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. But he’s reached a level of “success” that distorts his perceptions and allows him to make terrible decisions while still feeling like he is coming out ahead.
I’m not intending to give him and out or demonize drugs. Sorry if that wasn’t 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 he’s 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 don’t 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 he’s 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 didn’t 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 isn’t 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 I’ll 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.
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.
That’s 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. Once upon a time, I thought he was actually interested in using his wealth to help solve the world’s problems. And in all fairness, Tesla and SolarX have had an impact on pushing our nation toward sustainable energy. 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".
Don’t 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 wasn’t even on his side in this one, and yes that’s 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 didn’t 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. It’s 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? He’s definitely testing the boundaries of what he can get away with in election interference. That stunt of putting a spam/harmful content label on links to the NPR coverage of Trump’s Arlington Cemetery debacle was definitely an overt (if hilariously misguided) attempt to put his hand on the scales.
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u/GrumpyGiant Sep 02 '24
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. But he’s reached a level of “success” that distorts his perceptions and allows him to make terrible decisions while still feeling like he is coming out ahead.