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Comment by Ajedi32 | Hacker News Reader

Okay, but this is still an implied accusation with zero evidence. Surely losing the "benefit of the doubt" doesn't mean you can just make up any story you want about someone and use that to demonize them until there's definitive proof your accusation is wrong?

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Life is not just this or that. Life is also highly likely this or likely that. When you have a track record and make a lot of people have this image about you, many people will operate on highly likely’s or likely’s about you. Musk is no exception.

And who is the arbiter of what’s highly likely? You? I? Jumping to conclusions without evidence is lynch mentality. But maybe people are ok with that.

> But maybe people are ok with that.

Definitely true for many. Elon Musk is enemy number one since he disrupted social media. It is getting to the point that I have coworkers posting snide off-topic comments on internal chat throughout the day whenever he does something. All of his achievements are ascribed to luck, and every Twitter change is bad and attributed to his personal meddling. It's not entirely unwarranted considering there is some precedent, but the public hysteria is disproportionate for sure.

You, I and everyone else and when enough people operate on highly likely’s, we stop being as interested in the why. For good reason, too. People like Musk will expect us to look at each action with a clean pair of eyes, and use it to stall or confuse the masses.

I’m sure lynch mentality is more involved and includes other motivations such as wanting to kill somebody. You’re taking things a bit too far.

When someone is known to fabricate or exaggerate, a sensible recourse is be default skeptical of what they say. That isn't the same as to be default unskeptical of what their opponents say.

It's basically the gish gallop applies to morality.

It takes far more energy to debunk bullshit than create it.

Zero evidence? We’re using his history of being a little bitch boy to assume he removed it. It’s not that far of a stretch.

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