They're really bright people too, in many other ways. It's a terrible thing what politics and media corporations have done to them. Hell of a way to spend decades of your life.
So far, the conspiracy theorists have had a poor track record as far as I can see. That said, I don't engage or try to debate my friends on it, they have always become extremely upset by any debate on such topics. And they're not hurting anybody so my philosophy is just to leave them to their faith. I don't go around challenging people to prove the existence of God whenever they make a religious Facebook post either, I'm not that kind of asshole.
As you can read in the Republican-written Senate Intelligence Committee report, everything about Russiagate did in fact happen and it was 100% real. (except for the Steele dossier/pee tape)
This essentially comes down to Trump realizing that if you say all your crimes in public, nobody will think it's a crime and it won't be reported as one, because you don't "seem like you have something to hide".
edit: All this is relevant, because that dossier itself was the basis for 'Russiagate'. I am ok with a rational counter-argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier#Risk_of_contami...
The conspiracy theory is that Trump colluded or conspired with Putin to hack the election. No evidence to support this has ever been produced. I know that may be difficult to accept, and I ascribe no malice to those who genuinely believe conspiracy theories, they are a powerful psychological trap.
Plus his campaign manager was working for him for free and instead being paid by a GRU agent for their targeting data.
You can try denying the Senate/Mueller reports on this, but you should read them, since they do say this.
No report into this including the vaunted Mueller Report has ever produced any evidence that Trump colluded or conspired with Putin to hack the election. I have read them. Mueller Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Volume I, p. 181, second paragraph:
For that reason, this Office’s focus in resolving the question of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law, not the commonly discussed term “collusion.” The Office considered in particular whether contacts between Trump Campaign officials and Russia-linked individuals could trigger liability for the crime of conspiracy—either under statutes that have their own conspiracy language (e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349, 1951(a)), or under the general conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371). The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law—including foreign-influence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below. The Office therefore did not charge any individual associated with the Trump Campaign with conspiracy to commit a federal offense arising from Russia contacts, either under a specific statute or under Section 371’s offenses clause.
so the idea we can 'find no evidence' is because people rigged the system so there would be no evidence.
Democrats could start taking money directly from Xi Jingping or from some communist in Venezuela and we would never know about it. Republicans can take money from the Saudis and we would never know about it. This is the reality of modern politics in the US.
infinite invisible money and zero evidence that anything happened, by design
Same as how China secretly paid the liberals to create the global warming hoax, that's another one along the same lines as the Russia collusion one that some people actually believe.
Not to search very far, me and my coworkers discuss politics ( and we do have somewhat divergent views ). The bubble only exists if one does not talk with other people. In other words, other people being like-minded is not an automatic pre-requisite.
But more importantly, why can’t you be friends with people who have different politics? Honestly I’m not sure what word best describes a world where everyone has to think the same to get along, but I have to think it’s far from ideal.
That said, the sheer amount of weird emotion attached to this particular billionaire is just perplexing. Only few years ago he could do no wrong. Today, it seems, he is being ganged up on including by some of his biggest internet fans. And media oblige for whatever reason. I dislike billionaires, but I dislike them as a caste in our societies. I don't see Elon as a savior of mankind or the devil, but those emotions that swirl around him are made to make him look like one or the other.
Somehow, one is supposed to pick sides.
Trump seems to create the same emotions. It is truly fascinating.
For those people it has nothing to do with technology, which is why their takes were so hysterical and wrong. It's 100% about politics every day, 24/7.
New Yorkers despise trump and have for ages. From tenants, to contractors, to business partners they all know what a shitheel he is. Outside of NY though trump was largely seen as an affable caricature of a rich dude. Case in point: NYC as a whole isn't averse to republicans and yet they still rejected trump in 2016.
Elon's the same way. Sure he called that diver a pedophile. But he also had a Tesla employee hounded until he fled the country. Musk had the guy swatted for fucks sake (or tried to at least). Or what about the journalist who pissed him off and ended up having some Tesla features disabled on his car. Or his ex-wife who talked about being treated like an employee. These things were mostly inclined to stay in the background until Musk elbowed his way into the spotlight. Now the whole world can see that he went full on Howard Hughes.
This is a very interesting statement to me. I am trying to recall conversations with my wife's side of the family, who supported Trump ( initially, mostly ) and their impression of him was almost exactly that ( plus, "he is a businessman so he knows the game" or something to that effect ). I am in in Chicagoland, but now I am curious if any serious study was done on whether that is how he was perceived as ( ideally before it became socially awkward to state your political affiliation openly ).
<< Their inner circles knew how rotten they both were, but outside of that they were largely unknown.
And that is the other interesting thing. Prior to whatever caused this change of hearts, I only saw impressions of Musk that were similar to impressions of Gates ( you know the ones - saving Africa or something; I know it reads awful, but I really don't remember what his PR presents him as ) - visionary making cameos in odd cultural vignettes ( I think he did one in 'Big Bang Theory' ). The articles describing his work style were very slowly bubbling up.
<< These things were mostly inclined to stay in the background until Musk elbowed his way into the spotlight.
And became too much of a power center himself.
I will need to sleep on it, but I think I agree with you.
Now just because they're "in tech" doesn't mean they have any idea about Twitter, but they should at least know enough to know they don't know what's going to happen, but obviously they're not actually using their brains when posting comments like that. Point is a lot of people opposed to Musk have been participating in a spiraling echo chamber of fairy tales and wishful thinking, it's not just journalists (although clearly they're printing lies with ulterior motvies too, as usual).