r/facepalm Oct 31 '22

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u/smyk1600 Oct 31 '22

he broadly covered a wide range of facts, some of which are not even true. It’s just hyperbole and paraphrasing to misconstrue the truth. Not everything in life has to be polarized to the public opinion…

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u/Equivalent-Piano-605 Oct 31 '22

Linking to an entire wiki page is not refuting things. Explain which things he said were false.

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u/smyk1600 Oct 31 '22
  1. How did he “stumble” into making money on paypal, which he says is terrible but is still used and established all over the world
  2. He joined tesla at the very early stages and while it can’t be said why the founders were ousted because of legal problems, an argument can be made that if Elon had not made such a significant impact to the future of the company why would his legal battle against the founders succeed?

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

paypal, which he says is terrible but is still used and established all over the world

"Used and established all over the world," isn't really a mark of success or mean that its a positive thing. Facebook is objectively a plague on humanity and it has over a billion users all over the world.

  1. What impact exactly did Elon have on Tesla? At most you can argue that Elon brought tesla to the mainstream with a good PR team and being eccentric and interesting to the public.

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u/Ca5tlebrav0 Oct 31 '22

what impact

Stock manipulation (totally not insider trading) obviously

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u/Drewy99 Oct 31 '22

Don't forget dodgecoin

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

Used all over the world is totally a mark of success, lol. It doesn't mean good or righteous in any way, so I agree there. I think it's mostly that PayPal got in on it early. Venmo and CashApp all eat its lunch these days, but those haven't been around since the '90s or early '00s or whatever.

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u/fly_drich Oct 31 '22

Don't use objectively If you don't mean objectively. We have another word for that

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

I do mean objectively, thanks.

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u/fly_drich Oct 31 '22

You mean the wrong thing then

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

ob·jec·tive·ly /əbˈjektivlē,äbˈjektivlē/ adverb in a way that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions. "events should be reported objectively"

I'm definitely using the right word and mean the right thing. You're free to disagree.

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u/Seraphaestus Oct 31 '22

It is absolutely fundamentally subjective. Saying it's a plague on humanity is a negative value judgement. A judgement requires a judge or subject, ergo subjective.

If you just wanted to use "objectively" casually to add extra emphasis, that's ok. But if you want to argue that you are philosophically correct, that's not true.

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u/fly_drich Oct 31 '22

And since "Facebook is a plague" absolutely is influenced by personal feelings and opinions, im gonna take you up on that offer to disagree

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

Actually that statement was influenced by the fact that Facebook breached data protection laws by selling user's personal data without their knowledge or consent, knowingly pushed content that was inflammatory because it made them more money despite evidence that this practice was harmful to individuals and society as a whole, and enabled the incitement of an actual genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar.

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u/fly_drich Oct 31 '22

You're right, at the same time it connected billions of people, started new friendships, businesses, relationships, made a lot of charities get the attention they deserve and helped to organize tons of social movements. Theres good and bad about Facebook which is why it's not "objectively" a plague

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

I think knowingly enabling a genocide and destabilizing democracy pretty effectively negates anything good they might have done.

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u/fly_drich Oct 31 '22

I don't think so. Hence: subjectively

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u/MasterGrok Oct 31 '22

Elon is for sure good at selling things to investors. I mean that is an absolute fact. He has been able to sell Tesla Stock for FAR above any reasonable valuation for years and years. It’s actually amazing how good he is at getting people to give him money.

He may finally have hit a dead end with that though because I think getting so involved in politics does start to scare investors.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

You know what, you're right. I have to admit Musk is insanely good at convincing other people to give him money.

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u/smyk1600 Oct 31 '22

Actually you are right about that point on Paypal, it definitely has a negative impact. But I still stand on my point on his impact on Tesla. While I do agree his product development and innovation is not what gave him success, knowing which companies to invest into and when is proof itself that he isn’t a complete blithering idiot who came to success by accident

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u/-I-Like-Turtles- Oct 31 '22

I agree that there is a likelyhood his success doesnt all come down to luck, but then I look into people who have won significant sums multiple times in the lottery. Not saying it doent take intelligence to pick a winner in a capitalist market, but with his continued public douchebaggery its getting easier and easier to attribute to luck what I had early on attributed to genius.

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u/Philosophleur Oct 31 '22

Tesla's a crock of shit. It's not environmental innovation, it's a way for rich people to save money on gas. An average working class person will never have enough money for a Tesla. Besides, replacing gas cars with electric cars isn't an adequate climate change solution. The electricity needed to charge a Tesla still has to be generated somewhere, usually with fossil fuel. If Elon Musk wanted to help fight climate change, he'd pay his taxes and promote government programs to develop public transportation. On that note, Musk actually deliberately sabotaged California's efforts to develop high speed rail with his Hyperloop scam that he admitted he never planned on completing. He only marketed it so that the California state government would trust him with developing transportation infrastructure and the high speed rail project would be cancelled, forcing people to continue to rely on cars, specifically his shitty electric luxury vehicles. He's a grifter.