As the de facto head of the Department of Governmental Efficiency, Musk has deployed this brand of tactical callousness to maximal effect. He has boasted about throwing the United States Agency for International Development into a “woodchipper” and stumbled around the stage at CPAC with a chainsaw. He has presided over the dismantling of the administrative state and the harassment and mass-termination of federal workers—all while flaunting his lack of concern for the lives he has upended. Fired government employees, he announced last Thursday, with the laughing/crying emoji that’s become his calling card, will now have to “get a real job.”
This kind of depravity is a prerequisite for Musk’s new line of work. Dancing on the graves of lifesaving programs for kids is not something you can easily do with a conscience. But there is one set of feelings Musk is uniquely attuned to: his own. On Friday, the same day foreign service officers around the world received notices from a DOGE flunky alerting them that they would soon be out of a job, Musk—sans sunglasses—sat down with Fox News’ Brett Baier to ask for a little sympathy.
“I mean, you have Tim Walz, who is a huge jerk, running on stage with the Tesla stock price, where the stock price has gone in half—and he is overjoyed,” he said. “What an evil thing to do. What a creep, what a jerk. Like, who derives joy from that?”
“I mean, you have Tim Walz, who is a huge jerk, running on stage with the Tesla stock price, where the stock price has gone in half—and he is overjoyed,” he said. “What an evil thing to do. What a creep, what a jerk. Like, who derives joy from that?”
We all derive joy from watching the villain get their just deserts.
Who derives joy from that?
-Man who was gleefully swinging a chainsaw on stage, deriving joy from stealing taxpayer dollars and cutting government services.
It’s no where near what his just deserts would be, but it’s a start. At least it’s one area where the people have a little bit of power over him. Owning a Tesla (I’ve always hated that he stole the inventor’s name for his company) should be made anathema, unacceptable, unthinkable. We should keep up the pressure in every possible way.
This sums it up
I know a MAGA like this. Constantly tells people their feelings are just made up mental things and not physical facts.
But then when he talks about how something is affecting him that isn’t a physical fact, he gets animated and literally says he is upset that people don’t listen to his feelings and that makes him feel bad.
These people are lost in their own worlds. They are the main and most important character and other people are simply NPCs to them. They haven’t learned to relate their own experience with the experience of others. They don’t consider there other genuine experiences outside of their own. Empathy is an abstract concept that means nothing but weakness to them.
They can learn to see the world and the people within it differently but it takes an inner awakening and personal effort that they are unlikely to muster the longer they exist as an isolated entity.
OMG, yes. I’m glad someone else understands.
The way I describe it is this person sees the world as a stage that was put there to entertain them. Like the world is their personal TV.
When they talk about other people, they use phrases like they were entertained watching so and so. Or there was something happening they didn’t agree with so they closed their eyes. Or it makes them happy to watch some people do something.
And whenever they see something bad happen or about to happen to someone, they just watch and turn away once they are bored. They never warn or help anyone. To them, it’s just a blooper real or a slapstick TV show episode.
Could you help me understand something? Is this person also… dumb? I don’t mean to be disparaging or judgemental, but I’m trying to navigate all this and I’m having a hard time understanding how someone can lack this much self-awareness and still function in society. Unless, they can’t do that either? Thanks.
You know how sometimes your get so frustrated at someone you struggle to eloquently articulate your dislike of them because there are so many facets to that dislike. This is how Elon makes me feel these days. I struggle to put it in the simplest terms.
It really bothers me that he thinks he deserves pity while denying it to others. It bothers me that his attitude towards money comes from never having had to worry about it. It bothers me that he thinks that he can take actions that threaten people’s livelihoods and even their lives and expects to be loved for it. It bothers me that the only way he can rationalise why people hate him is that they have brainwashed or paid by the left rather than having legitimate grievances with him. It bothers me that he thinks if you aren’t a billionaire it’s because your are lazy/don’t deserve to be and that their hard work is not equal to his. Lastly it bothers me that I don’t know if he genuinely holds these positions or if he just uses them as justification to do horrible things.
I’ve felt like that about Elon for a good decade now whilst everyone was praising him as a genius
He’s not a genius, hes mostly an idiot with very few discernable skills. He is a scammer who got very lucky
Musk is the guy that says he wants to burn society to the ground and rebuild it better. Then he’s shocked people are focusing on and strongly disliking the burning part. Also people have seen the cyber truck and the yearly promises to have self driving next year for sure and don’t trust his rebuilding abilities.
So you’re asking me to feel bad, for the richest person on Earth. After he just harmed a ton of people and damaged our country… All because he has slightly less money, the difference of which no average person could ever dream of?
No, I don’t think I will.
Definitely have zero empathy for people that believe “empathy is weakness”.
Considering other people’s hurt in one’s own actions is a social contract and those who have no consideration for the hurt they might/do cause others with their own actions don’t deserve that others to take their hurt into consideration in theirs.
Musk is very much an extreme example of somebody who couldn’t give a rat’s arse about the hurt he causes to others so it’s absolutely Ethical and Moral for others to reciprocate it.
“Empathy destroys civilisations” according to Musk. If there was ever any doubt that he is a sociopath, the evidence is now abundantly clear. Empathy is what a civilised society is built upon. He is mixing up society and imperialism. Lack of empathy is what imperialists and fascists demonstrate when they invade their neighbours. Other notables who lack empathy are misogynists, abusers, criminals and fraudsters.
Everytime his sociopathy is mentioned, this quote from the Nuremberg trials should be mentioned:
I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.
-G. M. Gilbert
