@Panfilo
I'm writing to try to push the discussion up a level - and explain that I'm rejecting this "linkage" argument style, and why.
First, here's my attempt to summarize what I interpret your post and general arguments to be - trying to make this fair, so I wouldn't mind improvements & corrections. "Panfilo has found tweets of Elon using or referencing bad or controversial ideas, which he then posts, and then expects that since he's shown that Elon is willing to discuss an idea which is bad, that the audience will agree that Elon is a White Supremacist"
In this one, Elon is engaging with a concept that is currently in lots of people's list of "forbidden ideas": concepts around using judgment not just on individuals, but on the behavior of larger groups, cultures, civilizations, religions, nations. Many people think now that even pretty general or low-level summaries or generalizations about any group is a forbidden thing to do, even to the point that saying things like "The way current-day religious group X treats minority group Y is bad" can be seen as a provocative statement.
If that's a fair summary, then I'd like to explain that I'm resisting this argument style.
First, I think that allowing other people's lists of what is allowed/not allowed to discuss into my judgment system without examination isn't right, since I don't know how the lists was made. Also, if using lists like this is correct at all, I don't get why we need to adopt such a high pressure tactic to push that specific list without justification. Why can't you explain and convince me to adopt it? And also why they've changed, what the process for maintaining the list is, how we find mistakes or manipulations, etc. and how we can be safe to adopt such an accepting viewpoint that would limit our freedom to ask and discuss concepts.
Secondly, even if this overall structure of keeping a list of taboo ideas is right, what do we do when people have different lists of forbidden ideas? I just don't get how it's supposed to work. I have a list of things I believe and would hold to, too, but I'm willing to explain why I put things there, and not just assume everyone has agreed to my personal list.
But when I've asked you to define what your list is, and why, you haven't responded. That's what I can't accept. In my personal experience, I've run into this pattern in religious groups, which then led me to read more about it - which led me to my view now, which is that sometimes groups get into "human social judgement spirals" where they go really far into obsessing over words, and it leads to some really bad outcomes. Examples are things like medieval religious doctrinal conflict, the French Revolution, The Cultural Revolution, the internals of how cults work, etc. A good grounding point that would have helped those people is to explain what and why they believe, and moreso to look for "actual harm". i.e. to really challenge their mental ideas that say "this concept itself is evil", by looking at reality. If a group won't do that, and explain how they are so sure that their single focused cause of evil really works, conditions in the groups I read about tended to get worse. So, grounding to experience, discussion, explanation, curiosity about others was the way out for people in those groups; some took it, and some didn't. So for me, I'm generally against the pattern of accepting a social expectation and pressure to conform to never-proven assertions of good/bad. From your point of view, how did you decide what viewpoint to accept, given that there really are so many conflicting ones in the world?
When I ask for definitions, can you understand that I'm doing it as a way to check whether this particular set of views about what is good and bad about the world is valid, because I believe there are many predefined worldviews and I am not willing to just jump into one, but instead ask them all to prove and explain themselves? Is there a way we can open up the discussion a bit, basing it on what I assume might be a shared basis of the importance of human rights, individual freedom and dignity, which I do hold as an American? That's a good start, (although I'm willing to discuss challenges to it too).
Summary: You linked Elon to <concept X> and seem to expect us all to believe he's bad, since <concept X> should not be discussed. You haven't explained what specifically concept X is, why it's bad, or why it shouldn't be discussed. I don't find this convincing.
I'm familiar with the concept of poisoning the well, and of libertarian vs. mainstream attitudes towards topic taboos. The things I've posted don't fit your framing, though. Elon is not merely mentioning, debating, or acknowledging these subjects. He is explicitly agreeing with Gad Saad, TheWhitePost, breakingbaht, and others about specific statements that include such sentiments as "jewish communities pushing dialectical hatred against whites," and the great replacement theory (not just organic immigration trends, but the belief that a fortress of western European ethnicities are being debraded by a conspiracy of immigration by Arabs and Africans).
Elon repeatedly and openly supports these beliefs. He doesn't stop at saying things that may be earnest intellectual curiosity such as "we should be alowed to discuss IQ variance across population groups" or "what are the best and worst reasons to fully close or open borders?" Rather, he stands with bad actors on specific bad sides of these issues. If you want to defend him, you can't just appeal to the tendancy of other people (centrists, liberals, leftists) to overcorrect away from openly discussing problematic issues. You have to say why calling TheWhitePost's view "accurate" is either correct, or unrelated to white supremacy.
It would be one thing if I was taking a single instance of Musk talking to a white supremacist neutrally and blowing it out of proportion. But context and association does count for something. There is a reason ethos was a pillar of classical rhetoric, and it's not the same as pathos. Gad is yet another person themselves immersed in racist/islamophobic/antisemitic/etc. circles (RadioGenoa and the like), that Musk not only considers non-toxic, but philosophically correct. But I get the impression this may be something you fundamentally don't believe in; that you believe Musk would have to send out a signed memo saying "don't hire anyone with a lot of melanin" in order to be considered potentially racist. And if he said "don't hire any Samoans" you'd say "well he just means their culture, not their ethnicity".
Would you mind letting me know what you mean by white supremacist? is it a racial, like biological ethnicity origin thing, or is about social practices, religion, culture etc and the alleged claims of superiority of european views/culture/society or something like that? I am not the one bringing up the term, that's you, so could you explain what you mean please?
you said Elon was a baddie for supporting an idea of Gad, and you proved it by offering, without source, another quote from Gad that wasn't present in the tweet Elon supported.
So it seems that you are still applying the rule "If person X approves an idea of person Y, and person Y has other bad ideas, then person X is bad"?
Or are you claiming that what Gad said in the actual tweet was bad?
You mentioned a conspiracy great replacement theory. I didn't see that in the tweet at all. The tweet seems to blame western liberals themselves for not balancing their admirable empathy with a dose of realism and defensiveness about our values and reality.
It's just so ironic that you and Gad are both pronouncing yourself virtuous: You, for auto-ignoring the ideas of anyone who would dare to criticize another group, and him for being strong enough to take the social approbation of going against the grain and ensure a good future where liberalism and democracy exist in the world (unlike in the parts of the world that are growing, which are very cruel) [this is my guess at his self-view, not a statement of agreement]
Yet you claim that you are the virtuous one, and systematically refuse to actually address his arguments, or even talk to/convince him. Instead you strawman them as a conspiracy theory, avoid discussion, keep sliding back into playing to the crowd to crush discussion rather than help convince and save unfortunate people who get sucked into in your view racist systems.
And you call people who acknowledge problems with other groups views and try to help victims there racist, for example people who crusade against middle eastern systematic cultural anti-semitism, anti-feminism, anti-gay, and anti-apostasy views.
Like I said, it's ironic. And the answer is right there. Rather than keeping on slandering Gad, just address his points. Explain how we are going to help everyone in the world, confront our own and also their mistaken practices, convert & convince people who would do harm if possible, or exclude them from harming the vulnerable if we aren't able to convince them.
To improve communication:
Both parties could benefit from explicitly acknowledging valid points made by the other, which could help build mutual understanding.
They could try to find common ground on basic principles (e.g., the importance of free speech, the danger of uncritical acceptance of ideas) before delving into specific disagreements.
Ernie could address some of Panfilo's specific claims about Musk's statements to show they are engaging with the concrete examples provided.
Panfilo could engage more directly with Ernie's concerns about the dangers of unexamined taboos and explain their perspective on why certain ideas are considered problematic.
Both could benefit from using more "I" statements to express their personal views and experiences, which can be less confrontational than making broad claims.
They could agree on definitions for key terms they're using (e.g., "white supremacy", "racist") to ensure they're talking about the same concepts.
Overall, while there are areas for improvement, this interaction shows a relatively high level of engagement and thoughtfulness from both parties on a challenging topic.
@Panfilo I appreciate that you are engaging at all, which is rare for this type of discussion. I agree that it's not ideal that Musk is being opaque, and that doubt about his views is a reasonable position.
I request your viewpoint on my questions about definitions, and about the general framework of how you are arguing. I would ask that you be precise about distinguishing between whether you are willing to engage with a line of argument itself and admit that the discussion is legitimate, versus cases where you attempt to go to higher levels and broadly define even the existence of the discussion as invalid or as demonstration of ill will or something negative. The way you express this about Musk makes it very hard for me to argue, since I am wary that you may apply the same (lax, in my view) standards of evidence to make claims or assert too strongly your views about what I believe, even when I have denied it or when contradictory evidence exists.
I'm interested in statements like this, and @Ernie's earlier statements about Musk's hiring practices, because I don't think you folks are being intentionally obtuse, but it's pretty common for racists to make self-interested exceptions to their prejudice. Phrases like "one of the good ones" exist for this reason. Many nazis and klan leaders admire Asians for their purportedly high IQs, racial nationalism, and cultural retention over history, but consider them effeminate or outside of the racial "sweet spot" of Europeans.
Musk likes money and both points are obvious opportunities to make more. Also, South African and American white supremacy is centered around anti-blackness, so one wouldn't expect trash talking Chinese people or refusing to hire Indians would be his priority anyway. White supremacy does not preclude a percieved hierarchy between other racial groups, and indeed this was one of the explicit foundations of the Axis in world war 2.
I was encouraged to be able to really discuss reasons, arguments, and evidence for a few rounds here but it appears that's ended. Anyway, I'm willing to discuss the claim that Elon is a white nationalist/white supremacist (I disagree with the claim) again with people on the basis of evidence and reports from people who know him etc. For example, Karpathy just gave a long speech where Elon came up quite a few times. It's not possible to prove someone is NOT something when they can be guilty soley based on the thoughts in their mind, only hinted at, but at least it contains yet more examples of relatively respectable people completely willing to speak to, support, work for etc Elon.
Of course nothing can prove that LK-99 really isn't a superconductor in ALL conditions, but given the repeated experiments which have turned up no actual superconducting behavior, how far are we going to go with the initial hints which never could be verified (by something such as him clearly taking race-based disciminatory action, etc?)
@jacksonpolack @Ernie Does this shift your opinion at all?
@Panfilo no. White supremacists have no problem explaining their theories online and also tend not to associate with other races; he doesn't exhibit that behavior.
Out of Elons say 20k tweets and say 2000 hours of public interview footage you found ... Very weak evidence. Going well back past when say Justin Trudeau appeared in black face multiple times. He's a white supremacist right?
On the other side of the ledger is him regularly hiring and employing and retaining brilliant people of all races and sexuality (and his stated beliefs), and being very concerned and taking action against global warming, totally at odds with us Republicans.
Not a strong case. This feels more like a cryptid hunt where you just present the evidence you find, see it's >0, then declare victory without doing a Bayesian analysis and comparing his behavior to what an actual normal version of this mythical creature you ceaselessly hunt would be like.
@Ernie You believe that my stance on this question is anti-Bayesian, and also that agreeing with "the white post's" statement about "civilizations cucking themselves by letting outsiders take their women" should not move your model of Musk's beliefs about white supremacy "at all"? That sounds so self-contradictory on its face that I just want to make sure you didn't mystype or something.
Global warming is not directly relevant, though I will note that its expected effect on mass migration could easily be seen as a threat by white supremacists. Trudeau seems kinda racist to me though! I have no need to defend him, and his professional and rhetorical priorities are clearly in contrast to his weird history with blackface. Likewise, many white supremacists co-work with people of color and then keep their "power level" a secret. It's not unusual at all.
There are so many twitter accounts with 20k+ tweets and nothing as explicitly white supremacists as the posts Elon has endorsed. Yes everyone will have weird or bad takes in 20K tweets, but if this specific kind of very clear signal crops up multiple times, it's a more than negligible amount of information to update on. White supremacists aren't mythical, and most of them have enough self awareness to not say something that will get them arrested or fired.
@Panfilo I think in the space of someone who is white supremacist, those are pretty random
why did you switch to an archive link? is it because... he deleted them? If he hadn't deleted them, and told conspiracy theorists to f off, you'd use that as evidence he agreed w/them. But he did the opposite... so do you also view him doing that as evidence for him being white nationalist? tough bind eh, whatever he does, you're quite sure he's a white supremacist eh. of course you have an excuse, "he's deleting them to hide the evidence".
bigfoot searchers insist the national park service meet with them and share evidence. they find a shadow, OOH it's bigfoot. Later the website deletes it cause of over-conspiracy theory. OOH they're hiding the evidence.
^^ okay, I admit this is slightly unfair to you. But still, I stand by my argument. Your attack is so much easier to characterize as lib journalists mad at losing control on twitter and using their most familiar slander against him. Do I believe some kind of secret white conspiracy theory stuff, or do I believe that Elon is behaving exactly as someone of his culture and upbringing would? i.e. pushing "colorblindness" and hating woke shit. I'm in the same generation as him, and I love Thomas Sowell, worshipped MLK and still admire him greatly, admire plenty of black people and thinkers, grew up in a <20% white school etc and I hate all these ridiculous tender calls of racism all the time which all ignore the obvious power games going on. If you try to accuse me of racism too you've got the same problem. Did I retreat to a white-only region? No I have lived just fine my whole life in hyper non-white regions (15 years overseas) and then in super diverse US regions. The accusation just makes no sense.
to the specifics, I don't see anything white in the one with the castle background. What was the context? It's referring to mass migration changing the national character of european nations or something like that? could you spell out how to distinguish that sentiment from similar ones in other contexts? like in a video game if you give away land or units, could you see how that would be interpreted as "losing your power" ie "cuckoldry"? if you let people who oppose you have your stuff, you're going to lose. i don't get how that links with insisting with superiority. i.e. I think anyone can see that it applies to all sides, not just your imaginary white supremacy side. i.e. wouldn't any group view "giving up their resources" as a type of cuckoldry? really asking here, why do you link that to white supremacy? And before you accuse me of objectifying women, please remember that the US's great ally Saudi Arabia (which continues under a US administration led by Biden, who has refused to meet Musk), routinely massively discriminates against women, and would have NO problem completely understanding the concept that "letting your enemy have your women and land would make you lose". So yeah, do you call out middle easterners for being whatever their version of white supremacists is?
Or are you going to take the path that 'non-whites can't be racist' which is the ultimate in convenience arguments since it meta-excludes all the incredibly obvious symmetries between ALL power relations and connected claims of discrimination.
they won't say something that will get them fired
Oh, like telling journalists to f themselves? So your angle here is... Musk has tons of self-control and is wisely not letting out his true feelings?
Not the most bayesian sound argument I'm guessing you might view him as a low-self control potty mouth about all other aspects of life, right? Or are his dumb, often-soon-deleted meme tweets, ill-thought out remarks all part of a plan? So your story is he IS very careless, but on racism he is worried about being fired?
Also can you post other archive images of past tweets that demonstrate what you're trying to show?
EDIT:
What version of racism / supremacy theory are you talkinga bout? is it full colonialism, whites are the utmost evil/behind everything bad, (i.e. Kendi) or is racism = white supremacy? is racism the belief that there are any differences at all, or that one group is supreme, or is it the belief that race is biological, or real in a sense? Like, what is your view of the playing field here and what are you accusing him of? More deeply, if he carefully hides his beliefs what would be bad about doing things with him? Or is it that he actually isn't hiding it, he's secretly doing bad things based on his beliefs? Do you have examples of actions he or his companies have taken that are bad in a race-related way? Or is he self-controlled here, too?
@Ernie I don't think I'm going to answer every question here because some of them seem purely rhetorical. I also will take you at your word about your inner feelings re: Black leaders like MLK who were despised in their life but are now acceptable mainstream icons, or Thomas Sowell who is a popular conservative intellectual who I imagine you sincerely agree with. The cryptozoology/conspiracy stuff is reductio ad absurdum so let's not spend any more time on that.
The context of the image was in fact mass non-white migration panic from Europeans and Americans, at least based on the comments and the accounts in the thread. Viewing women as "stuff" that "people who oppose you" are "getting" my migrating to your country is plenty objectifying by itself. Castle imagery by an account named "the white post" combined with the specific term cuckoldry is already painting a pretty clear image, and pretending as if it's ambiguous hits me as potentially disingenuous. You seem pretty well-versed on online discourse around this stuff. Surely you know the signals for this part of the right wing by now?
The existence of a Saudi Arabian patriarchal monarchy that allies with the US for mutual economic and military benefits doesn't remotely protect you or the post from this criticism re: the treatment of women. Women are not chattel, and SA is incredibly sexist and tribally ethnocentric, in many ways moreso than the US. So what? Just as the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, the evil should not be the protector of the bad.
As for Musk, I can only offer you the olive branch that I would in fact continue treating other thinly veiled reactionaries the same way. If a person with the hammer and sickle emoji in their name posts a soviet army background and says Ukraine deserves it, and someone retweets it with the word "accurate", I'll say they're a tankie even if I can't find a post where they personally say "Stalin was right and I agree with his full geopolitical agenda in the current day". Likewise for Chinese imperialists, radical Islamists, and so on.
Famous billionaires with clear value adds for their companies have a lot of leeway in what they can get away with publically, but I do in fact believe there are lines Elon could cross where the board(s) of his business(es) would act against him with due cause. He has been gradually toeing that line more over the last few years, in ways he really didn't used to. Overall, I notice that your posts are very high on [hoping/anticipating I will make a bad argument that you have seen some leftish person on social media make] and it is my hope that if this conversation continues we waste less space on that.
@Panfilo thanks for the reply. I would like to understand your political viewpoint, because white supremacist is such a specific term. In normal US mainstream discourse it's mostly just a code word or crowd signal towards someone who doesn't toe the line. If you're a normal lefty this is not a possible question to answer but you seem to be claiming not to be one. If so, what are you accusing him of believing? Are you talking like a splc definition of white supremacist?
Your dismissal of my claims about SA don't make it clear. And I fail to understand how you giving evidence of musk being sexist makes him a supremacist. You didn't actually explain why the image is alleged to make him have that belief set. I wasn't defending SA I was saying to an online person in a meme, characterizing reality as a group based battle can be normal. If I share a "zerglings Uber allies" meme does that make me a zerglings supremacist? I don't think it does. It just means that I'm making a point like hey, groups are in conflict here.
If this whole thread is a trap and you're waiting for me to say "well actually, dramatically increased immigration combined with local low fertility will lead to cultural elimination" and then declaring me a white supremacist, well, that would make sense since I don't see other evidence against Elon. But honestly I don't get why mentioning demographics is equated to supremacist claims.
In my experience the scope of the WS phrase goes from KKK leader through just normal people who remember just 10 or 15 years ago when you could say and talk about more things. That is, it's more a proxy for conformity for media rules about extreme compliance with recently invented left signaling than actually referring to a clearly defined idea about race (? I don't know, you are the one who brought up "white") relations. My best guess is that musk might think something like "some European cultures invented a bunch of cool stuff (like tech, better politics, medicine, etc.) and most of the rest of the world didn't, so let's not just eliminate it, whatever it is." This statement trips lefties into a rage but I don't think it's white supremacy at all since I could say exactly the same thing about Japan and not be a "Japanese Supremacist". I always thought it weirdly asymmetrical; how the left is magnetized into shouting WS at people who live with, befriend, and marry non white people, and hate huge groups of white people.
Anyway could you restate your claim in specific terms, especially WS, and explainhow the evidence shown demonstrates that? Or we could do the usual "acknowledging cultural continuity as a good thing IS WS" thing because I brought up liking Japan, a homogenous ethnic state, waaah so eviiil
@Panfilo https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1771634823452401805
yes, this could be a secret white supremacist talking. But I don't see a lot of other known such people saying this. It more matches the policy position of people like Biden, Kamala, and doesn't match the group most commonly called WS, republicans/southerners. But yes he could still be WS despite opposing their policy proposals, I guess.
When it comes down to it, no evidence can actually prove what's inside someone's mind. And in the end does it matter? I've asked for evidence (beyond a deleted tweet) of actual bad things he's done. Most horrible awful criminals have clear evidence of things like that. In this case, I've read over the Fremont n word issue and a few other alleged claims and haven't found anything in them. I'm willing to read more if you provide links that show him doing WS type things, though.
@SimranRahman To be fair, I think Xitter is a better indicator of Elon's performance as of late than SpaceX and Tesla. I'm not going to pretend to know enough about Tesla/SpaceX to make a judgement there, but I'm willing to believe that he had a positive benefit there, even if it was just "being a good mascot." In contrast, the company F.K.A. Twitter, where Elon has complete control, is doing poorly precisely because Elon is making decisions that are against the interests of the business and the businesses X relies on. Though X is better than ever for white supremacists. Wonder why that is... 🤔
