• @BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Fuck off. Being South African has nothing to do with this guy’s bullshit.

      Edit: ppl downvoting this fact without even attempting to back up the contrary are idiots and cowards.

      • YonderEpochs
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        4 months ago

        Except South Africa has a specific history where being a white South African, raised in the era in which he was raised, can be expected to have a very relevant influence on how he sees the world.

        • ObjectivityIncarnate
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          4 months ago

          Everyone of race X who lived in location Y at time Z thinks the same

          No. This is textbook bigotry. You’re literally implying all white people around his age who were raised in South Africa are just like him.

          That’s fucked up.

          • YonderEpochs
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            4 months ago

            Look, my last comment left out the word “rich”, the original I replied to used it. As far as I’m concerned, any rich white South African from the apartheid era is sus as fucking fuck, at a bare minimum. Onus is on THEM to prove they aren’t monsters.

            If that’s bigotry to you, you have a lot of growing up to do. This kind of nonsense purity testing is the reason the left remains a fucking meme.


            ETA: Ah, you even put words in my mouth, “just like him”. Did I make such a claim? What I said in the first place is that growing up that way would definitely influence how someone sees the world. So the ridiculous hair-splitting you’re doing isn’t even close to accurate, you had to invent a comment I never made to throw your bad take at. Yikes.

      • @buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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        74 months ago

        Where the attitude comes from matters a lot actually. It informs the conversation and gives relevant context that can be used to determine the veracity of the claim that, no he’s not just some awkward guy making a weird gesture, he’s a fucking rich white South African who grew up believing that some people are more important than others.

      • @TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        64 months ago

        The (white) African I know said that virtually all south Africans they spoke with would be casually racist without a thought about it

        • @perishthethought@lemm.ee
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          -24 months ago

          Doesn’t make it true for all white South Africans.

          If we’re ever going to move forward, I think we need to stop seeing others as only members of various groups, each of which we have prejuidces about.

          • @TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            04 months ago

            No one here is doing that. What was said is that if a south African does a racist thing, you shouldn’t go out of your way to give them benefit of doubt.

      • @surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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        34 months ago

        Of course it’s “not all <thing>”

        Stereotypes are bad.

        Patterns are real.

        Judge every individual as an individual

        Still protect yourself and know the odds.

        Educate yourself on the real odds.

        The US saw the civil rights act get passed in 1964. 60 years on, we’re still horribly racist on the whole, especially among the super wealthy. South Africa has only been on the mend for 30 years. It’s a very good bet that they’re not different.

        • @wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I am! Because the fact that his family, the figures he looked up to, and he himself, all directly benefitted from the system of apartheid that was a specific integral part of the system in South Africa from which they derived their gains?

          That is relevant in the same way that saying “he was born in Alabama in the 1850s, is the son of a slaveholding knight of the golden circle, and owns a lot of bedsheets with eyeholes cut in them” would be a valid set of concerns, all of which can be used as valid identifiers that, why, yes, these add together to paint a picture of the culture that this hypothetical man is most likely to espouse. So when he “accidentally” lights a cross on fire while holding a rope with a slipknot in his offhand, do we really think that the tied slipknot at the end of his rope is to lead cattle, or is it more likely that he intends to lynch someone?

          • @Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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            -64 months ago

            That’s all too many words. You don’t need all the exposition. You know how you know the guy you described is a racist? By the the fact that he’s a racist. Doing racist things.

            All that other stuff is extra padding.

    • GladiusB
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      274 months ago

      I thought the point of a joke was to be funny? What is funny about memeing a Nazi salute?

      People are goddamn morons.

      • They’re lying. The joke is on you.

        “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

        Jean-Paul Sartre

      • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ
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        4 months ago

        Cognitive dissonance, baybee.

        I don’t think it’s lack of intelligence, but people just following the path of least resistance. It’s uncomfy to come to terms with the fact that a Nazi is in an extremely powerful unelected position, so obviously he can’t possibly be a Nazi and everything is fine :D

        Some people are just goddamn morons though.

    • Flying Squid
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      184 months ago

      I have asked a similar question many times in the past when people excuse such things as jokes:

      What is the effective difference between doing a Nazi salute like that “as a joke” and just doing one?

      Same thing I ask when people claim they are being racist as a joke.

      • @InputZero@lemmy.world
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        74 months ago

        The difference between the public and private spheres. There is absolutely no way to make a Nazi salute jokes in public spheres, full stop. In the private sphere I can imagine it.

        • @samus12345@lemm.ee
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          34 months ago

          “What’s the difference between a dog and a Nazi? One goes like this [does Nazi salute] and one goes like this [raises leg]!”

      • @bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works
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        34 months ago

        What is the effective difference between doing a Nazi salute like that “as a joke” and just doing one?

        Plausible deniability. Pushing a boundary instead of breaking a taboo.

    • @Epicmulch@lemmy.world
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      -154 months ago

      I mean he did. It was a shitty ass hole joke. He just wanted to piss the woke people off it definitely worked.

  • @Alteon@lemmy.world
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    464 months ago

    Omg, just because he said he’s a Nazi doesn’t mean he actually is one. You need to remember he’s autistic. He’s on the spectrum. Are really harassing this poor man on something he can’t control?!

    • @Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      174 months ago

      Speaking of can’t control. There are people with a condition called hemiballismus that have rapid violent outstretching of one arm. Even these people don’t look as much like a Nazi as Elon did.

    • Flying Squid
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      4 months ago

      I feel like have heard more unintentional demonizing of autistic people in the last week in defense of Elon than I have ever heard in my life. And I’ve heard a lot.

      And there is zero indication he has ever actually been evaluated for autism.

  • kamen
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    314 months ago

    Sad thing is that, regardless of what he is or isn’t, people are answering his attention whoring with attention.

    • @VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world
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      194 months ago

      He’s the richest man in the world who has untold influence over the most powerful office in the world. It’s hard to ignore him at this point sadly. Ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away.

    • @ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      He certainly made this motion to get attention, as you said, in possibly the least crafty dog whistle in recorded history.

      It’s like when a toddler learns a naughty word that makes all the grown ups laugh.

      Edit: I redact that, he fucking knows what a Nazi salute is. There is no child like innocence at play, as some may interpret it.

  • @SamboT@lemmy.world
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    164 months ago

    So if people made shirts of musk nazi salute and wore them around, would they get kicked out of places? Like the DMV or any government office?

  • @lurklurk@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    In the immortal words of Buffy: “I didn’t jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were”

  • @Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    34 months ago

    Guys, guys, guys! You got it all wrong! He was clearly slapping his chest to activate the homing becon to send a request to his home planet, so they can send a UFO to come pick him up! Then he used his arm as an antenna!!!

    See? The whole space exploration obsession was just his way of trying to fund a way home.

  • @werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    14 months ago

    50 years from now Mexico City will love to ride Teslas around the place. The US will make a movie about an enchanted Tesla called 8. Mexico will make their own called Ocho. Kids all over will grow up having their dads teach them how to do a full Tesla battery replacement. Dead batterys will litter every backyard. You’ll be able to just go to the local open market to buy replacement parts.

    Meanwhile in the US, NASA will employ Ex X workers to build their first rocket to fly our first Astronauts. Our astronauts will be using very expensive pens, unlike the ruzzians who used to use pencils. And everyone will know this.

    After the war is over Elon shoots his own head off and they make a movie about that too…many movies with different sad endings. Ruzzia would dedicated decades to making a Vladimir Godzilla movie and then the best radios there ever will be, followed by the best TV monitors and also small cute cars called Vlad Kei cars.

    The US history books will tell us all how we finally beat Elon after he sunk a sub. The US public will then give the president full mandate to drop the bomb. All girls give up their pantyhose material… Somehow that’s very important for wars. And chickens.

    Guys! I cracked the code! Its all happening again! Look for books called His Tory. I don’t know who’s Tory, but the one I found was in my basement. Its a little encoded but its all happening like the book predicted!