Let’s put a stake in the ‘great man’ biography – starting with Isaacson’s ‘Musk’ | Hacker News Reader

Let’s put a stake in the ‘great man’ biography – starting with Isaacson’s ‘Musk’

latimes.com

44 pointsmiguelazo29 comments

Not sure why it's taken the public so long to see these "great men" are actually not great people, and not even reasonably normal people. If we remove the money gained from computer business shenanigans, then all that's left are social outcasts obsessed with computers who have no sense of how "the real world" works; they must escape into the world as presented to them by a computer because they cannot hack the real one. The term "hack" has meanings that predate the computer. Here it's used to mean "bear".

> If we remove the money gained from computer business shenanigans, then all that's left are social outcasts obsessed with computers who have no sense of how "the real world" works; they must escape into the world as presented to them by a computer because they cannot hack the real one.

For all the criticisms you can level against Musk, this just seems like a weird and obviously wrong one. He made a ton of money on PayPal and could have done exactly as you say - escaped into the digital world, never interacting with anyone again. Instead he decided to take his money and put it into two decidedly "real world" companies in Tesla and SpaceX, putting himself into real world concerns of geopolitics in a way that he absolutely didn't need to.

Maybe he's not "great" (though I think that's sort of a uselessly vague word here), but the idea that he's just some computer-obsessed social outcast doesn't make sense. I know computer-obsessed social outcasts, and they don't go put all of their money making themselves the face of large-scale, public endeavors.

People needing a prophet or idol is a tale as old as time. Everyone should learn once what happens when it’s realized such a person is mortal and flawed.

Or worst an utter mental case.

It also leads to some weird cultural downstream effects. There are all these influencers convincing young men to dedicate everything to their jobs/side hustles and adopt Musk-esque narcissism/low empathy communication styles (before that it was Steve Jobs). They ignore that Musk has a deeply abnormal personality that fails him outside of the particular set of circumstances that he excels at, and these young men don't share most of the same traits.

You should choose your reward function based on your personality, your values, and what you're capable of given your traits, abilities, and circumstances, not based on what "worked" for the statistical anomaly that is Elon Musk ("worked" is in quotes because ranking #1 on the money leaderboard probably shouldn't be most people's personal life goal to begin with).

We do learn that Musk’s Canadian grandfather was involved in a fringe political party with antisemitic views and relocated his family to South Africa because he liked the government better — he is described as harboring “quirky conservative views” — and that Musk’s father is now outspokenly racist. But in a book that goes to great lengths to dissect the transmission of habits and ideas from father and son, Elon is allowed to stay mum.

Before hitting that downvote link, note that the above is cut-and-paste from TFA. (Parent might do well to clarify that.)

What are they proposing? Sit Elon down in a room and make him write "I AM NOT RACIST" on a chalkboard a few times?

Journalists don't "allow" someone to stay mum... Elon will say what he wants to say.

> What are they proposing?

They're proposing to do away with access journalism, or at least access biographies.

The entire deal, spoken or unspoken, is: "you give me the inside scoop, and I'll skip the uncomfortable questions and lionize you."

The article argues (and I agree) that's a bum deal for all concerned except the biographer and the biographed.

Yes, Elon will say what he wants to say, but others might say more. However, to quote the article

> Yes, Isaacson spoke to “adversaries” like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, but not (at least per the list) to line workers, not to Jenna, not to anyone whose family member died in an Autopilot crash, nor anyone who tried to organize a Tesla plant.

> Journalists don't "allow" someone to stay mum... Elon will say what he wants to say.

An interviewing journalist can, and should, ask the question and report the answer (or lack thereof).

"To stay mum" or "keep mum" means to keep silent.

"quirky conservative views"

Cue joke about being silenced: "oh, you know the ones".

Having a biography written about you is kind of like having a portrait commissioned. A reputable painter can be paid to paint the sort of portrait that you want, with your gun, with your horses, land or with your flowing hair and chiseled cheekbones. Having Isaacson writing this one is part of the package is my guess.

A bit early for hagiography - yet another billionaire mid-life crisis I presume?

> South Africa, “with machine gun attacks and knife killings common,” where boys have to “wade through pools of blood” on the way to concerts

Good lord. That’s in the book?

I grew up there too. No blood pool wading was involved.

Let's put a stake in 'great man theory' altogether. More brave geniuses have died fighting in trenches, excavating mines, tilling fields than the celebrated lucky ones did in their comfortable death beds. Celebrity culture continues to perpetuate this nonsense even today.

"with machine gun attacks and knife killings common,” where boys have to “wade through pools of blood” on the way to concerts"

Oh really - he did not grow up in Soweto but in a posh suburb of Pretoria - white youths was spared that reality - you could not go there.

Walter Isaacson - how much did he get paid for this nonsense ???.

The prestige Isaacson has gained could only come from a media establishment that celebrates sensational celebrity culture.

Of course 'the Isaacson Accord' means softball puff-pieces in exchange for access, or this would be his last biography. He's just better at masking it with gently critical anecdotes the rest of the lazy media is happy to lap up and quote.

Aaron Sorkin's snappy, pseudo-intellectual biopic is next.

People keep on conflating "great" with "good human being".

Genghis Khan was a "great" man.

However, he was also very cruel.

Alexander the Great was a "great" man.

Yet, he could launch a siege of Tyre because he felt insulted.

Elon Musk is great, because he has revolutionized both cars and space launches.

He made electric cars cool!

This will have massive impact on how cars are made in the future and on how we fight global warming.

He revolutionized how the US launches rockets. SpaceX has driven the price of launches down.

He may not be a "good" man. He may in fact be a horrible human being.

But, I think he is as "great" a man as any in our generation.

Yeah. "Great person" is appropriate to describe Musk when it comes to "great stature" or "great influence". It seemingly does not apply when we use it to refer to "great character".

The problem is that "Great man" as a term is now too vague and we must now make the effort to distinguish between people's achievements and their personal character. Else people will pick the interpretation of "great" that suits their worldview.

> he has revolutionised

His engineers have.

I give him credit for putting gobs of money and patience into some long shot and longer payoff tech R&D which virtually no one else was willing to do on the same scale and patient time frame. He may have not been the genius engineer behind the tech, but the genius engineers that built those things would have not had the same opportunity to do so without him. There is simply no doubt that he accelerated that tech.

Is he a shit human being? Of course. Does he make himself out to be smarter than he is? Of course. Would we have private space flight and viable consumer EVs without him? Of course, but not for a long time.

Uhhh, the US government gave gobs of money, as did investors. He didn't. He held paper shares and took out loans off the backs of others to pivot into buying a social media company lol

So do you think it’s easy to convince people and governments to tie up capital waiting on a 20 year ROI on tech that doesn’t exist yet?

Minimize it all you want, but that nutcase has some big successes in advancing technology due to believing in a vision, expressing the patience necessary to get there, and yes, convincing others to do the same. I know I wouldn’t be able to do that and I suspect you can’t either.

For this specific subdiscussion, I wouldn't underestimate Elon's own knowledge and capabilities in the technical sides of Tesla and SpaceX, and similarly his continued work on, generally, making his engineers (in addition to his own) effort to bear fruit.

So, "his engineers have" sounds too dismissive.

> His engineers have.

Okay, so Boeing, ULA, and Ford also could have done this?

So Elon Musk invented Panasonic, LG and CATL?

You don't hear Hitler described as great too often do you? Those that do tend to have troubling tattoos. Was 9/11 a great event? Sounds like a party we should all attend.

An unadorned "great" is a compliment with connotations of admiration. To scrub this from your meaning, you have to be more specific e.g. "great evil", "great nuisance", "great disaster" etc.

Some useful semi-related context: The Great Man theory of history[1] argues that history is shaped by the actions of a small number of "great men," people like Genghis Khan, Otto von Bismarck, Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, FDR, etc. More recently, this theory has come under fire because it erases a lot of the less easily tractable emergent phenomena (e.g.: Hitler was a product of and an amplifier of nationalism in Europe. He didn't invent anti-semitism, or fascism, or German discontent post-WW1. He only got to where he did because of the circumstances, people, and society around him. The Great Man theory erases all of that.)

Similarly, Musk did not invent Silicon Valley VC culture, or green economics, or anti-union tactics, or wealth hyper-accumulation. He is a very influential person, and understanding his life helps people understand the times he lives in, but focusing on him as a Great Man erases a lot of the people and factors that allow him to live the kind of life he has lived, and justifies a lot of behavior that is otherwise unjustifiable.

More on topic: I think the article's author is upset because he wanted "The Power Broker[2]" and got a propaganda piece instead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker

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