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Comment by behnamoh | Hacker News Reader

"That man" is the only person so far who's actually helped the Iranian people get their voices heard amidst government shutdown of the entire internet.

Like it or not, Persians love him.

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This is a very low effort reply. Does doing one good thing erase all the bad things a person has done? If that's the argument you're making, make it.

don't call someone else's comment low effort and follow it with little more than a strawman-ish summary of what you'd like the comment to have said

As I recently said about Scott Adams: "Good things can be done by Bad people." I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.

For example, Planned Parenthood--an organization I definitely believe in--was essentially created by a woman who was a eugenicist--something I definitely do not believe in.

Were I to be supporting PP when Sanger was still alive, I would not have been enriching her, or enabling other things that she believed in (at least not to any extent that would trouble me). Mostly because PP has always been a not-for-profit organization.

Being a Starlink customer, to me, has a straight line connection to enabling that man to do all the things he does.

> I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.

I don't think anyone is doing that though. But to decide whether to give someone's business money you do have to come to some sort of decision about their net good vs bad. It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.

> It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.

Why not flip this on its head? It's also logically consistent for people to be aware that Elon has done things they disagree with and still choose to buy his products.

people understandably love to understand complex things as simple logical puzzle pieces. they do it with words too. people have this tendency to act like words are formally-defined mathematical concepts, and then agonise over whether their experiences fit those concepts, then use those concepts as proof for their arguments. this is, of course, essentially simply a description of communicating with language, and for most words it's absolutely fine; the words have so little variance and breadth in definition that it doesn't matter. the issue arises when the words are not clearly defined, and it becomes even worse (and more common) when the words are emotionally loaded. people adore using emotionally, loaded, weakly defined terms to end an argument quickly. it's essentially sophistry. we're all absolutely awash with these terms right now due to the dominance of headlines, tweets, content titles and other short form stretches that demand dense, emotionally charged meaning in a small space. if you'd like some examples, take "fascism", "sexual harassment" and "eugenics".

don't say someone is "essentially a eugenicist". it's such a vaguely defined term that this borders on useless. if you believe something like this, justify it with: "she supported x policy I disagree with" or "she believed in the reduction of y trait in the populace" or whatever it is that triggered you to take on this belief in the first place

Low effort reply?!? Did you see the comment it’s in reply to? It’s completely substance free complaining about Elon in a thread about Starlink.

By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Persian-language broadcasting by Voice of America and Radio Farda has been destroyed by Musk.

> By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Is this a joke? Persians never received such aids. If USAID sent any money to Iran, it went straight to the islamic regime's proxies in the region.

As the other poster said, low effort reply. You can start with the Bam earthquake and work your way to the loss of Radio Farda. You beloved Musk put an end to the Middle Eastern Broadcasting Network.

And Escobar financed hospitals.

The same guy could help some people and kick others in the dirt at the same time.

The same Persians in a western country would be called a threat to western culture by parties Musk endorses

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