"That man" is the only person so far who's actually helped the Iranian people get their voices heard amidst government shutdown of the entire internet.
As I recently said about Scott Adams: "Good things can be done by Bad people." I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.
For example, Planned Parenthood--an organization I definitely believe in--was essentially created by a woman who was a eugenicist--something I definitely do not believe in.
Were I to be supporting PP when Sanger was still alive, I would not have been enriching her, or enabling other things that she believed in (at least not to any extent that would trouble me). Mostly because PP has always been a not-for-profit organization.
Being a Starlink customer, to me, has a straight line connection to enabling that man to do all the things he does.
> I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.
I don't think anyone is doing that though. But to decide whether to give someone's business money you do have to come to some sort of decision about their net good vs bad. It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.
> It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.
Why not flip this on its head? It's also logically consistent for people to be aware that Elon has done things they disagree with and still choose to buy his products.
people understandably love to understand complex things as simple logical puzzle pieces. they do it with words too. people have this tendency to act like words are formally-defined mathematical concepts, and then agonise over whether their experiences fit those concepts, then use those concepts as proof for their arguments. this is, of course, essentially simply a description of communicating with language, and for most words it's absolutely fine; the words have so little variance and breadth in definition that it doesn't matter. the issue arises when the words are not clearly defined, and it becomes even worse (and more common) when the words are emotionally loaded. people adore using emotionally, loaded, weakly defined terms to end an argument quickly. it's essentially sophistry. we're all absolutely awash with these terms right now due to the dominance of headlines, tweets, content titles and other short form stretches that demand dense, emotionally charged meaning in a small space. if you'd like some examples, take "fascism", "sexual harassment" and "eugenics".
don't say someone is "essentially a eugenicist". it's such a vaguely defined term that this borders on useless. if you believe something like this, justify it with: "she supported x policy I disagree with" or "she believed in the reduction of y trait in the populace" or whatever it is that triggered you to take on this belief in the first place
By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Persian-language broadcasting by Voice of America and Radio Farda has been destroyed by Musk.
> By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
Is this a joke? Persians never received such aids. If USAID sent any money to Iran, it went straight to the islamic regime's proxies in the region.
As the other poster said, low effort reply. You can start with the Bam earthquake and work your way to the loss of Radio Farda. You beloved Musk put an end to the Middle Eastern Broadcasting Network.
I do not want my technology tied to some person I consider of despicable character. Would I buy a cell phone, even at a good deal from Putin? No. Corporations have increasingly become political. Thanks, United vs FEC! So we see them taking a knee to gain commercial advantage. And as in this case harm to our democracy.
In my opinion, no discussion about Starlink is complete without considering whether the money you pay will be used to profit people or causes you do not want.
If you need this, then great. But I have other choices, just as I would not touch a tesla even if you gave it to me. I just am not that desperate.
I’m always amazed how much people attribute to citizens united, a ruling that overturned portions of a law that was only on the books for 7 years at the time.
Hmmm. The ruling had a far greater impact than simply that law. It established that corporations have the same right to free speech that ordinary citizens do as a general principle.
What is the result. We now have a situation where a candidate cannot be elected without a large amount of funding. You will need to either be a billionaire or a corporate toady to get elected. Who is the elected official beholden to? What does the elected official have to do to improve their chances of re-election? Do better by the voters do better by the corporation. This is simple logic.
Added to that you have corporations and the rich controlling the media. Murdoch, Bezos, Musk. If the common citizens want to have a living wage be the minimum, Jeff Bezos does not. How willing is the Washington Post to raise the banner of changing the US minimum wage? This is a rhetorical question as the answer is obvious.
And any media that are not outright owned by the greed afflicted, most media receive a substantial part of their income from advertising, they are also not beholden to common citizens. The New York Times wants to appeal to the rich because that is the market for their advertisers. That is why you see stories in the NYT about "How much second vacation home will two million buy you in Maine". And that is why you do not see stories about "How much hovel will minimum wage buy you in Maine".
Guy is literally mask of white supremacist, why are you supporting this buddy? But yeah, the people that think his robot legions will solve world poverty and bring "sustainable abundance" for all are the sane ration thinking ones.
While I semi-agree, they both do plenty to encourage it. I mostly just wish Elon would stop using the R word. Not enough that I’m going to cancel my plan, but come on.
I get the fight to keep one word to remain non-offensive, instead of changing it every ~10yrs. It might be a locality thing too, when I was going to school the teachers used "special education" but now I've unintentionally offended with that as well. Google says it's "Intellectually Disabled" now. It's hard to keep up, and pretty annoying to constantly be tip-toeing around certain words.
I leave it to others to fight that fight, but I'd take any word.
I'm not certain what "the R word" is, but if you mean "retard" (and derivatives), then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that word. No reasonable person is offended by calling things retarded.
I agree that no person should be offended. Obviously that's not ground truth..
If we could all agree that life would be easier if people were offended less, then instead of only trying to get people to offend other people less by telling them what is acceptable to say we could also get people to try to not take offense as much when they hear what they don't want to hear we'd have solved the offense problem from both ends.
TL;DR: Just be nice. Life's easier when you're nice even when people aren't nice to you but it does take effort.
I do get that certain people go way too far with the PC stuff, but I’m happy to increase the number of words I don’t use by 1 in this particular instance because it is reasonably offensive to some people. I just lump it in with racial slurs.
And like I said, I’m not dropping my Starlink over it, I just think the world would be a tiny bit better if he didn’t use it.
You don’t have any savings in the bank, right? That money you’re hoarding could be buying mosquito nets to save lives - you’re killing people by not donating everything you have.
There is no moral requirement for me to impoverish myself in response to an idiot cutting government/public spending on critical assistance to those in need.
There might be other moral imperatives which indicate that I ought to cash out the 401(k) and give it to people who need support, but this guy and his fucked up "DOGE" bullshit ain't it.
Note the same, maybe if my bank account was equivalent to Elon Musk's it would be a fair argument but hardly the same to expect a shitposter to be equivalent to a man who is a billionaire.
Totally the same. $1 is $1, and it can go to saving those very lives you’re talking about. Put your money where your mouth is - otherwise you just want to virtue signal with my tax dollars.
I do, through my tax dollars. And the amount of money that was DOGEd was literally couch cushion change on the scale of the federal budget. And not only did those cuts directly lead to deaths but weakened US soft power all around the world, letting China step in.
China’s soft power play yielded returns: ports, minerals, oil, factories, customers for their exports.
The only Americans benefiting from the existing aid scheme are the network of lobbyists and NGOs.
As I said upthread, if you’re that motivated, donate $500 to a high-impact charity and you’ll do far more good for people on the ground than what your taxes were doing at USAID.
So right now, there are nearly 400,000 verifiable deaths due to the cuts of these programs. It's on track to be way worse than what I imagined, several million to 14 million.
I'm sorry but that's just straight up evil behavior.
It's not just a matter of funding, but infrastructure in place (much of which constituted relationships with local communities) that Marco Rubio ordered dismantled immediately.
My concern is that man, not the many people who work in the corporations who make the computing devices that I use. It's not exactly that those corporations have an unblemished record, but compared to what that guy did during his brief utterly ruinous stint with DOGE and in his election support of that other guy, there isn't a computing device company that doesn't look like St Francis of Assissi.
Where are they going to go? Honest question, because capital flight is always a threat that never materializes. Turns out the actual pillars of wealth can't easily be extracted out of the country.
Yes and the seeds have already been planted by the current US administration taking various financial stakes in public companies as a condition of corporate welfare.
I don't see this as a good analogy, because the financial crisis bailout appeared to save the companies from shuttering, which is not what happened under the current admin.
Those were just repaying the loans, having a stake in a company is completely different. It's not hard to push that further and in more creative ways too.
Even better, this is a policy that has been done by multiple Presidents. All you need know is an executive willing to do it as it's clearly in the President's power to dictate commerce if they can force the federal government to take equity in various companies at any time (even better if said company relies on US welfare to exist).
Huge difference between taking an equity stake in a failing company and nationalizing a successful company. Either way, those seeds were planted well before this admin, though this admin can be seen to have watered/tended them.
One of those differences being "Hey, we want to buy some shares at market price, will you sell them to us?" vs "We're taking over your company, and if you don't like it, talk to the men with the guns".
