I actually think this is quite a long way away from funny. We've been able to watch Elon Musk get radicalized in real time. That's quite worrying when you consider the amount of resources he has available to him. During the Trump years there was a lot of talk about how Trump is bad, but fundamentally incompetent. Well now we're going to see what extremism looks like when a far more competent person is orchestrating it.
Are we watching musk "get" radicalized? Or has he always been that way?
Because I remember way back, when journalists would write poor reviews of Tesla, he would go after them... typically accusing them of being compromised in some way, or not really being a journalist.
Then there's the swatting of a tesla wistleblower.
Or when a customer was "rude", he canceled their tesla pre-order.
Or when that tesla employee posted a self driving video of his own car--he fired him.
Or when there was an anonymous blogger that posted negative tesla investment advice, musk tracked him down, and called his employer trying to get him fired.
Im not going to keep going.. there are so many of these dating back a decade. I think the truth is he said what he thought people wanted to hear ("free speech absolutism"), and then once he obtained twitter, who he really is--exceptionally thin skinned--wont let him run it in a principled way.
> Are we watching musk "get" radicalized? Or has he always been that way?
I would describe it as what happens when existing personality traits are met by a bunch of sycophants. He’s been like this for as long as he’s been on the public stage, got worse as his wealth grew and social feedback for bad choices lessened, but now he has a bunch of alt-right types cheering on his every move so he’s not only getting positive feedback but it’s coordinated in one direction.
It’s like the difference between someone having alcohol problems and someone having alcohol problems when all of their friends are barflies and they just bought a bar.
Elon Musk just _pretends_ to have Asperger's. I know plenty of people on the spectrum, they aren't assholes.
There's also the "Ye's bipolar disorder" effect. Its a challenge I'm sure to have it, but I also know people who are bipolar. Anti-semitism is _NOT_ on the list of symptoms. We can criticize Ye's anti-semetism without making fun of his bipolar / mental illness.
So even _IF_ Elon hada Asperger's (and I'm not convinced he does. I think its all pretend for more clicks / his public relations image), there's nothing about Asperger's that makes you a self-contradicting asshole.
I agree and not trying to typecast—but maybe their personality + Asperger’s = dubious people-oriented decisions? I’m not a doctor nor do I know anyone with Asperger’s but it is a variable at play.
But quickly looking it up it’s a social-oriented disorder. Elon is making dubious social-oriented decisions.
The entire field of psychology is about dubious social-oriented decisions and classifying them (hoping that by classifying them, we can gain insights into how to improve behavior).
The kinds of dubious social-oriented decisions associated with Asperger's does _NOT_ match what Elon Musk is doing. What he is doing is closer to narcissistic personality disorder and/or sociopathic personality disorder.
Being a dick doesn't disqualify you from being on the spectrum.
Anecdotally, from the Aspergous people I know, they and Elon share a certain kind of body language you pick up on over time. It's a slight fidgeting as if clothes are constantly uncomfortable (likely due to constant stimulation).
> but I also know people who are bipolar. Anti-semitism is _NOT_ on the list of symptoms.
Obsessing over some socially unacceptable idea absolutely can be a manifestation of bipolar disorder for some people. Especially when one considers that bipolar can sometimes be associated with psychosis, and obsessive antisemitic/racist/etc thoughts are not uncommon in people with psychosis (famous example: Terry Davis, who I think actually even had a bipolar diagnosis at one point - it is common for people to initially be diagnosed with bipolar before eventually getting a schizophrenia or schizoaffective diagnosis as the psychotic symptoms become more prominent and enduring).
Kanye’s antisemitism is wrong and reprehensible. I can’t tell to what extent it is a symptom of his mental health problems, and I don’t think you really can either: neither of us is a mental health professional, and he is not our patient/client. But simply looking at a list of symptoms, and saying “X is not on it”, is a very ignorant way to approach the topic. Even if his antisemitism is partially due to his bipolar, that doesn’t mean he should just be allowed to get away with it, just like how a bipolar person who commits a crime in a manic state (sometimes happens) doesn’t just get away with it, although it may be appropriate to take that into account as a mitigating factor (as opposed to a “get out of jail free” card)
Similarly, I have no idea whether Musk has ASD. But ASD absolutely can make some people behave in a way which others perceive as being an “asshole”, so if he does have it, those behaviours could well in part be contributed to by it. That’s not saying that everyone with ASD is an “asshole”, or that a person with ASD has no responsibility to try their best to adjust to meet society’s expectations - but isn’t it obvious that a disorder whose symptoms can include difficulty thinking about social situations or understanding social rules, obliviousness to the thoughts and feelings of others, unusual obsessions, etc, can sometimes lead people to behave in ways perceived by others as being an “asshole”, even a failure to adjust one’s behaviour in response to that feedback?
Thanks for your help correcting a really common misconception about bipolar disorder.
People want to whitewash mental illness because mental illness can be scary and uncomfortable. There’s this concept of destigmatizing mental illness by pretending all sorts of bad behavior are somehow not associated with mental illness. This is often done to make people with minor mental illness feel less stigmatized but ironically can increase the stigma around people with more severe mental illness since now it’s not mental illness, they’re just a terrible terrible person.
Yes, psychosis absolutely can cause people to be antisemitic, racist, violent, etc. This should almost be obvious. But because it opens up difficult conversations about accountability, and because people with minor mental illness want sympathy without stigma, people like to pretend otherwise.
> But ASD absolutely can make some people behave in a way which others perceive as being an “asshole”, so if he does have it, those behaviours could well in part be contributed to by it.
Autistic people do things because they don't understand social norms.
Sociopaths do things because they don't _care_ about social norms.
There's a difference, and I can tell the difference. It is in a sociopath's best interest to pretend that they're autistic by the way.
Sociopathy, is often pointed out as an advantage in that situation. You rise above others in the social ladder and punch down your competitors. And we're seeing this behavior right now as Elon Musk is utilizing his powers to try to silence his critics (Mastodon).
Autism on the other hand, is a disadvantage in most leadership roles.
When we consider Elon Musk's role in society (leading corporations), he is far more likely to be a sociopath, rather than autistic. When we look at his behavior (punching down on Mastodon), its closer to sociopathy.
When we consider Musk's behavior in the past few weeks, it has more similarities to Narcissistic collapse than anything else I've heard of.
That said, a person as successful as Musk is, is more likely to have BAP (broad autism phenotype, subclinical ASD) than clinical ASD. BAP means one has some degree of autistic traits, but is insufficiently disabled by them to warrant a psychiatric diagnosis
Sociopathy isn’t a DSM-5 diagnosis - antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is. Diagnostic criteria for ASPD include a history of criminally antisocial behaviour (animal abuse, vandalism, violence, theft, etc), evident by age of 15. It also requires evidence to support a retrospective conduct disorder diagnosis prior to 15. I see zero evidence that is true of Musk. When psychiatrists evaluate someone for ASPD, they aren’t looking for mere allegations of questionable business ethics, they expect to see a criminal record, history of school expulsion, imprisonment or juvenile detention, someone repeatedly being fired for proven serious workplace misconduct, someone who refuses to seek gainful employment despite being capable of it, dishonourable discharge from armed services, domestic violence, physical and emotional abuse of children, serious child neglect resulting in malnutrition, use of aliases or false identities to commit fraud, etc
If I open up my copy of the DSM-5, I find on page 659 the diagnostic criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder (301.7, F60.2):
> A. A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following: ...
> B. The individual is at least age 18 years.
> C. There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.
> D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Now, to be diagnosed with ASPD, a person must meet all of A, B, C and D. You seem to be focusing on criterion A. Even supposing you are right that he meets criterion A – where is the evidence for him meeting criterion C? You can't diagnose someone with ASPD without evidence for the onset of a diagnosis of conduct disorder (CD) as a child/adolescent. It isn't necessary that they be diagnosed with CD contemporaneously, it is acceptable to have retrospective evidence for it based on school records, parent interviews, their own recollections, etc – but, without evidence for onset of a CD diagnosis in childhood/adolescence, you cannot have an ASPD diagnosis in adulthood. Do we have any evidence that Musk met the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder in childhood/adolescence?
Is there any good evidence that Musk exhibited at least three of the following behaviours (conduct disorder criterion A, pages 469-470) prior to age 15?
Aggression to People and Animals
1. Often bullies, threatens, or intimidates others.
2. Often initiates physical fights.
3. Has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun).
4. Has been physically cruel to people.
5. Has been physically cruel to animals.
6. Has stolen while confronting a victim (e.g., mugging, purse snatching, extortion, armed robbery).
7. Has forced someone into sexual activity.
Destruction of Property
8. Has deliberately engaged in fire setting with the intention of causing serious damage.
9. Has deliberately destroyed others’ property (other than by fire setting).
Deceitfulness or Theft
10. Has broken into someone else’s house, building, or car.
11. Often lies to obtain goods or favors or to avoid obligations (i.e., “cons” others).
12. Has stolen items of nontrivial value without confronting a victim (e.g., shoplifting, but without breaking and entering: forgery).
Serious Violations of Rules
13. Often stays out at night despite parental prohibitions, beginning before age 13 years.
14. Has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in the parental or parental surrogate home, or once without returning for a lengthy period.
15. Is often truant from school, beginning before age 13 years
Musk doesn't fit the usual clinical picture of someone with ASPD. ASPD is usually encountered in a forensic setting – someone in prison, currently going through a criminal trial, child welfare cases.
I really doubt any actual psychiatrist or psychologist would diagnose Musk with ASPD in a clinical setting. Psychiatric diagnoses aren't just about reading a list of symptoms and matching them – you need to understand how professionals interpret that list in practice (the "clinical gestalt", as it is sometimes called). If you actually study the literature on ASPD, you'll find people like Musk are not the targets of the diagnosis. Indeed, the DSM-5 says (p. 662):
> Antisocial personality disorder appears to be associated with low socioeconomic status and urban settings
Musk is not now and has never been a person of "low socioeconomic status", which is the group of people in which ASPD is usually diagnosed.
Here's some more traits of ASPD, according to the DSM-5 (p. 661):
> They may be irresponsible as parents, as evidenced by malnutrition of a child, an illness in the child resulting from a lack of minimal hygiene, a child's dependence on neighbors or nonresident relatives for food or shelter, a failure to arrange for a caretaker for a young child when the individual is away from home, or repeated squandering of money required for household necessities
Musk is no candidate for "Father of the Year", but there is zero evidence his children are malnourished, extremely unhygienic, lack appropriate adult supervision, lack sufficient financial support, etc. That is describing the behaviour of low socioeconomic status bad parents, high socioeconomic status individuals may often be bad parents, but rarely in such a grossly physical way.
> These individuals may receive dishonorable discharges from the armed services, may fail to be self-supporting, may become impoverished or even homeless, or may spend many years in penal institutions
That doesn't sound like Musk either.
Some other common traits of ASPD (back to page 660):
> Irresponsible work behavior may be indicated by significant periods of unemployment despite available job opportunities, or by abandonment of several jobs without a realistic plan for getting another job. There may also be a pattern of repeated absences from work that are not explained by illness either in themselves or in their family. Financial irresponsibility is indicated by acts such as defaulting on debts, failing to provide child support, or failing to support other dependents on a regular basis
When they said "financial irresponsibility", a centibillionaire wasting $44 billion on a whim is not what they had in mind. They mean the parent who can't afford food for their children because they spent all their money on some inessential goods. None of Musk's children are going to starve, even if he stupidly loses $100 billion more.
> Individuals with antisocial personality disorder tend to be irritable and aggressive and may repeatedly get into
physical fights or commit acts of physical assault (including spouse beating or child beating)
Haven't heard about Musk getting in to physical fights or committing physical assault.
tbf I'm not sure Musk's rightwingery is any deeper than realising what kind of one-liner appeals most to his stans on Twitter and deflects from stories about him which are bad no matter where you sit on the political spectrum (plus standard billionaire CEO views on regulation, employee rights and tax he's always had). I don't think we need to worry about him being more politically deft or ideologically driven than Trump either,.
I'd offer the alternative view: it's a bit sad to watch someone who once had the motivation and means to build flying cars get obsessed by 140 characters. The Twitter purchase feels less like his road to being the next Trump and more like Howard Hughes' passion for Vegas.
Yes. However, I would argue that is a good thing. Musk has become a poster child one can easily point to and ask a question along the lines of 'is it reasonable for society to allow a person with resources near some nation-state levels to exist and not limit their ability to gather that amount of resources?'
While in general I am very permissive and I hate imposition on my individual freedoms, I am increasingly convinced that leveling of playing field is necessary. You reach an upper limit of say 'five small islands' and you start seeing major increase in tax burden. As you can undoubtedly tell, I am no tax expert, but I am tired of this prince equivalent of our times. Wait, not princes ( princes had some structures that kept them somewhat in check ). Maybe robber barons is a better comparison. US managed to get them under control once, but that required a world war II. I am honestly not sure we can repeat that approach this time.
<< Well now we're going to see what extremism looks like when a far more competent person is orchestrating it.
I would hesitate to characterize Trump as incompetent. He and Musk share some qualities and note that both of them managed to use the existing system to their advantage better than an average person ( leaving for a moment the above average starting point for both ). Still, fool and his money is soon parted and notice that both of them manage to screw everyone they interact with ( but themselves ), which indicates some level of competency. Unfortunately, that competency is focused only one thing.
In short, I disagree. Twitter saga is just better documented. WH by necessity is harder to properly scrutinize ( despite all the leaks and media attention ).
> Musk has become a poster child one can easily point to and ask a question along the lines of 'is it reasonable for society to allow a person with resources near some nation-state levels to exist and not limit their ability to gather that amount of resources?'
It’s an interesting question but if you’re hoping for a ‘no’ answer, Musk is a pretty mild test case. For all his failings, he hasn’t used his personal wealth for anything that bad. Far worse is done by corporations and governments (and actual princes).
In fact, I’m not sure individualistic supervillainy actually happens all that much. Being bad at scale is still a team effort.
Oh, I absolutely agree. That is why I opened with poster child qualification, because it seems most people need an appropriate scapegoat ( it is just easier to have one 'bad guy' to focus on as opposed to a menagerie of individuals with varying levels of liability and involvement ). We like to keep things simple.
The part that annoys me is ( as you indicated ) that Musk actually did bring into being some rather neat stuff ( Tesla comes to mind -- I hate that he made car into subscription, but I love that he moved the entire industry 20 years ahead ). I probably need to qualify that statement. Like with most people, I like some of the things he did. I dislike some of the things he did.
To your point, with corporation at least that power is somewhat distributed and each individual is a ( mild, but still ) check on the other. You raise a good point though and I wonder if billionaire class overshadowed pan-nationals for me for some reason.
It is an easy and cynical statement. And I am saying that as a cynical person myself. The game is heavily tilted, but it is still a game with real winners and real losers.
I do not want to assume too much though. Would you be willing to elaborate a little? It is difficult to argue Musk is not competent at his various roles. Are you saying he was guaranteed to be where he is now?
I was more referring to Trump not being necessarily competent, but using a big public profile to con people into handing over money and then deliberately not paying people and using bankruptcy to shield him from consequences. It's more a lack of morals than being competent.
Once someone has a lot of money, it becomes very difficult for them to decrease their wealth as capitalism rewards people/institutions that have lots of money and/or influence. If you have money available to purchase your way into owning various companies, then it's not too difficult to keep those companies alive though I would say that Musk has made some good decisions as to which companies to buy. I would consider that Tesla became successful partly due to a new potential market (which Musk should get some credit for spotting) and partly due to reaping the benefits from all the workers there - it's their talents that are making Tesla profitable and Musk is merely ensuring that he doesn't pay them sufficiently so that he can increase his own wealth.
Billionaires benefit from their own lack of morals more than being spectacularly competent.
Radicalization is very interesting. Rather than talk of a person being radicalized in a paticular way (medical/religion/politics/flat earth etc) can a person become susceptible to radicalization across the board? Can someone be "radicalized" into taking radical stances in every context? I have seen older relatives fall down this hole. Every little thing is now life-or-death, order v chaos. Musk might be on that pattern.
He's the CEO of five companies and he just landed in Qatar to party at the world cup. His worth ethic is suspect and the stuff of myths. Supposedly he never stops working but he's an expert at Elden Ring.
He doesnt stop working. Thats the great thing about being boss: you get to define what "working" means. In his mind, what he is doing in Quatar qualifies as work. He probably deducts expenses, those he doesnt just charge to whatever company he thinks most benefits from his travels on a given day.
Musk being CEO is not really like a startup founder being CEO. For example at SpaceX the company is basically run by Gwynne Shotwell, with Elon being the visionary and face of the company, with the clout and authority to dive deep into any part of the company he thinks is important right now and help facilitate or micro-manage stuff. But when he is occupied elsewhere for a couple months the gears keep turning without him just fine. I imagine his other companies (with the notable exception of Twitter) work the same.
* A few months ago SpaceX was on the verge of bankruptcy according to Musk.
* Tesla's stock is down and they haven't done any innovation in a long time. FSD is a complete failure. Musk's tweets are hurting the brand. People don't want to buy an alt-right electric car and Elon has become the brand.
* Revenue dramatically decreased at Twitter since Musk took over the company. Likely headed towards bankruptcy in the near future.
* Neuralink is a pipe dream that conducts unnecessary experiments that kill animals. He copied all the experiments of the lead academic researcher and passed them off as his own. There is nothing novel about what they have done.
* Boring Co. hasn't built anything of value. In fact, they have backed out of numerous projects.
I think you're making the mistake of assuming the amount he works per week is constant, rather than varying from 80 hours during hell year to 20 when things are going fine.
There are a LOT of sources on him having worked very long hours at points.
The journalists simply pointed out that ElonJet was using public data from the FAA. So no, its not considered doxxing. All airplanes must be tracked, otherwise there's a chance that they'll crash into each other.
If you don't like that, then maybe don't fly in a private jet all the time. Share your jet with others. Or God forbid, use a cheaper, more efficient, better-for-the-environment electric vehicle.
An incident that was so serious that to this date, no crime report has been filed to the LAPD: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkD6LcVWIAEr-cC?format=jpg&name=... (and curiously, the reporter who first reported this fact was suspended from Twitter shortly thereafter).
Its not like Jack Sweeney actually has ABS-B detectors of his own. All airplanes in the USA are going to have to have their ABS-B transponders on, to prevent mid-air collisions. You must broadcast your location at all times.
> Jack Sweeney was posting non public information.
I feel like the speculation going on in the discourse as to the mysterious ways that the tracking was able to perpetuate muddies the waters, so let’s make that clearer.
1. It is public information that SpaceX has a public address at 1 Rocket Road, Hawthorne[0].
2. It is public information that a jet is registered at FAA for an owner whose shell company has a public address at 1 Rocket Road, Hawthorne. Its tail number is N628TS[1].
3. The jet is required by law to broadcast publicly, unencrypted, its tail number. Hobbyist pilots and ATCs around the world exchange that information to keep track of what is in the air. That exact jet’s ACARS information contains both its tail number and ICAO address[2]. The PIA anonymization program can randomize the ICAO address, but here we find which one it is by going through all planes. There are just so few.
4. The jet is also required to broadcast ADS-B messages publicly. ADS-B contains the ICAO address and latitude / longitude / altitude / velocity[3].
You can track Elon’s flight from the tail number using the ADS-B system and the tail number is public information. You can find it all over photos all over the internet, even if you couldn’t you could just drive over to the airport, you can also verify it by checking the plane is registered to a company co-located at SpaceX. It’s all public information in about 200 different ways.
Even if we're calling it "doxxing", the only one who did the "doxxing" was Jack Sweeney, he banned journalists just for defending him.
And it's been more than 24 hours since he said "Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now."[0], but elonjet and sweeney's main account are still suspended though...
