this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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I think this is a little dangerous way of arguing. Now suddenly everyone that argues in favor of Tesla is an apologetic with a vested interest in being correct?
Everyone making a forum post have a vested interest in being correct, and you can make arguments for a case without being an “apologetic” / apostle / evangelist / fanboy etc.
In short, I don’t like this way of making arguments and trying to group all your argument opponents into some non thinking hive mind.
i mean, to be very blunt, if the Tesla apologetics want to not be grouped in that way they could start by not acting like a non-thinking hivemind. the issues with Elon and his products are well-stated, well-founded, well-established, and indisputable. Elon himself is a categorically awful person who wants to make the world a worse place and frequently undermines actually useful projects with techno-fetishistic, autofellating "solutions" that demonstrably don't work. he has maybe one project you can actually credit to him on any meaningful level (SpaceX) and on a good day his impulsiveness and reprehensible politics still get in the way of the good work people at that company do. literally anyone else would be a better leader for the company purely on the grounds that they would not be a distraction from that work. he was born rich and has parlayed a series of failures into being the richest, dumbest man alive--by any objective standard he is the classic person who has failed up.
but none of these critiques mean anything to his core fanbase, because they don't care and are fully bought into his mostly-manufactured cult of personality. there is no point in trying to argue this with that group; you can cite any number of the things i just listed at them and it rolls off them like water. frankly a lot of the time in my experience they'll do the cryptocurrency guy thing of accusing you of sowing FUD, or being jealous of Elon, or just being a woke lib because you want public transportation and not the masturbatory self-indulgence that is the "Hyperloop".
Okay but none of that is relevant to the question of "Are computers in their current condition better drivers than humans?". No one here thinks that Elon is cool or good, I haven't seen a single fanboy comment so far. But that doesn't change the hard facts about the things that a couple of his companies (who have hired a lot of very good engineers) have accomplished. Pretending that Tesla and SpaceX have zero accomplishments or benefits does not enhance your arguments against their boss, it detracts from them by discrediting you. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to make, many of them absolutely damning, there's no need to falsify anything to condemn them.
Elon might literally be the single most influential tech charlatan and serial tech bullshit artist currently living, and generally engages in amoral behavior that makes it obvious he will never do the right thing unless compelled to do so by a government or court of law.[^1] absent a third-party source independently going over all of the relevant data here and publishing it in some kind of peer-reviewed scientific journal, i would not trust a single word or piece of data the guy or any of his companies have on this subject--or indeed any subject where he has a vested interest in a favorable outcome that would make him more money.
[^1]: he has, for example, interacted favorably and consistently with people who think there is a satanic cabal of Democrats who sacrifice children to harvest their adrenochrome and use it in blood rituals (and that the only way to solve this is systematic executions of liberals), and his website boosts people who want to commit genocide because he thinks anything else is censorship.
Let me just keep it civil and say that we absolutely never will see eye to eye, and I have no interest in trying to change your mind. I’ve said my peace on your argument technique and definitely stand by it after your reply, and I’m happy to leave it there.