So much for freedom of speech

LOL…one of the left’s greatest heroes has become their sworn enemy.

This is the funniest thing I have seen in a while. You really couldn’t make this up.

Serious high school sh*t.

4 Likes

I think some degree of self-deception ends up being useful as an entrepreneur and Elon has it in spades - I think he more or less believes 99% of what he says? Like, I bet even after all the Twitter bands, he still thinks he is the free-speechingest person who has ever free-speeched?

And there is no easier thing to delude yourself on than AI/ML in general, and self-driving in particular. There has been so much progress in hardware, NN architecture, etc, it is easy to see how you could think it could happen soon. And unfortunately, people throw out numbers like “It works in 99.9% of cases, but the last 0.1% is really hard” and it gives the illusion that if we just work our way to enough 9s on the end of that number it’ll be great. But nobody mentions (or even knows) what the denominator is, which ends up being critical.

Or people talk about needing to figure out good fallbacks for when it is wrong, but that is a trap as well. There are so many cases of cars in tests and in real-life (including, but certainly not limited to, Teslas) gleefully driving into obstacles, pedestrians, or just doing dumb things without even realizing it - getting it to even know that it doesn’t know what to do or is about to do something bad is a big problem in itself! Even if you can do that, there is still no good fallback other than “Jesus take the wheel!” because human context-switching and reaction times are much, much too slow.

When I first got into machine learning as part of my career, I thought we were a decade or two from self-driving cars, but now I think our current approaches will never get us there and if we do get there, it will require some other breakthrough first.

2 Likes

That is not a crazy strategy for some people/businesses. But Musk has so much on his plate he can’t afford to add a ton of litigation to his schedule. He is a micromanager, he isn’t just going to delegate all litigation to his Chief Legal Officer (although in fairness even if he wanted to he would need to hire one + a legal team first). Never mind he would probably need to testify at some of these trials/give depositions.

Really, since Musk fired his long-time firm, Cooley LLP, after they wouldn’t fire an associate who he disliked for her prior work at the SEC, he has done badly in court. More litigation, absent a plan to stall as long as possible before eventually filing for bankruptcy, doesnt seem like the answer.

1 Like

You are missing the point here, obviously, and trying to make it about politics when it is not. So keep on topic.

1 Like

I’m looking for a Toyota Camry LSE, I want to pay $250/month all-in but dealer came back at $587/month with only my trade-in down. My Jeep is a lease that is ending through Chrysler Capital but I’m so happy they are taking it so I don’t have to pay my disposition fee. Is this a good deal?

EDIT: Camry is fully loaded.

9 Likes

Calculating Figure It Out GIF

2 Likes

“Buy ‘em out boys…. Well I didn’t get rich by writing a lot of checks”

4 Likes

Ahh you beat me to it. Doh!

3 Likes

I can’t get that laugh out of my head now. :rofl:

2 Likes
1 Like

This hasn’t been slow moded yet?

I do think Elon is crazy… but doesn’t every disruptor have to be?

Perhaps, but being crazy isn’t conducive to running a large public company. Those type of folks do better cashing out once the disruption has occured. Think the PayPal mafia.

It’s not a great look testifying in a Tesla shareholder lawsuit that you are appropriately focused on that company while days before you tweeted out that you are routinely pulling all nighters at Twitter HQ. Beyond that, his conduct is such that any independent board would be highly considering firing him/have already done so. There is a reason the CEOs of Coke, Walmart, Bank of America etc… aren’t tweeting out there political beliefs. The country is divided 50/50. You can’t be alienating either side. Keep quiet and just donate money super PACs.

For all the free speech folks: To be clear, Musk has a right to tweet his political beliefs. But the Board also has a right to fire him for those actions.

3 Likes

True. There is a good crazy and a bad crazy… and I’m not crazy enough to tell you who is what. :slight_smile:

I’d like to buyout my bmw lease? Is this a good deal?

I totaled my car, can I commit insurance fraud and get that sweet equity check?

2 Likes

image

1 Like

This was my understanding, as well. I haven’t read the article you’ve linked (yet), but, when I stop to think about all of the various bits of data that you must process for the driving process to be relatively safe (as opposed to the errors being simply an inconvenience), it’s actually rather astonishing (and perhaps rather astonishing that human driving cars doesn’t go wrong more often?). But I am not an engineer or a tech person.

Oh, that’s news to me… And I am firmly on “The Left.” But I also don’t participate in social media and such. Didn’t know he was supposed to have been a hero to me…

My own thought was that he was more a “hero” to tech bros (which I def am not).

The thing is, does that matter? I mean, it matters to me. It clearly matters to you. But I think the events of, like, human history indicate that it may not “matter” more broadly than that (unfortunately).

To bring this back on topic… Since I do not follow social media, I am confused as to where there was an expectation that Musk would run Twitter in any other fashion than it is currently being run. And I am also confused as to why people think that way might be “wrong” since Twitter is a private entity.

But, in addition to not being an engineer or a tech bro, I am also not a lawyer. :slight_smile:

1 Like

The opposite is true, too, lol. People who think EVs and “green energy” are some governmental conspiracy to control the masses are now rallying behind a guy who builds EVs and solar panels… you really couldn’t make this up.

The irony is this will probably come back to bite them… they are putting a lot of eggs in Elon’s basket right now, but the dude isn’t loyal to anyone except dead presidents. No doubt in my mind he will 100% throw anyone under the bus to make a quick buck. His stances are all over the place and constantly changing. Sounds sorta familiar now that I type it out… :rhinoceros: at least he can’t run for president since he wasn’t born here.

5 Likes

Musk indicated he would unban many accounts that were banned when he took over, which he did (and subsequently rebanned some). Musk also advocated for free speech, yet banned someone for tracking his plane, and banned reporters for being critical of him. He envisions Twitter as being the internet “town hall,” where you can come and speak freely about whatever.

While it is true that it is a private company, so you have to play by their rules, Musk is changing the rules if it affects him personally. I can kind of understand the banning of the dude tracking his plane, but it’s not really “free speech” if you’re banning reporters for being critical of you and your actions (Musk).

In other words, he’s coming off as a bit of a hypocrite, and plays by his own set of rules.

I get what you’re saying, and agree to a point. That said, being a maniacal dick runs the risk of alienating investors too, and Musk needs those dead presidents for his businesses to survive. In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t had much of an affect thus far, however, with advertisers pulling back from Twitter now that Elon is running his mouth, and TSLA’s value plummeting, causing some board members to call for a new CEO, that could be changing.

The weirdest thing I have witnessed (daily) since his purchase is that Twitter is now on every local news station with the lead-in story (and is mentioned throughout). It is ridiculous when many vital things are occurring.

Also, I do not do the social media thing, but I follow stories here and there (because you find so much more in the form of news and information on SM than you do on actual television news). But Twitter was the platform no one cared about. An example is follower count – if you compare the majority who have Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc., accounts, the lowest number of followers (by far) has always been Twitter. But now, everyone wants to pretend they utilized it so much. I know people who are verified and extremely (i.e., too active) on other platforms which never post on Twitter. Some I know have not posted in years, but now they are complaining.

The final form of ridiculousness came when a local Bay Area news station opened their evening newscast with the revelation that Twitter (I believe) would not make a difference between legacy and subscription checkmarks. The anchors (who have blue checkmarks) were livid, rolling their eyes, etc. It was a pathetic display. Some have not tweeted anything in 3-6 years (Instagram and TikTok have daily posts) and do not tweet news-based information. But now, suddenly, the integrity of news is critical. Huh?

I have no opinion about Elon, but if these people who wanted to somehow feel superior due to a checkmark had an issue, they could have purchased Twitter.

Oh, wait.

This particular discussion was a topic on KNX News Radio locally. It’s like they read LH. :slight_smile:

They were focusing on how Elon keeps changing Twitter’s rules to suit his personal preferences.

He can do what he wants…, I think it’s pretending like he’s not is what is irking people.

1 Like