Paul Cantrell
An important thing about Elon Musk that’s widely known in tech circles but perhaps not in the larger world: he’s kind of an idiot.
His technical knowledge is shallow and careless, full of parroting and fantasizing.
People who’ve worked on the small amount of code he actually wrote long ago describe his work as an unskilled mess.
At every company he runs, there are teams of people devoted to keeping him away from the engineers, who largely succeed to the extent that he forgets they exist.
1/3
Paul Cantrell
Musk does have a special talent, but the talent is for hype: projecting the kind of overconfidence that gets investors who also have shallow technical understanding to give him money.
That kind of overconfidence •requires• ignorance. Any actual understanding of technical details might make him a dangerous sense of •nuance• and •complexity•, which of course scare away investors looking for a Supergenius Unicorn who can offer huge returns.
2/3
Paul Cantrell
One of my students remarked the other day that Musk seemed like a supervillain straight out of a comic book — and I agree. Sort of Lex Luthor but a dumbass.
This piece you gives interesting dimension to that observation: charismatic incompetence can be appealing as a destructive force when people don’t believe the status quo is worth saving.
3/3
Paul Cantrell
And I guess I need to close the obvious-but-needs-stating loop on that:
This nihilistic desire for destruction is how fascism gets in the door.
4/3
Jeff Miller (orange hatband)
@inthehands I am impressed with how prophetic the satire Network appears to have been about the dynamics of public outrage escaping containment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Network_(1976_film)
and hopefully that final parenthesis links, or I'll come back and urlencode it.
Nagaram
Every Business major wannabe techbro I've ever met has so much praise for Musk and they tell me that whenever they find out I work in IT.
But I know very few tech people who have a nice thing to say about the guy. Maybe a few at my old job, but that was over run by MAGA and MAGA-lite folks. So they were mostly impressed with his fascism.
dontony
@inthehands so in the Horizon series of video games, the whole apocalypse was triggered by a CEO with a personality complex going from developing robots to weapons development and overriding the safeguards. so i’m afraid that series is more prophetic than i realized.
fuck ted faro #fucktedfaro
Paul Cantrell
@jmeowmeow
I really, really need to watch that!
Paul Cantrell
Responding to popular replies:
- I understand why some people push back against post 2, and yes, I understand the urge to refuse that dingbat credit for •anything•, but…look, if we're going to understand the present moment, then I think we do need to reckon with the fact that being a con artist •is• in fact a special skill. It's a skill we need to figure out how to counter (individually, institutionally, and societally).
Ludwig Vielfrass
@inthehands when I despair and get into a “fuck everything” mode is when I’m most vulnerable to bad ideas. I’ve learned to look past the surface feeling when I get that way and see what’s really driving that despair.
BTW this was not a magical transformation that I decided to do one day. This was the result of years of therapy and practice.
Spocko
@inthehands I can confirm this.
I media trained him back in the 90's before PayPal.
Laegel
@inthehands Yeah, I discovered that we he spoke to the Twitter devs just after he bought it. He was just using jargon in a meaningless manner and told them to “rewrite“ the system. 🤦
Paul Cantrell
@hsolerkalinovski
It is very much “widespread knowledge,” and I've heard from enough people with direct experience of him to back that up as more than rumor.
hsolerkalinovski
@inthehands do you have the sources of what you are claiming, or is it just "widespread knowledge"?
Paul Cantrell
@zauberlaus
I prefer the approach of clear communication about expectations and tradeoffs, but that's why I'm in engineering and not sales, I guess.
zauberlaus
@inthehands it takes an insurmountable compartmentalisation of your brain to develop something complex, especially software, and also sell it to someone keeping a good conscience
Supportive Tree-based lifeform
@inthehands elizabeth holmes had the same "talent" his other talent is "outrunning consequences of fraud."
We've allowed people to make too much money by just lying about shit.
Paul Cantrell
- Comparisons to Edison (credit for others' work) and Marconi (same but extra-fashy) and Howard Hughes (unhinged from reality) are all apt, but I think all the above were quite a bit brighter than Musk. Same with my Barnum comparison. And on that note, @hugoestr makes a good point:
https://functional.cafe/@hugoestr/113535006880063784
🎻s is the solution.
Overhyping stuff is not a talent.
The fact that such a large portion of the media and the political and financial elite today keep getting taken in by such a transparently obvious fraud speaks volumes more about their own gullibility, incompetence, and poor judgement than it does any particular skill or talent on Musk's part.
Paul Cantrell
@nceladean https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/113535484479414258
Paul Cantrell
- Comparisons to Miles Bron are, of course, dead on target. I was •amazed• when I saw that movie that Rian Johnson wrote it •before• Musk purchased Twitter.
hsolerkalinovski
@inthehands while the sources are not open for scrutiny, what value do they have?
Paul Cantrell
@hsolerkalinovski
That's a good question! What value does uncertain information information have? The answer is not “none.” What is it?
I'm muting you now, but do think about it on your own time.
Paul Cantrell
- Finally, shout out to everyone in the replies who managed to pivot this into a “bUt THe dEmoCRatS” train of thought. Good job! I'm impressed at your dedication!
Paul Cantrell
@cam
Wait, really?!
Bobsee
@inthehands So when #Musk says hydrogen powered cars are not practical I should ignore him?
Darrin West
@inthehands I observed that Elon is excellent at convincing tech people to work for him. Either by communicating a vision (often stolen from sci-fi), or by providing attractive incentives. It’s the real tech nerds that get the things done. Plus he’s good at convincing money people to back his plays.
Rich Felker
@fluffykittycat @richpuchalsky @inthehands I don't see solarpunk so much as being a form of radical change but a way people survive and rebuild when the systems we had have failed us. IMO solarpunk isn't about upheaval as a political good.
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
This doesn't really close the loop. Most of what people call a "nihilist desire for destruction" is caused by neoliberal policies that actually make life horrible for people and naturally lead to disaffection from the entire social order. When people widely feel that the status quo is not worth saving, it's because the status quo is bad, not because nihilism suddenly made a big comeback.
Fluffy Kitty Cat
@richpuchalsky @inthehands yeah. I want radical change but in more of a solarpunk anarchist sort of way
Paul Cantrell
@virtualinanity @hugoestr
Oh, I wouldn't short him. I'm serious in post 2/3 about this being a special skill, and our society offers lavish rewards to con artists. I argue only for seeing him for what he is.
wasabi brain
@inthehands @hugoestr so many people who know what they’re talking about keep losing their shirt shorting musk. He’s a master at missing targets that should absolutely smash the genius narrative but being able to continue distracting capital so the scorecard that matters (net worth) keeps going up
Paul Cantrell
@petko
People also seem to be adamant about passive-aggressively notifying me of their unasked-for personal preferences in my mentions.
Vysogota
@inthehands time to remove musky from my timeline as people are adamant on not putting a uspolitics content warning on their shit
Sean Murthy
> Musk does have a special talent, but the
> talent is for hype
...
> He's basically P. T. Barnum
More like Trump. Con artists both.
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