Elon Musk: Force for anthropic advancement or self-serving con-artist?

[Gori the Grey]

Ah. ok.

But now I'm worried about Google translate, if it can add a murder in the course of describing a cell-phone theft!

 

[Ordnael]

Google translated "vitimou" with "killed". Such translation would only make sense if the first incident was a murder, which was not.
"Vitimou" is the past tense of the verb "vitimar", which can be, very roughly, translated by me as "to make someone a victim" since english, afaik, has no verb for the substantive victim.
Google translate has a fault here but the phrasing of the original Portuguese article is not the best!

 

[Broken_Erika]

Google translated "vitimou" with "killed". Such translation would only make sense if the first incident was a murder, which was not.
"Vitimou" is the past tense of the verb "vitimar", which can be, very roughly, translated by me as "to make someone a victim" since english, afaik, has no verb for the substantive victim.
Google translate has a fault here but the phrasing of the original Portuguese article is not the best!

Run it through Google translate several dozen times and see what you get. It's fun.

 

[Ordnael]

Run it through Google translate several dozen times and see what you get. It's fun.

Not sure what you mean.
I tried the whole quote you used running it from english to Portuguese (Portugal) and backwards a number of times and although the text was getting shorter and "vitimou" was getting translated as victimized I didn't find anything specially fun (maybe victimized doesn't exist in english, the forum dictionary is underlining it).
Maybe you used Portuguese (Brazil) and thus you got a more humorous results.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Not sure what you mean.
I tried the whole quote you used running it from english to Portuguese (Portugal) and backwards a number of times and although the text was getting shorter and "vitimou" was getting translated as victimized I didn't find anything specially fun (maybe victimized doesn't exist in english, the forum dictionary is underlining it).
Maybe you used Portuguese (Brazil) and thus you got a more humorous results.

I forgot say "as many languages as possible". That's how Half LIfe Google Translate edition was made.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Google translated "vitimou" with "killed". Such translation would only make sense if the first incident was a murder, which was not.
"Vitimou" is the past tense of the verb "vitimar", which can be, very roughly, translated by me as "to make someone a victim" since english, afaik, has no verb for the substantive victim.
Google translate has a fault here but the phrasing of the original Portuguese article is not the best!

Victimise?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, English does have victimize, although it would feel a little overblown to use it in such a case: "who similarly victimized a woman while she was in the process of helping the original victim of theft."

How about:

A Tesla dashcam captured footage of one thief stealing a cell-phone, and then also of a second thief who stole from a woman while she was helping the first victim.

Sorry to take us off on a proofreading (/Google translate) tangent.

The story itself strikes me as only minimally significant. We're all under surveillance by cameras all over the place. There's some chance a pickpocket's actions will be caught by one of those cameras. This one happened to be in a Tesla.

Here's the headline by the time it hits Fox News this evening, though:

Illegals in Portugal, committing murder over a mere cell-phone, captured by super-genius Elon Musk.

 

[Samson]

It has happened. Now he has no friends on either side.

Elon Musk announces exit from US government role after breaking with Trump on tax bill

Elon Musk has announced on social media that he is leaving his role in the Trump administration, a departure the White House confirmed was in process on Wednesday evening.

The departure of a man who once appointed himself Trump’s “first buddy” was quick and unceremonious. Musk did not have a formal conversation with Trump before announcing he was leaving the administration, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, who added that his exit was decided “at a senior staff level.”

Musk has been signalling his departure from Washington, and his commitment to return his business ventures, all week. He sharply criticised Trump’s spending plan, and expressed frustration with the response to the efforts of his signature “department of government efficiency.”

He criticised the president’s marquee tax bill, calling it too expensive and a measure that would undermine his work to make the government more “efficient.”

He also told the Post that Doge had been turned into a “whipping boy” that was criticised for anything that went wrong in the Trump White House.

Musk had butted heads in private with some cabinet-level officials, and publicly attacked White House trade adviser Peter Navarro as a “moron” for dismissing Musk’s push for “zero tariffs” between the US and Europe.

Musk had also recently expressed frustration to White House officials over a deal between Abu Dhabi and OpenAI, the Sam Altman-led rival to Musk’s own AI company, the New York Times reported. Musk had previously tried to derail the deal unless his company was included in it, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The billionaire’s recent “disillusionment” with politics was also influenced by the failure of his Wisconsin judicial candidate, despite Musk spending $25m on the race, the New York Times reported.

 

[Kyriakos]

The split between Musk and Trump had been anticipated for a while now.

 

[Samson]

Elon Musk allegedly took large amounts of drugs including ketamine while advising Trump – report

Elon Musk engaged in extensive drug consumption while serving as one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, taking ketamine so frequently it caused bladder problems and traveling with a daily supply of approximately 20 pills, an investigation from the New York Times revealed.

The world’s richest man regularly consumed ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms during his rise to political prominence, anonymous sources familiar with his activities told the Times. His drug use reportedly intensified as he donated $275m to Trump’s presidential campaign and later wielded significant power through his role spearheading the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.

 

[Ordnael]

Not surprising.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's a sad case. Too bad, for with a little intelligence he'd have more than enough to be as happy as can be.
Seems to be way too important to him to be identified as a "critical person", as if he won't die like everyone else.

 

[Gori the Grey]

He and Trump both strike me as profoundly psychologically needy. As though such accomplishments as they do reach don't end up satisfying them at all, so they're always hungry for some other marker of validation. Musk's wanting to be thought a master of that one video game is just so pathetic. Pick something where you want to make a mark (electric cars, say); go all in on making the biggest mark, even a history-books level of achievement, and then take satisfaction in reaching that mark. Don't go desperately chasing after every possible way of being regarded as cool.

 

[Kyriakos]

He and Trump both strike me as profoundly psychologically needy. As though such accomplishments as they do reach don't end up satisfying them at all, so they're always hungry for some other marker of validation. Musk's wanting to be thought a master of that one video game is just so pathetic. Pick something where you want to make a mark (electric cars, say); go all in on making the biggest mark, even a history-books level of achievement, and then take satisfaction in reaching that mark. Don't go desperately chasing after every possible way of being regarded as cool.

It's just all so pointless. I wonder if he will realize that even among his peers (on the top-10 or similar richest list) he clearly is the dumbest and most vacuous.

 

[r16]

that was his aim all along . The rest will protect him , if some idiots try to pick on him for some reason .

 

[lymond]

Moderator Action: Several posts deleted. That’ll stop now. -lymond

 

[Voidwalkin]

He and Trump both strike me as profoundly psychologically needy. As though such accomplishments as they do reach don't end up satisfying them at all, so they're always hungry for some other marker of validation. Musk's wanting to be thought a master of that one video game is just so pathetic. Pick something where you want to make a mark (electric cars, say); go all in on making the biggest mark, even a history-books level of achievement, and then take satisfaction in reaching that mark. Don't go desperately chasing after every possible way of being regarded as cool.

I dunno, man. I think that may just be the default human condition. Laziness and novelty aversion usually keep it from full expression, though. People stick to what they know, mostly.

I think Musk just has less of the latter two than most, and so wades confidently from field X to field Y, where your average person wouldn't even try. My less ambitious coworkers need just as much validation, I'm afraid. They just get less media exposure.

 

[Samson]

Cybertruck Fatality Rate Far Exceeds That of Ford Pinto

An analysis from FuelArc calls out Tesla’s Cybertruck for having a higher fatality rate than the infamous Ford Pinto, reports Julianne McShane in Mother Jones. Since they were released a year ago, Cybertrucks have a fatality rate of 14.5 per 100,000 units; the Pinto had a fatality rate 17 times lower, at 0.85 fatalities per 100,000 units over its nine years of existence.

The authors acknowledge the limits of their analysis, noting that Tesla will not publicly release the actual number of Cybertrucks sold, and that the analysis includes the self-inflicted death of a soldier in a Cybertruck in Las Vegas last month. (Discounting that death would still give Cybertrucks a fatality rate of 11.6 per 100,000 units — 13 time that of the Pinto.)

However, the analysis makes a point: when Ford Pintos were involved in fatal crashes, the NHTSA investigated, and Ford recalled 1.5 million vehicles before ending production in 1980. Meanwhile, the Cybertruck “has reportedly not been crash-tested by the NHTSA or the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, nor has Tesla released its own safety data on the Cybertruck.” The vehicle was also recalled seven times last year, “including once over a trapped accelerator pedal that could increase the risk of a crash, estimated to affect more than 3,800 units, according to the NHTSA.”

 

[Ordnael]

Occupant fatalities, pedestrian fatalities or both?

 

[Gori the Grey]

In the case of the Pinto, it was occupant fatalities. And my memory is that the article is correct about the national mood on the matter: this is unacceptable and we must get it addressed, stat!