> Saying something akin to "it's obviously Elon's fault because Elon is bad because everyone says Elon is bad" is not critical thinking, it's groupthink, brought to you by all the people who paid for all the stuff you read that says Elon is bad.
I love the way you talk about critical thinking and steelmanning, and yet write a wall of text characterising all criticism of Elon as that, whilst lacking either the critical thinking skills or the good faith to engage with my actual points, which were that the supposed "anti Elon base effect" had absolutely nothing to do with the fact Elon was best buddies with the Trump administration a few months ago and isn't now
Imagine seriously trying to argue that short sellers had more impact on Trump's opinion of Elon than Elon tweeting about Trump being in the Epstein files, or indeed that Sean Duffy would be fine with Elon running Twitter polls suggesting his "chimp skills" don't qualify him to run NASA if it wasn't for the pesky "baseline effect". I mean, I'd be the last person to suggest that Trump and his cronies were immune to groupthink or persuasion by moneyed interests, but I think there might be something else going on here, y'know...
Once you've grasped the idea that people's change of opinion of Elon might be more swayed by him personally insulting him than business interests which have been threatened by Elon for well over a decade now - probably more when he was at peak popularity - you'll be shocked to learn that people also have strong opinions on politics independently of Tesla short interest, and that Elon might have been prominent in that sphere lately...
Fun fact: I work in the same industry as Elon and hear positive sentiments about him all the time, sometimes managing to be well-reasoned, sincere and gushing. Also quite a few negative ones from people who depend on his business continuing to do well for their livelihoods, some of whom even worked with him in the past. The social media account which has had the most negative impact on my opinion of him is @elonmusk. It's amazing that you are "genuinely curious" about trends in opinion of Elon Musk, believe they owe a lot to social media and appear to be unaware of this heavily promoted account which keeps upsetting demographics that were previously neutral or favourably disposed towards him. Wonder which moneyed interest that represents...
Hmm, you have a point in that I spoke past you. To be fair I think we are both speaking past each other.
I don't disagree with the majority of what you're saying, except for the exclusion/rejection of the baseline effect.
So to steelman your perspective is to say the topic of this entire thread (proposition of a change in nasa's plan) is entirely due offensive things Elon has said on Twitter, and probably in another contexts, including (but not limited to) him criticizing Trump's bill, making the Epstein claims, offensive polls about the NASA chief (which is a really good example to hold up). Basically him being brash, offensive and placing his ego above maintaining certain relationships. Maybe characterized as his tendency to be offensive and disagreeable. And yes, I do see all these and yes they aren't helping, and they probably have a material impact on the situation.
To steelman my argument is to consider that in addition to all the points your making (not instead of them) there is also a money-power-struggle going on behind the scenes, and a lot of what we are seeing are second or third order consequences of that. One way this might be happening is that these interest sabotage something, Elon learns about it behind closed doors, and then lashes out in public in a childish manner.
So please understand that my lack of acknowledging your points wasn't as dismissal of them it was the opposite. I didn't mention them because I agree with them. The focus of my comments were what they were because I was trying to make a case for an additional effect at play.
If you want to convince me there isn't a baseline effect at play like I'm trying to point to, what would do so is not pointing to more examples of Elon being stupid on Twitter, it would be to somehow convince me that the extremely wealthy and powerful interests that seem to obviously want Elon to fail actually want him to succeed or don't care either way. That's a hard case to make, but I would be really open to it, because it's the thing most likely to shift my mental model of the situation.
It's kind of like you're talking about the weather and I'm talking about the climate. You're refusing to entertain my climate perspective. I'm not refusing to entertain your weather perspective.
> extremely wealthy and powerful interests that seem to obviously want Elon to fail actually want him to succeed or don't care either way
I mean, it's hard not to notice a large number of extremely wealthy and powerful interests that obviously want Elon to succeed. Investors in his companies for one, whose stake in them obviously exceed the short sellers which is why the share prices of his public companies are what they are and entities holding short positions haven't been crushed by short squeezes. Nobody with the slightest understanding of stock markets believes there's a $40B incentive to character assassinate Musk there, even if if he wasn't capable of alienating people himself.
The fact some of the people who don't like Musk are rich is moot. Nobody needs to spend $40b drawing attention to Musk's politics because he's done that himself. When he didn't do that barely anyone cared.
The entities that wanted electric cars to fail wanted electric cars to fail when Tesla was the only game in town, but that was a time when most people didn't know who Elon was and those that did tended to admire him. On the other hand I don't know who the CEO of the world's current biggest and fastest growing car company is, never mind what their politics are. This isn't because Big Oil wants people to buy BYD or Geely, it's because the CEOs of BYD and Geely don't wade into culture wars on multiple continents never mind buy the entire social media platform to promote those tweets just in case anyone had any doubt about whether they wanted people to know about them.
I'm sorry, but if you're going to make the extraordinary claim that Musk bought a website to become social media's most prominent figure and opted to use that pulpit to culture war against the demographic that bought his cars, and now to personally and publicly attack both sides of the aisle that funds his space launch services because special interests are somehow forcing him to do that, the burden of proof sits squarely on you.
And if your "mental model of the situation" refuses to countenance the possibility Elon speaking out against people and the things they believe in might be sufficient cause for them to dislike him unless you can be convinced no wealthy third parties disapprove of Elon, then please at least have the decency to drop the veneer of openmindedness...
It seems to me like you're making a straw man argument and not addressing the root of my claim. It actually seems like you didn't even read my full comment, since you aren't representing my stance accurately at all. You're also attacking my character and my integrity which isn't warranted or constructive. If you adjust your dismissive and patronizing tone, and focus of your argument away from your assumptions about my character and towards the root of my claims, I'll continue to engage with you in this and keep an open mind.
I don't know how you can expect to change my mind when you communicate with me so disrespectfully.
That said, I fall into this trap too sometimes, so I will be quick to forgive if you are interested in reconciliation and a constructive dialogue.
I love the way you talk about critical thinking and steelmanning, and yet write a wall of text characterising all criticism of Elon as that, whilst lacking either the critical thinking skills or the good faith to engage with my actual points, which were that the supposed "anti Elon base effect" had absolutely nothing to do with the fact Elon was best buddies with the Trump administration a few months ago and isn't now
Imagine seriously trying to argue that short sellers had more impact on Trump's opinion of Elon than Elon tweeting about Trump being in the Epstein files, or indeed that Sean Duffy would be fine with Elon running Twitter polls suggesting his "chimp skills" don't qualify him to run NASA if it wasn't for the pesky "baseline effect". I mean, I'd be the last person to suggest that Trump and his cronies were immune to groupthink or persuasion by moneyed interests, but I think there might be something else going on here, y'know...
Once you've grasped the idea that people's change of opinion of Elon might be more swayed by him personally insulting him than business interests which have been threatened by Elon for well over a decade now - probably more when he was at peak popularity - you'll be shocked to learn that people also have strong opinions on politics independently of Tesla short interest, and that Elon might have been prominent in that sphere lately...
Fun fact: I work in the same industry as Elon and hear positive sentiments about him all the time, sometimes managing to be well-reasoned, sincere and gushing. Also quite a few negative ones from people who depend on his business continuing to do well for their livelihoods, some of whom even worked with him in the past. The social media account which has had the most negative impact on my opinion of him is @elonmusk. It's amazing that you are "genuinely curious" about trends in opinion of Elon Musk, believe they owe a lot to social media and appear to be unaware of this heavily promoted account which keeps upsetting demographics that were previously neutral or favourably disposed towards him. Wonder which moneyed interest that represents...