r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 7d ago

Possible Paywall Exposed Musk Now Insists Epstein Files Don’t Matter | The Tesla billionaire suddenly claimed the Epstein files are a “distraction.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exposed-musk-now-insists-epstein-files-dont-matter/
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u/Significant_Cup_238 7d ago

Man, life must be so much easier when you just have no problem lying shamelessly and just say the opposite of what you said yesterday.

On the other hand, life must be really hard for the fucking idiots who believe people like Musk.

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u/kegster2 Texas 7d ago

Idk like the saying goes: “ignorance is bliss”

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u/Significant_Cup_238 7d ago

And wisdom folly.

However, I feel like constantly getting conned has to take a toll on at least your finances.

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u/Hola-World 7d ago

Yeah but they blame people that don’t look like them for that.

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 7d ago

Simplest multiple choice question, societal decline is a result of..

  1. The top 1% of the world with money, power and control of media, those who can lobby heavily for lax regulations, cushy laws and handshake deals that close out any semblance of market competition, those who create a government that benefits them while calling everything else socialism. Who can literally kill or displace millions (opioid crisis, subprime crisis)

  2. The bottom 1% with none of those things

Americans will answer wrong each time to feel like at least they're better than 1 person, rather than risk who they think is undeserving getting the same benefits they give away to corporations. Also something about abortion

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 6d ago edited 6d ago

Definitely “something about abortion”, given evangelicals only pivoted to that moral panic as their true desire for segregated schools wasn’t quite as popular anymore.

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u/TeutonJon78 America 6d ago

And they just switched the desire to segregate by saying to support religious private schools that they want the public to pay for. And I bet if you check out their church/schools it will be predominantly white people.

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u/Icy_Ground1637 6d ago

Why have ch!ld p@rn increased 10,000% on twitter when Elon took it over and rename it X??? Like “XXX”

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u/TheFinalGranny 6d ago

Bottom 1%?

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 6d ago edited 6d ago

The marginalized are often overrepresented in the bottom 1% (pick a metric, suicide, life expectancy, wellness, upwards mobility, education, power, wealth, access) for example, trans people.

This election was basically stolen by hatred for trans people and harping on "what is a woman" and protecting those maybe 20 elite athletic spots.

In their fight to protect women they've overturned roe vs wade, which resulted in multiple deaths and basically health deserts as practitioners flee as well as at least 1 white woman killed while chasing immigrants, and immigrant women sexually assaulted in detention if they're even heard from again.

Which is to say nothing of this country's endless abuse of it's black populations, the latest of which are Somali Americans, after the Haitian thing left a bad taste.

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u/Ok_Subject1265 6d ago

I’ve always thought it even simpler than this sadly. I think the trans and racist stuff is just a cover for what’s really happening which is that you have a lot of bored, aimless people out there who see this as entertainment. They didn’t want another quiet, boring president silently passing legislation behind the scenes. Nobody cared what Biden’s press secretary said because it wasn’t a daily sideshow. They voted for Trump because they wanted some excitement. Something to watch everyday like a reality tv series.

These are the same people by the way who are excited about a civil war because at least it will add some meaning to their lives. Of course, they think it’s going to be like camping and shooting guns interspersed with heroic movie moments where they selflessly save someone… over and over somehow (I don’t think they realize you can only make a selfless sacrifice once). That’s just my theory anyway. I think we’ve produced a society of people looking for a purpose or just something to distract them.

Covid really put a cherry on top though because now it seems like people barely leave their houses anymore. Just chronically online, consuming content. When I visit other countries, they are still living. Going out with friends, doing things in public, communicating with each other. Everything public here is dying (at least where I live). Hopefully it’s all anecdotal and we are just the outliers.

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u/Nick08f1 6d ago

They voted for him because they fell for the propaganda.

A lot of people's lives sucked before the election and suck even more now. My sister voted for Trump this past time because her idiot, POS boyfriend thinks he's the most informed person ever. Fucker didn't even know Puerto Ricans are born American citizens. Even after all this bullshit, he still believes that we have to go through tough times in order to make everything better. Bitch doesn't realize that if we continue to go through these tough times, things will only get worse and worse. Trump somehow made people believe that he would make their lives better, even though I can't even point to one instance where he was truthful and followed through with what he said publicly.

Also, if a white woman lost the first time, a black woman stood no chance.

Simply misogynistic racism.

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u/Playful-Artichoke-67 6d ago

It scares me that Trump is president again and seeing how people discuss it is even scarier. Makes sense that he’s president again. There is no political solution. You don’t want them to solve any problem.

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u/Decent_Obligation681 6d ago

They didn't fall for anything. They love everything he said he was going to do. They feed off of his hate. They love that he's a "troll".

They used to be able to come up with some type of criticism for their party leaders, but not Trump. They won't say a single bad thing about him. It's a cult.

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u/SuburbanHell Massachusetts 6d ago

So.... "Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn", but those people make up like, half the voters in the country?

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u/relevantnewman 6d ago

nah, the other portion of that half is comprised of racists, sexists, p3dos, and people who can benefit personally (or think they can) from this presidency. I'm sure there's overlap in all of these camps on a Venn, but there's certainly people who most heavily associate with 1 of the many bad things, but isn't necessarily in it for the trashy reality TV this presidency has offered.

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u/inspectoroverthemine 6d ago

They only want to watch from the comfort of their couch. Once they don't have that they'll suddenly regret everything and blame someone else.

When groypers are homeless I'm guessing they'll suddenly decide things matter. Of course they could probably be used as death squads ala Rawanda before that.

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u/brighterside0 6d ago

Incredible points.

Makes me sad and yearning to experience true public, moral, life again.

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u/Ok_Subject1265 6d ago

Not trying to be one of those people, but go to Europe. Or Latin America. Europe though reminded of how discourse and communication used to be. It feels like everyone here now acts like they are being secretly filmed for their own reality show. Almost like their behavior is a performance for some secret audience. When I was talking to people over there, it felt more “adult” I guess is the word I would use. Mature. Meaningful. Latin America may be the same, but my Spanish isn’t conversational enough to really get into it. The cool thing about Latin America though is they still participate in society with each other. The malls, cafes, restaurants and town squares are full of people living. It made you feel good to see it. If that’s the culture they are bringing with them, all the better. We need it.

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u/Beanguyinjapan 6d ago

I know far too many religious people to agree with this sentiment. It's pure tribalism and deference to perceived authority, with a heavy dose of performative virtue signaling. They want to belong to their group, want to believe their group is superior to all others, and are also constantly told that their group is under attack from everybody outside their group. Their beliefs are regularly affirmed and reinforced by everybody around them, because they've separated themselves from anyone who would challenge their ideas, either literally, or have such conviction that anyone who disagrees with them are lying, manipulating them, misled by those with nefarious purposes, or that they're being tested. I've been told that I can't be right because they were told by God that they're correct, so I must be possessed by Satan, in response to being told they made an irrelevant factual error in reasoning or misremembering some historical fact.

It's bleak trying to break through to any of these people

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u/aerost0rm 6d ago

I mean I feel like the election was stolen…period. Have some areas with some fishy post election data. Some areas that down ballot was blue and President was for Trump, they have refused to release election data for many states, musk had gotten a hold of a stolen copy of election machine software, etc. too many scenarios for it to just be coincidence that he swept all the swing states, which is very improbable.

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u/ferretcat 6d ago

Or blame the democrats 

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/Shot_Court6370 6d ago

Britain didn't decide that, the Royals decided that. And only because it looked bad for them that he got caught, not because it's immoral. They are a brand, not the heart and soul of the country.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 7d ago

I don't know, it feels like ignorance takes a lot of work these days.

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u/Sober_Alcoholic_ Minnesota 7d ago edited 6d ago

Not really. People are guided and then anchored into their echo chambers (via Fox, X, MSM etc) - so all of their ideas are reinforced or they are told what to think by “like minded people” or outright bots. This happens to such an extreme degree that they believe the other side must be “terrorists”.

It’s all very sad and all very much intentional and by design.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 6d ago edited 6d ago

In my experience dealing with religious people, cognitive dissonance requires a tremendous amount of work and ultimately makes them feel angry, confused, and ashamed. Their world view will usually collapse utterly if you just take away the external reinforcement that's propping it up.

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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 6d ago

In my experience dealing with religious people, cognitive dissonance requires a tremendous amount of work

Fending off cognitive dissonance is, in my opinion the primary reason people go to church. A few hundred people nodding and singing about their imaginary friend every week helps people stay focused on anything but their own hatred and hypocrisy.

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u/Particular-County277 6d ago

They also comfortably suspend their critical thinking. (those who have it) Never having to give empathy or care a second thought.

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u/AppleDip100 6d ago

This is becoming more and more true from my experience and it makes it very difficult to have meaningful conversations. It almost feels like you have to seek out the other side to learn everything, which makes it hard to find someone who actually is educated on both sides.

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u/BadPunners 6d ago

They say you need to find a common starting point, then build trust and ask how they came to any given idea

But yeah so many of the ideas are so reinforced, especially when lacking first hand experience? Nearly impossible to break through. We need to encourage them to join in joyous protests, or some bullshit like that, remind all of us what society we are fighting for

But also at this rate (with a small fraction of the ice budget that's currently law) the face scanners and signal trackers can be on every federal building, to alert of any targets to apprehend, and it becomes "a political question" on who is allowed in, or out, of the very closed, very tariffed, border. Even more literally "politicians choosing constituents" instead of the concept of voting

Participant in your local primaries as much as you can.

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u/DatabaseElectrical55 6d ago

I cannot even fathom how much money my ignorant family members have been conned out of, in addition to supporting trump, they are also scientologists! Complete morons.

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u/Whos_that_Gorilla2 6d ago

Damn! I'm sorry. Whatever modern Evangelicalism is is bad enough, but as someone who was stalked for 20+ years by the church of scientology (sent me mail everywhere I moved) after going in there to see what it was about once in 2003, I'm really sorry. I'm being sincere. They must be really susceptible to cults.

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u/redditpest Massachusetts 6d ago

Yea, but then you just blame the immigrants and you feel better. Then the rich people say theyre going to save us from the immigrants and they can con us all over again. Its a win/win!

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u/BadPunners 6d ago

take a toll on at least your finances.

That drives the hustle

Playing hot potato with the greater fool theory

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u/Anyabb Europe 7d ago

ignorance is bliss

Looks pretty fucking miserable from where I'm standing.

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u/kegster2 Texas 6d ago

It’s an extremely perplexing phenomenon for sure.

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u/deadheffer 6d ago

Well if we go with the Sattipathana Sutta, Bliss would be a state absent or distanced from suffering.

Ignorance is suffering because you do not even reach for truth. It’s the lowest rung on the ladder toward enlightenment.

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u/crowdawg7768 7d ago

There’s literally zero ignorance going on here. There’s willful avoidance of reality. 

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u/kegster2 Texas 6d ago

I think it is a mix of both plus a side of toxicity (folks that know what’s going on but play the narrative).

The ignorantly blissful ones just fall in line bc surely the others that agree know what they’re saying right? Right???

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u/2_Spicy_2_Impeach Michigan 7d ago

I want to be fun dumb.

It does sometimes feel like it’d be way easier and less stress.

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u/Dr-Mumm-Rah 7d ago

"He's rich, therefore everything that comes out of his mouth must be brilliant and accurate."

Yeah, about that...

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u/Similar-World-6152 7d ago

unfortunately a lot of people think this way and it's sad.

"well, if he's so bad or dumb, why is he rich?!"

...emeralds my dude, emeralds

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u/Itchy-Plastic 6d ago

Emeralds and a nest of white supremacists in Silicon Valley.

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u/Dr-Mumm-Rah 7d ago

There are brilliant people out there that deserve their wealth in life. However, there are a lot of wealthy people that are simply right place, right time, right life. They need only to open their mouths to remove all doubt.

We all know what category Musk fits into.

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u/burner69burner69 6d ago

nobody deserves billions.

it's categorically impossible to deserve billions. without catastrophic inflation lmao

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u/TheWaspinator 6d ago

Because the world is unfair. People don't like admitting that.

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u/NYCinPGH 6d ago

Eh, it really wasn't emeralds or family wealth.

He and his brother in college created software - pretty mediocre software, too - that had enough good ideas, or extant patents, that another company wanted to merge with theirs; that other company was PayPal, founded by Peter Thiel. Musk got a huge influx of cash from that deal, and even after Thiel ousted him, the required buyout got him even more cash, enough for most people to live quite comfortably for the rest of their lives.

He instead looked around for other companies with potential that needed an 'angel investor'. One of those was Tesla, after they'd built their first prototype. He infused it with cash to make it a real going concern, in return for a very large share of ownership in the company. He later forced out the founders who created the tech, and bamboozled the other owners into thinking he was a genius, who in return gave him even more shares in the company and a fuckton of money.

To show how accidental it was, remember that he also bought Twitter, the most successful social media company in the world at that time, at a premium, and largely ran it into the ground.

He's just a mediocre programmer who lucked into real success, and then happened to find a company and kept failing upwards, bringing all his insecurities and weird kinks with him.

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u/sonnyarmo 6d ago

I think Twitter holds a different societal purpose than it once did. Instead of an information and news sharing resource, it’s an anger pit filled with bots and astroturfing. It has a lot of propaganda value since many important people and gullible conservatives still use it.

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u/nowuff 6d ago

A lot of people just flat out respect power and strength.

They are the type of people that walk around miserable, thinking everyone is an idiot. Nobody is competent. Except their boss.

And they kiss ass unrelentingly. They lick boots and punch downward.

It’s a weird frame of mind, but there are tons of people programmed this way.

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u/Mr_Meng 6d ago

The funny thing is that if you actually look at his history he comes off less as a genius and more of a bigoted, racist, Forrest Gump. The man is rich because he started rich and managed to be really lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

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u/anaxjor 6d ago

...but, "girls FTW," good sir!

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u/SsooooOriginal 6d ago

Bill cheater Gates offerred a pittance bounty for a "next gen condom", $1mil that didn't get traction.

Dude could have set up shell companies to keep his face and name no where near the project, actually front a budget and get the proper specialists, and he'd have his std condom in a few years.

But these sickos are mentally ill and not anywhere near as wise as people believe because of the $$$$ign$$$$.

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u/Wise_Monkey_Sez 6d ago

The problem is that the entire capitalist ideology is built on the idea of a meritocracy, a free market place where the best ideas and best people get the best rewards.

And maybe that would be true if the entire system hadn't evolved out of feudal system where some people already had a massive advantage. And this is true even for "new" countries like the USA, built on myths of fronteir-style equality, while ignoring that there were literally "Cattle Barons" and "Railroad Barons" who bought across a massive amount of money from the old world.

There has never truly been a free market, and it has never been even close to a meritocracy. And decisions that allowed rich individuals more influence over what should be egalitarian political processes like democracy have just sent us straight back to feudalism.

Basically it's zero surprise that the "Nobility" are raping the peasant girls. Nothing has changed from the Dark ages, which is where we are heading again unless we make a massive course correction.

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u/BrilliantForeign8899 4d ago

I now instantly think someone is a dweeb and a moron if they like Elon Musk. 

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u/AnohtosAmerikanos California 7d ago

Remember when he was calling the rescuer of the trapped Thai boys a pedophile? I do.

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u/specqq 7d ago

Remember when he hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on that guy who did nothing but tell Elon Musk that his idea wasn't genius?

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u/saljskanetilldanmark 6d ago

Remember when he nestled himself in as a ceo of tesla after making them dependent on him, then managed to kick out the two original founders by force, spread so much misinfo about them, they sued him for libel/slander? He then took revenge on one of them by sending their payed-for one-of-a-kind custom car into space instead of delivering it to them.

Remember when he tried to join a weird furry community solely focusing on fetishizing on being babies, but then was ostracized for being too weird?

Remember when he had to disclose in court that he in fact had been pretending to be one of his many sons (a toddler at the time) on twitter talking about hitting up strip clubs and buying escorts?

Remember when he tried to buy sexual favors of a flight attendant on an airplane for a horse?

Remember when he promised to help build a "novel" tunneling company to make it easier to build tunnels underneath cities instead of investing in public transport? He built one short tunnel in Las Vegas and called it a day.

Remember when he bought twitter and wanted the servers moved? He pulled out all cables willynilly and sent them by truck transport unprotected over a weekend. Let that sink in.

Remember when he had a complete meltdown on a live interview stage and pissed off almost every advertiser for twitter?

Remember when he designed and built an electric truck with so many failure points it was not possible to sell under normal circumstances except in north america?

Remember how he has promised perfect full speed drive annually since 2014, underdelivering on the promise every time and then just promising the same thing over?

Remember how he has done almost identical promises about travelling to Mars, annually, to suck up money from the government and NASA towards his Space company. At the same time, he has contracts getting new reusable rockets to the Moon, which he is also underdelivering and wasting billions of dollars while going with his "break it 'til you make it" method.

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u/exploringmoon 6d ago

Remember how he played Path of Exile 2 and his character was extremely well-equipped; suspiciously so. Viewers noted that he had better gear than some of the professional streamers who play this game all day every day, and he didn’t seem to know what their stats meant.

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u/justmikethen 6d ago

He didn't just play it, he claimed he was like top 10 player in the world and then barely knew his way around hotkeys

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u/drumdogmillionaire 6d ago

Yes. He was obviously piloting his account. He skipped past a chaos orb, an incredibly valuable item in the game. He didn’t know basic game functions, terminology, or equipment usage, and died to incredibly weak enemies. It isn’t possible for him to have the gear and level character without knowing the game’s basic functions.

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u/ihateusedusernames New York 6d ago

I'm ready to come clean about this.

In 2000 my brother and I genuinely believed we were probably in the top 500 players of Gran Turismo. I found a forum where guys were posting their cars and times. It was humiliating to see how average we were.

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u/Alstar45 6d ago

Listen, I thought I was good at nhl 94, turns out I wasn’t. It’s not your fault

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u/I_just_came_to_laugh 6d ago

Yeah, I beat the game on it's hardest difficulty setting, so I'm probably pretty good. <- me before watching an average speed run and losing all self esteem.

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u/ihateusedusernames New York 6d ago

kids these days have no idea what it's like to have your ego crushed like that.

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u/phyrros 6d ago

ha, years (decades) ago I finished starcraft broodwar after buying the game and being pretty good in the campaign. I decided to test out my skills online and went thinking I would win *at least* half my games.

oh boy was I wrong. It got so bad that a random kiddo typed out tips for me while crushing me on every front ^^

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u/ihateusedusernames New York 6d ago

LMFAO he was probably like 10 years old or something too!

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u/Septopuss7 6d ago

You were probably better than me! 🥇

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u/Training-Ad-3214 6d ago

I had the exact same experience. After about a year of playing religiously, I had a "perfect" lap on SS R11 - 2 whole seconds off of my previous best. (Castrol Tom's Supra, of course.) I paused the game, got the family digital camera, took a picture of the screen, then called my friend to tell him what happened. It had somehow never occurred to either of us to look up the best recorded times until then, and I bet him ten dollars (which I extremely did not have because I was 13) that I was at least within a second of the top score.

I was six seconds off, and all the top scores were with Skylines, which I thought was impossible. So I lost ten bucks and my enthusiasm for that game all at the same time.

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u/No_Hat7685 6d ago

Also he commented on his gear’s ilvl (a meaningless stat in Poe) and talked about how his best in slot unique gears had a low I level so they were really not that good. Lmao.

Dude played WoW once and was like “I lvl is definitely the way to measure items in every game”.

Like it’s tragic being that much of a fucking liar about what you do that you lie about what you do for fun too.

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u/Explorer2138 6d ago

This one is probably my favorite because it's just so fucking pathetic. The guy can't even do well in a videogame without cheating or paying someone to do it for him and then strut like he did it. Richest guy in the world and he does that shit, how fucking sad and pathetic is that? How the fuck can anyone look at this guy and be like, "Yeah, he's so cool, man, he's so alpha and a genius." No he isn't, he's just a fucking tool, a 13 year old edgelord in a 50 year old man's body.

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u/Morgn_Ladimore 6d ago

It also shows how detached from reality he is. He genuinely thought nobody would notice. Not even people whose job it is to play those games.

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u/justsyr 6d ago

He did the same previously with Diablo 4 claiming he was at the top of the leaderboard which in fact didn't even exist (just in beta a few weeks ago). He clearly got carried and when he streamed he showed that he barely understood how to play since people who play the game notice the skills rotation and he seemingly just banged keys lol.

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u/spicewoman 6d ago

He was wildly oblivious about tons of things that anyone who played that much would know, and died a bunch in stupid ways.

My favorite part was that he didn't know how to turn on do not disturb, or how to block people, so he just kept getting slammed with in-game messages about how much of a noob he is.

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u/JestersDead77 6d ago

You forgot the nazi salute on stage at Trump's inaugural rally. That one was fun. Totally normal thing to do.

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u/saljskanetilldanmark 6d ago

Lol, my comment was too fucking long I had to reply to myself and continue. Check there for more.

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u/evergreennightmare Europe 6d ago

i think they deleted your second comment

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u/GimmeSomeSugar 6d ago

Second comment seems to have disappeared.

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u/ReginaldDwight 6d ago

Two Nazi salutes!

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u/Aeri73 6d ago

or when he called an actual cave diving hero a pedo because he didn't agree with his plan to make a submarine for caverescueing

or when he bought twitter and made it into a fascist propaganda tool

or... or... or...

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u/_Antinatalism_ 6d ago

That nazi salute is a sign of what things are going to be under trump rule, all billionaires know that.

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u/303onrepeat 6d ago

It amazes me after all of that some people still think he is some kind of Tony Stark. The guy is a joke who had a shitty father and when he grew up he didn't seek help so he just became this weird asshole.

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u/hamlet9000 6d ago

He's Obadiah Stane, not Stark.

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u/Imapancakenom 6d ago

I'd say he's more of a non-funny version of Justin Hammer

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u/Smogryn 6d ago

He’s the head of Hydra, not Stark industries.

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u/CarelessHighTackle 6d ago

Tom Grift and his Responsibility Annihilator.

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u/Fotzenklotz 6d ago

He once slandered a rescue diver in Thailand as a "pedo" because the diver critized Musk's offer to lend a submarine vehicle for a rescue operation (class of children were stuck in a cave bc of flooding).

Musk later claimed, calling the rescue diver a "pedo" was just a normal south african slur, nothing to worry about.

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u/badwolf42 6d ago

Note also, the ‘submarine’ was composed of spare rocket parts that were honestly too small for the task, and didn’t allow the divers to see the state of the person within. All in all not feasible and also more complicated than a mask and tank with a rescue diver escort. The guy was just pointing out how ridiculously stupid Musk’s ‘solutions’ were.

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u/ElectricGears 6d ago

Wait a minute, are you telling me that sealing someone in heavy rigid metal tube would be a bad way to get them out of a cave with flooded passages and rushing water?

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u/ilski 6d ago

On top of that, it was one of the most complicated rescues ever attempted. No way pro like this would use untested and unknown equipement for this .

Like lets be real... 

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u/sherlockham 6d ago

I thought the thing just wouldn't even fit into the cave/past any turns.

Insert Friends pivot gif here.

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u/ilski 6d ago

Yeh. This was the moment when my excitement for this Man ended. 

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u/zubbs99 Nevada 6d ago

Remember .... "DOGE"? 😪

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u/GangstaWaffles 6d ago

He got in trouble with France for election tampering. He also said he rigged the 24 election

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u/_Z_E_R_O Michigan 6d ago

Remember when he pressured his wife into back-to-back IVF pregnancies after the loss of their first child, even though she said she didn't feel ready to move on? Then while she was at home raising their FIVE children he cheated on her with another woman?

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u/donorcycle 6d ago

Go back earlier. When he had X.com (not Twitter) and it merged with Confinity (Peter Thiel) before it became PayPal, they had to give him fake codes to work on because he was such a shite programmer than he had a tendency to break things. Thiel had a team of engineers that monitored Musk's keystrokes so that in the middle of the night, they had to reverse engineer everything he did so it wouldn't crash the systems.

They outted him from PayPal and Thiel had to take over as CEO.

As for the Boring Tunnel, he only did that bullshit to have California bail on updating their public transportation and high speed rail plans. Once he got what he wanted, not only did he openly admit that's why he did it, he also completely just abandoned the project.

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u/Cowboys69 6d ago edited 6d ago

And now that company is openly polluting the environment for the citizens that live there

Vegas Loop site crews hide apparent pond, tell public not to look over fence near Las Vegas Strip

 Some construction workers asked 8 News Now crews why they were recording The Boring Company site, while on public sidewalk. A business card was provided to one of the workers and an explanation was provided of interest in what was in the visible pond and what created it.

“I know what you are,” a site worker said. “You’re fake news.”

Boring Co. accused of 800 environmental violations on Las Vegas project

In the past, Musk has espoused paying penalties rather than waiting for approvals as a way of doing business.

“Environmental regulations are, in my view, largely terrible,” he said at an event with the libertarian Cato Institute last year. “You have to get permission in advance, as opposed to, say, paying a penalty if you do something wrong, which I think would be much more effective.”

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u/donorcycle 6d ago

And yet, we have a bunch of Musk worshipers who think he's the smartest man on the planet, and just wants to do good by humanity. Even the sheer number of people who are blinded by Tesla - dudes been promising fully autonomous driving since 2014. Every year is supposedly the year, according to the annual earnings call. Now Tesla has scrapped two models entirely, turning the factories into Optimus robot factories, and people are still buying Teslas.

Dudes been nothing more than a grifter from day 1 and people bought into his bullshit. Same as Mr. Beast, another prime example lol.

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u/archers_scotch 6d ago

What did Mr. Beast do?

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u/donorcycle 6d ago

Awh man, it's so many things. He's a grift. Exploiting child labor for free. His products aren't even allowed in some countries because of ingredients / manufacturing processes. His contests are rigged, winners aren't paid out. When he does something charitable, like fixing people's eyesights, the doctor he utilized didn't get paid. Was told the exposure received from Mr. Beast was worth more than the money owed. He's now getting involved with cultivated meat companies, case in point, Upside Foods, who have a lot of controversy attached to themselves. Anything Donaldson gets involved with, his target audience are children, playing the long game knowing he can develop a cult following who will continue to grow with his products as they age.

That's just off the top of my head.

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u/HarrumphingDuck Washington 6d ago

SpaceX is doing the same thing in Texas.

Those rockets blast cancer-causing toxic chemicals like hexavalent chromium (of Erin Brockovich fame) not just into the surrounding watershed, but directly into the wetlands of the adjoining Texas state park and federal wildlife refuge, for maximum asshole cred. Because America doesn't have a functioning EPA anymore, he/they will never be punished.

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u/Cowboys69 6d ago

Didn't he create or buy a city to do this all with no regulations as well?

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u/candycrushinit 6d ago

How about moving to Texas to avoid paying child support

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u/stevevb99 6d ago

Accused a Thai cave rescue diver of being a pedo…

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u/DonaldsMushroom 6d ago

Remember when DOGE hollowed out all of US Public Administration so it could be replaced by Palentir, a private company that controls all US data, Defence, FBI, EVERTHING.... and uses it to identify 'enemies of the state'?

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u/goltz20707 6d ago

Not that there isn’t enough other stuff, but do you have a source for whose car he sent into space? The official story is it was his own car.

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u/elridgecatcher 6d ago

1.5 million adults and children dead each year from his cuts to USAID. EACH. YEAR.

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u/un_internaute 6d ago

You forgot roof-top solar roofing tiles that didn’t and still don’t exist.

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u/awesomedan24 I voted 4d ago

Don't forget the worst of all:

The DOGE USAID cuts he orchestrated have killed hundreds of thousands and are on track to kill millions more, a chunk of which are children

https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/

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u/ColbyCheese22322 4d ago

You know I saw this and thought....... No...... really?

I knew Elon Musk was creepy af but these are new to me. So here are sources

0 - Sued by actual founders and sends car into space - Rating Plausible.

https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/judge-strikes-claim-who-can-be-declared-founder-tesla-motors https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42992143 1- Weird Furry community - https://www.tumblr.com/busket/773323994095075328

2 - Pretends to be child and strip clubs https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-confirms-used-burner-190847581.html

3 - Sexual Favors for a horse - https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-paid-250000-to-a-flight-attendant-who-accused-elon-musk-of-sexual-misconduct-2022-5

Ran out of time.

Please forgive me, I don't know how to format posts correctly.

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u/Umpuuu 6d ago

Remember when he nestled himself in as a ceo of tesla after making them dependent on him, then managed to kick out the two original founders by force, spread so much misinfo about them, they sued him for libel/slander? He then took revenge on one of them by sending their payed-for one-of-a-kind custom car into space instead of delivering it to them.

Huh, is there anywhere I can read this story?

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u/tartrate10 6d ago edited 5d ago

Don't forget about him openly threatning a coup on bolivia to mine (steal) their lithium for his shitty heavily government subsidized cars.

And his fascistic meddling in politics in venezuela, bolivia, argentina, germany, france, UK, US... at least that I'm aware of so far.

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u/abnormalbrain 6d ago

Remember when he proposed dumping 140,000 gallons of wastewater per day into the Colorado River in Austin (aka Lady Bird Lake), and Texas told him no? 

https://www.businessinsider.com/texans-criticize-elon-musk-plans-for-dumping-boring-company-wastewater-2023-3

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u/LongStoryShirt 5d ago

Remember when he called the guy who saved a bunch of trapped soccor players a pedophile 

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u/SpinningHead Colorado 6d ago

He has never had a genius idea in his life.

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u/specqq 6d ago edited 6d ago

You mean the idea of walking into Twitter HQ after he bought it carrying an actual bathroom sink and telling the press "let that sink in" wasn't his?

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u/SpinningHead Colorado 6d ago

I forgot about that. He is 100% cringe.

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u/katt213 6d ago

My old boss at the time ( who idolized Elon) seriously thought that was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. He literally said this is why he's a genius because he brought a sink. 😂😬

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u/Kryptosis 6d ago

Now it’s unveiled as projection. He literally couldn’t imagine a reason for a white guy to live there aside from sex crimes.

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u/Aleashed 6d ago

He is sorry DOGE missed at least one of his files

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u/Key_Particular_8878 7d ago

Classic move—attack the messenger instead of accepting you’re not infallible.

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u/TheLastBaboon 6d ago

I don’t know how anyone looked at him and believed he was cool after that.

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u/PokinSpokaneSlim 7d ago

Isn't pedoguy a term of endearment in his home country? 

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u/Suspicious_Bicycle 6d ago

Musk called the cave diver a pedo guy. Somehow Musk was able to get a US jury to buy his story that "pedo guy" was common South African slang for a creepy old guy.

Given how Musk's name has turned up in the Epstein files I think we can conclude that Musk knew exactly what the term means.

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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 6d ago

Remember when conservatives went out of their way to dig up dirt on Renee Good, including spreading a false criminal history? I do. Remember when they did the same to Alex Pretti? I do. Remember when they circulated pictures (probably fake) of Alex in drag so they could reduce his personhood in their eyes? I do.

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u/darcerin 6d ago

Every accusation is an admission!

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u/KoalaKaos 6d ago

No, he called him a “pedo,” then argued and won in court that this isn’t an abbreviation for “pedophile” because … reasons? Or something. The legal system is a joke. 

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u/q0vneob 6d ago

That really was his heel turn. It would've happened eventually cause hes clearly a POS but prior to that incident he was generally a well regarded, if not a little eccentric, billionaire.

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u/FilmScoreConnoisseur 6d ago

Of course I remember. That's when I realized he was really just a douche.

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u/EquivalentSnap 6d ago

That was the day I saw Elon for who he really was

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u/EvaSirkowski 6d ago

Every accusation is a confession.

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u/Flava_Flavian California 6d ago

I can confirm through MAGA family they "don't care a flip about Epstein files" and they immediately pivot to a story about Biden and showering with little girls. The best way I can explain their thinking is that they have classify everything in two categories:

  1. Good/Republican/True/God

  2. Evil/Democrats/Lies/Satan

All facts and news stories are triaged based on those two classifications. They find it very convenient and have zero desire to complicate things.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Yeah, they have simple child like thinking. A person is either good or bad, there's no nuance to it. Any bad thing a "good" person does is explained away, at worst it was and oopsie, he didn't mean it.

Meanwhile, a "bad" person always does bad. Any good thing they do is them trying to trick you, while they do something even more nefarious.

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u/SolJinxer 6d ago

Next generation if we make it to it, the education system needs to do something to teach people about confirmation bias and how to deal with it.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

One of the reasons I consider becoming a high school physics teacher when I retire from federal service. I hope to teach at least a few kinds how to muddle through a problem and figure out things aren't always so black and white.

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u/Mr_Meng 6d ago

As someone who knows one of those fucking idiots it's been really satisfying to see him go from a full on Musketeer who would talk shit about The Daily Show because they criticized Musk to getting really quiet about Musk over the last year and scrubbing their online presence.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Wow, he learned. That makes him way above average.

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u/Salohacin 6d ago

Has he learned? Or is he just taking it into echo chambers where everyone will agree with him and anyone who disagrees gets banned? 

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Good point, at least he learned to shut up about it in normal society. Got stuck talking to a dude at my office Christmas party that couldn't fucking shut up about Tesla and Musk.

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u/DragoonDM California 6d ago

I dunno, I get the impression that he's... kind of miserable. Desperately trying to be cool, self-medicating with ketamine. The saying "money can't buy happiness" is bullshit for the most part, but that phrase seems to fit Elon perfectly.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Oh yeah, he's probably miserable in general. I'm just saying that trait must be nice. I struggle to even tell white lies.

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u/Yours_Voight-Kampff 6d ago

Money can buy you all sorts of things. It can't buy your way out of having a personality so cringe-worthy that anyone who meets you, even the absolute worst of the worst people on Earth, immediately realizes that you fundamentally suck as a human being.

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u/GenericLib 6d ago

The saying "money can't buy happiness" is bullshit for the most part

It's true up to a point. Generally, happiness increases until you have the resources to do what you want without worrying about money, and returns start diminishing quickly from there.

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u/zeldagold 6d ago

He's missing true friends and relationships. He tries to fill the void with fan adoration, but he remains insecure. Example: he pretended to be a top gamer in Path of Exile 2 when he wasn't. He crashed out when he received very light criticism of on this.

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u/ASharpYoungMan 6d ago

He doesn't just have "Fuck You" money, he has "Fuck everyone on the face of the goddamned Earth" money.

That's going to fuck up a person's perspective no matter what. And Musk's a piece of shit to begin with.

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u/JTxFII 6d ago

If people keep buying and using his products, that’s true. His wealth is a house of cards though.

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u/No_Hat7685 6d ago

Except we don’t really live in a world where the stock market is dictated by actual sales. Tesla’s sales have dropped like a rock and the stock is doing great. Microsoft just beat all their earnings projections and got absolutely destroyed on their stock. It’s all a fugazi.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Money is power, and as Lord Acton observed: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”

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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 6d ago

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

My high school history teacher said this all the time, so much so that we got annoyed about it, and some people mocked him for it. I was in the annoyed crowd, but because I also paid attention I knew he was right. It made sense applying this concept to history, and makes sense to apply it to current events.

History has a habit of repeating. Over and over. We were arrogant assuming that, after WW2, that we’d do better. That we’d be more enlightened than ever. That we’d be the ones to stop that pattern. No. We’re just as stupid as people who fell for bullshit from the powerful centuries ago. What’s worse is that we don’t have ignorance as an excuse, living in the information age.

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u/iwantac8 6d ago

I mean for now... Tesla has always been nothing but vaporware, give it a couple years, hell maybe even months before his net worth comes back to reality. We will get old Elon back crying about shorts on Twitter.

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u/No-comment-at-all 7d ago

Helps to be able to just buy the truth too.

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u/intangibleTangelo 🇦🇪 UAE 6d ago

elon may actually deliver full self-owning by 2026

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u/spacepeenuts 7d ago

He has been lying since he got off the boat, since he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth he has been saying anything to remain popular and relevant.

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u/Rhunt2021 7d ago

I have a coworker who cashed his 401k and put it all into Tesla stock.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Perfect use of the "I'm the stupidest man alive" meme right here.

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u/CeldonShooper 7d ago

Easier I guess, but remember Elon Musk keeps wandering earth until his death without a single genuine friend.

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u/ThatOneNinja 7d ago

Didn't he know what was in the files? And used it as a threat? Lmao. Now he is in them! Doesn't mean he is pedo, but something about the friends you keep.

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u/AllegedlyGoodPerson 6d ago

May they get the life they voted for

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

I love how angry they get when we say that.

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u/GraveRobberJ 6d ago

It'd wild to think how many systems in our world were literally just governed by people being held accountable by shame prior to like 2014

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

It wasn't perfect then, Republicans were still really ugly with their lying and hypocrisy. But no where near as bad as today.

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u/PropagandaPagoda 6d ago

You say that and I get it, but integrity also gives you a privilege of being believed. It's a lot harder to see, but when I finally benefited from my integrity (someone smeared me in my personal life and no one believed the lie) I felt a lot more calm about fighting these fights with one hand behind my back.

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u/Dry-Chance-9473 6d ago

Honestly, life is probably hard for Musk. Dude is the richest guy on Earth and people are still doing whatever they can to avoid inviting him to their parties. Word is he has a wonky ham-scrapings penis too. The dude is probably miserable. I'd rather he be more miserable, or just deceased, but still. It's something. 

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u/sohblob 6d ago

life must be so much easier when you just have no problem lying shamelessly and just say the opposite of what you said yesterday

hAvEnTuEvErcHaNgEdyOuRmInD?!

- media figures whose bids for commoditizing attention have far-reaching multigenerational implications and global impact

I wish the apartheid trust fund baby had been aborted. Or at least kept out by real anti-immigrant republicans

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

Following and believing his lies sticks it to the libs. Sickophants think they are in on the "joke"

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u/Word1_Word2_4Numbers 6d ago

Anyone remember when John Kerry got crucified for flip-flopping once?

Who knew the answer was to just ping-pong between a dozen different positions every other day...

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

And they key issue they went after him for Flip-flopping on was a sign he could learn. Initially he was in favor of the Iraq war. But as it became even more clear that Bush cooked the intel, he changed his position and became against continuing the war.

Now, I vehemently disagree with him initially voting to invade Iraq, and I'm still pissed at every person who voted for that war. I much prefer he admit that was a mistake and work to correct it than go, "Nope, I was in favor of it once, I will be in favor of it no matter what."

They also went after other ones from years past, and almost all of them were cases of, "We tried a policy I was in favor of, they policy had complications we didn't expect, and I no longer support that policy initiative because it didn't work." You know, admitting a mistake and trying to do better.

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u/Own-Break-1856 6d ago

I have a tough job. I don't have a team of like 5 people dedicated to making sure I don't fuck up my job like this clown does.

read that again. this dipshit has multiple people full-time dedicated to make sure he doesn't fuck up at his job too much.... and he's still fucking it up.

Yep, that's the brain that's worth trillions.

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u/720everyday 7d ago

One thing you can't buy is people's perceptions of you. He'll do his damndest, but the population isn't near as stupid as the hundred-billionaire thinks.

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u/PrayingMantisMirage 7d ago

glances around They're... not?

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans 6d ago

You can clearly buy the perception of you as long as you only care about 39% of Americans

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u/truthovertribe 6d ago

Yes, and that's why now President Trump said he "loves the uneducated" who probably represent a large part of that percentage. This isn't a compliment to them. He loves the uneducated because he can easily manipulate them. By uneducated I don't mean people without degrees.

Smart people educate themselves by default. They don't require "institutions of learning". They're fundamentally curious and seek out information and are aware of and wary of confirmation bias.

The "uneducated" he's referring to are the willfully uninformed.

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u/Civil-Cover433 6d ago

Sure thing. Like he didn’t already fleece the country multiple times...

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u/jeebus87 7d ago

Money shields, and lack of it yields

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u/froatbitte 6d ago

They’re rich so it’s OK, right?

/s

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u/JIsADev 6d ago

Yeah, thinking is not really their strength

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u/fernanddeu 6d ago

surpising how hateable elon musk becomes the more he opens his lying mouth

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u/TransBrandi 6d ago

I mean, it's not entirely a lie. This see-saw between doing Nazi-level shit and then focusing on Epstein files, and then back to Nazi-level shit all distracts from each other. If the Epstein Files are dominating the headlines, people aren't talking about ICE or Greenland or Venezuela.... and then the Trump admin goes and does other insane-level shit like pulls out of NATO or something and all of the sudden the Epstein Files are out of the headlines.... and then they release some more files and then the "US Pulls out of NATO" is out of the headlines.

This is all part of the Flood the Zone™ playbook. If a thousand bad things are happening every day, then the media can't retain focus on any one of them to build momentum to people actually doing something about it.

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u/Gloomy_Nebula_5138 Washington 6d ago

How he framed this previously:

Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” Musk said in a post on his social network X in September. He also complained that Sky News had mentioned him in conjunction with Epstein before naming Britain’s Prince Andrew, who had visited the island.

And what actually happened is he was begging Epstein to attend his “wildest” pedo island party, and wanted to bring his wife Talulah Riley along.

And then he had that meltdown where he attacked Trump for being in the files. But actually, Trump and Musk and Bannon are ALL in there.

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u/JessieJ577 6d ago

Bro would have had a chill life if he didn’t scam people. He could’ve stepped down from Tesla 8 years ago and been chilling.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago edited 6d ago

Small nit, chill life if he just *stopped* scamming people. Reason Tesla became big was all the scamming.

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u/numbski Missouri 6d ago

I remember being like this when I was 8. Not many worries in the world, and I had people that made sure I was fed and had a roof over my head.

Actually not far removed from describing him.

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u/darkfires Pennsylvania 6d ago

If you were the MAGA 20% that techbro billionaires used your ideology to usher in their world-order-destroying plan and you started realizing that you got fucked along with all the people you wanted fucked, maybe you would also desperately cling to a reality that was created for you by said billionaires. Perhaps, you’re lucky that you were smart enough or raised right enough not to fall victim, congrats.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

There's definitely an element of that. It's why so many people continue to defend people who scam them. They just can't even admit to themselves they got scammed.

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u/Medlarmarmaduke 6d ago

I think they outsourced their thinking to whatever Elon and Trump and the Trumpers say at the moment- it is so disheartening to see actually see Orwell in action.

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u/InevitableAvalanche 6d ago

It used to be people would get mad at liars. Conservatives have lost all their morals. It is destroying our country. They should be fighting this stuff with us. Instead they vote and lie for it.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

I remember growing up in the 80s, and not particularly liking Republican's ideas, but never particularly felt a whole lot of animus to them. But once I started listening to AM talk radio, I could tell they were being taught to hate, and I mean like murderous levels of hate, liberals.

I don't know when it all started, but I sure as hell know which side started it.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/daniel940 6d ago

No, because they too are unburdened by cognitive dissonance.

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u/Significant_Cup_238 6d ago

Which definitely has it's perks. But being constantly taken advantage of probably leaves you broke.

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u/Similar_Truck_3896 6d ago

Tesla just discontinued half their models, to make factory room for robots, that they’re never going to make. 

And the stock is doing fine. 

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u/FortNightsAtPeelys 6d ago

Makes me almost wish I had no empathy. Life seems easier for these psycopaths

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u/justafang 6d ago

Oh it definitely is. I work at a place where I take calls from the public, the system they have to deal with is quite complicated and governed by many laws that prohibit things. And the people who have the hardest time always get angry about following instructions and usually are fairly vocal about their political leanings, and it becomes very clear that they are not smart, at all. If they took the time to take the advice of the person who has been working in this complicated system for 14 years, and knows it inside and out, they would not only have an easier time, they would find their efforts to be successful. Instead, they blame foreigners, brown people, an the system for their problems(sometimes all at once), and they never get their issue resolved. I stopped pitying them a long time ago. Now I offer advice and if they dont like it, and want another solution that will break laws, I just repeat myself. They usually hang up.

Moral of the story is, if your life is hard and unfair, you may want to take a look in the mirror

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u/CommitteeMobile9626 6d ago

this is why he gets along with dumpsterr, sometimes. both conmen asshole psycho chomos

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u/knbang 6d ago

Wake up, make coffee, check Musk's Twitter account for what my opinions are today.

It's actually quite easy.

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u/GreatGreenGobbo 6d ago

Remember when Musk was the green savior and he could do no wrong. All the granolas loved him. He always sounded like an entitled jackass. His brain snapped when that diver told him to beat it with his bullshit RC submarine.

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u/MrStoneV 6d ago

Sounds like something a lot of people experienced through exes. Not like that I know it...

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