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Comment by postmeta | Hacker News Reader

Well the British diver guy, Vernon Unsworth, did start with the innuendo attacks first, telling Musk "he can stick it where it hurts", referring to the sub.

That's what Musk was responding to I think.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-15/thai-cave-rescue-diver...

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Calling it a publicity stunt and getting called a pedo in return is way out of line. Musk looks like he's lashing out and it makes you wonder if he does this regularly.

As with his questionable donations[1], this risks shifting people's opinions.

[1] https://thinkprogress.org/elon-musk-house-gop-contributions-...

> it makes you wonder if he does this regularly

Probably not, as otherwise you'd see news like this frequently. After all, Twitter is public. So let's not generalize this incident too much.

But I see that frequently. There was all the kerfuffle around head of Tesla Autopilot quitting over Musk behaviour that also descended to namecalling. That painter guy who took issue with Musk stealing his artwork that ended up the same. That earnings conference call which felt like it could go there. Not on Twitter there are lots of stories of management by yelling.

"Pedo guy" is not an innuendo. Plus Unsworth's words may have been crass, but they weren't an accusation of anything. There's really no comparison.

Lucky for Elon he has the technology to run as far away as possible from the shame

>Unsworth's words may have been crass, but they weren't an accusation of anything

To be fair, he accused Elon’s effort of being a pr stunt. Doesn’t justify the response but it was an attack of sorts.

Calling somebody a pedophile is not even remotely in the same galaxy as hinting that somebody should take their stupid idea and shove it up their ass.

Yeah but...

To jump to calling someone a pedophile is reprehensible.

And some of Musk's calibre should ... know better.

And frankly, I have zero tolerance for this sort of thing. Sling around accusations of illegal actions against children isn't something we should take lightly.

As far as I'm concerned Musk doesn't deserve anything, other than destitution.

> As far as I'm concerned Musk doesn't deserve anything, other than destitution.

So two angry men shout invectives at each other, and you believe one of them deserves to have their life completely destroyed as a consequence? That sounds a little disproportionate.

Yes.

Calling someone a pedophile is what you do when you want to destroy someones life.

And I'll continue to believe Musk deserves the worst of all possible worlds until he makes a public apology, streamed live.

Zero tolerance cuts both ways.

I see your point, but personally I'd prefer if people were less willing to entertain destroying each other over spoken words. As it is now, the diver's life seems unaffected, so the negative consequences failed to materialize.

I definitely believe that for such unfounded, public accusation from a de-facto celebrity, a very public apology and some meaningful monetary damages are warranted. I feel this would suffice as a deterrent.

I agree, that's what I'm saying.

If he's prepared to go around slinging that accusation, then I have no respect for him at all.

The best possible outcome would be if he makes a public apology, and approaches the guy in an attempt to make reparations.

Just a simple: "Yeah, look, that was out of line. I'm seeing an anger management psychologist in an effort to curb my behaviour, and I'll donate a million to a children's charity of your choice."

Here's the public apology. Good on him.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1019472152796381185

Nonetheless, his actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologize to Mr. Unsworth and to the companies I represent as leader. The fault is mine and mine alone.

And then he goes on to launch a special event where he gives away ETH and BTC. So I guess that's kinda of nearly almost giving money to a kids charity? It's something at least.

Those two things are on completely different scales. The diver had personally seen the cave and knew the obstacles, and was simply telling a jumped-up billionaire playboy to please go away with his silly counterproductive and possibly dangerous toys, in a manner fitting a tense and dramatic situation.

Musk then goes flying off the handle with a completely baseless and and frankly insane accusation, because his ego got hurt.

That's like ten orders of magnitude lighter than calling somebody a pedo...

I found it quite dishonest by The Guardian to not mention that.

The Guardian did

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...

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