Tesla could have found a path forward without Musk. It might've been painful or even dangerous financially, but they could've come up with something. Same with the other companies Musk "runs".
So long Musk remains at the head of any public company, despite everything that has happened - despite Musk being literally personally responsible for large scale atrocity and mass-death - not to mention all white supremacist stuff he's doing daily it seems, there's no real trade-offs for us plebs to fuss over.
Those companies should pay a price. Musk has turned himself into a real force for real evil in the world, yet they choose to be a party to it, because it's financially convenient.
So... any company that chooses to still keep him at the helm should be facing down total ruination, until and unless they decide to remedy the situation. If never do, well they've made their choice.
I mean, Musk should probably be in jail for a very long time, but at the very least, he should be blacklisted in the business and financial (and political) world, for good.
He jumped right into the center of US politics, and turned himself into one of the most toxic figures within it, while acting like an unhinged conspiracy addled maniac. Then he broke the law and killed a bunch of the poorest people in the world with his DOGE chainsaw (Trump shares equal blame tbf).
He used a bunch of star-struck 20-something "hardcore" rookie devs to be his executioners. Young devs like many of the commenters/readers on this site. Besides having the deaths of thousands directly on their conscience, some of those kids may face real legal jeopardy after all this. Is that something anyone here wants for themselves or any their fellow industry people here on HN?
Compartmentalizing tech interest away from real moral and political consequences is how, despite technical brilliance, you can end up a useful idiot and a party to atrocity.
Years ago these kinds of dilemmas were farther away. Tech wasn't as embroiled in politics. Tech hadn't eaten everything yet. Now it has and these dilemmas are in front of us today.
> I don't know I felt like for 4 years we were hammered about defunding police or something. If you tell me that's far-left that's fine, but realize that's what your news has been pushing.
As another commenter said, sounds like you are internalizing right-wing propaganda about what Democrats do, and mixing it up with what Democrats actually do. By and large, the party rejected that idea.
I can only even think of one or two right-wing media outfits that are serious and reality based (The Dispatch) - if you're listening to just about anyone else on the right, it's a fever swamp of conspiracy theories and fun-house mirror delusional reality. It's really, really bad in the Trump era, the entire right wing media apparatus is now organized entirely around his Orwellian lies.
> I'm also certain that without ICE there would literally be unlimited immigration
Before 9/11, there was no ICE. Immigration violations were treated as an administrative matter. Immigration enforcement was a job for guys with clipboards, not guns - and should be again.
> Also if nobody is "for crime" why are people that are arrested 45 times still out killing people? The judges and prosecutors found to be releasing these people are 100% democratic placed.
Do you have specific cases in mind here? In any case, judges don't have unlimited discretion on these kinds of things. There are laws and guidelines on this stuff. You can't just lock someone up for life for a bunch of misdemeanors or other petty crimes.
You always have to vet these kinds of claims by looking at whether the judges followed the law or abused discretion, etc.
I think it's pretty likely it would have been mostly left alone if not for Musk. No one was asking for PEPFAR to be killed, for example - it's one of the few things in Washington with near unanimous bipartisan goodwill and it was actually a point of pride and prestige for Republicans.
Lots of R's were really angry. It was eventually spun up again, now under the direct control of the State Dept, but the sudden interruption did ungodly amounts of damage in the interregnum.
> It did some good, yes, but from what I can tell, it was better to shut it down.
Whatever you are reading is badly misinforming you.
I'm sure there was some reform and cleanup to do in certain USAID programs, but the programs Musk killed or interrupted were literally the best lives-saved-per-dollar programs on the planet. PEPFAR, for example, is credited with saving 25+ million lives since it was created during GWB's term.
There's also the rather important point that what Musk did was totally illegal. These are programs created by congress and their funding is mandated by law.
I'm not sure asking the AI to support or oppose something is the kind of bias I would really worry about, unless those "opinions" degrade other kinds of queries.
I'd be more interested to see how well the AI's do when asked to assume a political view, and either steelman or debunk arguments
Maybe it's just that conversing with something or someone that is acting manipulative can be unpleasant in and of itself, even if the manipulation is not successful.
Each time I hear the bot emote, it's like a subtle suggestion to just play along and anthropomorphize it - it feels weird, silly and annoying
In one of the videos the AI quips back things like "Happens to the best of us" - its basically pretending to be human and that feels kind of creepy and weird, like it's trying to cultivate a para-social emotional bond.
I just want voice assistants to reliably understand what I say and do what I mean
So hopefully you can turn that off.
There are plenty of applications for that more human conversational style though (from mock interviews, improv practice, learning languages, etc) - I just don't want that for most things.
The goal was simply to display performative strongman machismo using the military (just like the missile strikes on alleged drug boats). It's a branding exercise for Trump personally (not even for the US as a whole). To that end, it doesn't seem to be working, especially with the Iran quagmire.
Money is important, but there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to lobbying and campaigning. Elon's success at putting candidates into office isn't great, despite flooding massive amounts of cash into several elections.
Candidates themselves and the way they campaign matters more. Cuomo had 3x the warchest than Mamdani had, for example.
Small dollar donations can also level the playing field for candidates that can gain some national appeal (this does come with its own set of problems and perverse incentives, though)
When people are added to the economy, demand increases, including demand for more labor.
The downward pressure on wages that one might intuitively expect from immigrant labor is basically erased by those increases in demand. It's self-reinforcing.
The Biden admin was not far-left. Biden was basically a mainline Liberal Democrat and much closer to the center than far-left. The far-left basically hates mainline Liberal Democrats like Biden.
The truth is, assimilation is usually a process that takes a generation or two. First generation immigrants don't assimilate very well. Many never manage to even learn the host country's language.
Assimilation really happens at the level of their descendants, who grow up entirely within the host country, going to their schools, consuming their pop culture, etc, and think of themselves as Swedes or Americans or whatever.
(Also, FWIW, those immigration surges were good things (for the US), and likely helped the US stick the "soft landing" instead of slipping into a post-covid recession)
So long Musk remains at the head of any public company, despite everything that has happened - despite Musk being literally personally responsible for large scale atrocity and mass-death - not to mention all white supremacist stuff he's doing daily it seems, there's no real trade-offs for us plebs to fuss over.
Those companies should pay a price. Musk has turned himself into a real force for real evil in the world, yet they choose to be a party to it, because it's financially convenient.
So... any company that chooses to still keep him at the helm should be facing down total ruination, until and unless they decide to remedy the situation. If never do, well they've made their choice.
I mean, Musk should probably be in jail for a very long time, but at the very least, he should be blacklisted in the business and financial (and political) world, for good.