this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
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Actually Infuriating
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I’m probably one of the few people here who isn’t emotionally invested in this. I don’t hate Musk, though I don’t particularly like him either. I’ve often defended him against false accusations (like the Starlink incident), but in this case, there’s nothing to defend. I’d give it about a 5% chance that he genuinely didn’t intend it as a Nazi salute. After all, I’m not a mind reader - I can’t possibly know what he was thinking and unlike the haters, I don’t pretend to know either. I have no dog in this fight.
This "my heart goes out to you" salute isn’t a thing. It’s not something Musk has done before, nor is it a trend among anyone else. All the excuses about how he supposedly meant something else come across exactly as they sound: excuses. I’ve also seen picture montages circulating on social media showing Democratic leaders appearing to make the same gesture, but when you look at the full context, it’s clear these were just unfortunately timed photos. In Musk’s case, it looks like a Nazi salute even in full context.
Now, one reason I give this a slim 5% chance of not being intentional is simply that doing something like this while the entire world is watching is so spectacularly stupid that it’s hard to imagine even Musk not realizing this. He may be edgy and definitely on the spectrum, but that’s not an excuse here. Even a 5-year-old would know better.
Maybe you misunderstand. Most of us don't care about Musk one way or the other. We care about problems he creates. In other words, you're as emotionally invested as most people. Sorry?
Second, if he made a mistake, he would apologize and clearly state that he opposes Nazis and is not one. Did he do that clearly and simply? That is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I agree with your 5% as a nice handwavy number, whatever it means, but if we consider the bad follow-up, it drops to almost zero.
In that case the discussion about this would be dispassionate analysis of what's happening and what to do about it.
These are not dispassionate takes. These people are visibly angry. Do you detect this tone in my post? No you don't because my analysis is not based on emotions.
Yes, I detect anger in your post. Tons of it.
It's quite peculiar. You believe that your analysis is good because you didn't express emotion on the subject. But emotional people often are good at analyzing things too, especially if it's a topic that they really care about, that they thought about a lot.
More importantly, what we're talking about are Nazis around the world who want to get more power so that they can kill people they hate. It's the kind of thing that a decent human being would find displeasing, to say the least. This is one of those classic situations where the view from nowhere is untenable.