

See I think the defining quality of the Nazis was the whole gas chambers and ovens thing and not so much the hand gestures.

[ModernMech]

The defining characteristic of Nazis is authoritarian megalomania, something Musk has in spades. The hand gesture is how they identified themselves and professed their allegiance to the cause, something Musk has adopted. He's telling us who he is, we should listen.

The gas chambers are their most horrific deed, but Nazis were still Nazis before they gassed anyone. Therefore gassing does not define them.

The key to stopping Nazis is to do so before they get the gas chamber stage. If you let it get that far, you're too late. So you have to rely on other clues.

Nazi salute are about as oblique as you can get. They should have been a wakeup call.