Right-Wing and Fake News Writers Are Now Going After Elon Musk (qz.com) 736
Fake news galvanized US president-elect Donald Trump's supporters, and sullied his enemies. Now it may be Elon Musk's turn. Quartz adds: The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has his fair share of detractors, but a new era in a public relations battle to discredit him appears to be taking shape. Bloomberg reports that hard-right groups are lining up to back misleading websites and fake journalists who attack Musk's business empire. Many of the attacks on Musk begin with something factual: His businesses were built, legally, with the help of billions in government contracts and incentives for renewable energy and space transport. But they go on to accuse Musk of fraud and wasting taxpayer dollars; some compare him to a convicted felon. At least three conservative sites have run negative pieces about Musk -- by a nonexistent writer named "Shepard Stewart" -- that include "Elon Musk Continues to Blow Up Taxpayer Money With Falcon 9" and "Elon Musk: Faux Free Marketeer and National Disgrace." Two later retracted the stories. "There's a very obvious precedent" for this, says Sam Jaffe, managing director of Cairn Energy Research Advisors. "That's Hillary Clinton." Musk tweeted this week, "Can anyone uncover who is really writing these fake pieces?"
What an empty life (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What an empty life (Score:2, Informative)
I agree, the left wing needs a dose of reality, but there's no hate like liberal hate. There's a lot of left wing fake news, including:
* Michael Brown shot in cold blood by a cop (Michael Brown attempted to steal the cop's gun and charged at him)
* Trump campaign might not accept the election outcome (Trump's campaign considered legal challenges just like Gore did in 2000)
* Hackers caused Trump to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (No evidence of hacking, but demographics can easily explain the outco
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Re: What an empty life (Score:4, Informative)
There's a difference between fake news and biased takes upon it.
It is subtle; but there is a difference.
Michael brown: was shot by a cop; and the only "fake" part of this, is "in cold blood". But that is an interpretation of the news. the "Attempt to steal the cops gun and charged at him" is what the cop who shot him says right? So if the narative is the cop is lying, then it could easily be a true headline. What is being reported here, is that there is a dispute between what happened, and what is being reported. This is a case where there is some complexity. This is not fake news.
Trump campaign might not accept the election outcome. Wheres the part where it was fake news? You agree that Tumps campaign considers legal action, the definition of not accepting the election outcome. So, you agree this is not fake news? PS. I'd like to point out that right now Clinton is considering legal action! would reporting that be fake news too? according to you, just because sometimes not accepting the election outcome is a thing that happens, that it is fake news!
Hackers caused trump to win state X. This might be fake news. (Except, the news in this circumstance is more likely people reporting that Crazy person X says that hackers caused a Trump win - not "hackers caused it" but "crazy man says hackers caused it". I'm still calling it fake news so, thats something for you right?
2016 is the hottest year on record. It is; according to the temperature data released by the scientists. Yes the scientists do modify the data to normalise it, that is how science works, if you don't understand it - please go and learn what they are doing. Is there room for different types of data manipulation? yes. That is what science does. Takes the figures; then normalise them to fix measurement errors. This is not fake news.
Trumps economic plans to protect american workers were racist. OK, so your argument is Bernie had the same policies and wasn't called racist. But that isn't an argument against the headline. That is an argument about favourtism. As far as I can tell you fundamentally agree that Trump and Bernies plans were racist. Therefore, this is not fake news.
As far as I can tell, you are 1/5. And that 1 is borderline.
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Informative)
2016 is the hottest year on record" is fake news if you don't include the error bars in your measurements.
2016 is so far ahead of previous records [woodfortrees.org] that it is well beyond the margin of uncertainty. Nevermind 1/100 of a degree. This year is over 1/4 of a degree warmer than the previous peak.
Re: What an empty life (Score:4, Funny)
Re: What an empty life (Score:4, Informative)
>Michael Brown shot in cold blood by a cop (Michael Brown attempted to steal the cop's gun and charged at him)
No he didn't. And even if he had it wouldn't mean anything. You can't disprove a pattern by claiming (truthfully or not) that one example doesn't fit the pattern. You may have had a point if there wasn't Tamir Rice (cop acquitted), If the NRA had even MENTIONED Philando Castile, if there was no Eric Garner, of if the list of unarmed black men killed by US police this year alone was not currently at 1039 - that's an average of more than 3 a day, every day.
>Trump campaign might not accept the election outcome (Trump's campaign considered legal challenges just like Gore did in 2000)
He said he might not accept it. He SAID he would "keep you suspense". Oh, right, I forgot - it's a media smear if we quote him right ? You don't GET to consider legal challenges until AFTER an election. Even if you DO decide to raise one you STILL have to accept the results BEFORE you do. A legal challenge is a claim that the published result is not the ACTUAL result - it's is NOT a failure to ACCEPT the result - it's merely a quibble about what the result is. There's a massive difference.
> Hackers caused Trump to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania /. ever since I started reading this site in the previous century. We've had headlines over concerns that Diebold machines cheat in every election since 2000 ! Now all of a sudden asking if voting machines are trustworthy is 'hate' ?
A small number of people said that, had good reasons for saying that - which were trumped by people with more expertise pointing out something they miss. There's no "hate" there. Are citizens now no longer allowed to question whether voting machines are accurate ? Because people have been doing that on
>2016 is the hottest year on record
It is, your claim to the contrary is a lie. You are either a sucker or a liar yourself. Science doesn't stop being true because you don't like it.
> Trump's economic plans to protect American workers were racist
Nobody said that. We said his immigration plans and comments about refugees were racist. Well actually somebody DID say his economic plans were racist, but that only happened once, Friday - never before, and the person who said it was Bernie Sanders.
>Trump's economic plans were virtually identical to those of Bernie Sanders
Only on the surface, go read Bernies recent speech about them - and how he clarifies what the differences are and why those differences are extremely important. Indeed - HE says that THOSE differences makes Trump's version racist.
You can't hold similarity to Bernie's plans up as proof he isn't racist when Bernie himself has pointed out racist differences in the plans. The plans also have, in reality, almost nothing in common anyway. Taking an example. Both claim to want to invest heavily in infrastructure. Sounds the same right ? Wrong, because HOW they want to do it has nothing in common.
Bernie wanted to spend federal dollars fixing the infrastructure most in need of repairs - that would be the infrastructure in poor neighbourhoods and cities where there isn't any profit to be made and the local communities cannot afford to fund the upgrades themselves.
Trump wants to set up an incentive scheme to encourage private companies to do infrastructure upgrade projects as for profit business ventures for tax breaks: that means they will only upgrade it where they can make money. In the wealthy neighbourhoods where the people can afford price hikes to pay them (and where the need for upgrades is smaller meaning they can spend less.
While both would create jobs Bernie would have created a lot more, and his projects would have helped people like those in Flint Michigan. When you're only helping already rich, mostly white, suburbs due to the structure of your plan: that's pretty much the definition of a racist program. FDR had the same problem, many structures of the new deal excluded black people and a
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Interesting)
Make no mistake this is serious and these people are paid. It's about money and preserving the old energy business structure. Musk needs to hire massive PR and counterattack.
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exactly, fake news works because people see it shared by their friends on facebook etc and trust it because of that.
fool one person, have them infect some friends with their gullible folly and then it can spread as a chain reaction though large groups of people
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Insightful)
They often back people who were involved in police incidents without actually waiting for evidence to become available, then become entrenched and back them to the end in any case. In the original incident that spawned this group both civilian parties were acting badly, but in the end the person who shot was having his head smashed in on the curb or pavement with his assailant standing over him. In some actual cases the victim was the police who had to deal with a serious situation and were justified in action but this did not fit the narrative and much was made up to justify it. By backing these people they actually detract from the many legitimate cases of bad actors abusing authority that did lead to unnecessary violence. Media in general often runs pictures years out of date or shows selective clips to bias the reporting to maximize viewership, not even taking fake news into account. It is a serious problem; even just one bad person in a few thousand can ruin it for everyone through abuse of the system.
Also people associated with the group are often a me only rights group and throw other groups like Native Americans who have it just as bad, as well as others under the bus. I don't see enough inclusiveness
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think BLM is about every individual case (there's the ACLU for that), and we can all see that in some of those situations things are not that "black & white" (so to speak). In some demonstrations we can also see some form of hatred (against cops, against "white devil", etc).
I think BLM is more of a reaction to institutionalized racism that persists to this day - things like black drivers being pulled over because they're black, which is real. The constant grind of discontent leads to this. Just like PETA they're a bit over the top and often biased and unfair, but they're the only way society can move forward. Middle-of-the-road opinions don't bring change.
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that Republicans/Conservatives (speaking as one myself) need to do better is recognized that racism still actually exists, but may not be typically seen by most white people. I heard the lone black Republican senator was pulled over seven times in a year [huffingtonpost.com]. He admitted a couple of those were for speeding, but others seemed to be for trivial matters, or nothing at all.
From the senator: [wltx.com]
Scott went on to describe a time an officer pulled him over and began questioning if the car he was driving was stolen. "An officer pulls me into the median and starts telling me that he thinks perhaps the car is stolen. Well, I started to ask myself because I was smart enough not to ask him, asking myself, is the license plate coming in as stolen? Does the license plate match the car? I was looking for some rational reason that may have prompted him to stopping me on the side of the road."
It's unfortunate that the movement got started on a very questionable incident, in which it became apparent that the police did nothing wrong, because it gave the political opposition a reason to disbelieve the rest of the story. That shows the damage that "fake news" can do.
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Interesting)
Only after the death of Michal Brown did Eric Garner's death come into the larger public's attention, because Brown's death was not nearly so clear cut. People disagreed about whether or not the officers were in the right in that case, and arguing gets people's attention. Arguing makes people angry in a way that the events themselves do not.
So the lesson was: your cause may be right, but if you want to actually accomplish anything then it's more important to be controversial than it is to be completely correct.
Re: What an empty life (Score:4)
Re: What an empty life (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a systemic problem with their entitled mindset. Fake news is no different from the fake rape and fake attack accusations that individuals have been making recently, only instead of being actioned by individual actors fake news comes out via more organised organisations.
They honestly feel that whatever their specific problem is, lying serves the greater good, which is a very childish position to be coming from.
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The Enquirer is a gossip tabloid sold in supermarkets. People know it's not real,
Well, not everyone [cnn.com].
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Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, like it or not, laws against owning and carrying firearms were first created to stop black people from being armed. That's a sad genesis for the rabid gun control groups out there willing to see thousands die each year in Chiraq, with their dream gun control laws fully in place there.
That being said, I hope you can discern between NRA leadership (which botched the Castile case), and NRA members, who were also outraged:
http://www.nola.com/crime/inde... [nola.com]
"This time, however, the NRA faces an internal division as its members argue the group did not do enough to defend gun owners' rights by speaking out on behalf of Castile."
Let's also remember that the shooter in Castile's death wasn't a white guy - he was, however, a blue guy. And that's the problem - blue guys have too much power over us. We should not outsource our personal self defense to blue guys, and we should have much stricter rules of engagement for blue guys. I get it, it's a shit job and there is real risk of being shot in an ambush by thugs, but *that's the job*. The past few notable unjustifiable cop shootings I've seen have been driven by jittery cops, not any form of systemic racism.
A few thoughts for reform:
1) end police unions - cops who shoot people have way too many union protections to allow them time to make up phony stories.
2) use tech to avoid risk - maybe video conference via drone to the driver suspected of some traffic violation "sir, please place your license and registration in the slot", and have the drone return it to the officer who is a safe distance away from any possible ambush, or just use facial recognition to find someone's license and registration, instead of asking them for a fucking paper copy.
3) national right to carry - when seconds count cops are just minutes away
4) no more "broken tail light" crap stops - unless you're going to fix it on the spot for the person. We've got traffic laws built for revenue generation rather than public safety, and the unintended consequences (as well as the intended ones), are bullshit.
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. The left wing needs to stop the fake news smear campaign against Trump. It's sad that they can't accept the outcome of the election and, instead, continue making up lies about Trump and his character.
With all due respect, you are so full of shit.
Re: What an empty life (Score:4, Funny)
Fake news has been a thing for a long ass fucking time, why are they JUST NOW making a big deal out of it? Examples of really old fake news sites:
prisonplanet.com
That site could fool anyone with their fake news; how could someone know that the current headline ("Butt-Hurt Losers Demand Election Recount!") is not impartial, objective news?
Re: What an empty life (Score:5, Insightful)
I kinda liked that site. It was a fun read. I also listened to Alex's show for the same reason. The best comparison I could make for it at the time is to the supermarket tabloids. It's not so much that it's fake news, as it was pure entertainment that happened to be taken seriously by random nut jobs we could easily ignore in our day to day lives. (And who Alex could profit from by selling crappy prepper merchandise)
Unfortunately one of those people is our future President. I'm waiting for him to question the moon landing. Then we will be entering the prologue to Interstellar.
His rise is symptomatic of an increasing number of people taking these shit-stain outlets seriously. The MSM de-legitimized itself and made this possible, and I place the blame squarely on their shoulders. Thanks to them we have to remind people that these sources are "fake", and that they aren't smarter than everyone else for having a pointlessly contrarian view of vaccinations, 9/11, global warming, the Earth's roundness, or the moon landing.
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Wait a minute - are you saying that "fake" == "not impartial, objective"? Then there is a whole lot of "fake news" out there.
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People seem to be willing to believe stories that confirm their bias without checking facts or even using common sense.
And this applies universally, even with news that is mostly accurate. (I say mostly, because I've yet to find a news article or video segment whose story I've done my own research on that tells you everything and has the details correct and/or doesn't emphasize a particular point of view at the expense of another. Even news outlets that claim to be neutral, like NPR, tend to do this.)
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I frequent those forums and I've literally never heard anything about Elon on them.
You don't see? This is fake news about fake news!
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In California we have people suing a fast food place because they ate to much.
Have you seen the calorie counts on some of these plates for a single meal? I get accused of "skinny shamming" my friends if I eat one-third of a 1,500-calorie plate in the restaurant and take home the rest for two separate meals.
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The people that starve won't be the folks that put Trump in power...
The people that will likely suffer the most under Trump are the working class people that voted for him. He plans to cut taxes on the wealthy, cut business taxes, and generally make taxes more regressive. If he starts a trade war, it will likely destroy more jobs than are created, and good paying jobs in high end manufacturing and technology, will be replaced by low wage jobs making the plastic junk that Walmart currently imports from China.
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The people that will likely suffer the most under Trump are the working class people that voted for him.
But they didn't, that's a myth. The median income of Trump voters was $10,000 higher than Clinton voters. Only a very loud, very ignorant, yet minuscule minority of working class people voted for Trump, especially given the low overall turnout. The majority of working class people didn't bother to vote. They didn't see any point to it.
Soft target attacked by cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
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The USS Zumwalt is coming up strong on the outside in this category.
Re:Soft target attacked by cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
Every good patriotic defense contractor runs wings around Elon Musk when it comes to wasting the taxpayer's money. But that's ok, they make big weapons to appease the warhawks and bring the pork to their districts, whereas working with renewable energy is a serious sin in the culture wars.
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The sad thing is how many people voted for Trump believing that he would bring back coal—believing that environmental regulations are the reason that coal is dead—when nothing is further from the truth. Coal is dead. Natural gas killed it. Forget the environmental issues; natural gas plants are much cheaper and easier to set up.
You can
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I had to think of their fusion project when I saw Lockheed.
Wait - not everything on the Internet is true? (Score:5, Funny)
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Nothing on the Internet is true (including this).
Thanks. You just shut down my androids [wikipedia.org].
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I just mash the keyboard and let the Reddit admins correct anything they think is wrong.
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Butbutbut Pizzagate!!!
Two possible motivations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two possible motivations (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Two possible motivations (Score:4, Funny)
The 2 Russian girls I know are both very attractive... I wouldn't mind finding either one of them under (or on top of) my bed...
Don't be a fool man! They're only there to sap your precious bodily fluids!
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Re:Two possible motivations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two possible motivations (Score:5, Informative)
This.
Fossil fuel is (I know it's hard to fathom) more desperate for survival than tobacco was back when, and the IP industry is now.
I helped litigate tobacco and the conversation went like this:
Scientists: Your shit is killing people.
Tobacco: Jobs.
Lawyers: Your shit is killing people.
Tobacco: Jobs.
Rinse, repeat.
Re:Two possible motivations (Score:5, Informative)
The "jobs" argument for fossil fuels just doesn't make sense though. There's already more jobs in renewables than in oil or coal (Either one by itself. Not combined, yet.). We hit that tipping point this year. Jobs growth in renewables has been crushing fossil fuels for the last several years. Investments in renewables are growing exponentially. And if you look out past five years or so (Yeah, I know, most MBA types are congenitally incapable of looking past the next quarter. Whatever.) we're close to profit growth; and not long after, profits being larger than fossil duels. Renewables ARE where the jobs are, and it's where the money is fi you play the long game.
Clean-Energy Jobs Surpass Oil Drilling for First Time in U.S. [bloomberg.com]
Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels [bloomberg.com]
Governor Schwarzenegger put it brilliantly. Even if you *don't* believe in global warming (Which is still a stupid-ass position.) fossil fuels are eventually going to run out. Before they run out, they're going to become more expensive to extract. Renewables are the future. Renewables are where the jobs and investment opportunities are, moving forward. And what sort of moron wants to be the last investor in Blockbuster when Netflix is about to crush them?
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Yes, global warming is treated as an absolute lie by a huge chunk of the country. They treat anyone falling for it as either a fool or a part of the conspiracy, internal sabateurs trying to destroy America.
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If the second is the motivator, then it says something really fascinating: that there are elements of the right which not only are convinced that global warming is some sort of evil hoax, but that they actively hate people who disagree with them and are trying to take steps to destroy someone who is trying to help.
Remember what's said about religion: heretics and apostates are hunted down not because they are wrong but because they could be right.
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I'm not sure what the motivation is for these attacks. Musk hasn't been particularly political and mainly stayed out of this election.
From the article linked in TFS:
Jaffe says that whoever is behind the attacks is aiming at Musk personally because they fear he could go into politics. He cited the allegations of fraud (emails) and negligence (Benghazi) levied at Clinton during the presidential campaign, charges that cemented the public’s perception of her as shady. “It’s the exact same thing as Musk. There’s a portion of the political spectrum that is scared to death of Musk as politician. They see him as a threat. They’re starting that process.”
Re:Two possible motivations (Score:5, Interesting)
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... or three: the writers are being paid (indirectly, naturally) by individuals and companies whose finances are closely tied to fossil fuels. *cough* Koch brothers *cough*.
Have you seem some of those right-wing news sites: some of them don't have a lot of ads, suggesting an alternative source of funding.
Why did no one here mention the actual culprit? (Score:4, Insightful)
For the life of me, I can't figure out why people are in denial about Russia's involvement in attacking our electoral process.
Sure, you can find Macedonian teenagers, and idiots in California who claim that "only conservatives fall for fake news" and that it "doesn't work with liberals" (...) but that's a side show.
Start here, and read it until you grasp what is going on:
Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say
The flood of "fake news" this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.
Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human "trolls," and networks of websites and social-media accounts echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.
Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on "fake news," as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Then continue here:
A collection of articles on Russia influence operations in the United States:
The threat from Russia
22 Oct 2016
How to contain Vladimir Putins deadly, dysfunctional empire
FOUR years ago Mitt Romney, then a Republican candidate, said that Russia was Americas number-one geopolitical foe. Barack Obama, among others, mocked this hilarious gaffe: The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the cold wars been over for 20 years, scoffed the president. How times change. With Russia hacking the American election, presiding over mass slaughter in Syria, annexing Crimea and talking casually about using nuclear weapons, Mr Romneys view has become conventional wisdom. Almost the only American to dissent from it is todays Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
http://www.economist.com/news/... [economist.com]
---
Belching smoke through the Channel, Russian aircraft carrier so unreliable it sails with its own breakdown tug
22 Oct 2016
The ageing Russian aircraft carrier that sailed through the English Channel escorted by the Royal Navy has been plagued by years of technical problems and is accompanied everywhere by a tug in case it breaks down.
The plumbing is so bad on the 55,000 ton Admiral Kuznetsov that many of its toilets cannot be used, while it has had repeated problems with its power and a string of accidents, naval experts said.
The Soviet-era warship is leading a flotilla of eight naval vessels to the eastern Mediterranean, where its aircraft are expected to join a renewed assault on the rebel-held city of Aleppo.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
---
Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking
21 Oct 2016
Donald Trump
Re:Two possible motivations (Score:4, Insightful)
Fake news, everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
Hold on to your butts! (Score:2)
We're entering the "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" stage of history. It's gonna be a fuckin' riot.
Personally, I can't wait for CG to hit that sweet spot where one can make an absolutely convincing replica of anyone and make it do or say anything. Because who needs an objective reality anyway?
Then again, AI replacing the human thought process is going to be pretty sweet too. IT'S NOT MY FAULT, THE COMPUTER TOLD ME TO DO IT!!!
Oh boy, oh boy, we're living in the future folks. Hurrah!
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I like that "post-truth" [washingtonpost.com] is word of the year.
Lawyers (Score:2)
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Dear fellow Murican Conservative. I also share your views and wish to know more. Kindly send links for citations.
Regards, MAGA.
misrepresenting the reason for these stories (Score:5, Insightful)
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However it's mostly uneducated/desperate/poor etc people who fall for this. That was exploited by Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh etc and now it's the same in the right wing echo chambers on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit & co that gave us Pizzagate.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's lots of research that contradicts you.
Buuuuuullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Buuuuuullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Buuuuuullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why don't we have subsidies for tomatoes and carrots and spinach, you know, healthy foods. The corn subsidies are complete political payoffs to mid-western farmers -- the "rugged individual" rural folk who are over-represented in the Electoral college, Senate and House.
Re: Buuuuuullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
See, this GP and reply is exactly the conversation I seem to see most often online about Musk/Tesla/SpaceX. An ostensibly right-leaning (or libertarian) commenter will praise Musk for doing something privately that rivals and even surpasses NASA. Which is then followed by a rebuttal by an ostensibly left-leaning commenter who tries to point out the subsidies and public research further up the stream that fed into these successes.
This is why it's very weird to read this Slashdot post about right-wing people trying to take down Musk. In my experience, the right wing folks have been very enthusiastic in holding him up as a triumph of capitalism, and as a literal John Galt brought out of the pages of fiction into our reality.
Don't lie about Musk (Score:2)
Re:Don't lie about Musk (Score:5, Funny)
Mainstream media is scared (Score:2, Insightful)
You have to realize just how much the recent election shocked the shit out of the media. Wow, there is a whole world out there and they have NO IDEA what is going on. They have been living in a bubble and that bubble was burst, badly, on election night. They are deep hurting [youtube.com] and this isn't any kind of fake crocodile tears hurt. It's for real and they are going to engage in the kind of defense mechanisms that humans engage in when they are hurt this badly.
So, what should their reaction be to the fact th
Re:Mainstream media is scared (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mainstream media is scared (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiiight.... (Score:2)
Musk and his scientific/engineering teams landed a rocket vertically- more than once. Something that NASA engineers said could not be done and was impractical. They were wrong.
Show me something like that from the right wing guys. Anything? What have they accomplished? Anything? Bueller?
Might be Tucker all over again. But every single thing Tucker designed ended up in modern automobiles. Every single thing NASA has designed has resulted in a new products. And every single thing Musk develops will also end u
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It's a bit much to assume that none of the scientists and engineers are conservative. That's like "all blacks ____", "all Muslims ___", etc.
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Musk and his scientific/engineering teams landed a rocket vertically- more than once. Something that NASA engineers said could not be done and was impractical.
Why do people think NASA engineers are the Gold Standard for engineers? Plenty of equally, if not not better, qualified people work elsewhere (probably for higher pay too). Not trying to dis NASA, just sayin'.
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Go ahead and have your moment. That's all it is.
Re:Riiiight.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the kind of crazy that comes from existing in an echo chamber where everything good is left-wing and the right are scary enemies. It's self-reinforcing and is quite ignorant as well.
The entire space program was thoroughly right-wing and patriotic from the beginning. It was a giant dick-waving competition with the Soviet Union over who was better, communism or capitalism. The few leftists in the space program were engaged in trying to steal the tech and deliver it to the Soviets. Wehrner von Braun, the father of the Saturn V rocket, was a Nazi and you can't get more right-wing than that. Science and STEM occupations in general are regularly attacked by the left for being exclusionary, unwelcoming to women, and all of the other crimes that we know so well. Now suddenly the right can't do calculus?
The really crazy part is the sudden left-wing identification with weapons. The left has long been hoplophobic and now they suddenly overnight lost their fear of guns? These are people who won't even be in the same room if an unloaded pistol is lying on a table. They'll leave the building, it freaks them out.
You also notice in this post there is no difference made between the right wing (most people in America) and the alt.right (a few thousand people). They are put together in the same bucket so that the odious beliefs of the alt.right may contaminate the entire right. The principle is: add a thimble of wine to a gallon of sewage and you've got a gallon of sewage, but add a thimble of sewage to a gallon of wine and you've got a gallon of sewage. This is just plain ignorant, but it's the new philosophy of the ctrl.left and sadly it has a good chance of working.
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Wehrner von Braun, the father of the Saturn V rocket, was a Nazi and you can't get more right-wing than that.
Wehrner von Braun, the father of the Saturn V rocket, was apolitical. That doesn't make him a good person, but he was willing to make rockets for anyone who would help him build a rocket that would go into space.
The really crazy part is the sudden left-wing identification with weapons. The left has long been hoplophobic and now they suddenly overnight lost their fear of guns? These are people who won't even be in the same room if an unloaded pistol is lying on a table. They'll leave the building, it freaks them out.
Lots of us liberals have been gun owners since forever. Gun ownership is a liberal value. A lot of fake-ass liberals who are actually neocons have been trying to convince us otherwise for decades, hypocrites like Barbara Feinstein who carried a purse gun (and probably still does, but in any case she
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Depends on whether you destroy him like you did with Tucker.
FUCK YOU! (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely, it couldn't have been all of the FACTUAL information obtained from Hillary's email server, and the DNC's and Podesta's hacked accounts that "galvanized" the Trump supporters. And, of course, it couldn't have been Hillary's march toward globalization and the further degrading of US sovereignty. No, it was the FAKE NEWS boogeyman. OOoohhhh!
Here's a clue: Trump won the presidency because of the continued efforts of the leftist media to muddy the waters with lies, and play interference for Hillary. Welp, we don't like being lied to, and it was apparent where the lies were coming from and who they were meant to benefit. So, on election day, we said "FUCK YOU!" to the liars. We said "Fuck you" to the perpetually scandalous Hillary, and we said "FUCK OFF" to the infantile, shrill, triggered little assholes that continue to plague the streets in protest of the process they claim to support.
And now, as we repeatedly hear the drums of "fake news" and "hate speech" beat to the rhythm of the same lying lefty news orgs, we see it for what it is: an attempt to silence the voice of opposition. Racism, hate, white supremacy... it's so sad that these words have lost all meaning. These words call out ugly ideals and behavior, but the klaxon blowhards of the left have been crying wolf for too long. Now, it's time to eat crow, motherfuckers.
seems a bit daffed (Score:2)
Guy that rich can afford *real* assassins.
A precedent has been set... (Score:2)
Hello,
News sites (fake or otherwise) should be extremely cautious of running salacious news stories about Elon Musk, given that fellow tech mogul Peter Thiel helped sue a media outlet into oblivion. Presumably, Elon Musk has the same capability.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Rage news (Score:4, Interesting)
I've noticed over the last 15 years that news reporting appears to deliberately incite rage in it's consumers. I conclude the reason is because happy news doesn't cause interaction that can be measured, while outrage causes people to post comments, link, and send to friends. These actions can be tracked, and if it can be tracked, it can be monetized. An example is Info Wars site. Most of their news is extremely slanted and almost seems to jerk the froth out of their average reader's mouth, while simultaneously reporting things dishonestly. When one bothers to fact check and independently confirm their stories, it is my opinion that they are almost without exception false to fact or put in the worst light possible. Nor is it confined to such fringe lunatic sites, this is found in Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, and to a lessor extent in CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, and NPR.
TL;DR: News is worthless. They all have an agenda and they all push it.
NPR identifies major source of fake news (Score:4, Informative)
In case you missed it, NPR tracked down a major source of fake news [kqed.org]
That is, a left-wing agitator produces large amounts of right wing bullshit online and then left-wing media use that to support their view that there is a massive problem with fake news and "alt-right" views.
This is similar to to the fake post-election hate-crime-wave that we are supposedly experiencing, and to the death threats people fake on Twitter. The left wing outrage machinery is largely fed by self-created fake stories.
thanks for taking the time... (Score:2)
Re:Shepard Stewart (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you really just point to two of the biggest fake news sites to use them as evidence that a fake person exists?
I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.
In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason they say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.
Re:Shepard Stewart (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.
In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason th doing it. Alsoey say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.
I heard about this story [npr.org] yesterday on NPR, about an alt-right fake-news writer living in Los Angeles.
TL/DR: Jestin Coler (the fake-news writer) claimed that he does it to show how easily hoodwinked people are by fake news, but when pressed, he admitted he could make lots of money doing this. A few interesting quotes from his interview:
The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
[...]
We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.
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Yes! ... but we're not talking about Trump here.
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Maybe you should get a job writing fake news.
The real news reports attribute the deaths to hitting a tree at a high rate of speed. The car didn't catch fire.
Hard to fix stupid.
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You really are a candidate for fake news writer.
Try reading the article slowly and move your lips as you read... sometimes it helps.
The car did not catch fire.
Some of the batteries were separated from the car and caught fire:
The crash left the Tesla in pieces strewn over 150 yards, requiring firefighters to douse multiple fires caused by small batteries and magnesium, Reith said in a news release.
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So, where does it say that the car caught fire?
(Hint: It doesn't. You're making that part up.)
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It's two step program: 1. publish a fake story that the alt-right will pick up and amplify. 2. Denounce the alt-right for believing the story. The problem is that step 2 appears to be missing.
The interesting thing about that story is that the only source of information that it is a leftist plot comes from the man who publishes lies for a living.
Re:And the show goes on (Score:4, Informative)
Damn, the denial is strong with you. You just tried to discredit original research. Do you even realize how denialist that is? If doing your own research isn't good enough, then damn what is?
Did you even read the article? Please do, it's important. The subject admits he's a leftist and confirms he's running a false flag operation. Read the whole thing from top to bottom, it is well worth five minutes of your (and everyone else's) time. Especially read the byline.
By Laura Sydell [npr.org]
NPR
Re: And the show goes on (Score:3)
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I'm not sure anyone is even doing anything. Some guy I've literally never heard is said to have written 3 critical articles that I've never seen before.
As best I can tell, everything right now is about /u/Spez and pizzagate, if there's anything going on about Elon, it's kinda weird that I'm reading about it here first.
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Why are they attacking him? Because he is an agent of change. And the only change they want is to return to a past that never was.
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Because he's doing new things and hiring people while they're doing old things and laying people off. They lack the drive, vision, or indeed ability to do what he is doing, and they don't want their asses kicked, so they are doing their best to keep him down not through competition since they are not competitive, but through skullduggery.
So he's just a new cult of personality figure to replace Jobs. Got it.
You don't get to say "got it" when you clearly don't get it.
Does nothing except grabbing taxpayer money and selling overpriced gadgets, is praised as a "visionary" in useless tabloids and by mouthbreathing "geeks".
He's not grabbing taxpayer money, it's being given to him because he's making changes which we find desirable. Those 'overpriced gadgets' are selling as fast as he can produce them, which proves that they are not overpriced. And he's substantially reduced the cost-to-orbit, which benefits everyone, even you.
I can see why you didn't log in. I'd be afraid to associate your ridiculous ideas with an identity, as well. If you did that, you'd be laughed
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The facts are quite clear: Tesla and Solar City only exist because of the massive subsidies they have received. Are those subsidies justified? Should they continue? Some people apparently do not want to have this discussion.
These same subsidies are available to others, yet no others are doing what Musk is doing. Why not? If this is just free money, as is often claimed, why aren't others lining up for it?
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"As we reflect on this week's momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflec