The first chapter from a 5+ year investigation into what really happened, how and why the media misreported it, and why the truth still matters—even if you dislike Musk.
Incredible write up, and it just highlights the problem with reporting on so many events and news - is that they get key things wrong and the rate of error exponentially grows from there. The Thai Cave Story was one of the first and biggest things that started people down the path of assuming Elon Musk was piece of shit - and everyone I've ever had reason to talk to about that doesn't even know that Elon didn't start it, and doesn't have this further context; but you sound like a crazy person for wanting to get into the context behind this lasting impression.
It really makes it easy to see how stuff like this starts people down the pathway of assuming things, which quickly spirals out of control.
I wonder how pivotal this public relations disaster was to Elon to turn onto his "lash out at the world" pathway that he seems to currently be hellbent on pursuing.
1. It’s almost impossible to get people who are already deeply decided against him to revisit their priors. Whenever I’ve written about stuff like this as it concerns him, it never matters how strong the evidence is. They just cite that Simpsons meme about weird nerds defending him and consider that a full argument. But the point I keep trying to make is that if you really do want to hold him accountable for the things he has done wrong, the very worst approach is to refuse to look at the evidence for any individual claim. I’ve never had a single person actually respond to that argument though. They won’t even let you get to the point about exoneration vs contextualization etc. They’ve picked their side and have no room for anything other than full-throated denunciation.
2. It’s difficult to be precise about how much this event fractured his relationship with the press or pushed him to be less public with his philanthropy. But the answer to both is, at minimum, “a fair amount”. And it’s not hard to see why. However beyond the pale his shot at Unsworth was, the dogpile came before that. And that dogpile was strong enough to crack anyone’s faith. Doesn’t make what he said later any more justifiable. But seems insane to me to think that the suckerpunch and dogpile just don’t matter at all, or that we don’t have some collective guilt on our hands here.
1. Yeah it's actually exhausting, I consider myself as very left wing, but when talking to people in that sphere, all they want to do is say the same unsourced inaccurate or disproven stuff about EM/Tesla/EVs. It's utterly disappointing, and it does make you realise that there aremassive accuracy issues on both sides of the political sphere, and that we are truely navigating a post-truth society.
My opinion of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren soured a lot when they kept on trumping the 'tax the 1%' trumpet, given that they weren't proposing any fundemental changes in our tax system to actually capture unrealised profit. All of these tax the billionaires stuff are the same problem. Are you proposing siezing private property, are you wanting to do away with the share market and shares of companies, are you wanting to tax that which hasn't yet been earned, or are you just resorting to jingoism?
2. My view of EM these days is that his sense of morality and ego are his greatest driving forces. When the left set him up as Arch-Villan, he decided, fuck these guys, I'm going to go with the side that worships wealth and hasn't personally attacked me; even though idelogically we are far apart. I personally find that incredibly disappointing, given that one of the main reasons I fell into following this story was due to my intense desire for action on climate change; and now he is associated with the side of the climate change deniers. I like to think that were I in that situation, I would just be like, well, my allies all hate me, but the work still needs doing so I'm just going to keep on going with it.
But again, it is that Ego/Moral View/Asbergers that are taking those events and then further acting in such a way to drive this behavior.
It's just such a shame for the world, because the left wants uber-rich like Elon Musk; the entire arguement for capitalism from the democrats rests on the idea that people that win from that system are going to make decisions with those resources that left everyone up. We've gone from wishing for a belevolent dictator to a belevolent billionaire. And we had that in Elon Musk, until the baseless and unfounded attacks drove him into an opposing position.
Wow. Just wow. This puts the whole episode in a different light to me. Note I didn't follow closely, but the impression of the story (plan A vs/and plan B and Elon's involvement) were completely different.
This was an incredible investigative story and I truly appreciate your care and attention to details to provide a balanced account despite it pushing back against mainstream narrarives. You are what journalists should aspire to, and is sorely lacking from outfits like NYT, WaPo and LA Times.
Incredible write up, and it just highlights the problem with reporting on so many events and news - is that they get key things wrong and the rate of error exponentially grows from there. The Thai Cave Story was one of the first and biggest things that started people down the path of assuming Elon Musk was piece of shit - and everyone I've ever had reason to talk to about that doesn't even know that Elon didn't start it, and doesn't have this further context; but you sound like a crazy person for wanting to get into the context behind this lasting impression.
It really makes it easy to see how stuff like this starts people down the pathway of assuming things, which quickly spirals out of control.
I wonder how pivotal this public relations disaster was to Elon to turn onto his "lash out at the world" pathway that he seems to currently be hellbent on pursuing.
Indeed.
1. It’s almost impossible to get people who are already deeply decided against him to revisit their priors. Whenever I’ve written about stuff like this as it concerns him, it never matters how strong the evidence is. They just cite that Simpsons meme about weird nerds defending him and consider that a full argument. But the point I keep trying to make is that if you really do want to hold him accountable for the things he has done wrong, the very worst approach is to refuse to look at the evidence for any individual claim. I’ve never had a single person actually respond to that argument though. They won’t even let you get to the point about exoneration vs contextualization etc. They’ve picked their side and have no room for anything other than full-throated denunciation.
2. It’s difficult to be precise about how much this event fractured his relationship with the press or pushed him to be less public with his philanthropy. But the answer to both is, at minimum, “a fair amount”. And it’s not hard to see why. However beyond the pale his shot at Unsworth was, the dogpile came before that. And that dogpile was strong enough to crack anyone’s faith. Doesn’t make what he said later any more justifiable. But seems insane to me to think that the suckerpunch and dogpile just don’t matter at all, or that we don’t have some collective guilt on our hands here.
1. Yeah it's actually exhausting, I consider myself as very left wing, but when talking to people in that sphere, all they want to do is say the same unsourced inaccurate or disproven stuff about EM/Tesla/EVs. It's utterly disappointing, and it does make you realise that there aremassive accuracy issues on both sides of the political sphere, and that we are truely navigating a post-truth society.
My opinion of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren soured a lot when they kept on trumping the 'tax the 1%' trumpet, given that they weren't proposing any fundemental changes in our tax system to actually capture unrealised profit. All of these tax the billionaires stuff are the same problem. Are you proposing siezing private property, are you wanting to do away with the share market and shares of companies, are you wanting to tax that which hasn't yet been earned, or are you just resorting to jingoism?
2. My view of EM these days is that his sense of morality and ego are his greatest driving forces. When the left set him up as Arch-Villan, he decided, fuck these guys, I'm going to go with the side that worships wealth and hasn't personally attacked me; even though idelogically we are far apart. I personally find that incredibly disappointing, given that one of the main reasons I fell into following this story was due to my intense desire for action on climate change; and now he is associated with the side of the climate change deniers. I like to think that were I in that situation, I would just be like, well, my allies all hate me, but the work still needs doing so I'm just going to keep on going with it.
But again, it is that Ego/Moral View/Asbergers that are taking those events and then further acting in such a way to drive this behavior.
It's just such a shame for the world, because the left wants uber-rich like Elon Musk; the entire arguement for capitalism from the democrats rests on the idea that people that win from that system are going to make decisions with those resources that left everyone up. We've gone from wishing for a belevolent dictator to a belevolent billionaire. And we had that in Elon Musk, until the baseless and unfounded attacks drove him into an opposing position.
Wow. Just wow. This puts the whole episode in a different light to me. Note I didn't follow closely, but the impression of the story (plan A vs/and plan B and Elon's involvement) were completely different.
This was an incredible investigative story and I truly appreciate your care and attention to details to provide a balanced account despite it pushing back against mainstream narrarives. You are what journalists should aspire to, and is sorely lacking from outfits like NYT, WaPo and LA Times.
I'd personally prefer if the NYT and WaPo wouldn't spend so much time writing fluff pieces for billionaires.