Elon Musk: everybody’s favorite billionaire who constantly goes around and spends unreal amounts of money on terrible solutions to problems that people in need really don’t have. Why oh why do geeks revere this idiot?
Daniel Peter
 @danieljpeter
20 Dec 2018
Elon Musk provides $423K to buy laptops for all Flint middle schoolers mlive.com/news/flint/2018/12…
4
7
If Bill Gates did this in rural VA he be praised. Plenty of reasons to pick on Musk, but this criticism has undertones I find disturbing.
1
3
I think Ted was being sarcastic there! That's how I read it.
1
Nope. No sarcasm. I love that he wants to donate money to people. But, like trying to build a sub to rescue the Thai boys’ team, effective philanthropy means asking what’s needed and not making it about you. He’s an idiot.
3
1
“A $480,350 donation by the Musk Foundation announced in October is now being used to pay for water filtration systems in all 12 Flint school buildings and the administration building.” Not sure what your problem is here, Ted. It almost seems as if you didn’t read the article.
1
*sigh* Dropping hardware on a school is an ongoing maintenance and administrative mess. Mom was a teacher and set up several computer labs. Fixing the water filtration system at the school doesn’t deal with the actual problem, it’s a band aid at best. Are we done here?
1
Replying to @tedneward @venkat_s @bokmann
Your assumption seems to be his foundation didn’t ask for what was needed. Maybe you’re right, but if so, I’d be interested how you arrived at that knowledge. But I’m also fine to just stop here because in general, I don’t think billionaires are in dire need of being defended :)

Dec 21, 2018 · 10:56 PM UTC

1
Replying to @stilkov @venkat_s @bokmann
Yeah, I don’t know for a fact that this was how it went down, but it has some of the hallmarks. And yeah I don’t really want to argue it out; geeks love putting people on pedestals, and I’m tired of pointing out that it’s a bad idea.
1
I understand that feeling, but as much as people love putting people on pedestals, they also love when they fall down, and I’m bothered by both the adoration and the contempt. Most probably most people are in the same genius, hero, idiot & asshole category most of the time
1
more replies