Do folks view this as "this is an ambitious, hardworking genius whose lack of social constraints due to his success is making him run off the rails, mentally" or is it a case of "Musk has always been more asshole than genius, it's just his 'marketing veneer' that is starting to falter."

I agree, I've always viewed Musk with a sense of awe and amazement ("How can someone have the time and energy to run THREE major companies??"), now I just want him to STFU because what comes out of his mouth/tweet feed is such incessant verbal diarrhea.

Interviewer: Neil Armstrong says he doesn‘t want a private company like SpaceX to launch humans to tue moon because it‘s unsafe. What do you think about that?

Humble Elon, literally crying: I… I just wish he could come out here and see what we are doing.

That‘s the picture I carried with me for a long time, together with some really smart remarks about climate change on panels that were way ahead of their time.

These days, it‘s really all an ego shitshow, memes and YOLo. He definitely changed a LOT the past few years.

https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...

And it's looking more and more like the doesn't so much run three major companies as owns three major companies.

I don't want to generalize or stereotype ASD in general, but it does produce tangible differences in how people relate to the world.

So, that diagnosis is some minor influence somewhere, but does not explains the rest.

Things people say about him reveal more about the speaker than the subject, I mean.

https://autisticempath.com/the-autistic-jerk-is-just-a-jerk/

Delegation.

Did you know that he used to sleep in a bathroom stall at the Tesla plant because he couldn't afford a studio apartment? A true hero

I dont believe his current account balance went below 7 figures at any point while Tesla has existed, so no I didnt know that.

Is this sarcasm or a thing that you actually believe?

Elon couldn't run a Python script sent to him.

https://twitter.com/Eaterofsun/status/1537427167038013440

An easy way is with... Amphetamines.

Or maybe ... he doesn't?

You know, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

I think you just don't understand how anything works. That's okay. You'll grow up eventually.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-elon-musk-security-cl...

- "Musk has refiled his SF-86 security form, which requires a federal employee or contractor seeking a clearance to acknowledge any illegal drug use over the previous seven years, according to the official, who asked not to be identified. SpaceX has contracts to launch satellites for the U.S. military."

- "Musk’s “adjudication” review by the Defense Security Service continues with no decision yet, the U.S. official said. Typically during an adjudication, a person keeps his or her security clearance but loses access to information classified as secret, according to the official. If the drug use involves minor issues or doesn’t appear to contain any serious security concerns, the unit reviewing the case could just close it and update Musk’s record."

This is about weed, what are you talking about?

I don't think either of those apply with Musk, because he is a pot afficianado and openly pushing it, and pro-legalization. Some states have legalized because they want those juicy tax revenues, There is a significant part of the populace that realizes pot has been overcriminalized particularly for those with medical issues. While there are risks and dangers associated with all of these (see Alex Berenson), I don't see an adjudication authority seeing Musk as a security risk.

Dollars talk, and saving the federal government hundreds of millions with cheaper launches probably influences this some. But, the feds prolly see the long view and recognize Musk is likely to push the Americans into the infinity cash supplies of space tourism, space freight, deep space exporation, space mining, and the national prestige of first humans to Mars. Why would they want to impair that over a bit of weed?

I would guess that there's a culture of delusion surrounding this wherein because "it's the rules" they are actually followed. You know because rules are rules. The world, especially those like the Elons of the world, don't care to follow them as diligently as perhaps a command and control military / public service style structure demands. I'd even be surprised if even in the federal government those with security clearance were completely sober and free of the drugs considered illegal under US law.

You know Elon is gonna do what he wants to do. For better (electric cars, reusable rockets) or for worse (open his twitter feed any day of the week).

I suspect this is less true than you think; since federal prosecution is blocked by law for state-legal use, one of the major security clearance reasons for it to be an issue (the leverage that the criminal behavior might give others over you because of prosecution risk) is very much affected by state law.

But wouldn't debt of any kind, or regular motivations such as greed, family (maybe a relative got into drugs/trouble) be the same or even worse?

It just seems like a left-over relic from the 'reefer madness' days.

A big part of my early distrust for police stems from the lies they told me in D.A.R.E. 'class'. Marijuana will turn you into a drug-fueled criminal, it eats your brain cells like this spray paint on a Styrofoam cup, and they never come back, this is your brain (egg), this is your brain on 'drugs' (but it's an anti-weed commercial) and the egg starts frying in a pan. They spent years trying to convince the very young and very old that weed==narcotics.

As I've gotten older I've realized almost everyone has some issue- addiction, drug use, over-indulgence of whatever, just seems some are hell bent on hiding it and pretending they don't.

It just makes no sense to me, maybe it did in the cold war era.

https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1468223510724190208

https://twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1334879994896666624

It sounds like it differs greatly between departments and whether the usage was in the past or the present.

Source for that? One would think the supremacy clause overrides any idea of state law.

> This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me that if its federally illegal its still illegal within the states. The only question is if the federal government really cares to enforce the law in states where a large population of the state is openly breaking the federal laws.

And incidentally, yes- many poor people despise the rich, just as most rich people despise the poor.

Mamy are the critiques of Musk here, nowhere did I read it was because he's hoarding money.

Edit to add- rich people change laws and construction to benefit them, they can displace and ruin the lives of the poor with a thought. They have all the power and most of the money. They live in gated communities far out of sight of the working class. They literally have an embarrassment of riches while people die around them. There is a very good reason the affluent only live amongst each other in fancy gated communities.

People don't hate the rich because they are rich, it's because of the impact they have on the lives of those without means.

Can you actually give an example of the criticism you claim to see or do you only have the claim?

Edit:

> I think people are just upset because he is rich

Thanks :)

This very comment thread has people saying, among other things, that Musk oversteps on Twitter, bring up the SEC charges, bring up the twitter purchase, bring up his freedom of speech absolution, it goes on for days.

So you are either blind incapable of reading, or are a troll. Since you shoved words in my mouth and are still parroting 'bcuz rich', I'm going with the latter.

I never said you said anything? How is making baseless claims good faith?

> Musk oversteps on Twitter, bring up the SEC charges, bring up the twitter purchase, bring up his freedom of speech absolution

So people are upset with what Musk spends his riches on?

> They literally have an embarrassment of riches while people die around them.

Im willing to bet we are both living in a rich country with ruining water, electricity and plenty of food while little slave kids make our shoes. We are all embarrassingly rich in the context of the real world but I don't think the people upset with Musk are upset about this. I think they just see some one with more than them and get upset and then they use it as a scapegoat that only the richest man in the world has the power to free those little kids making your shoes, and that the rest of us are powerless to do anything but go along with it and keep buying the shoes made with child slavery.

To your points, stop inserting words into my mouth. Having those issues with musk is in no way an issue with his money. I happen to have both by the way, so this is a possibility as well.

I don't hate him for being rich, nor do the others whose salient points you so succinctly boiled down incorrectly again to 'bcuz rich'.

He has had many issues, and continues to do so. You can pretend it's simply because of his money but for myself I can at least assure you, that is the very least of the issues I have with Musk.

Pointing to poor people and saying there are poorer people in 3rd world countries is a poor argument.

I reiterate Musk has tons of money, sure. And that much wealth consolidation is an issue, to be sure. But that has no bearing on the many, many issues all over this thread people have with him.

Edit to add- your ninja edit and the reason I read your initial response wrong is because you removed the line about him being rich, and added right-wing- not cool.

You said:

> Edit to add- your ninja edit and the reason I read your initial response wrong is because you removed the line about him being rich, and added right-wing- not cool.

I said:

> The only criticism I have seen here of musk beside money is that hes right wing, not really a criticism.

He has money and is right wing, people who have money are rich. I never edited anything.

You haven't read anything I wrote you just make claims you are unwilling to substantiate and then when I quote you, you accuse me of putting words in your mouth.

I'm just a rando on the internet so maybe not representative, but this uBlock snippet makes anything related to Twitter or Elon invisible on the Guardian front page. Definitely improved my QoL

    ##.fc-item__container:has-text(/\bElon\b/)
    ##.fc-item__container:has-text(/\bTwitter\b/)

Does Boeing and Lockheed Martin not have “actual engineers” and “actual factories”? Of course they do. Probably had more and better for most of SpaceX’s life.

They just can’t utilise what w have, because they have no vision beyond “cost-plus contracts”. That’s on management. That’s why Elon literally caused SpaceX and all/most their successes.

YMMV indeed, because every conservative I talk to is seeing him as a hero who is finally speaking truth to power, and calling B.S. on the establishment (political, corporate HR, academic) narratives that have been running through the culture.

They aren’t sick of him at all - they’re cheering him on.

It’s a big crowd, and getting bigger.

People are buying teslas and the immediately flipping them for $10k of profit to people who don't want to wait. The demand for teslas right now is insane.

After testing several different cars in a lab, I got the sense that the people at Tesla know a lot about how to integrate technologies, but only possess the bare minimum viable knowledge base about how to build a car. Whereas the people at Toyota know an insanely ridiculously huge amount about how to build a car, but are risk averse with integrating technologies.

I will say that was a purely technical analysis however. It didn't include things like how marketing might effect perception for instance.

Sounds like Toyota is good at making cars people don’t want. What does that say about Toyota?

Consider that well over half of all Teslas have to go in for service within the first month of ownership. For such an expensive car, that is not a good look. Look at how many ex-owners now say they'd never buy another and refuse to recommend them to friends. Go ask GM and Ford how hard it is to regain a reputation that you have squandered.

I enjoyed my P3D. Mostly. It went like stink, which is why I bought it. Lots of misfeatures, though, and still missing obvious features every other car has. I'm in the camp of "won't buy one again, unless something big changes, the competition is better." and we are growing quickly in number.

Meanwhile in the real world "Tesla tops the list of most satisfied customers in the entire auto industry"

I don't care about Mr. Musk's politics. But I dumped all of my Tesla stock recently because of his increasingly erratic behavior.

To me, it demonstrates an inability to make wise decisions. And I can't trust my money to people who can no longer reliably make wise decisions.

He's impulsive, and entertaining to watch; but now I will do so from a distance. And so will my money.

This car is the supposed Tesla killer. Take it from me, it is not. The interior is claustrophobic reminiscent of early Nissan Leaf. If you are 6'2 or taller, you are going to have a bad time. Its clear that center console was not tested by any tall person. There is nothing appealing about this car in my opinion other than the Toyota badge. It is ugly inside and out. It is neither a bog standard car(which a lot of people want) nor a stunning looking EV(which a lot of people want). It is the standard mismash OEMs have created int he past. They always make EVs "weird" when they don't have to be. Sure this car is going to sell out whatever limited production they can make because demand for EVs far outstrips supply but Tesla killer it will not be.

For Ford I wonder about their cost structure. The teardown of their EVs indicate that they are still implementing old school thinking from the ICE world that adds unneeded cost to the sticker price. This is uncompetitive with Tesla long term. They need to really reform the organization and fast so their next gen EVs do better.

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/toyota-pushes-back-ag...

All that said, in this case, as you point out, there are multiple reasons to be dumping stocks of companies owned or influenced by this guy. At least until we have a better handle on what's going on. If nothing's wrong, we can always buy it back. But right now, very few of the market's concerns have much to do with politics. He's acting in an unpredictable manner just when the market appears to be entering a period of uncertainty. It may be because of his politics, but the market doesn't care about the why. Rational people are looking for some level of safety, stability and security at the moment. Unpredictable leaders who appear bent on market manipulation fly in the face of that.

My money, my decision. Over the last 30 years, it's worked quite well for me.

I also believe that taking advice from randos on the internet is not a sound investment strategy.

During a more conservative time... waaay back. A company was doing very well but the CEO had an affair. The public caught wind of the affair and the stock tanked, because people had your exact same philosophy. Those people cared about the behavior of the CEO while ignoring the metrics of the company. Warren Buffet looked at the fundamental performance of the company and saw that it was doing quite well, so he bought it at super low prices.

Eventually the stock price changed and began to reflect the fundamentals of the actual business as people forgot about the behavior of the CEO.

You shouldn't care about his erratic behavior. You should care about the business sector and the overall performance of the company.

The CEO with the affair could presumably be replaced if romantic fidelity is important to the company or if the relationship violated company policies, but if it doesn't affect their business choices, maybe it's not needed.

A CEO with strong control is a lot harder to replace, and fighting over replacing such a CEO is likely to happen in public and be a negative for the company. General impulsiveness is, IMHO, more likely to show up in business choices than romantic impulsiveness (if that's what was the basis for the affair), and business choices made for impulsive reasons at the very least increases volitility and may likely reduce expected value. If I'm investing in an established company, I think I want stability and rational choices, not volatility and impulsive choices. But then, I don't invest in individual companies, apart from stock based compensation.

The underlying performance of the company does not change based off of random tweets. If Tesla is good enough to take over the entire automobile industry even the CEO pulling off his pants walking around in public is a separate issue to actual performance.

https://www.cnet.com/culture/tesla-motors-founders-now-there...

"On Monday, a Tesla representative said that Eberhard and other principals in the dispute have come to an agreement. The company did not reveal any details of the resolution, except to say that there are now five, rather than two, agreed-upon "founders" of Tesla.

In addition to Eberhard, other founders include current CEO and chief product architect Elon Musk, current chief technology JB Straubel, Marc Tarpenning, and Ian Wright."

"Lorde Edge" is outstanding cringe. He's focusing on and making his image intentionally out of cringe. It's utterly bizarre.

I will be extremely sad if Starship ends up being his Spruce Goose. Yes that's a reference to a former employee talking about him on JRE.

The difference between Elon and others is that Elon doesn't put on as big of a facade.

There are CEO's who are psychopaths and are much worse then Elon but are much better at keeping their actual persona hidden.

Elon is just as awful as the next human being. We tend to have a higher set of expectations for people in Elons position. Very rarely does anyone actually meet these expectations. Most people just pretend to meet this expectation. Elon fails at both meeting the expectations and pretending to meet it.

It is fascinating to me that you see Elon as not putting on a facade, rather than his public face constantly being a changing facade.

As far as I can tell, Elon has two modes: "engineering", which is where he's super awkward and, as far as I can tell, totally and completely honest, if optimistic on capabilities and timeframes, and "public", which is where he's totally erratic and populist.

His twitter persona is almost totally public. Nothing is serious, everything is flippant, and his opinions sway with the breeze, or on the basis of who he feels slighted him most recently.

A good analogy is a small child pretending to be an adult.

Would you describe your inner circle of friends as "quite awful"? I really hope you wouldn't. I certainly don't. And I presume most people don't. So there must be sizable amount of human being that another sizable amount of human beings consider good humans. The CEO of the multi-billion dollar company I work for seems and acts like a normal (meaning decent, as opposed to your definition "quite awful") human being. Never goes on rants like Elon, quite worker-friendly, always there to chat, doesn't fire people on the spot because they can't answer a question that he only started verbalizing halfway though his stream of consciousness rants. And we compete in the same industry as Elon. Isn't trying to influence politics with his position on several dozens of matters that have nothing to do with out company. Also doesn't cultivate a cult following with himself as the head of the cult.

That's all that matters to me, if there no evidence of him being an awful human being, it would be downright unethical for me to assume that he is an awful human being hiding behind a facade.

Also: Before anyone hits me with the "Well your CEO isnt a visionary trying to get us to Mars". Well, yeah. I'd rather be stuck on Earth with him than live under whatever fantasy a sociopath is promising to unfold on Mars.

I would describe all humans including myself, my circle of friends and everyone I met to have an immense awful side that they cover up. Only when the media focuses on your every movement will these flaws be exposed.

I'm not a fan of Elon Musk. But unlike the people who hate him, I don't see anything abnormal other then failure to put on a facade. He's as inconsistent and emotional as any other human being.

Keep in mind. What he does, from his perspective appears justified and if you can rationalize from his perspective, you will be able to at least understand how it is justified. Very few people on this earth knowingly act out pure malice.

I don't. Which is why I don't think this discussion will go anywhere. I would never in my life call anyone with an "immense awful side that they're trying to cover up" my friend.

When resources are plentiful things are different. When resources are scarce our base nature is exposed.

This is part of the reason why it's covered up. Even for yourself. You don't realize how awful you can get until you've lost everything.

You can analyze the psychology of a country like China where something like this:

https://www.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/asia/china-toddler-hit-...

is common place. What is the statistical likelihood for this to be an anomaly? Of two hit and run drivers running over a child AND every passerby just ignoring it? You can make a somewhat true statement here that most of the Chinese populace is quite awful. I would know, because I am one of them.

The fact that I am chinese myself, and I am calling MY own race/country quite awful shows you how dispassionate and logical my analysis is. It is very hard for someone to recognize the evil within their race, let alone themselves. This is how you know my answer lacks bias, which is very much different from your outlook.

But you must also ask yourself, what causes the Chinese to be like that?

It's because China was once a hard place to live. The mentality of harder times still pervades much of the populace. There was once a time in colonial america where the mentality was much the same thing. There are even parts of modern america, where you can see the same thing.

Go to places where resources are scarce and people are barely scraping buy. The projects, the ghettos. You will see evil in it's purest form. Evil is a biological base necessity because it is what humans must turn to in order to survive hard times.

Either way this is not an explanation for why Elon is "awful" but it is an explanation for how low humans can sink. For how much capability for being awful we have in our nature. Elon is well within these typical boundaries.

Cringe, yes, he may be. Conservative? Maybe in the opportunist sense. At most, I think he's much closer to being libertarian and would otherwise be left leaning if the mainstream left hadn't drifted so far left. Elon really wants people to get out of the way of his view of progress. Yes, I'm sure ego is a part of that, but when is it not with anyone? I'm not even sure what Elon would be conserving other than whatever ability he has to launch cars into space or dig pointless tunnels.

A better example of a "cringe conservative" would be the My Pillow guy or even Lindsay Graham. And many would of course say Trump.

For example, never in its history was the SCOTUS so conservative compared to the views of the general population. It used to be one of the most progressive actors in society, forcing race and gender equality judgments to a country where working wives and interracial couples were still a faux pass.

Utterly insane. Black is white, up is down. Multi-level, coordinated conspiracies orchestrated by the sitting President of the United States are the embodiment of liberal democracy.

Most of America shares Elons values you probably just wouldn’t know it with the way the polar ends skew the picture

— everyone

The Republican I really respect at this point is Mike Pence. I used to think he was a theocrat idiot with mush for brains. But now I realize he's all that AND a brave and honest man who actually gives two shits about democracy.

It's kind of like going to a restaurant and being forced to pick raw vs. burned beef, and there's a ton of different sides that come with each option that are nonconfigurable. And then critics constantly debate "raw vs. burned" in polls, and try to gain insight from that on whether people really prefer corn or salad or biscuits. But in reality there's just too much noise to generate any signal.

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/

Or they could have delayed past the constitutionally mandated dates, after which it goes to the Congress where the GOP controlled more delegations.

At that point we have a ticking time bomb. At the end of his term is Trump still the president? Or are we a country without a president? When that happens, if Trump stays in the White House and acts like a president, what then? Would the republican filled Supreme Court back his play? Would the military follow him? Who would oppose him? Would the secret service still protect him? What happens if some states recognize him as president, but others do not?

https://youtu.be/0vzeTgm2qWw?t=1437

For many of us, seeing what happened to people like James Damore was a turning point that something had deeply changed in the political culture.

This isn't "the left" it's "the US" that had a change of view. The poll numbers are through the roof. And when it's such a personal thing with the very families that are our friends, it's not hard to see why gay marriage is so popular. That you feel "hated" by others for rejecting their friends families is a weird way to put it.

Obama was a centrist for his time, and often times after society opens up to more people it's hard to go back to closing it off to our new members.

As for James Damore, somebody disparaging their colleagues, publicly, and not even their leader for specific actions, but an entire gender, based on bad reading of biology... do you have similar sympathy for the people fired here, or it only when somebody is expressing beliefs that are hurtful to those not at the top?

Gay marriage was a major shift in culture, but bad sexism has been out of vogue for decades, even if overall sexism hasn't decreased a huge amount.

I have all sorts of politically unacceptable views that I don't share. But I don't play the victim for being "hated" just because I don't get my way.

But you're really illustrating my point here, by arguing not that there hasn't been a shift but that the growing hatred and intolerance is in fact a good thing. I feel like this is a more honest position than pretending that prevailing attitudes haven't shifted.

As a personal example, last week I had a comment deleted on Reddit for being "hatred" because I described drag as a form of kink. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but this kind of banal censorship has become a regular experience for anyone who offers any sort of resistance to woke narratives. If you think this is a good change, then I disagree but at least acknowledging that there's been a change puts us in the same reality.

Same on Twitter. A lot.

And if it were political persecution, which it very well could be, Reddit is moderated by absolute randoms from the internet. Starting new subreddits and moderating to one's one preferences is very literal free speech.

Please. We know that this isn't considered as "incorrect" by the people doing the deleting, and that a well-reasoned appeal would be productive. This isn't happening due to simple randomness, as basically anyone who pushes back against woke narratives will attest - for example, openly endorsing JK Rowling's views on gender will get you banned from most of Reddit and quite possibly fired from your job if you do it under your real name on Twitter. This wouldn't have happened 10 years ago.

Again, you're free to say that this is a good change, or just wave all this concerns away with pithy slogans like "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", but I'm just trying to establish that there's been a shift on the left and it seems like you don't disagree with this.

I feel that social media companies are largely to blame here, with the impact of their efforts to increase engagement metrics at the expense of users' wellbeing. We all have a perpetually-available outrage machine in our pockets these days, encouraging us all to react with emotion rather than be considered and thoughtful.

Regarding your example of gender views, the other reason why this wouldn't have happened 10 years ago is that hardly anyone believed that stuff. JK Rowling's opinions would have been met with a shrug. But there has since been a concerted effort to capture the minds of the younger generations at an age where they're unlikely to see the inherent contradictions in this ideology.

I voted "Yes" in Australia's 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite, and if they repeated the plebiscite again today, I'd still vote the same way. And yet, I feel like there is a problem here. It is a complex question, and I don't think it necessarily has a simple answer, but a lot of people treat it as a simple binary "Yes"-vs-"No", with only one answer to that binary being socially acceptable. And even in pointing that out publicly, I feel a certain degree of anxiety – should I? I don't think it is all in my (admittedly rather prone to anxiety anyway) head, there are external cultural forces contributing to it, and I think it is fair to question those forces.

To give just one example of the many complexities I see: I compare my own country of Australia to the US, and although both arrived at roughly the same destination (legal same-sex marriage nationwide), they arrived at it by very different routes. In Australia, federal legislation, in-principle pre-approved by the voters in a (non-legally-binding) nationwide plebiscite – as such not constitutionally entrenched, but anything approved in a nation-wide plebiscite (even a non-legally-binding one), is politically impossible to repeal without having another plebiscite to approve that repeal. And it was mostly a symbolic measure, since (nationwide) Australian law already gave unmarried couples in long-term relationships (de facto relationships as we call them), whether opposite-sex or same-sex, 99.9% of the rights of legally married couples. (I won't deny the missing 0.1% causes real practical problems for some people, but that is the experience of a relatively small minority, and there is no reason in principle why those problems could not be solved with further legal or bureaucratic reforms).

In the US, a 5-4 Supreme Court decision (Obergefell v. Hodges), based on highly contested principles of constitutional interpretation, which the current Supreme Court majority does not share – and, given they are likely to soon overturn a famous decision based on a similar style of legal reasoning (Roe v. Wade), you have to wonder how long Obergefell will last. The whole situation seems to support the idea that social reforms are better achieved through the democratic process than through the fickleness of judicial decisions–a viewpoint which in the US is often labelled as "conservative" or "right-wing", but not so in much of the rest of the world. Indeed, what in the US is seen as "conservative jurisprudence", in many other countries (Australia included) is just the mainstream consensus approach to constitutional law, to which few would attach political labels such as "conservative".

And, at the same time, that has happened against the background that unmarried couples (whether same-sex or opposite-sex) in the US still lack most of the legal rights and protections granted the legally married–an unfairness which few in the US seem to care much about, even on the Left–and which made the legalisation of same-sex marriage a change of far greater practical consequence in the US than it was in Australia. Couldn't this issue have been used as a vehicle to try to address that unfairness? Well, I think it could have, but my impression is that most marriage equality activists in the US didn't want to try, because they saw it as a distraction from their ultimate goal. A squandered opportunity?

I don't think it is unreasonable for a person to look at the two situations, and think the way the US has gone about addressing this issue leaves much to be desired, when compared to what certain other countries have done–I'm sure Australia is not the only country which has arguably done better than the US has–and those deficiencies in the way in which the reform was achieved in the US are a potential threat to its long-term durability there. But, that kind of nuanced conversation is rather alien to the "either-you-are-with-us-or-you-are-against-us" attitude to this topic which many people seem to have.

The left needs to pay attention to every day issues. It’s not that the right has answers but they have acknowledged these issues as being the main issues. For instance, it should be absolutely not shocking to anyone that inflation has happened and is a direct result of our fiscal policies. Well, some did not seem to be concerned about printing money to buy bonds to fund record deficits which actually paid people and companies to reduce productivity and output. Surprise! School closures are another huge issue. Most of us with children saw the massive harms from keeping them home. It was absolutely devastating! I could go on. The left NDP party of Ontario admitted they focused too much on the chatter-class (Reddit, Twitter, journalists, etc) and not the working class

"the left" and "the right", or "the democrats" and "the republicans" in essence, is too wide a net. "The left go off the deep end" is also, when you look into it, a fairly small percentage of the wider population.

But it feels like people are pushed to the fringes, because the Other Side is being pushed to the fringes. There's just, from the perspective of an outsider, a lot of antagonism between the two "sides".

And that antagonism is being fueled by someone. There's people with a lot of money and / or special interests who benefit off of the infighting and polarisation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

And Republicans will take zero responsibility for Trump and Jan 6th and spend all their time talking about how Democrats want to force your children to be trans.

In the end no one has any responsibility to do anything to actually make the country better. If Musk could start a moderate party that took responsibility for results I would be on board.

There is an upper limit to what level of complexity any group can handle.

But Americans have been told the upper limit doesn't exist so often and for so long that they are learning the hard way where the limit lies.

We have two very pro corporate parties, that are pro military, one who is right and one who is center right, if you look at actual policy and spending. The main difference is on abortion legislation, gay rights, gun legislation (sort of... and that depends on the Democrat), and to an even lesser extent some tax policies, but with political funding how it is, no parties really bite the hand that feed them so 95% of tax policy is talk and "trickle down economic policy" is entrenched, much to the detriment of our country.

Most of the substantial difference is talking points and bluster, it pains me to say. Even gay rights is pretty new to the table... that didn't come about until Hillary Clinton ran against Trump, when she finally changed her position on gay marriage (though I think she was one of the last major hold outs).

The major problem with our American system of politics is the two party stranglehold that has been imposed upon and that those two parties have made nearly impossible to rid ourselves of. It's one of the things (other than war profiteering and insider trading) they vehemently agree on.

The main thesis of the book is that the success or failure of nations is predicated on institutions working in a predictable way and guruanteeing broad and equal access to these institutions and the economy at large. The US was better than other countries at this for most of its existence (despite the horrible "exclusion" of non-whites and women). Today, the US seems to be slipping, and while I do agree that the Democrats aren't innocent on this either, and things like insider trading, corporate lobbying and political nepotism apply strongly to both parties, the Republicans always seem to be a bit worse (or have worse marketing).

Only having two choices in party certainly makes this way worse, but there's also the constant challenging of political norms that I would think mostly comes from the Republican side. (Although Obama was the first president to largely rule by EO, which itself is a pretty major breach of convention, and an attack on the democratic instituions)

This is an honest inquiry.

It’s sort of a joke but it’s more sad. I used to vote Republican and I would again if anyone there was even half willing to be more considerate and rational.

Outside of partisan politics the left is seeing some more successes, that is in the broader culture war. This includes broader acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights, calls for immigration reforms, calls for reprimands for centuries of slavery, etc. However these successes are not making their way to the legislator by a long shot, and quite often to the contrary (see e.g. reversal of Roe v. Wade).

And I say this firmly from the left wing of the political spectrum.

Stuff like this is rampant right now. The left has thoroughly won the culture war.

>Almost 60% of those surveyed were opposed to transgender women and girls’ participation in college and professional sports.

>Americans were less likely to oppose transgender women and girls’ participation in youth sports, with about a third of those surveyed saying transgender women and girls should be allowed to compete, while 17% said they did not have an opinion.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/only-3-in-10-americans-sup...

>According to the poll, roughly two-thirds of Republicans now believe “parents should be allowed to sue school districts if teachers discuss sexual orientation [70%] or gender identity [66%] when teaching children in kindergarten through grade three.” Independents agree (46% and 47% percent, respectively) more often than not (34% and 36%). And a significant minority of Democrats concur as well (25%, 22%) or aren’t sure (16%, 17%).

And keep in mind that is not people who have read the bill, so they could be basing it on the name.

https://news.yahoo.com/poll-only-52-of-democrats-oppose-flor...

This is when people read the bill

>When registered voters were shown the actual language of the bill, which prohibits age or developmentally inappropriate sexual education in pre-K through third grade, they supported it by more than a two-to-one margin.

>Overall, 61 percent of voters supported the text of the bill. Just 26 percent were opposed.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/poll-americans-support-text...

Now for your third poll, it was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies which is a republican pollster. The news source you gave me was written by Amber Athey, a senior fellow of the Steamboat Institute, which is a conservative think tanks that promotes American Exceptionalism and other nationalistic conservative values. I personally don’t put much faith in polls such as these.

Now this is all aside from the fact that these are cherry picked examples. This is hardly proof that “The left is being decimated on the trans and sexual related issue”.

The follow-up question to demonstrate this point would be "would an American who identifies as radically left-leaning join a European conservative right-wing party if they moved to Europe?"

Cultural Marxism is not a thing, please educate yourself beyond the videos of the lobster psychologist. You claim the left is 'radicalized' in a right-wing country where the right-wing party literally tried to undermine democracy through an insurrection less then a year ago...

And somehow the narrative is about the non-existent 'radicalized left' doing stuff and cultural Marxists trying to change our pronouns. It just feels sad to hear.

The actually difference in beliefs between Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell is paper thin.

Who cares? The US is not a European country, so the point is irrelevant. And although I see it repeated a lot, I don't think it's factual either.

I am particularly curious about politicians and their actions, rather than woke twitter users, since we are discussing who we vote for. Please do mention if wokeness is your main complaint with the left, as it seems to be the case for many conservatives I know, but I felt the need to mention I don't believe wokeness is actually relevant amongst politicians.

As far as I can tell, left leaning politicians have not gone off the deep end in any objective sense. Their voting patterns seem to be mostly centrist/conservatives leaning and have remained that way for some time.

Without concrete examples, it is really hard to accept "people want different things" as an explanation for statements that I would consider to be outright false. So I ask in hopes that I might understand the opposing perspective on this.

In 2019, Democrats in Virginia tried to pass a bill that would allow abortion at the point of birth. Long past viability, basically just unnecessarily killing the baby.

I'm not a conservative, but I respect conservative values such as the rule of law. I will grant you that the populist wing of the Republican party in no way reflects conservative values.

As crazy as the left in the U.S. might be, it's genuinely hard to beat the craziness of e.g. suggesting that injecting bleach is a legitimate COVID-19 treatment, or shameful pandering to anti-masks, anti-vaccination sentiment.

They dropped it after being ridiculed, but I mean the President was suggesting the government control speech.

That’s a slide into tier two.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/16/kamala-harris-leads-latest-bid...

Left intellectuals have gone off the deep end, sure, but the actual left politicians in power are solidly centrist.

Meanwhile Trump.... The Republican party isn't just off the deep end, they're a genuine danger to democracy globally. As the US goes, many other countries follow and as a Brit, and conservative one that grew up in the Thatcher/Reagan heyday at that, I dread the thought of another Trump presidency. I'll never forgive the Republican party for putting us through that the first time. Thank all the gods and angels the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened under Biden, he may be a bumbler but at least he's not an out-and-out traitor to democracy and the national security of his country.

1. There are like 4 progressive members of Congress. Compare this to how many Republicans openly support QAnon conspiracies and other right-wing positions;

2. Anywhere else in the world, the Democrats would be a center-right party;

3. The Democratic Party actually hates progressives and goes out of its way to rid the party of them. Look at the hit job on Bernie Sanders in 2016. Look at the recent primary in the Texas-28 where Nancy Pelosi and Clyburn went to campaign for Henry Cuellar, who is pro-gun and the only anti-choice Democrat remaining in the House over Cisneros, an actual progressive;

4. Based on leaks there's a high likelihood the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, pushing back 50 years of progress;

5. IN 2008 (in Heller) the Supreme Court for the first time recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right;

6. The Roberts Supreme Court also decided money is speech, which has openeed the floodgates for primarily conservative PACs;

7. The same court gutted the Civil Rights Act in terms of voter protection, which has led to a wave of anti-voter measures in red states;

8. Primarily red state has gerrymandered the hell out of states. For example, in Wisconsin, the GOP holds a super-majority despite getting 10% less of the vote;

9. Despite numerous incidents of easy access to firearms leading to the mass murder of school children multiple times there is not (and will not be) any meaningful restriction on access to mass murder machines (aka assault rifles);

10. Obamacare, pretty much the only lasting achievement of the Obama era, has largely been gutted;

11. Trump's tax cuts despite a Democrat in the White House and Democratic control of the House and Senate remain largely in place; and

12. As soon as the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, they'll probably next come for gay marriage.

This is just off the top of my head. So how exactly has the left gone off the "deep end" exactly?

There's really only been progress on two issues:

1. Gay marriage was legalized (but, as noted, that's at risk of being reversed); and

2. There have been advancements in trans rights.

This I think is the crux of the matter when people talk about the "far left". They really mean they hate trans people and want them to go away.

Conservatives are sore winners but great propagandists as evidenced by the fact that this myth that conservatives are "losing" perpetuates at all.

[1]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144

> They really mean they hate trans people and want them to go away.

It is certainly an issue; viz various bathroom panics over the last decade. But, at least in the tech sphere, most of the fear I've seen comes from Twitter BS and hate. There are vocal people who want to use "wokeness" as a tool to attack people. I can see how it would be easy to conflate those kinds of attacks with progressivism for people who are predisposed against progressivism from the start.

The left has gone bonkers and anyone whose even a moderate is considered a conservative.

The mob turn on him for trying to buy Twitter is so disturbing though. It is straight Jacobin.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity..if you disagree in any sense, then the guillotine.

I’m mostly in agreement with what you said, but I don’t think your reasons are coming from a principled place.

That said I think it's a horrible look and DeSantis's response to the matter is one of the most tasteless and tone-deaf things I've heard from him all week.

I like this take in The New Yorker[0]

[0]https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/elon-musk-an...

Build quality wise? Definitely, Tesla has a lot of issues there which the established industry has ironed out and perfected over the last hundred years.

Other problems? No way in hell the others can catch up. The old guard of automotive manufacturers simply is too stuck in their old ways - they have to manage the expectations of dealerships (as the only service most electric cars need is brake pad changes and Teslas are sold online, their existence is threatened) and suppliers (your average ICE alone takes something around 1000-2000 distinct parts, whereas electric cars need far fewer for the drivetrain), and no automotive manufacturer has anything resembling a history with developing modern software and it shows everywhere.

When there's a recession, no one's going to give a shit about a car with a bunch of bells and whistles. They want a car that they can afford to buy and afford to drive. In any case, that's what I want.

The car manufacturers that are associated with attributes like "affordability" don't have much experience with electric vehicles, so they will have to buy that experience or do it the same way Tesla did, which means they will need a decade.

How much experience do you think is required? Other companies like Chevy, Chrysler, Hyundai, and Ford already have semi-electric vehicles for sale today. They don't all need to be successes. It can take just one of them to come out with an affordable electric vehicle when the economics are right, and sticking to plug-in hybrids gives them plenty of time to get experience.

Lots of people have not internalized what's going on at Tesla. They still seem to be stuck on the idea that when the large, experienced auto manufacturers start really ramping up EVs, Tesla will be swamped.

What seems to have gone unnoticed is that Tesla has significantly higher margins per vehicle than all other major automakers, including Toyota. Tesla is years ahead on batteries. While the rest of the industry is fighting over a limited supply of third-party batteries, Tesla is buying nickel directly from Vale, for their own batteries, in their own form factor, with their own chemistry.

Tesla is beating the established automakers on scale and profit margins.

OTA Updates? Rapid iteration cycle? Supercharger network? Doubling factories every few years?

Tesla has lots and lots of problems, from servicing, to pricing, to build quality, to various ethical issues. But they're years ahead on EVs.

I feel like this is because they charge BMW prices for less than Honda quality, especially with the Model 3. Maybe they can keep this up, but we’ll see. Tesla tech is certainly better than most if not all and is a huge selling point.