Elon Musk is a nice chap

[Zero999]

No where have I stated that gender reassignment surgery and hormones should not be used ever. The problem is they're now becoming the go to treatments, above talking therapy. My main concern is they're being used to treat children, who'll invariably grow out of it. Adults are a different case and even then, given the permanence of the treatments, it's something which should only be done when other therapies have failed.

That's the BS that conservative, anti-trans media CLAIM is the case, when in fact it is not. I've known multiple trans people, and read or watched many more stories, and in ALL cases, gender reassignment surgery came after extensive psychiatric care, and years of living as the desired gender. It is in no way something that gets done on a whim!!!

My main concern is they're being used to treat children, who'll invariably grow out of it.

Gender reassignment surgery on minors is extremely rare.
As for hormones, what's done in kids who are seriously questioning their gender is to use puberty blockers (similar to hormonal treatments used for various growth disorders, by the way) to delay puberty, precisely because children are too young to make such permanent decisions. It allows, without any serious repercussions, delaying decisions until they're old enough to have the necessary maturity, while at the same time preventing physiological changes that make a future transition much more difficult. (The point is that if they delay puberty and the kid ends up realizing they're not trans, then little harm is done by the puberty blockers once discontinued: puberty still happens, into their original biological sex.)

who'll invariably grow out of it.

Invariably? Then how come transgender adults exist?

I say this with the utmost respect and non-sarcasm: please, please, get to know some actual transgender people and listen to their stories. I feel that you are wildly uninformed and as a result, kinda judgmental and dismissive. Listen to them. And don't just focus on the handful that regret their transitions. The vast majority do not, and consider it a life-saving intervention.

It might have been the case in the past gender reassignment surgery was only conducted after a extensive psychiatric care, but there's been a recent shift towards affirmation, without question. It has been carried out on children. Look up the Tavistock clinic, which has recently been closed down for this. There are an increasing number of detransitioners who'll tell you the only thing offered to them was drugs and surgery. I truly hope these are a tiny percentage, but the current trend is worrying.

Puberty blockers for affirmation is a completely different use case, than to treat growth disorders. They are not reservable. A serious problem is they retard brain development, which naturally occurs during puberty, so an 18 year old who's been on them for many years, will not have the same mental capacity as they would have, had they been allowed to go through puberty naturally. In many cases people with gender dysphoria do grow out of it and whilst puberty blockers may provide a temporary relief to anxiety, there's no proof of their efficacy in the long term.

It's concerning gender dysphoria has gone up by an order of magnitude recent years. Many adolescent females with gender dysphoria often have autism, in many cases for male to female, it's autogynephilia. It's increasing in both sexes, but more so in females, quite likely due to social contagion.

The problem I have is, it's increasingly being promoted and quite often the rights of autogynephilic men such as Dylan Mulvaney (I won't call him trans, look up his days of girlhood and make up your own mind) are being promoted over that of women and if you question it, you're transphobic.

I do know of real transgender people, they do exist. It isn't easy for them, but many of the activists appear to be doing them more harm than good. Granted I probably do come across as far-right, but I don't wish anyone any harm. I can see many problems this ideology is inflicting on society. Please look at it from the other side.

I'm not going to argue the transgender issue any more, because personally I have at best a marginal connection to it via a sibling of a friend, as well as a former colleague's now-daughter.  I'm going to continue to accept how someone wants to be addressed, which is where this all came from, and I hope you do so too.  After all, it would really just be a dick move to do anything other than that.

I have a transgender friend, F to M, I accept how he wants to be addressed although it took a while to get used to but that isn't really the issue, in the back of my mind I know he is actually female, a trans-man, not an actual man. As a friend it doesn't matter, the gender of my platonic friends is irrelevant. I think in general most men don't really care if a woman sees them in a locker room or whatever but I can totally understand why a woman would not be comfortable having a biological man in that sort of space with them.

Anyway the whole debate that is raging about this stuff goes far beyond how someone wants to be addressed. I'm happy to use male or female pronouns, whichever they prefer, and I'm happy to treat them with the same respect I'd treat anyone, but I'm not going to believe that they are actually literally their preferred sex, to do that is to deny reality, which they are free to do themselves, but it is unreasonable to expect everyone else to also.

I mostly agree with this.

Regarding pronouns: I consider it to be lying and I'm very bad at that.  It makes me uncomfortable, but I accept in many cases it's right to tell white lies. If they vaguely pass for opposite sex, I could probably do it, otherwise I doubt it's even possible for me to do it reliably. I have no filter and will say the wrong thing at the best of times.

[RJSV]

   I've hung out with San Francisco gay men and women, being in the locale, of Berkeley, Oakland and SF.  Asked for jobs, attended business meetings.  No problem.
   Some of the younger gay men had past problems, been abused in such and such small town in middle America.  Many faced certain death, and soon (aids in 1980's).
   
   Was a bit shocked, when one the local gay SF political leaders, business man, switched to Republican, when ran for office, (he was my boss, basically).

   But, heck, I was into my own thing, working near the SF downtown, with famous landmarks everywhere.  High-rise apartments, ocean air, and plenty of modern straight women to approach...

   Thing is, these days, I feel a lot more confronted, or 'dared' to oppose this or that 'Street Mural', or elementary school 'fashion' show.  No, I'm not a public activist or anything...
But some of them are.
   Local paper is full of ' letters to the editor', with two sides in full FLAME word war.  The sexual freedom activists far far exceed the other side, in rudeness and accusations:
   "You are attacking our Mural ".
   "No one is advocating puberty blockers", even to the degree of using the 'nazi' lable, in the critic's, who, by the way, never really objected to any freeway walk 'mural'.

Older gay folks would, probably, be as shocked as me, it's called a 'railroad job', and no choice, or else.
   The newspaper letter FLAME wars would shock Dave Jones, even !
Embarrassing.

[Zero999]

  I've hung out with San Francisco gay men and women, being in the locale, of Berkeley, Oakland and SF.  Asked for jobs, attended business meetings.  No problem.
  Some of the younger gay men had past problems, been abused in such and such small town in middle America.  Many faced certain death, and soon (aids in 1980's).
 
  Was a bit shocked, when one the local gay SF political leaders, business man, switched to Republican, when ran for office, (he was my boss, basically).

  But, heck, I was into my own thing, working near the SF downtown, with famous landmarks everywhere.  High-rise apartments, ocean air, and plenty of modern straight women to approach...

  Thing is, these days, I feel a lot more confronted, or 'dared' to oppose this or that 'Street Mural', or elementary school 'fashion' show.  No, I'm not a public activist or anything...
But some of them are.
  Local paper is full of ' letters to the editor', with two sides in full FLAME word war.  The sexual freedom activists far far exceed the other side, in rudeness and accusations:
  "You are attacking our Mural ".
  "No one is advocating puberty blockers", even to the degree of using the 'nazi' lable, in the critic's, who, by the way, never really objected to any freeway walk 'mural'.

Older gay folks would, probably, be as shocked as me, it's called a 'railroad job', and no choice, or else.
  The newspaper letter FLAME wars would shock Dave Jones, even !
Embarrassing.

You appear to be conflating homosexuality with transgenderism, which are two different things. Being homosexual is simply being attracted to the same sex. Transgender is wishing to be the opposite sex, or none at all, in some cases. Some have the feeling they were born in the wrong body, but it can also be triggered by another mental health problem.

Anyway, it is getting a bit off topic. I'm glad Elon has removed the silly bans on dead-naming (this is when you refer to someone who's changed their name, from a boy's to girl's name or vice versa, by their birth name) and not using a person's preferred pronouns i.e. calling them a she, when they want to be referred to as he. I used to get teased at college because I'm uncoordinated and can't throw straight. I'd get called a poof, girl, tart and was often referred to as she and her. It did upset me at the start, but after awhile it didn't bother me. People only say those sorts of things to get a rise. Too many people have a resilience problem these days.

[james_s]

I mostly agree with this.

Regarding pronouns: I consider it to be lying and I'm very bad at that.  It makes me uncomfortable, but I accept in many cases it's right to tell white lies. If they vaguely pass for opposite sex, I could probably do it, otherwise I doubt it's even possible for me to do it reliably. I have no filter and will say the wrong thing at the best of times.

It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, although I can't stand the people that get irate if you "misgender" them, I mean ok if it's a malicious and repeated action sure, but just a casual interaction? I can't read anyone's mind so I take the best guess, and I tend to call people "dude" regardless of gender. Overall I just really don't care much about identity, if somebody addressed me by the wrong pronouns I'm not sure I'd care enough to bother correcting them, again unless it was a repeated malicious attempt to insult. 

What I won't do is use the various made up pronouns that have appeared recently. It's hard enough for me to keep track of names, let alone custom pronouns. You are "he" or "she", just pick one for the sake of convenience, it doesn't have to describe your entire personal identity.

[james_s]

Anyway, it is getting a bit off topic. I'm glad Elon has removed the silly bans on dead-naming (this is when you refer to someone who's changed their name, from a boy's to girl's name or vice versa, by their birth name) and not using a person's preferred pronouns i.e. calling them a she, when they want to be referred to as he. I used to get teased at college because I'm uncoordinated and can't throw straight. I'd get called a poof, girl, tart and was often referred to as she and her. It did upset me at the start, but after awhile it didn't bother me. People only say those sorts of things to get a rise. Too many people have a resilience problem these days.

I've had people get upset a few times when I've referred to the past tense. For example if someone used to be male and is now female and I refer to something that happened in the past back when they were male, I'll refer to them as "he" and use their birth name in that context. That's who they were at the time the incident took place, the fact that they now identify as something else doesn't retroactively go back and change the past. 

[MT]

As noted previously Musk Neurolink brain chip was sued now the FED is looking into this case. In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018! Bad Elon monkey , bad Elon monkey, now go to sit in the corner with dunce cap on you naughty hairless monkey.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/05/elon-musks-neuralink-faces-federal-probe-employee-backlash/

Yep. We should just let all the big names kill the monkeys, not Musk! How dare he. We own the monkeys and we want the world to know it!
Not that I don't find this Neurolink endeavour pretty questionable, but what I do know is that if it's not Musk, others will and it might be 10 times worse for all we know.
And the same people seem pretty silent when it comes to some big names killing a lot more animals and uh.. humans even.

Well, for example the "cosmetics industry" have killed all sorts of living creatures for +100years during tests of their crap.
Shampo and women's make up was done by dropping various chemical compounds into rabbits and rat eyes 100's of times
making them go blind at the end. Bad monkey, bad hairless monkey! Btw Elon monkey is a fraudster!

[Psi]

It's getting really hard to tell what is true and what is lies/FUD directed at Elon.

The 'neuralink-faces-federal-probe Animal' stuff has soured me a little towards Elon, but i'm really not sure how much of it is true and how much is grossly exaggerated for the purpose of making him look as bad as possible.

[MT]

It's getting really hard to tell what is true and what is lies/FUD directed at Elon.

The 'neuralink-faces-federal-probe Animal' stuff has soured me a little towards Elon, but i'm really not sure how much of it is true and how much is grossly exaggerated for the purpose of making him look as bad as possible.

Thats nothing, the real issue is Elon Musks granddad and dad, his grandad Joshua Haldeman was the overlord priest of the TECHNOCRACY sect back in 1932,
the sect that WEF Schwab Great Reset, CBDC's ,smart surveillance city , Chinese social scoring (soon in your country), You own nothing and will be happy while
eating bugz, Greta how dare you, Cowid 19 virus tool for the vaxx fraud Dr Fausti, Niel Ferguson Peter Dazak ,prof Christian Drosten etc made tons of money off
(also already as several cases in several US courts and more to come, Children's Health Defense etc) comes from. Mr Wood and Antony C. Sutton have even
written classic books like "Trilateral's over Washington" etc about that globalist Technocracy sect. https://www.technocracy.news/?s=musk+technocracy

Besides Musk calling rescue divers peddos when Musk was denied to experiment with minisubs during the actual rescue operation.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-says-didnt-mean-call-british-diver-pedophile-2019-9?r=US&IR=T
https://www.technocracy.news/shock-elon-musks-grandfather-was-head-of-canadas-technocracy-movement/

Else his hobby is to propose invasion of countries who happens to have lots of battery materials.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-condemned-over-bolivia-coup-comments/269794/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/29/we-will-coup-whoever-we-want-elon-musk-and-the-overthrow-of-democracy-in-bolivia/

Besides Musks deals with Peter Thiel Mr Technocracy himself and the Paypal debacle to long drag back into light here.

But ofcourse the more you dig the more everything is a "conspiracy theory". Right? or is it? Well according to US law 18 U.S.C. § 371.
it is a federal offense to conspire, not that US justice system care the least. So there you go. Melly Clistmass!

[wraper]

Besides Musk calling rescue divers peddos when Musk was denied to experiment with minisubs during the actual rescue operation.

Nope, he called so a single guy who insulted Musk first during the news interview.

Thats nothing, the real issue is Elon Musks granddad and dad, his grandad Joshua Haldeman was the overlord priest of the TECHNOCRACY sect back in 1932,
the sect that WEF Schwab Great Reset, CBDC's ,smart surveillance city , Chinese social scoring (soon in your country), You own nothing and will be happy while
eating bugz, Greta how dare you, Cowid 19 virus tool for the vaxx fraud Dr Fausti, Niel Ferguson Peter Dazak ,prof Christian Drosten etc made tons of money off
(also already as several cases in several US courts and more to come, Children's Health Defense etc) comes from. Mr Wood and Antony C. Sutton have even
written classic books like "Trilateral's over Washington" etc about that globalist Technocracy sect. https://www.technocracy.news/?s=musk+technocracy

His grandfather became disillusioned, left that organization and moved to South Africa. Elon has nothing to do with that. The rest is beyond comprehension.

Besides Musks deals with Peter Thiel Mr Technocracy himself and the Paypal debacle to long drag back into light here.

What a hodgepodge in your head. Peter Thiel has nothing to do with that Techgnocracy. Not to say he's against Technocracy (not movement).

Else his hobby is to propose invasion of countries who happens to have lots of battery materials.

For me it looks nothing more than trolling about US government, look to what tweets he replied that. Not to say Tesla did not have any business in Bolivia.

[vk6zgo]

Maybe time to lock the thread when really wild stuff starts appearing!

[Zero999]

It's getting really hard to tell what is true and what is lies/FUD directed at Elon.

The 'neuralink-faces-federal-probe Animal' stuff has soured me a little towards Elon, but i'm really not sure how much of it is true and how much is grossly exaggerated for the purpose of making him look as bad as possible.

Even if animal welfare standards were poor and needless unethical experiments were conducted on animals, the question is, how much did Elon know about it? Is it really true he knew everything and just wanted to make money, damn animal abuse? It's very difficult to get to the truth these days.

[PlainName]

Besides Musk calling rescue divers peddos when Musk was denied to experiment with minisubs during the actual rescue operation.

Nope, he called so a single guy who insulted Musk first during the news interview.

That's one view. Another is that Musk said of the chap organising the rescue:

In response, Musk said Osatanakorn was “not the subject matter expert”, adding that he believed he had been “inaccurately described as rescue chief”, and should be more accurately referred to as the “former Thai provincial governor”.

The bad insult that provoke Musk's response:

“Even though their equipment is technologically sophisticated, it doesn’t fit with our mission to go in the cave,” Osatanakorn told reporters.

Bit of a thin skin, methinks.

But back to Unsworth:

“It just had absolutely no chance of working,” Unsworth said in a widely shared interview. “He had no conception of what the cave passage was like. The submarine, I believe, was about 5ft 6in long, rigid, so it wouldn’t have gone round corners or round any obstacles.”

Mmmm. Hardly justifies reputation trashing, does it? Oh, there's more:

Musk visited the cave system himself. Unsworth said the billionaire “was asked to leave very quickly”. He also told CNN Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts”.

Ah. Well, there you go - an inflated ego putting his nose where no-one wants it and then striking out when it's put out of joint. Although having lashed out the least he could do was stay quiet, but no:

On Sunday, when a Twitter user pointed out that Musk was “calling the guy who found the children a pedo”, the billionaire responded: “Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true.”

Musk has achieved a lot that's defeated many others, made dreams come (more or less) true. But he's a thin-skinned tosser.

[wraper]

Musk visited the cave system himself. Unsworth said the billionaire “was asked to leave very quickly”. He also told CNN Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts”.

Ah. Well, there you go - an inflated ego putting his nose where no-one wants it and then striking out when it's put out of joint. Although having lashed out the least he could do was stay quiet, but no:

I'd say its Unsworth who had inflated ego. Did he really need to say that insult? Especially considering that Musk had donated a lot of equipment for rescue operation. No good deed goes unpunished.

[PlainName]

Unsworth's respones was after Musk's earlier huff, was it not? And I would suggest that telling someone to push off is a LOT less damaging than telling the world they're a kiddie fiddler, and then doubling down on it explicitly. YMMV, in which case I will try to remember your preferred insult if necessary.

[Simon]

The mystery of Musk's speech  impediments and other weirdnesses has now been solved - Musk has admitted he has Asperger's and is/was just fooling around.

Look I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works," he said.

https://www.dw.com/en/elon-musk-reveals-he-has-aspergers-syndrome/a-57473708

Mystery ? We forget that one does not "have" aspergers, Aspergers/autism is just one end of the spectrum of people, you don't have it as such, it's part of who you are, most people find it weird but then that is just their opinion.

Given his eratic public persona I always sort of suspected,

[Zero999]

Has hate speech really increased since Elon took over?

I have read articles which suggest that it has increased, citing that usage of racial and homophobic slurs have increased, but is it because Twitter has become more popular and more people are Tweeting? Black Americans often use racial slurs. It's difficult to get objective data, because Musk haters will promote one narrative and his supporters another.

And what is hate speech? I don't see any problem with hate. It's a perfectly healthy emotion. I hate paedophiles and murders. It's also questionable whether hate speech actually encourages acts of violence.

[james_s]

I don't know, I've never used Twitter and have no plans to start. I would not be surprised though if people are trolling and testing to see what they can get away with.

[SiliconWizard]

Uh, wouldn't you also be surprised if tons of people not liking Musk are trolling Twitter in an attempt to show how bad it has become and how free speech is dangerous? Judging how much "noise" this whole sh*t is making, it's not just likely, it's almost certain. I also wouldn't be surprised if large amounts of cash were currently  invested for doing exactly that, trying to destroy Twitter until Musk gives in and sells it back. Seriously the amount of frenzy behind all this is mind-boggling.

[MK14]

Would I be joking, if I said, Musk has now had beds, installed in some of the offices?

A joke, surely?

Must be a joke, right .....

https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/07/musk_twitter_offices/

[RJSV]

   Gets to be like mid-age kids, here.  No buttons pushed, but some of the on-going, seemingly perpetual psyco-obsessions out there try my patience, (mildly).

   Ever here that story of the scared little kid, telling parents about the MONSTER looking shadow, there in the bedroom closet ?

   Every time, you might have seen, that experience gets more and more horrid...every time told:
   " It was, maybe 4 ft. tall, with 1 inch fangs..."

and then, it's:.  "...maybe 7 ft. tall, fangs 19 inches long"

 Then: " 10 ft. tall, 3 ft. FANGS, ...growled at me..."

That's what I perceive, some of the dialog of the folks in public sphere, twitter, congress, etc.
Then, we discuss those public figures here.  Often kids do that, not expecting some public figure to communicate in that style.

[james_s]

Would I be joking, if I said, Musk has now had beds, installed in some of the offices?

A joke, surely?

Must be a joke, right .....

https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/07/musk_twitter_offices/

There were quite a few guys at Microsoft that had sofas in their office when I worked there back in the late 90s-mid 2000's. The company didn't put them there but it was fairly common for people to work long hours to hit deadlines, especially anything that needed to ship in time for the holiday season and sleeping in one's office or taking an afternoon nap was not uncommon.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Would I be joking, if I said, Musk has now had beds, installed in some of the offices?

A joke, surely?

Must be a joke, right .....

https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/07/musk_twitter_offices/

There were quite a few guys at Microsoft that had sofas in their office when I worked there back in the late 90s-mid 2000's. The company didn't put them there but it was fairly common for people to work long hours to hit deadlines, especially anything that needed to ship in time for the holiday season and sleeping in one's office or taking an afternoon nap was not uncommon.

Extra curricular midnight couch surfing is a bit of a dirty word in our nation's capital this year resulting in some nasty he said she said. Not that any software coder is at risk of getting laid..

[james_s]

Extra curricular midnight couch surfing is a bit of a dirty word in our nation's capital this year resulting in some nasty he said she said. Not that any software coder is at risk of getting laid..

There are quite a few women in tech these days, but back in the early days of my career it was extremely male dominated.

[tom66]

There were quite a few guys at Microsoft that had sofas in their office when I worked there back in the late 90s-mid 2000's. The company didn't put them there but it was fairly common for people to work long hours to hit deadlines, especially anything that needed to ship in time for the holiday season and sleeping in one's office or taking an afternoon nap was not uncommon.

If Musk pays very well this could be acceptable to some younger folk (or if he offers very good equity?)

But the fact is that Meta/Google/Netflix and so on typically run 37 hour work weeks with a fixed salary.  And it's well evidenced that people are not generally consistently productive on 60 hour weeks (there are some exceptions but this is generally true).

So unless Musk wants to compensate these people $250k+ a year for an entry level SWE then he's gonna have to hire more people.  And make the working environment more pleasant, less Musky.

The problem is he wants the $150k a year Bay Area engineer but wants twice as much productivity from them as everyone else.  And he wants them to do that in the office rather than at home, so add 10 hours of commuting to that as well.

[tszaboo]

Musk has achieved a lot that's defeated many others, made dreams come (more or less) true. But he's a thin-skinned tosser.

Yes, he achieved a lot, which we can account for his Asperger. The simptoms include:
- An intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects
- Difficulty managing emotions, sometimes leading to verbal or behavioral outbursts, self-injurious behaviors or tantrums
- Lack of social finesse
Musk got obsessed with electric cars, and that made him successful, because he also had the money for it. He also is obsessed with a lot of other things that are utter failures. And the electric car took like 15 years to become successful, and their only redeeming quality is being "first electric" because they are not very good cars in other ways.
So is he very good at solving difficult problems? His engineers are doing that, he just latches on the problem like a pitbull and uses his money to solve them.