Musk as Han Solo :)

[TheLastStarfighter]

Right, but he has conflicting voices vying for his ears.

One says everything he does is right, even if it conflicts with his goals. They he can eat his cake and still jave it. And that there's nothing between criminal penalties and nothing in social interaction.

The other includes some who do the opposite of worship - they deride, use him as an easy demon. While others tell him it's hard, maybe impossible, and the experience of trying to do free speech as he described it.

So yeah, it's like the hero's test. Does he turn hero or villain? The dark side is seductive.

-Crissa

It's interesting that you feel the difficult path is the seductive one. Going against the grain and prevailing power and opinion is not the easy path.

 

[John K]

It's interesting that you feel the difficult path is the seductive one. Going against the grain and prevailing power and opinion is not the easy path.

I interpreted the remarks as the easy path, maybe unethical path, to power is the dark seductive side. The right path may go against the grain but it is taken because it is the right path and not the easy path.

 

[Crissa]

The middle is rarely the truth in political matters, though.

??‍

-Crissa

 

[flowerlandfilms]

Well... If this were the hero's journey, this is where he's being tested, and has to choose between his heroic goal and the temptation of being worshipped. Does he fall like Anakin or does he swoop in and 'got the your back' like Solo or like Stark does he finally realize he wasn't listening to Pepper and his teammates while accidentally building Ultron...

-Crissa

If the whole voting Republican thing isn't just a strategy to bring Democrats to the table, it will definitely come back to bite him in the ass. They don't have loyalty to anybody, including themselves if you ask the McCains.

If I was writing that script:
- Faith placed in political party
- Faith betrayed, Soul Searching commences
- Realises seeking approval from political figures/social media is replacement for Absentee Father
- Tells stand in father figure (maybe a president played by Sam Elliot) to go fuck himself
- Overcomes childhood trauma by being a better father figure to the world generally
- Roll credits

 

[Crissa]

It's interesting that you feel the difficult path is the seductive one. Going against the grain and prevailing power and opinion is not the easy path.

It's the easy one because it involves less effort to learn or change, it's difficult to admit mistakes and adapt to learning. It's more difficult to be aware of others' feelings and to respect them. And it's easier to keep doing what you're doing, especially when there's a cheering section for doing just that.

The low road might actually be more potholes or traffic, but if the lane you're in veers that way, well, you might not know it's the worse choice until you're there.

We'll just have to see what happens next, like flowerandfilms said.

-Crissa

 

[rr6013]

If the whole voting Republican thing isn't just a strategy to bring Democrats to the table, it will definitely come back to bite him in the ass. They don't have loyalty to anybody, including themselves if you ask the McCains.

If I was writing that script:
- Faith placed in political party
- Faith betrayed, Soul Searching commences
- Realises seeking approval from political figures/social media is replacement for Absentee Father
- Tells stand in father figure (maybe a president played by Sam Elliot) to go fuck himself
- Overcomes childhood trauma by being a better father figure to the world generally
- Roll credits

Tesla was EM’s milestone moment a corporate head showed first leadership over gov’t that it is not impossible to change entire industry.
SpaceX was EM’s scientific milestone when private enterprise proved to bureaucracy first principles aren’t limited to singleminded dogma.
SEC wants to be Big Daddy which EM’s told “fuck-off“!
Twitter is hope in the impossible – it’s EM’s denouement.

Twitter challenge, accepted, EM endeavors to build-on the Tesla revolution and SpaceX miracle. In a world mind-meld hellbent on the apocalyptic with no chance there could be One World, one freedom for all. Twitter is Elon Musk proving how — never — to give up that hope in a better future world.

 

[John K]

The middle is rarely the truth in political matters, though.

??‍

-Crissa

I said somewhere in between polarized views. Extremists views are outliers. I will become political if I cite current events and I also find myself polarized on many now due to interpreting greater extremist, IMO, viewpoints.

I am embarrassed to admit, I am angrier compared to the past.

 

[JBee]

Perception is reality. We each have our own.

All we can hope to achieve is approximate other peoples "realities" so that we can include them in our own.

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

The middle is rarely the truth in political matters, though.

??‍

-Crissa

It depends. I worked in politics for a decade. The activists at both ends of the spectrum really annoyed me and were impossible to deal with. They were never happy. They are also often idiots and/or zealots, blindly following ideology.

I've had to argue with a group of right-wing nuts (who supposedly passionately care about cutting costs and balancing books) that investing $500 million government funds in an EV plant that directly generates over $150 million in taxes per year is a good financial decision. They felt the auto company should spend it's own cash. I present the facts that the plant won't happen without the incentive and will locate in an area that will do it, and that the payback is 2.7 years, after which it's all "profit" for the government( and these grumpy taxpayers). And they still leave adamant that a single tax dollar should not be spent... to reduce taxes.

I've also had to fight left-wing dingbats that don't want windmills built because it could affect the view where they like to walk through the trees. Or want to ban the development of renewable-sourced gasoline because it would allow oil companies to maintain their wealth despite making every car on the planet immediately emissions free.

There is a basic partial truth in what you're saying: some issues can be difficult to compromise. The classic lighting rod, abortion, is a great example. One side believes it is the murder of babies. Hard to compromise on that view, even in extreme cases like rape, since murdering a baby would be worse than rape in most opinions. The other side of the aisle believes it's not a baby, and believes in full body autonomy for women. You either have personal autonomy or you don't, and it shouldn't be compromised for a clump of cells, so hard to compromise on that view. As such, any middle ground is a failure from the view of either extreme. Somewhere an infinitely wise and moral being knows which side is right and the other is wrong, but none of us here are that being.

However, without the benefit of universal truth and justice, there is a right answer. A recent MSNBC poll had 61% of people supporting 1st trimester abortions. 34% supporting second, and 19% ok with third. The will of the people is clear: abortions allowed in the first trimester, rare in the second, banned in the third. Neither extreme would like it, but it's the democratic path. The only way you can view it as the incorrect path, is if you view your own opinion/intelligence/morals/value to be greater than those of other humans. And if a person has such an ego and inflated self-worth, it's probably good they can't get their own way.

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

I said somewhere in between polarized views. Extremists views are outliers. I will become political if I cite current events and I also find myself polarized on many now due to interpreting greater extremist, IMO, viewpoints.

I am embarrassed to admit, I am angrier compared to the past.

It's the internet. I read a recent opinion that humans are not so much motivated to be "moral", so much as fit in. As in, they accept as moral what the group they associate with views as moral or "the rules". It's an interesting perspective, and it helps to explain so many of the great atrocities that have happened throughout history. People don't speak up in part because of fear, but also in part because their own sense of values are so greatly shaped by acceptance of the group to which they belong. It makes sense from an evolutionary point of view, if you think of being part of a tribe as being essential to survival. The good of the tribe is the good of yourself, and loss of the tribe's acceptance is sure death. Further, something like murder may be viewed as objectively evil, but if it were murder of someone outside of your tribe, and it benefited your tribe, it could be viewed as a "good" act from your tribe's subjective morality.

I think the effects of this evolutionary quality are being seen and amplified online. People are naturally associating with a group, and that group then shapes their views. Worse, people outside that group become viewed as wrong and immoral, to the point of making you angry. I think for a good and civil society it's important to fight that programming and broaden our perspectives. Fight the anger. Avoid echo chambers.

Interestingly, I think people with Asperger's may be partially immune to this. Their "flaw" is an inability to perceive non-verbal communication and nuance. They also often have a difficult time conforming, which may make Elon a superhero for free speech, while he seems like Darth Vader to anyone desiring conformity to their established personal tribe values.

 

[JBee]

It depends. I worked in politics for a decade. The activists at both ends of the spectrum really annoyed me and were impossible to deal with. They were never happy. They are also often idiots and/or zealots, blindly following ideology.

I've had to argue with a group of right-wing nuts (who supposedly passionately care about cutting costs and balancing books) that investing $500 million government funds in an EV plant that directly generates over $150 million in taxes per year is a good financial decision. They felt the auto company should spend it's own cash. I present the facts that the plant won't happen without the incentive and will locate in an area that will do it, and that the payback is 2.7 years, after which it's all "profit" for the government( and these grumpy taxpayers). And they still leave adamant that a single tax dollar should not be spent... to reduce taxes.

I've also had to fight left-wing dingbats that don't want windmills built because it could affect the view where they like to walk through the trees. Or want to ban the development of renewable-sourced gasoline because it would allow oil companies to maintain their wealth despite making every car on the planet immediately emissions free.

There is a basic partial truth in what you're saying: some issues can be difficult to compromise. The classic lighting rod, abortion, is a great example. One side believes it is the murder of babies. Hard to compromise on that view, even in extreme cases like rape, since murdering a baby would be worse than rape in most opinions. The other side of the aisle believes it's not a baby, and believes in full body autonomy for women. You either have personal autonomy or you don't, and it shouldn't be compromised for a clump of cells, so hard to compromise on that view. As such, any middle ground is a failure from the view of either extreme. Somewhere an infinitely wise and moral being knows which side is right and the other is wrong, but none of us here are that being.

However, without the benefit of universal truth and justice, there is a right answer. A recent MSNBC poll had 61% of people supporting 1st trimester abortions. 34% supporting second, and 19% ok with third. The will of the people is clear: abortions allowed in the first trimester, rare in the second, banned in the third. Neither extreme would like it, but it's the democratic path. The only way you can view it as the incorrect path, is if you view your own opinion/intelligence/morals/value to be greater than those of other humans. And if a person has such an ego and inflated self-worth, it's probably good they can't get their own way.

You also need to add a component for how technology and science has changed our perception of reality, and that knowledge has skewed our "morality" of situations that were previously undisputed.

That doesn't mean technology is good or bad, nor that knowledge is good or bad, just that our perception is not the same as it was, in particular the perception we are taught, or what we derive from that as right.

Many misconceptions ensue from partial understanding of science, that is used as "evidence" of moral substance. If completely understood, those false ideologies would cease.

It's common that as humans we exclude externalities in our analysis and cling to bias instead, just like we prejudice with assumptions.

But in general there must be rules to protect those that are not able to protect themselves, even from themselves at certain times. This I beleive to be true for many stages of life we go through, we are all fallible, where the balance of justice needs to be weighed in the light of common values of society as a whole as well.

But for "common values" people need to agree, and sadly there seems to be less and less of that going around.

 

[JBee]

It's the internet

And the connectivity and amplification it provides to views that are not always true, just popular, so you feel justified for your perspective and carry on without being aware of your own shortcomings, let alone you changing them for the better.

Being part of a majority group doesn't mean its morally correct either. Look at two sides of any war.

Freedom of speech is one thing to have, but who's making a BS or bias filter to go with it? ;-)

I was taught that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. To listen twice as much as we talk.

Maybe we should adopt a variation of this, in that each ear needs to listen to opposing opinions, and we individually have to decide which, if ANY has merit, and only mouth our independent choices, instead of repetitive regurgitation of ideologies that are not even our own, nor have been validated by our own deliberation.

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

And the connectivity and amplification it provides to views that are not always true, just popular, so you feel justified for your perspective and carry on without being aware of your own shortcomings, let alone you changing them for the better.

Being part of a majority group doesn't mean its morally correct either. Look at two sides of any war.

Freedom of speech is one thing to have, but who's making a BS or bias filter to go with it? ;-)

I was taught that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. To listen twice as much as we talk.

Maybe we should adopt a variation of this, in that each ear needs to listen to opposing opinions, and we individually have to decide which, if ANY has merit, and only mouth our independent choices, instead of repetitive regurgitation of ideologies that are not even our own, nor have been validated by our own deliberation.

There's a really good quote in there with some polish, something like "we were given two ears to hear both sides before we speak". If I use it in a speech or negotiation, I will be sure to give you credit.

 

[JBee]

It's the easy one because it involves less effort to learn or change, it's difficult to admit mistakes and adapt to learning. It's more difficult to be aware of others' feelings and to respect them. And it's easier to keep doing what you're doing, especially when there's a cheering section for doing just that.

The low road might actually be more potholes or traffic, but if the lane you're in veers that way, well, you might not know it's the worse choice until you're there.

We'll just have to see what happens next, like flowerandfilms said.

-Crissa

I've pinned that post for future reference. Lol.

 

[JBee]

There's a really good quote in there with some polish, something like "we were given two ears to hear both sides before we speak". If I use it in a speech or negotiation, I will be sure to give you credit.

No credit necessary. I like your polished version, which I'll unashamedly adopt.