Tesla already executed on the changes needed extremely quickly in China, where they seem to have done both 1. Much more successful and effective lockdowns and 2. Brought things back online competently fast.
Seems like policy makers in the US fail on both counts, no?
You observed A ("welding doors shut"), then you observed B ("spread of the virus stopped"). I'm sure we can all agree that both the extent of 'A' and the extent of 'B' are not just unknown, but highly politicized and subject to a massive amount of misinformation.
Even with perfect information, it would be unscientific to infer that A caused B.
I think you're making a massive mistake comparing 'the US' and China for a whole number of reasons. Firstly, The US has 246 deaths per million people, New York has 1381 deaths per million, California has 69 deaths per million people. So if we're actually staying on topic of the California plant, actually California is an example of the US doing relatively well. And the reason they're doing well is because of their stringent lock down rules. In fact California probably is doing better than China did in reality - because China's deaths per million is stated as 58 and that's clearly a number no one really beleives.
Secondly you need to think about the fact that Musk is going ballistic about the US being a totalitarian state- and we're meant to be looking at China as the comparison? Really? I'd love to see a Chinese CEO make statements about the Chinese government like Musk makes about the US.
Finally, the government isn't even saying that Tesla shouldn't reopen the plant, they're just working on making sure they're doing it safely. And you should be listening to the government about this, because it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated by Musk that he can't be trusted on this topic.
The government is not arguing for safety, they're arguing for their own ability to spend more. It has nothing to do with safety. Tesla cares more about safety than the government does by a mile. Shutting everything down is not going to impact the long term difference in disease outcomes unless you can track, trace and isolate every care. California shot themselves in the head economically and won't protect people long term, they'll just delay it until next winter. NY rounds up to herd immunity, California is one economy destroying lockdown into a series of the number required to actually work.
> China's deaths per million is stated as 58 and that's clearly a number no one really believes.
China's Covid19 deaths per 1 million is actually 3, not 58. As of today, 4633 deaths for a population of 1.4 BN. Maybe that's manipulated, but it's hard to believe they are hiding 95% of the deaths.
So, yes, in the matter of Covid19, we should better look at China as the comparison. Did you see drones checking if people are wearing masks? Did you see temperature checks when people enter various buildings. Photos where absolutely everybody is wearing a mask, fully covering their nose (not like in the US where they wear it under their chin many times). Rapid testing, people being escorted to a quarantine center, etc, etc.
Now, I am not arguing in favor or Tesla resuming production. I don't know much about this to have an opinion. But strictly on the topic whether we should admire the Chinese response to the Covid19 infection, I think we should give credit where credit is due.
I'm not sure I understand your tone. China should be criticized for the things it did wrong and it should be given credit for the things it did right.
China failed to contain it. But they did contain SARS in 2002. With Covid19, and after initially mishandling the situation, they imposed some draconian lockdown measures. Why did they initially mishandle the situation, why the cover-up, etc? Because China is a country of 1.4 BN people, with immense government complexities. It's not perfect. So, yes there was some censure going on, strong-arming, location tracking, welcome to the world.
Overall, if you were to give China a grade between 1 and 10 what number would you choose? What's US's number?
I personally would give China something like 6 or 7 or 8, and the US something like 3. In the end people's lives matter. And the count right now for the US is 80000. And it's not stopping here.
Saying they have immense govt complexity is an excuse.
Comparing to US is irrelevant. Why don’t you compare to China’s neighbours such as S. Korea and Taiwan.
Start at 10 and take 1 point off China’s score for each of bananabreakfast’s points. Banana didn't mention continuing to lie about the their infection rates, so that’s another point off.
> Why don’t you compare to China’s neighbours such as S. Korea and Taiwan?
S. Korea and Taiwan handled the Covid19 situation much better than China. Much better than everyone else.
When Musk is criticized for being upbeat about China, the implicit comparison it with the US though. In this context, the comparison with the US is not irrelevant at all.
> Start at 10 and take 1 point off China’s score for each of bananabreakfast’s points.
Starting at 10, you can indeed take points from China's score. 1 for each of those points is a bit too much. If your goal is simply to win an argument and get to negative score, I guess you can do that. If you want to do an objective assessment, you do add points for the low number of total deaths. A lot of points.
In the US we had the debacle of the tests, the PPE's, the "masks are useless", the "it's safe to travel by plane", the "I don't personally go on cruises, but if you do, it's safe" , etc, etc. And lots of deaths.
>>And the reason they're doing well is because of their stringent lock down rules.
There are a many of reasons why CA may be doing better than NYC, down to the type of housing, type of public transport, the weather, and 100's of other factors unrelated to the lockdown
it is far far far from certain that the locked played the key role.
Governments like to say that to justify their actions, and secure their authority for their future response
it is very dangerous to just cede that fact to them with out debate or analysis of data
>>And you should be listening to the government about this, because it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated by Musk that he can't be trusted on this topic.
Why government has been routinely wrong on many fronts, including the CA Government. Why should I blindly listen to either government or Musk?
>>Finally, the government isn't even saying that Tesla shouldn't reopen the plant, they're just working on making sure they're doing it safely.
I think it naive to believe the government is purely altruistic and are only thinking about the "health and safety of the people"
Just like there are number of reasons why CA is doing better than NYC, there is an equal number of reasons why the Local Health authorities may want to delay Tesla that have nothing to do with the health and safety inside that plant
China used Test/Trace/Isolate (Quarantining persons who were exposed and isolating confirmed virus carriers) and a much more severe lockdown.
The USA bragged about its western medical system, said the virus would miraculously disappear, and sold their supplies of PPE to china and other asian countries.
The USA has failed badly - and people like Elon, who spent months insisting the virus wasn’t dangerous and would go away (“The Coronavirus panic is dumb” - Elon Musk), are part of the reason why.
China didn't use a much more severe lockdown. Severe lockdowns are their primary pandemic control measure; in every area where they've seen a double-digit number of cases, they've responded by imposing a severe lockdown. It doesn't really seem like they believe test/trace/isolate is effective.
Except it hasn't. The photos are showing no PPE and the parking lots are showing 100% of workers staff.
For someone who claimed going to 1/3rd of capacity and PPE for everyone, there seems to be a big gap between reality and "the plan to get back to work".
So three decades total? That’s not a revolution. That’s a reaction to slowly evolving government policies. Thank the governments of the world for the change you see.
“I love my job personally, just tired of feeling like a chess piece,” this [Fremont employee] said. They also said they wouldn’t feel safe assembling cars right now because it requires such close-quarters work. “We get lured in by the ‘Tesla Dream’ of saving the planet only to get treated so poorly that even though I love my job, I’m not willing to risk my health for him.”
Silicon Valley used to be famous for people like Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Andy Grove and Gordon Moore, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. In the latest generation, we have people like Zuck and Peter Thiel and Elon. No wonder our reputation is worse than Wall Street's.
I dont think this view represents the majority. My cousin and her husband work there and are quite frankly going gaga at home and chomping at the bit to go back.
Although it is a big factory they work quite spaced out in their departments. The health officials in CA must have found some issues they were not aware of, but due to talk tomorrow so will be interesting to see their point of view on the latest developments.
The media has developed a bad habit of amplifying the views of tiny discontented activist minorities inside major companies and presenting their opinions (which are often radical) as if they were typical of the majority. After seeing many examples of this kind of total distortion over the years, I simply can't believe any reports about what employees at major companies think.
>>The health officials in CA must have found some issues
Or the CA Health Officials are drunk with power, and/or have a must lower risk tolerance than the average person
We have seen countless arbitrary and illogical conditions and rules placed upon people by government, things like banning chairs on a beach but sitting in the sand is fine, things like keeping lotto sales open but banning the sales of seeds. Arbitrary designation as to what "essential" business means and countless others
To me it is more likely that the CA government just wants to mandate and control when things happens and does not like it when people challenge their authority
There are may reports of Steve Jobs being an asshole...
Silicon Valley in general is full of remarkable people and companies. And it can be both positive and negative. Elon Musk is definitely a smart guy, saying he is a genius is I think, not exaggerated. It doesn't mean he is perfect. In fact, just like Steve Jobs, I think he is an asshole.
Zuck gets a lot of flack because of his view on your privacy (you have none), but Facebook often comes off as a great company to work with. So if you are on the topic of how employees are treated, don't put Elon and Zuck in the same bag.
Another reason why the old silicon valley was better is that it now has matured. They are not just explorers, they are now in production phase, seeking a sustainable business model for billions of people. The unwashed masses now have access to computers and the internet, and it is a good thing. So naturally, we need different kinds of people, and they tend to be less sympathetic. Explorers are still there, but not as prominent, computing is a mature field now, and not all discoveries are breakthrough.
I'm not saying I'm fully behind Musk here, but the May 18th reopening date comes from an anonymous county official who told the Times about some nonspecific negotiations they were having, so I think it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The county's official stay-at-home order isn't set to expire until June.
The official wasn't anonymous. Here's his bio: https://www.acgov.org/board/district1/about.htm which seems to suggest this is exactly the sort of person who would be involved in such negotiations. I wouldn't take that with a grain of salt.
Over the last 2 months, I have lost all respect for Elon. And I have a long history of Tesla / Elon fanboi-ism in HN. I am also a Tesla owner. But the recent twitter tirade from Elon absolutely broke me. He predicted "zero cases" in April from COVID, and has simply doubled down in conspiracy theories since that tweet. Everyday he relentlessly retweets conspiracy theories about COVID deaths and concludes half truths and lies about the virus.
He also suddenly found his "Free America" spirits, while being completely numb about how the Chinese government shutdown its cities and lied about the virus.
Now it is all starting to fall in place. When I bought my car in late 2016, Elon promised FSD in 3-6 months. We are still decades away from FSD and my Tesla still randomly phantom brakes on Autopilot
This factory saga is the latest where he unleashed his followers to wreck havoc on a county health officer, who is anyways under pressure of re-opening. And of course, not to mention that he has no concerns about workers in the factory.
I think the conclusion is fairly simple - Elon is not special. He is the same old.
his recent interview on joe rogan was also a bit wierd, saying that most of of the cases are fake so that hospitals can get more money...
i found that a bit wierd because he was complaining about twitter where people just say things without evidence, and there he was saying things without presenting any evidence...
> In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed.” In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely.
> The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) yesterday released new guidance implementing several provisions included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. These provisions include:
> + A Medicare add-on payment of 20% for both rural and urban inpatient hospital COVID-19 patients;
> + Waiver of the long-term care hospital (LTCH) site-neutral policy for COVID-19 patients;
> + Waiver of the LTCH “50% Rule” for COVID-19 patients; and
> + Waiver of the inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) “3-hour Rule” for COVID-19 patients.
It's very clear that this is potentially happening on a mass scale. There is nothing preventing it from happening, at least, and the hospitals are under serious financial pressure due to the inability to perform elective surgeries. You cannot invalidate what he's saying. It's easy to chalk that up as yet another conspiracy theory. But at the same time, why wouldn't a hospital take advantage of programs like this? There's very little threat of it coming back to bite them -- there's no enforcement.
I don't understand this accusation. There should be a very easy way to see if COVID deaths are over-reported by comparing with last year's death numbers, isn't it ? Unless, we believe magically more people are dying this year due to heart attacks or respiratory diseases
If you are trying to say that there is a global conspiracy across multiple nations to over count COVID deaths, you have do better than say "this year has been weird" to account for excessive deaths.
It would be rather mysterious why absolutely none of the hospital staff are reporting this widespread fraud to the press or government.
They pay people for reporting Medicare or Medicaid fraud now, so even if the staff at the hospitals had no ethics what-so-ever, they have considerable financial motive to report it.
> Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.
If you mean that this demonstrates good leadership, I ask you, how?
Elon Musk is violating rules intended to keep people safe. And he's doing so to keep a business running that benefits him more than any of his employees. (You could make a different argument if this were a worker-owned cooperative.)
Is it good leadership because he's asking that only he be arrested? I don't think anyone on HN believes Elon will actually go to jail. Good leadership because he's (saying that he is) on the line? Elon cosplaying as an assembly line worker for a day doesn't make him a good leader.
A good leader would be doing their best to keep their employees safe. Putting thousands of people at risk in order to qualify for another round of stock incentive is not good leadership, no more what theatrics he's publicizing on Twitter.
> Elon Musk is violating rules intended to keep people safe.
Blindly going along with rules just because they're intended to keep people safe whether or not they actually a benefit overall isn't exactly a strong indicator of independent thinking.
Musk is demonstrating real leadership here because he's putting not only his company, but also his personal freedom on the line. He's putting a huge amount of skin in the game and asking to share the fate of the people he's asked to help him. That takes guts --- far more guts than you see among the mewling leadership of most big tech companies.
You may not agree with what Musk is doing, but he's being direct, sincere, and bold, and yes, that's real leadership, and it's missing in most places.
I mean, nobody thinks he'll go to jail because nobody thinks Alameda County really believes what they're saying. If they really believed it - that factories aren't safe to operate right now, and Elon's greedily trying to open up before it becomes safe in a few weeks - they'd cart him off and issue a press release about how proud they were to do it.
> We are (or are suppose to be) a free society, not serf's of the government
The analogy fails because serfs couldn't vote for their king. We have a democracy here, albeit an imperfect one. So far California has a low COVID death rate, especially for a state that was hit early with outbreaks in its two biggest metropolitan areas: LA and the South Bay. It's almost certain that our early shelter in place orders (from our elected government) has saved hundreds of lives.
The reality is that, for many Americans, our boss exercises more power over our lives than our government. Billionaire CEOs like Elon Musk threaten our health and livelihoods by pressuring workers to come back to unsafe work environments early. Elon spending a day taking selfies on the assembly line notwithstanding.
> Quantify and prove that risk, and prove that Tesla's mitigation are not effective.
The burden of proof is not on me to to show that an auto assembly plant is safe for workers during an epidemic. The burden of proof is on the owner of the plant. The US has a long history of sweatshop, factory and mine owners coercing employees to work in dangerous conditions. Elon telling his employees to expose themselves to COVID to keep his plant running on time is keeping in that shameful tradition.
>>The analogy fails because serfs couldn't vote for their king. We have a democracy here, albeit an imperfect one.
Ahh so we have traded serfdom to the king, for serfdom to the majority.. I thought the idea was for individual rights, and those rights were to be security from the mob mentality of the majority.
we have a Constitutional REPUBLIC for a reason..., and one of those reasons is to prohibit the government from doing some things even if the will of the majority demands it
>>It's almost certain that our early shelter in place orders (from our elected government) has saved hundreds of lives.
There are a many of reasons why CA may be doing better than NYC, down to the type of housing, type of public transport, the weather, and 100's of other factors unrelated to the lockdown. It is far far far from certain that the locked played the key role.it is very dangerous to just cede that fact to them with out debate or analysis of data
>>The reality is that, for many Americans, our boss exercises more power over our lives than our government.
only if you allow it. a Boss does not have the power to put you in a cage, or even kill you for disobeying, the most they can do it cause temporary economic harm, the fact that you discount that difference or even elevate the denial of a paycheck over that of the monopoly of violence is crazy to me.
No your boss does not have more power over your life than the government, No where near it.
>>The burden of proof is on the owner of the plant.
I believe they have done that, and the workers can choose to come back or not. We have have choices in life, unlike mandates by government which are backed by men with guns who will kill you if you defy them, Elon has no power to force anyone back into that factory, they can all choose to stay home.
Further to compare today's employment with the past of coal mines, and sweatshops either shows your ignorance of those times, or is purposefully disingenuous, Coal mines of those days for example paid their employees in Company Script, and they lived in company housing, there is no comparison to that and today's economic reality and doing so just makes you look foolish and/or ignorant
> Ahh the old "greater good", most violations of human rights begin with a speech about the greater good...
And yet, plenty of controls to protect people don't turn into permanent revocations of human rights. Why, when this argument comes up, do we conveniently forget about those? Do you really think that the plan of governments around the world is to cripple their GDP output and keep everyone locked inside as some sort of mass population control exercise? And a pandemic that would benefit from these types of actions was just a great time to pull the trigger without anyone noticing?
I honestly don't understand this argument. On one end of the spectrum you have complete freedom with no laws, police & fire departments, public education, militaries, government welfare programs, airport security, etc. On the other hand, you have whatever world you fear we'll end up in when all of our rights are stripped. It would seem to me that most first world countries sit somewhere between those two, because we've generally decided there are many freedoms we're happy to give up (some temporarily, some permanently) for the betterment of society overall. Particularly those where one person's freedom would directly impact another person's right to life.
You can certainly say that you think we should open the country back up and that these restrictions are unnecessary, and provide your supporting data for that argument. But suggesting that this is some fundamental violation of human rights feels like quite a reach.
>And yet, plenty of controls to protect people don't turn into permanent revocations of human rights.
I am sure we are going to disagree on many of those. I am sure my definition of human rights, and liberty is very different from yours.
>Do you really think that the plan of governments around the world is to cripple their GDP output and keep everyone locked inside as some sort of mass population control exercise?
No, I do not believe it is conspiracy of population control, I think it run of the mill every day incompetence, panic, and fear at work
the road to hell is not paved with evil conspiracy, it is paved with good intentions
To be clear, I would not oppose all of the governments response to this pandemic, however I do oppose many many of the provisions of the lock down orders. I also oppose many of the individual actions of government officials, things like threatening a teen with arrest for an Instagram post, or the mayor of Chicago threatening to arrest anyone for getting a hair cut while posting on social media her getting a haircut... or releasing thousands of inmates from prison then arresting a business owner, putting her in the same jail that was deemed to unfit for convicted criminals all for refusing to close her business...
>I honestly don't understand this argument.
it is clear you do not understand the argument, you probably also do not understand why anyone would want to put individualism over the collective, or rights above safety
>> But suggesting that this is some fundamental violation of human rights feels like quite a reach.
I guess that depends on what you call human rights. I believe that all human rights flow from the Principle of Self Ownership. I believe in individualism and voluntary cooperation. I reject collectivism and cooperation via force.
I believe tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry and I do not believe the majority has the ethical right to deiced that I give up my rights for their safety, or that because the majority agrees to "give up" their rights they then have the ethical right to use force to compel me to give up mine.
I believe the law is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense, the law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. In that defense there is some room for government action to defend people from COVID, however I believe many of the governments actions moved far beyond justifiable defense, into organizing injustice.
> Elon Musk is violating rules intended to keep people safe.
"Keep people safe". That's the mantra for every tyrannical nanny state. We are doing this for your own good. It's why in china you can't watch youtube, it's why weed was illegal, it's why people demand certain books be banned from libraries, it's the reason for government privacy violations, etc. It's all to keep you safe. It's amazing the number of pro-authoritarion justifications here. You would think it would be the exact opposite.
> A good leader would be doing their best to keep their employees safe.
Keep employees safe while working and getting paid. Working and getting paid is a very important part of employment. Also, there is risk in all employment.
> Putting thousands of people at risk in order to qualify for another round of stock incentive is not good leadership, no more what theatrics he's publicizing on Twitter.
The idea that you care more about musk's employees than he does is absurd. After all he needs those employees to "qualify for another round of stock incentive". The virtue signaling over covid is very strange because it's pro-authoritarian and people are parroting the same talking points.
Sure musk wants to reopen his plant for selfish reasons, but everyone here attacking him are also acting out of selfish reasons - to keep the economy weak. I wonder if this is an election year?
I'm not sure how I feel about having it come from the rich and powerful, but I have to grudgingly admit that this is a true attempt at civil disobedience. If the health concerns are as severe as Alameda County says, they can and should arrest him.
It's not civil disobedience. It's "Tesla has such a liquidity problem that if we wait another week it'll go bankrupt and my net worth will be negative".
Also note that he's opening at 100% (not 30% staff) and seems to have taken zero measures "learned from Shanghai". I'm guessing when his plane arrives he'll bring in a couple of masks for the photo ops.
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadSeems like policy makers in the US fail on both counts, no?
Even with perfect information, it would be unscientific to infer that A caused B.
Secondly you need to think about the fact that Musk is going ballistic about the US being a totalitarian state- and we're meant to be looking at China as the comparison? Really? I'd love to see a Chinese CEO make statements about the Chinese government like Musk makes about the US.
Finally, the government isn't even saying that Tesla shouldn't reopen the plant, they're just working on making sure they're doing it safely. And you should be listening to the government about this, because it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated by Musk that he can't be trusted on this topic.
China's Covid19 deaths per 1 million is actually 3, not 58. As of today, 4633 deaths for a population of 1.4 BN. Maybe that's manipulated, but it's hard to believe they are hiding 95% of the deaths.
So, yes, in the matter of Covid19, we should better look at China as the comparison. Did you see drones checking if people are wearing masks? Did you see temperature checks when people enter various buildings. Photos where absolutely everybody is wearing a mask, fully covering their nose (not like in the US where they wear it under their chin many times). Rapid testing, people being escorted to a quarantine center, etc, etc.
Now, I am not arguing in favor or Tesla resuming production. I don't know much about this to have an opinion. But strictly on the topic whether we should admire the Chinese response to the Covid19 infection, I think we should give credit where credit is due.
- Producing this virus in a meat market that should be illegal
- Failing to contain it properly
- lying about its existence
- strong-arming the WHO
- silencing doctors and censoring reports
- expelling all foreign journalists
- invasively tracking location and activity of all citizens
- withholding PPE and ventilators from export to the US
...do I have to keep going?
China failed to contain it. But they did contain SARS in 2002. With Covid19, and after initially mishandling the situation, they imposed some draconian lockdown measures. Why did they initially mishandle the situation, why the cover-up, etc? Because China is a country of 1.4 BN people, with immense government complexities. It's not perfect. So, yes there was some censure going on, strong-arming, location tracking, welcome to the world.
Overall, if you were to give China a grade between 1 and 10 what number would you choose? What's US's number?
I personally would give China something like 6 or 7 or 8, and the US something like 3. In the end people's lives matter. And the count right now for the US is 80000. And it's not stopping here.
Saying they have immense govt complexity is an excuse.
Comparing to US is irrelevant. Why don’t you compare to China’s neighbours such as S. Korea and Taiwan.
Start at 10 and take 1 point off China’s score for each of bananabreakfast’s points. Banana didn't mention continuing to lie about the their infection rates, so that’s another point off.
S. Korea and Taiwan handled the Covid19 situation much better than China. Much better than everyone else.
When Musk is criticized for being upbeat about China, the implicit comparison it with the US though. In this context, the comparison with the US is not irrelevant at all.
> Start at 10 and take 1 point off China’s score for each of bananabreakfast’s points.
Starting at 10, you can indeed take points from China's score. 1 for each of those points is a bit too much. If your goal is simply to win an argument and get to negative score, I guess you can do that. If you want to do an objective assessment, you do add points for the low number of total deaths. A lot of points.
In the US we had the debacle of the tests, the PPE's, the "masks are useless", the "it's safe to travel by plane", the "I don't personally go on cruises, but if you do, it's safe" , etc, etc. And lots of deaths.
There are a many of reasons why CA may be doing better than NYC, down to the type of housing, type of public transport, the weather, and 100's of other factors unrelated to the lockdown
it is far far far from certain that the locked played the key role.
Governments like to say that to justify their actions, and secure their authority for their future response
it is very dangerous to just cede that fact to them with out debate or analysis of data
>>And you should be listening to the government about this, because it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated by Musk that he can't be trusted on this topic.
Why government has been routinely wrong on many fronts, including the CA Government. Why should I blindly listen to either government or Musk?
>>Finally, the government isn't even saying that Tesla shouldn't reopen the plant, they're just working on making sure they're doing it safely.
I think it naive to believe the government is purely altruistic and are only thinking about the "health and safety of the people"
Just like there are number of reasons why CA is doing better than NYC, there is an equal number of reasons why the Local Health authorities may want to delay Tesla that have nothing to do with the health and safety inside that plant
The USA bragged about its western medical system, said the virus would miraculously disappear, and sold their supplies of PPE to china and other asian countries.
The USA has failed badly - and people like Elon, who spent months insisting the virus wasn’t dangerous and would go away (“The Coronavirus panic is dumb” - Elon Musk), are part of the reason why.
For someone who claimed going to 1/3rd of capacity and PPE for everyone, there seems to be a big gap between reality and "the plan to get back to work".
Silicon Valley used to be famous for people like Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Andy Grove and Gordon Moore, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. In the latest generation, we have people like Zuck and Peter Thiel and Elon. No wonder our reputation is worse than Wall Street's.
Although it is a big factory they work quite spaced out in their departments. The health officials in CA must have found some issues they were not aware of, but due to talk tomorrow so will be interesting to see their point of view on the latest developments.
The media has developed a bad habit of amplifying the views of tiny discontented activist minorities inside major companies and presenting their opinions (which are often radical) as if they were typical of the majority. After seeing many examples of this kind of total distortion over the years, I simply can't believe any reports about what employees at major companies think.
Or the CA Health Officials are drunk with power, and/or have a must lower risk tolerance than the average person
We have seen countless arbitrary and illogical conditions and rules placed upon people by government, things like banning chairs on a beach but sitting in the sand is fine, things like keeping lotto sales open but banning the sales of seeds. Arbitrary designation as to what "essential" business means and countless others
To me it is more likely that the CA government just wants to mandate and control when things happens and does not like it when people challenge their authority
Silicon Valley in general is full of remarkable people and companies. And it can be both positive and negative. Elon Musk is definitely a smart guy, saying he is a genius is I think, not exaggerated. It doesn't mean he is perfect. In fact, just like Steve Jobs, I think he is an asshole.
Zuck gets a lot of flack because of his view on your privacy (you have none), but Facebook often comes off as a great company to work with. So if you are on the topic of how employees are treated, don't put Elon and Zuck in the same bag.
Another reason why the old silicon valley was better is that it now has matured. They are not just explorers, they are now in production phase, seeking a sustainable business model for billions of people. The unwashed masses now have access to computers and the internet, and it is a good thing. So naturally, we need different kinds of people, and they tend to be less sympathetic. Explorers are still there, but not as prominent, computing is a mature field now, and not all discoveries are breakthrough.
Somewhat pathetic to sue your local government for that.
He also suddenly found his "Free America" spirits, while being completely numb about how the Chinese government shutdown its cities and lied about the virus.
Now it is all starting to fall in place. When I bought my car in late 2016, Elon promised FSD in 3-6 months. We are still decades away from FSD and my Tesla still randomly phantom brakes on Autopilot
This factory saga is the latest where he unleashed his followers to wreck havoc on a county health officer, who is anyways under pressure of re-opening. And of course, not to mention that he has no concerns about workers in the factory.
I think the conclusion is fairly simple - Elon is not special. He is the same old.
i found that a bit wierd because he was complaining about twitter where people just say things without evidence, and there he was saying things without presenting any evidence...
source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf
> The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) yesterday released new guidance implementing several provisions included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. These provisions include:
> + A Medicare add-on payment of 20% for both rural and urban inpatient hospital COVID-19 patients;
> + Waiver of the long-term care hospital (LTCH) site-neutral policy for COVID-19 patients;
> + Waiver of the LTCH “50% Rule” for COVID-19 patients; and
> + Waiver of the inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) “3-hour Rule” for COVID-19 patients.
source: https://www.aha.org/advisory/2020-04-16-coronavirus-update-c...
It's very clear that this is potentially happening on a mass scale. There is nothing preventing it from happening, at least, and the hospitals are under serious financial pressure due to the inability to perform elective surgeries. You cannot invalidate what he's saying. It's easy to chalk that up as yet another conspiracy theory. But at the same time, why wouldn't a hospital take advantage of programs like this? There's very little threat of it coming back to bite them -- there's no enforcement.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...
I wouldn't say it's "magic" but I do think that this year has been very abnormal to the point that mortality rates aren't directly comparable.
Nobody is saying coronavirus isn't real. A lot of people are dying from it, but that doesn't mean it can't be overreported.
They pay people for reporting Medicare or Medicaid fraud now, so even if the staff at the hospitals had no ethics what-so-ever, they have considerable financial motive to report it.
i live in a small rural town with a hospital under serious final distress and it is for sure happening here.
Can you elaborate a little on what you mean by "shutdown its cities"? From my impression this was to contain the spread of the virus.
Disclaimer: Chinese national here.
> Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.
Elon Musk is violating rules intended to keep people safe. And he's doing so to keep a business running that benefits him more than any of his employees. (You could make a different argument if this were a worker-owned cooperative.)
Is it good leadership because he's asking that only he be arrested? I don't think anyone on HN believes Elon will actually go to jail. Good leadership because he's (saying that he is) on the line? Elon cosplaying as an assembly line worker for a day doesn't make him a good leader.
A good leader would be doing their best to keep their employees safe. Putting thousands of people at risk in order to qualify for another round of stock incentive is not good leadership, no more what theatrics he's publicizing on Twitter.
https://electrek.co/2020/05/05/elon-musk-tesla-700-million-p...
Blindly going along with rules just because they're intended to keep people safe whether or not they actually a benefit overall isn't exactly a strong indicator of independent thinking.
Musk is demonstrating real leadership here because he's putting not only his company, but also his personal freedom on the line. He's putting a huge amount of skin in the game and asking to share the fate of the people he's asked to help him. That takes guts --- far more guts than you see among the mewling leadership of most big tech companies.
You may not agree with what Musk is doing, but he's being direct, sincere, and bold, and yes, that's real leadership, and it's missing in most places.
Ahh the old "greater good", most violations of human rights begin with a speech about the greater good...
>Putting thousands of people at risk in order to qualify
Quantify and prove that risk, and prove that Tesla's mitigation are not effective.
Do so with out using Appeals to Authority, or making a claim that "well the government says"
We are (or are suppose to be) a free society, not serf's of the government
The analogy fails because serfs couldn't vote for their king. We have a democracy here, albeit an imperfect one. So far California has a low COVID death rate, especially for a state that was hit early with outbreaks in its two biggest metropolitan areas: LA and the South Bay. It's almost certain that our early shelter in place orders (from our elected government) has saved hundreds of lives.
The reality is that, for many Americans, our boss exercises more power over our lives than our government. Billionaire CEOs like Elon Musk threaten our health and livelihoods by pressuring workers to come back to unsafe work environments early. Elon spending a day taking selfies on the assembly line notwithstanding.
> Quantify and prove that risk, and prove that Tesla's mitigation are not effective.
The burden of proof is not on me to to show that an auto assembly plant is safe for workers during an epidemic. The burden of proof is on the owner of the plant. The US has a long history of sweatshop, factory and mine owners coercing employees to work in dangerous conditions. Elon telling his employees to expose themselves to COVID to keep his plant running on time is keeping in that shameful tradition.
https://www.google.com/search?ei=vM-5XtjsIJLM-gTIm6CIDw&q=ca...
Ahh so we have traded serfdom to the king, for serfdom to the majority.. I thought the idea was for individual rights, and those rights were to be security from the mob mentality of the majority.
we have a Constitutional REPUBLIC for a reason..., and one of those reasons is to prohibit the government from doing some things even if the will of the majority demands it
>>It's almost certain that our early shelter in place orders (from our elected government) has saved hundreds of lives.
There are a many of reasons why CA may be doing better than NYC, down to the type of housing, type of public transport, the weather, and 100's of other factors unrelated to the lockdown. It is far far far from certain that the locked played the key role.it is very dangerous to just cede that fact to them with out debate or analysis of data
>>The reality is that, for many Americans, our boss exercises more power over our lives than our government.
only if you allow it. a Boss does not have the power to put you in a cage, or even kill you for disobeying, the most they can do it cause temporary economic harm, the fact that you discount that difference or even elevate the denial of a paycheck over that of the monopoly of violence is crazy to me.
No your boss does not have more power over your life than the government, No where near it.
>>The burden of proof is on the owner of the plant.
I believe they have done that, and the workers can choose to come back or not. We have have choices in life, unlike mandates by government which are backed by men with guns who will kill you if you defy them, Elon has no power to force anyone back into that factory, they can all choose to stay home.
Further to compare today's employment with the past of coal mines, and sweatshops either shows your ignorance of those times, or is purposefully disingenuous, Coal mines of those days for example paid their employees in Company Script, and they lived in company housing, there is no comparison to that and today's economic reality and doing so just makes you look foolish and/or ignorant
And yet, plenty of controls to protect people don't turn into permanent revocations of human rights. Why, when this argument comes up, do we conveniently forget about those? Do you really think that the plan of governments around the world is to cripple their GDP output and keep everyone locked inside as some sort of mass population control exercise? And a pandemic that would benefit from these types of actions was just a great time to pull the trigger without anyone noticing?
I honestly don't understand this argument. On one end of the spectrum you have complete freedom with no laws, police & fire departments, public education, militaries, government welfare programs, airport security, etc. On the other hand, you have whatever world you fear we'll end up in when all of our rights are stripped. It would seem to me that most first world countries sit somewhere between those two, because we've generally decided there are many freedoms we're happy to give up (some temporarily, some permanently) for the betterment of society overall. Particularly those where one person's freedom would directly impact another person's right to life.
You can certainly say that you think we should open the country back up and that these restrictions are unnecessary, and provide your supporting data for that argument. But suggesting that this is some fundamental violation of human rights feels like quite a reach.
I am sure we are going to disagree on many of those. I am sure my definition of human rights, and liberty is very different from yours.
>Do you really think that the plan of governments around the world is to cripple their GDP output and keep everyone locked inside as some sort of mass population control exercise?
No, I do not believe it is conspiracy of population control, I think it run of the mill every day incompetence, panic, and fear at work
the road to hell is not paved with evil conspiracy, it is paved with good intentions
To be clear, I would not oppose all of the governments response to this pandemic, however I do oppose many many of the provisions of the lock down orders. I also oppose many of the individual actions of government officials, things like threatening a teen with arrest for an Instagram post, or the mayor of Chicago threatening to arrest anyone for getting a hair cut while posting on social media her getting a haircut... or releasing thousands of inmates from prison then arresting a business owner, putting her in the same jail that was deemed to unfit for convicted criminals all for refusing to close her business...
>I honestly don't understand this argument.
it is clear you do not understand the argument, you probably also do not understand why anyone would want to put individualism over the collective, or rights above safety
>> But suggesting that this is some fundamental violation of human rights feels like quite a reach.
I guess that depends on what you call human rights. I believe that all human rights flow from the Principle of Self Ownership. I believe in individualism and voluntary cooperation. I reject collectivism and cooperation via force.
I believe tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry and I do not believe the majority has the ethical right to deiced that I give up my rights for their safety, or that because the majority agrees to "give up" their rights they then have the ethical right to use force to compel me to give up mine.
I believe the law is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense, the law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. In that defense there is some room for government action to defend people from COVID, however I believe many of the governments actions moved far beyond justifiable defense, into organizing injustice.
"Keep people safe". That's the mantra for every tyrannical nanny state. We are doing this for your own good. It's why in china you can't watch youtube, it's why weed was illegal, it's why people demand certain books be banned from libraries, it's the reason for government privacy violations, etc. It's all to keep you safe. It's amazing the number of pro-authoritarion justifications here. You would think it would be the exact opposite.
> A good leader would be doing their best to keep their employees safe.
Keep employees safe while working and getting paid. Working and getting paid is a very important part of employment. Also, there is risk in all employment.
> Putting thousands of people at risk in order to qualify for another round of stock incentive is not good leadership, no more what theatrics he's publicizing on Twitter.
The idea that you care more about musk's employees than he does is absurd. After all he needs those employees to "qualify for another round of stock incentive". The virtue signaling over covid is very strange because it's pro-authoritarian and people are parroting the same talking points.
Sure musk wants to reopen his plant for selfish reasons, but everyone here attacking him are also acting out of selfish reasons - to keep the economy weak. I wonder if this is an election year?
Also note that he's opening at 100% (not 30% staff) and seems to have taken zero measures "learned from Shanghai". I'm guessing when his plane arrives he'll bring in a couple of masks for the photo ops.