zlacker

So tired of him. So tired.

>>icantb+(OP)
Posting here might not be helping.

>>menset+q2
I feel like people just don't know how to deal with trollish people like elon or trump, best you can do is ignore them and they lose the one thing they live for: attention.

>>badrab+P3
The calculus changes for someone like Musk, who is not a troll to a large fraction of the population. In that case, it's beneficial to post something like the GGP because it signals to other people two things: first, you're not alone in disliking this person. Second, it's okay to express that opinion. That second one is important since there is a fine line between ignoring something you don't like and self-censorship out of fear of reprisal.

So, while I agree that you should ignore nobody trolls, I DO NOT think you should ignore famous, politically/economically relevant trolls. It's an act that comes with some risk, and is therefore courageous and admirable.

>>badrab+P3
I agree with the notion of what you're saying, and I usually make a pretty strong point of avoiding this topic, but a counterpoint can really only be so obvious before I can no longer avoid stating it: Trump was the president. It's not really unreasonable to not "ignore" a person when they are the individual elected by the people of your nation as their representative.

>>badrab+P3
That doesn't work, because they just escalate or get other people to act out on their behalf. And really, why should we construct society around the behaviors the worst people? There is some evidence for the proposition that rude responses to provocations is in fact the most effective moderations strategy.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03697

>>menset+q2
Posting here is fine. At least they aren't using X/Twitter.

>>icantb+(OP)
Only you can choose to care or not care. And if you care about some troll, you’re going to become angry and then exhausted.

>>happyt+y4
> It's not really unreasonable to not "ignore" a person when they are the individual elected by the people of your nation as their representative.

Is that a triple negative?

>>badrab+P3
Alas, they will always get rewarded for the attention-seeking behaviour. Always. Because it’s a sad fact that there are always people who are attracted to destructive attention-seekers, just as there are people attracted to mass murderers, satanic telepreachers, and promoters of poisonous ideologies. They simply don’t see these characters like you and I do. There’s money to be made by connecting these populations, from pamphlets and Speakers Corner to websites and Social Media. It’s always been a problem. But now, with a global population of billions, these trollish people are basically guaranteed to draw enough attention to have dangerous influence.

>>badrab+P3
Or send them to jail. :-) It would be harder with Elon, but between securities fraud and willful safety negligence, it’s probably doable. :-)

>>badrab+P3
This kind of 101-level advice is fine for dealing with random edgelord trolls with 10 followers. However, it's nigh-on impossible to simply ignore the likes of Musk and Trump when newspaper columns are full of their activity and they have such a fucking large impact on us.

>>zvoryg+B5
He’s the richest man on Earth, and has hundreds of millions of fans around the world. Multiple CEOs emulating him and saying they wish they could act more like him and copying his actions.

People care because Musk is actively bending and reshaping society with his actions, and we live in this society. And unfortunately he's reshaping society towards a more hostile, adversarial, dishonest society. Where you constantly identify enemies (he was even at "war" with Apple for a few days remember?), and you're constantly taking pleasure at confusing everyone, and teaching your fans to celebrate chaos and lack of meaning. "I'm serious, I'm joking, I'm serious, I'm joking, I'm serious, I'm joking". It’s also why no one could just ignore Trump for four years. You can’t just ignore all the president of the US does and says. You need a clear message, you need logical direction. And you never got it.

People want to live in a sane world where sane outcomes hold up. And Musk is repeatedly breaking this assumption and walking away unscathed or even gaining from it, showing us all anyone else also could.

His message is we can all be assholes. We can all be dicks to each other. We can all lie, constantly. We can all be frauds. We can all be sociopaths and narcissists. And many will go with it and do go with it. That is the problem. This is why people want to see him fail. Him failing, badly, will be healing for society and reverse some of this vast damage.

>>anigbr+D4
You and other commenters are not getting what I am saying. Ignore them does not mean they don't face consequences, it means they don't get attention for it. Like no news headlines, no social media posts and likes,etc... if they have their own fanbase then ignore them too, ban, block, arrest,etc... just don't give them notoriety and fan the flames.

It's like with school shooters and serial killers, you shouldn't mention their names, publish their manifesto or do movies about them precisely to avoid copy cats or to give them what they want. If elon messes up twitter, leave it, don't give him attention for it.

>>3cats-+2s
Your post reads like the intro to an unhinged anti-Musk manifesto. Are you sure you're not taking life too seriously?

When you accuse someone of "vast damage", destroying society, lies, and wishing them to fail among other things, it's you who is spreading hate. You are the problem.

> "People want to live in a sane world where sane outcomes hold up."

No idea what that means, but after reading your post I'm not confident you're a reliable source on what people want, or what a sane world looks like!

>>exodus+Fi2
I like thinking about systems, and how they interact, how their parts merge into a whole, and yeah, factors like Musk and his real-estate twin, Trump, are absolutely making society worse in tangible, measurable ways.

And I was quite clear how, and I notice you didn't address anything I said about how Musk makes the world worse. Would you like if your boss was like Elon Musk? Get ready to implement surprise rebranding at 2AM on a Sunday, I guess. Don't like a competitor or a journalist? A critic? Ban them. Then praise yourself for being a free speech absolutist. Banana republic methodology in 21st century Silicon Valley. Hurray.

A lot of this behavior, can be excused if his ideas were brilliant. But no. He's just an idiot. And 2/3 of the value of the company he bought are lost now. More to come.

>>icantb+(OP)
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

>>3cats-+183
> "...absolutely making society worse in tangible, measurable ways."

You've presented zero measurements to qualify that statement. Your personal dislike of Musk's methods have nothing to do with your wishful projection of a super-villain doing harm to the world.

> "He's just an idiot."

I see. Maybe you should consider whether your personal dislike of Musk isn't getting the better of you. Your comment amounts to "trust me bro, Musk is an idiot".

> "surprise rebranding at 2AM on a Sunday"

You'd prefer an 11am rebrand? That's nice, but the new CEO has already stated she knew about the rebrand when she started.

He has repeatedly said he welcomes his haters and anyone from any side of politics. That's the "free speech" part you're missing. Even Stephen King hates Musk and yet Musk still replies to him and has a joke about it. Your claim he bans his critics is false. Whatever isolated incidents there are with bans, isn't representing the whole.

> "I like thinking about systems...how their parts merge into a whole"

No. You like calling people idiots and posting emotional uninformed rants. You enjoy wallowing in the logical fallacy wastelands. "How parts merge into the whole" are absent from your contributions (the two posts I've read of yours). If you truly cared about "systems", your approach would be balanced, analytical, less emotionally charged, less "the sky is falling".

>>dang+TT3
Sure, whatever, but I do note that it generated substantive commentary for a post that generated little of substance itself.

Ah, fuck it. Your moderation is inconsistent. Lots of frivolous and low quality comments sail right on by you, shitting up threads all over the site, but here you go picking on, yes, an admittedly low-quality yet heart-felt sub-thread starter that resulted in quality commentary that is now hidden from sight. What a stupid decision, axing good discussion because it started off poorly.

Ima fuck on off, no need to put up with your shit. Screw your head on right, guy.

>>icantb+S9k
Moderation is necessarily inconsistent because we don't see everything that gets posted—there's far too much to read it all. We don't even see 10%; we're lucky if we see 1%. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.

That said, if you're participating here, we need you (like other users) to follow the rules regardless of what other commenters are doing. It always feels like the other person (a) started it, and (b) did worse. Since everyone feels that way, using that as a guide for one's own behavior just leads to a downward spiral.