The future of Tesla

[hobbsyoyo]

The context being a potentially life or death decision being forced on hundreds of employees. Again, it was hyperbolic but at the same level of seriousness as what was being discussed. While I may overstating the potential greviousness of what happened, you are downplaying it while insinuating there is something wrong with me, then repeating it.

 

[warpus]

In a properly regulated economy you would never be able to do something like that to your employees without serious repercussions. Sounds like these employees need stronger unions and stronger employee protections, and/or stronger regulations in place that would allow the state to crack down on behaviour like that.

I am surprised that you brought that into the discussion, yeah, but nobody's perfect

 

[hobbsyoyo]

What you said and repeated was functionally equivalent to saying 'I think you are smarter than this'. Like fine that you think that but it's still an insult that you keep doubling down on. Even here your attempt to defuse contains another insult. It's mild but I thought we were friends.

 

[warpus]

Honestly, I'd have said the same thing to anyone bringing up rape for some reason in a conversation about corporate liability or whatever. Seems like a misstep on your part. Doesn't mean I hate you dude. But I don't get why this has to get personal

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's not just corporate malfeasance, it is quite literally a potentially life or death situation. I was also upfront that my argument was hyperbolic, but it's at the same level of seriousness as being forced to work and potentially get sick and die or to give the illness to family who might also die.

I'm offended because I was upfront that I was hyperbolic and I apologized for offending you. I have also stated I felt slighted by what you have said and instead of resolving that you repeated and now added another slight. It's personal because you took it there.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

And to go back to the very beginning of the argument, you said

Don't the shareholders and other board members decide if it's acceptable to them or not?

I don't have very high standards for CEOs myself, as long as they're not breaking any laws.

and I pointed out that he's already been accused of and sanctioned for crimes and the board did nothing. I wasn't even really trying to make a statement on this covid situation at first, just point out that the evidence shows even potentially committing crimes* is not enough to sway the board. He's now openly defied a public health order and potentially put his employees at risk and between this and the earlier potential crime, you're still seemingly trying to argue that the board not acting in the case of a crime is a hypothetical.

You also keep pointing out that internal problems should be allowed to stay internal and I actually fully agree with that except that here we have a potential threat to the entire community with this covid situation. You haven't helped your case by confusing the meaning of private and public companies in a way that dramatically changes your argument's meaning after the fact and you are also trying to argue both sides of the issue like here:

If they accept their CEO being a weirdo who breaks the law, then that's their problem.

Even though you since walked it back by saying that yeah maybe in the case of a crime it is no longer just a private issue internal to the company. In fact in your first post I replied to you said 'as long as they're not breaking any laws' and yet here you are stating the exact opposite. Having a CEO breaking laws and taking no action to stop that is potentially a crime in and of itself. And he's been open and public while committing these potential crimes so we can't even say they didn't know.

In other words, you're arguing opposite things while insulting me again and again. Granted, it's exceedingly mild insults but I don't understand why you say these things and then claim I've made it personal. I have tried to reconcile the disagreement and you keep coming back to more mild insults while both agreeing and disagreeing with the exact same stance.

And to reiterate, I was upfront that my rape argument was hyperbolic. It was clumsy and I truly regret offending you with it. At the same time, the argument was made because you made the case that ultimately law enforcement and our culture was to blame for corporations breaking laws because they let them get away with it. I countered with an obvious example of rape because we all agree it is flipping horrible and yet our law enforcement and our culture allows it to go unprosecuted in many cases. If you won't make the argument to defend criminal behavior in the one case then you shouldn't make it for the other. It's also on the same scale of horror as forcing thousands of people to choose between their jobs and potentially dying so again it wasn't totally out there as an analogy even if clumsy and hyperbolic.

You keep trying to say this is just corporate malfeasance while also arguing both sides of the argument and insulting me again and again and blame me for making it personal while sticking up for myself. It's annoying and disingenuous (CFC's favorite buzzword) to say the least.



*I'm crouching my language there because I assume that the FTC agreement stipulated he was not admitting to anything, as is standard practice now in the US for corporate plea bargains.

 

[Bugfatty300]

If you have a wolf in your backard and he eats one of your cats, don't get mad at the wolf. Figure out a better way to store your cats or ask yourself why you have a wolf in the backyard to begin with.

Elon Musk is a human who knows right from wrong and that's why we can condemn him for the inexcusable crap he does. He's not an inculpable animal following its instinct.

 

[Goodfella]

Honestly, I'd have said the same thing to anyone bringing up rape for some reason in a conversation about corporate liability or whatever. Seems like a misstep on your part. Doesn't mean I hate you dude. But I don't get why this has to get personal

I honestly don't understand how what Hobbs said is such a big deal. If you believe, for the sake of argument, that Elon is coercing his employees and exposing them to a deadly virus, you probably find that morally heinous and worthy of condemnation, regardless of the law. Likewise, you probably find sexual assault to be morally heinous regardless of the law. That's the comparison. Frankly, I don't think that's that inappropriate unless you're speaking to a child or grandmother.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'll admit I should have spent more than five seconds thinking about the analogy because it makes people uncomfortable and it's clunky. The trigger for why I went to that specific analogy was @warpus's statements to the effect that the real problem is that our culture and law enforcement allow companies to get away with the problem and this somehow excuses the bad behavior or at least makes it none of our business. The culture and law enforcement issue is also directly applicable to sexual violence in the US but no one would try and excuse the crimes on those grounds. He didn't seem to get this as evidenced by his tangent about a perpetrator's mother (analogous to the board) as if that was applicable to what I was saying, which it wasn't. I made the mistake of engaging him on those terms and also thinking he was going to argue in good faith when in reality he didn't seem to understood what I meant and lashed out at me as way of claiming the high ground.

I wrote a post which I deleted in an attempt to defuse the situation where I asked not to be put on a flipping pedestal as a way of gaining the moral high ground to attack me from. When someone says 'this is beneath you' or something similar it's often just a way to avoid the actual argument while making the other person look bad. And I'm wigging out over it because I would not talk to him like that and it genuinely hurt my feelings. I wasn't trying to gross anyone out, just point out his flawed logic with an example that I very directly and up-frontly stated was hyperbolic to show how his reasoning was absurd.

And as I said before, I regret making the argument because it does seem to have outraged or grossed him out and there were better analogies I could have made if I were less of a lazy bastard. Based on what he had said though, that's just what my mind jumped to first.

 

[warpus]

Even though you since walked it back by saying that yeah maybe in the case of a crime it is no longer just a private issue internal to the company. In fact in your first post I replied to you said 'as long as they're not breaking any laws' and yet here you are stating the exact opposite. Having a CEO breaking laws and taking no action to stop that is potentially a crime in and of itself. And he's been open and public while committing these potential crimes so we can't even say they didn't know.

In other words, you're arguing opposite things while insulting me again and again. Granted, it's exceedingly mild insults but I don't understand why you say these things and then claim I've made it personal. I have tried to reconcile the disagreement and you keep coming back to more mild insults while both agreeing and disagreeing with the exact same stance.

Sorry, I don't know where the insult is. If you feel insulted, then I apologize. I am just sitting here at home responding to posts and trying to be polite. If I failed then that's on me

I am saying that if it's against the law for the board to sit there and not get rid of him as a CEO.. then I totally agree with you that this becomes the problem of society or whatever. But if it's legal for the board to keep him as CEO even though he broke the law.. then that's their problem.

Does that help explain my position better? I don't really know enough about this currently ongoing situation with Musk and covid and his companies. I have not read much about it so I can't comment. I'm just saying.. that if what the board is doing is legal.. then I think they should be allowed to do what they want, even if we disagree with their actions.

I have tried to not make this personal so I didn't respond to the other comments.

Elon Musk is a human who knows right from wrong and that's why we can condemn him for the inexcusable crap he does. He's not an inculpable animal following its instinct.

Condemn him all you want, it does not contradict anything I have said. It sounds like he's forcing his employees to go back to work and is being greedy. If that's the case then I would probably condemn him too.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

He delayed shutting down his factory for a week after being ordered to close last month. Then, even as negotiations to re-open the factory safely were concluding with health authorities, he decided to cut them off and reopen early. He saved basically a week off the schedule to do this and openly flouted the law, going so far as to say he hoped the only person that would get arrested over it was himself and not his workers. People have since been snooping and found out he wasn't actually in the area when he re-opened the factory, despite saying he would be working on the lines in solidarity.

At the same time Tesla sent out a threatening email informing team members that if they didn't return, they'd lose their jobs and healthcare.

 

[Moriarte]

Musk is arguing that US hospitals are conspiring to get more funding, the real covid victims are 10 times less and that he, personally, knows no one who died from covid.

1:24:55 is the time stamp

Spoiler JRE podcast :

 

[r16]

taking no sides and in the interests of history and what not , this thread needs a reference to the kid's supposed name , the one his parents will never call him with , a claim that Musk could lose upto 700 hundred million dollars if the factory doesn't start and their glorious calls on Lockmart to support them . (Have long told everyone we should have handed Lockmart their teeth back in the day .)

 

[warpus]

He delayed shutting down his factory for a week after being ordered to close last month. Then, even as negotiations to re-open the factory safely were concluding with health authorities, he decided to cut them off and reopen early. He saved basically a week off the schedule to do this and openly flouted the law, going so far as to say he hoped the only person that would get arrested over it was himself and not his workers. People have since been snooping and found out he wasn't actually in the area when he re-opened the factory, despite saying he would be working on the lines in solidarity.

At the same time Tesla sent out a threatening email informing team members that if they didn't return, they'd lose their jobs and healthcare.

That makes him sound a bit evil from where I'm sitting

 

[Azem.Ocram]

California could potentially stop Elon Musk now. If they bow down to him for too long, he will be as unstoppable as any other multibillionaire. If California wants Tesla to become a Fortune 500 company, they have certainly allowed it to continue trying to reach it. If California does not want our timeline's Lex Luthor to succeed, they certainly don't seem to have done anything about it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That makes him sound a bit evil from where I'm sitting

Also forgot to add that because of all of that, he has threatened to pull Tesla out of California, thus forcing thousands of people to choose between their jobs and moving to another state based purely on his rage over not being allowed to force his workers to go back on the lines during a pandemic as fast as he'd like. The whole breakdown occurred over a literal week of delay - the health commissioners were in the final stages of letting him open up tomorrow when he forced the issue last Monday.

He's also called the pandemic lockdown fascist and forced hospital staff to do PR photo shoots in order to receive donations of medical equipment - and the equipment delivered was not even what he promised it would be.

 

[Ajidica]

I will admit I'm getting a bit of schadenfreude from seeing some of my technofetish friends agonize over Elon Musk. I've never trusted or particularly liked him, but back in the day they were celebrating him for TESLA, HYPERLOOP, FLAMETHROWERS!; and now they are like "But, science says shut down Elon!".

 

[Colon]

Seems like he's getting away with it. Pretty damning for the state of rule of law in the US. (even after the crap with militia and Trump).

 

[Hygro]

Musk should have just asked California for assistance to weather the storm.

Now it's like, we should seize all his assets for threatening our state.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Musk should have just asked California for assistance to weather the storm.

Now it's like, we should seize all his assets for threatening our state.

He did actually ask for funds to retrain employees after pulling the Tesla stunt and was promptly denied. But he did get what he wanted in the Tesla situation and I'm guessing that W outweighs the minor L.