The best part of this quote is that it mixes up average and median, because I heavily doubt that intelligence is on a normal distribution for some reason.
I suspect his critical thinking ability has been warped by the extreme insulation from consequences that comes from being the richest person on the planet.
If he had to actually seriously consider consequences he might surprise us by showing average or better mental acuity. Ā But heās reached a level of āsuccessā that distorts his perceptions and allows him to make terrible decisions while still feeling like he is coming out ahead.
Iām not intending to give him and out or demonize drugs. Sorry if that wasnāt quite clear
What I mean is, whatever the status of his cognitive abilities is these days, the ketamine played a part. I do not think heās excused from anything because he did the drug, just that it plays a part.
Also, regarding the demonizing, I would say it was his overuse, or abuse of it, that is the problem, not the drug itself. He fell victim to bio-chemical modifications in his brain and became dependent on something.
To be clear, I donāt mean anything about his particular use of the drug as a condemnation of the drug or as a moral failing on his part. Simply that it played a part in his current state.
Now, as to what that state is, how much the ketamine impacted things, what other substances heās consumed, what moral failings he may have, or his levels of responsibility for various actions those are things that fall outside the scope of my statement and would require nuanced examination and discussion
Appreciate and mostly agree with the elaboration. The thing is your initial post comes off as a bit of a thoughtless poke. While surely substance abuse can impact peoples behavior and personality, especially long term - I think we have a plethora of examples of harder users maintaining their mental acuity, or at least their moral integrity. Now of course these things impact people differently but to that end we also don't know what effect ketamine has had on Elon. For all we know it's actually helping him keep whatever semblance of 'together' there is and without it he'd be an even more unhinged wretch.
So while I don't think that was your intention, I didn't like the post as it does give him an out - like I don't even think it's a strech if in a few years he's trying to PR refurbish his image and blames the ketamine
I see what you mean. My intention was to add a component I saw as likely contributing to where Elon is these days. It could seem a thoughtless poke because I was attempting to be lighthearted.
As for offering him an out, I agree I didnāt explicitly stated as such in my initial post, but I do not mean to refer to his ketamine abuse as an excuse. Same as getting drunk and killing someone with your car, the intoxication was a contributing factor, but isnāt the entire story
There is no out for him, he is entirely responsible for what he does and the downstream consequences.
Thank yuh for the feedback about the presentation of the initial comment. Going forward Iāll try to be a bit clearer regarding things that may be inferred from what I say.
Hope you have a good one. Be well, Internet Friend
I mean I've been addicted to ketamine and I absolutely had delusions of grandeur and very little understanding of just how weird everyone thought I was acting. When I was on it I thought I was totally passing and nobody could tell.Ā
Ok but that's anecdotal. I can say, and this is true - not just being a contrarian, that I knew several people who successfully used it as a stepping stone from heroin abuse to sobriety. This was roughly 15 years ago, so it wasn't clinical or legal and I wouldn't definitively even say am intentional road to sobriety on their part but it did the trick. Got me interested in possibly investing when ketamine therapy was going through FDA approval but iirc Johnson & Johnson were first to get approved and for such an established company it barely made an impact in their share price. Anyway that's a bit of a tangent, point is my experience - albeit second hand, is also anecdotal.
Thatās what I was missing! I had the misfortune of being born in America to an only moderately well off family that went bankrupt during the divorce. I should get a mulligan and hope for a more morally evil family this time around.
No matter how much money someone has, the very basic part of being human is being a good parent. If you stripped him of everything he has, he still is a horrendous shithead of a father to his kids. He can't even be a base human.
Not arguing that he is decent at all. Ā Once upon a time, I thought he was actually interested in using his wealth to help solve the worldās problems. Ā And in all fairness, Tesla and SolarX have had an impact on pushing our nation toward sustainable energy. Ā But his narcissistic nature has been on full display for a good while now and whatever positive impact he has had is now being corroded by his toxic political stances.
And yes, his role as a father is clearly as important to him as the wellbeing of his employees.
I think it goes beyond being the richest. The guy obviously had relationship issues long before he became a billionaire, it's just at that point he then had literal "fuck you" money. Combined that with obvious self esteem issues and warped sense of masculinity and suddenly his behavior makes a lot more sense.
He is an asshole regardless, but he is also definitely a question of "nature vs nurture".
Donāt forget Elon harassed a kid because his dad committed suicide so hard the kid ended up having to push Elon down a flight of stairs to get him to stop. This was back in grade school, the one he was driven to everyday in a rolls Royce. Elon own dad wasnāt even on his side in this one, and yes thatās the same dad who has impregnated his own step daughter twice now.
Whenever I hear this story, I like to imagine that the push down the stairs happened with all the other kids around, and every single one of them just laughed at Elon as he struggled not to cry, most assuredly wondering why nobody wanted to be his friend.
It is the best to go look up things yourself about Elno, you will find out so much more disturbing crap you didnāt even know about. In fact there is so much it is actually a real pain in the ass to find the specific story your referencing. You might even find out about the time he got naked pulled his dick out and tried to get the space X flight attendant to jerk him off
In exchange for a horse then used US taxpayer money to force her into signing an NDA for $250,000.
"his critical thinking ability has been warped by the extreme insulation"
Exactly - completely sheltered from any consequences of his own choices. Because he's rich. That's it. And now rich and powerful thanks to SpaceX and Twitter.
I suspect he's going to have the mother of all shit-fits when he discovers reality.
If he discovers reality. Ā Itās hard to imagine someone that obscenely wealthy ever coming close enough to ruin to be shaken out of their mental fantasy palace.
Maybe if he pushes too hard on the limits of the law and has his assets frozen? Ā Heās definitely testing the boundaries of what he can get away with in election interference. Ā That stunt of putting a spam/harmful content label on links to the NPR coverage of Trumpās Arlington Cemetery debacle was definitely an overt (if hilariously misguided) attempt to put his hand on the scales.
I think he was maybe of very-above-average intelligence at one timeā¦ but vanity, self-grandeur, jealousy, and ego (not to mention drugs & alcohol) can make a person dumb in a shockingly short amount of time.
Helped to create PayPal? He might have been there, but let's not exaggerate his role. The board didn't oust him and brought Peter Thiel back without a reason. It was actually under Thiel's leadership that PayPal went anywhere and I am not aware of any revolutionary contribution Musk had. Apart from being a shareholder and dreaming up a similar idea with his original x.com.
Now, I'll give him bringing EVs into public attention and making them cool. But let's not pretend like Telsa squandered all the first to the market advantage and is being ran into the ground specifically through Musk's gimmick - based leadership. Cybertruck, self -steering, quality control and let's not forget how well Optimus is doing. Because Tesla is a robotics company, right?
Tesla could have been something, but now it's grossly overvalued, makes barely any profit to justify it's value ( made 97 million profit in 2023 and is valued at 79 billion. Make it make sense) and is being outsold and outdone by its competitors. And right now is just a glorified pump and dump stock asset portfolio for Musk to make loans against. So I guess his grifting skill shines there.
His whole thing was to jump on emerging, trendy markets but he did basically what Theranos lady did. Promising wild, too good to be true outcomes to pump the stock value, then promising even harder and even more whey they didn't materialise. I mean, Hyperloop is famously well run, tight operation that worked out really well, and he is bang right on track to get to Mars. Yes? That self steering works like a charm a was delivered on time. Right?
And he seems to got bored with doing even that, seeing as all he seems to be doing is being edgelord on twitter and taking ketamine.
Sorry, what? You're seriously saying that Tesla is behind nowadays? Name one EV babd that isn't Chinese that outsells Teslas. Tesla is the one who really made self steering a popular thing, and yes, in my experience, it works near flawlessly. I'll give you quality control, that is definitely a bad spot. But the CyberTruck? It is hugely popular and successful. It's the most sold car, at least in America, that is over $100k. Tesla is selling plenty of those. How is it running the company down? Secondly, dice when is Tesla a robotics company? Last time I checked, they are more of a car company. You could even go with software, but robotics? Also, how is Tesla being outdone by competitors? For example, not one single car out there, not one, is close to the software experience of a Tesla, and how well it works. No other car is as safe as a Tesla is, which had been proven. Fun fact: The Tesla Model X was the first SUV to receive 5 stars in the rollover category (NHSA). I believe it also was the first to get 5 stars on everything. My point being, I don't get where you come from, saying things like Tesla is basically way behind a the competition, and the fact that Tesla is "ring run into the ground". That's just my take on it, though. Apologies for any typos I may have missed.
The other way round - Tesla is massively overvalued and not profitable as it seems. Now, Tesla is still the market leader in US but it's market share is decreasing - a trend that is not likely to change as other car manufacturers are getting to grips with EVs, and while their numbers are not there, Tesla's sales remain more or less the same. And while they have premium pricing, they are not offering anything that vastly different or superior to their competitors , which will make harder penetrating markets outside US. Especially, you mentioned China, a huge market that will be almost impossible to crack, while knowing Chinese manufacturers, they will be able to provide a budget option that may compete on price points.
And they spend time on undercooked weirdness like the infamous cybertruck. I somehow don't see it being popular anywhere outside US and sold just over 10,000 units this year. I don't know, but I am not convinced that this is a particularly impressive number.
All I am saying that back around 2014 or so, Tesla seemed to a generation ahead of anything else. Now they are just another EV company.
By robotics I meant - Tesla Optimus, formerly known as Tesla Bot. Look it up. Sounds fancy, but it went nowhere for years, it's clearly way behind the competition, and is just a huge R&D resource drain in my opinion. I mean - a company should do one thing well rather than try to do a bit of everything because it sounds cool. Am not an engineer, but designing a bipedal robot is a different game than designing a car.
Sort of, kind of but I would strongly debate that he is specialised in anything really. He is wealthy and he buys shit. That is it. He is not even a super good businessman.
He's good at marketing I guess? He managed to convince everyone for quite a while that he is this tech visionary.
He is good at overpromising and hyping things up, I'll give him that. But he seems to have lost any and all interest in anything but tweeting and culture wars nonsense.
His sights are on some sort of position in Trump's administration because it's definitely not on his companies at the moment.
Oh yeah his complex with Twitter is notorious. I think what he did with SpaceX and Tesla are worthy of some praise for sure. But he needs to refocus. Go on a retreat or something and chill the fuck out. His harassment of female employees is a big red flag too.
Heās certainly not dumb though, and has plenty of good ideas and a philanthropic approach to business. I find myself liking him more than I dislike him. But as someone who also struggles with adhd/autism I can see that guy spiraling down the modern toxic zeitgeist further and further to his own detriment. I worry for his mental health, because as someone of a lot of wealth and power that has consequences. When heās healthy and mentally sound though, he can get a lot of good things done.
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u/Satanicjamnik Sep 02 '24
At this point it's difficult to believe that he is of average intelligence.