Thoughts?

58 comments

I'm a man, and I don't like it when the behaviour of Musk is viewed as typical men behaviour.
- Yeah, it's one thing to be leery of men because any one of them could be dangerous. It's quite another to claim that men "tend to" defend rapists and child molesters unless it suits them.
- i'm also a man. i don't think it's seen as "typical," but maybe more common than you think, however disheartening that is.
  you're slightly annoyed when women are mistrustful of men. women are literally scared because of what some men do.
  can you blame them? go check out the FBI sex offender map and type in your neighborhood. you might be surprised. keep in mind this is only the people who actually got caught. does the saying "not all men. but always a man" bother you too?
  https://www.nsopw.gov/
  edit: i want to add: aside from celebrities who "no one would have ever suspected!" e.g., bill cosby, neil gaiman, and on and on, i've personally known more than a couple people (men) who turned out to be creeps, and shocked everyone who knew them. a couple went to prison for it.
  yea, it sucks that women have to be wary, but i'll never criticize women for something that's 0% their fault
  edit 2: if you're a man, and you feel butthurt by the OP, i won't tell you how to feel, but my advice is this: instead of your immediate reaction of "this woman is wrong! she needs to fix herself!" maybe take a minute to say "what must this woman have gone through in order to say such a thing?" because while she might be technically incorrect that "all men are just like elon musk," attitudes and comments like this don't just "happen"
  also consider the fact that elon musk says "empathy is weakness." and you're throwing empathy out the window, just like elon wanted, when you immediately say "i'm the victim here!"
  empathy is not weakness, it's STRENGTH. it's painful to feel someone else's pain, and to impose that pain willingly upon yourself. musk and people who behave like him (like victims) are the fucking weak ones. is empathy a good thing?
  in america, human beings who have done nothing wrong are being dehumanized, kidnapped, shipped away. or just murdered. you tell me whether empathy is better or worse for society?
  
  You're reading wrong into my comment. I'm not annoyed because of the mistrust, I see where it comes from, and I've also witnessed some creepers from close by. However, the post literally says "and that's how men tend to be" in regard to Musk's behaviour. So it is seen as typical.
  Another thing to consider is that I'm not from the US, so the things going on in my country might be a little less extreme. Not that I want to suggest there are no predators over here, but it is different.
  
  I wouldn't ever criticize women for being wary of men by default, but I would criticize someone for comparing me (and all other men) to fucking Musk. There is a difference between saying "enough men are dangerous that I should assume they're always a threat" and "all men are the same as one of the most despicable people of our time".
  
  Maybe by now I've just steered clear of enough people on Lemmy that I'm actually seeing these comments, and maybe you were here the whole time, but there has been a noticeable (to me) increase in real allyship from men on here. Just want to let you know it's greatly appreciated. If you didn't comment this, chances are a woman would have and the backlash would have been worse. This comment 100% "gets it" and is what solidarity looks like. I was reading a post recently by a woman who is giving up on lemmy because of the rampant misogyny, and I have felt the same at times, but comments like this make me feel so much better about staying.
  It's unfortunate that people can't exchange lived experiences, because so much of empathy and understanding is locked behind that. For what it's worth, I believe most men replying here really just want to be given a chance and have their effort recognized, but their comments show a lack of understanding that's hard to get at.
  I was seeing a guy who had "all the right opinions" and we were in a situation where we were going to have to interact with someone who sexually assaulted children. I informed him ahead of time and was as clear as to the nature of this person. My boyfriend talked a big game about how he was going to refuse to engage with such an awful person etc etc. After they met, on our ride back from the event he asked if I could go into detail about the sexual assault this person allegedly did because after meeting him my partner was sure that it was just some kind of misunderstanding. He was sure he could just tell this guy was so nice and would never do such a thing. They got along great. How do you explain to someone that "just asking questions" or "wanting to know the facts" is not the right response, especially only AFTER meeting someone. This kind of interaction feels similar to me because on its own it's understandable to not want to be lumped in with musk, it's understandable to want to know all the facts, but in context the pushback is the problem.
  My comment is getting a bit off topic, so just generally thank you for being in the comments saying this. It's refreshing to see it and it's greatly appreciated.
  
  So when you say humans you mean women from your comment correct? But more men are murdered then women did they deserve it? And if they did how many women deserved it? Because if you think some deserved it that are men the answer for the women would not be zero.
- Yeah, these are not typical men. They're narcissists.
  Most men are disgusted by predators; however there are a not insignificant number of men out there that aren't.
- Theres a couple ways to fix that.
  Whining on the internet isn't one of them. Not tgat im generally against that, but if you want to distance yourself from musk in particular, maybe not the best technique.
- Unfortunately, in some ways, it is.
  He is of course also a deranged little freak. But lots of his stuff is normal kinds of deranged.
- You might be right, but that is not the claim that was made. Do you know other men who are predators? That was the subject.
  
  No, the meme literally goes;
  "Elon did this thing"
  "This is how men act"

gotta love casual sexism against men being normalized and even celebrated
- Yeah. I think we could fix a lot of societal problems if we made masculinity something that was as inherently worthy of mocking and easy criticism as any other gender expression is now.
  If 'not all men'ing automatically got you laughed out of every room.

I disagree, as a man, I would expose the shit out of any other person I knew was doing that shit.
When a man does this shit he increases the perception of all men being seen as possible predators and terrible people.
A man does not do this, a man stands up for what is right, and if they don't, they are no man.

I love being likened to a psychopath (or whatever shit Musk is) just because we both have balls.
Thanks, I hate it.
- you both have balls the same way you both have a spine.
  
  both have a spine
  Citation needed.

I'd replace men with narcissists because 100% of narcissists act like they don't know morals when it hits them in the face because they want to exploit and benefit from immoral and corrupt situations any way they can.
- I would merge narcissists with predators like, we don't have a lot of strong evidence that Elon Musk is a predator of any particular type, but there's something going on there.
  His actions are not the actions that you take when you have a clean conscience.
  
  I would call his space base or whatever a predatory colonization of Boca Chica. His companies hire new grads, burn them out, then dump them the second they slow. Plenty of stories of abuse and racism in Tesla factories. Strong-arming his ex wives over custody battles.
  He's a predator, just maybe(as far as we know) not of the typical sexual variety.
  
  Strong narcissists cannot actually have a clean conscience. They are making shit up constantly. There is no dependency on reality.
- I wouldn't be surprised if the venn diagram between narcissism and sociopathy is a near circle.
  
  Dark Triad

I normally cringe to see "as a man.." comments but this is incredibly sexist and it's understandable to have something to say when you're getting accused of habitually defending rapists. Kind of disappointed to see it posted here
- I appreciate your sacrifice, as someone who posted "as a man".
  Sexism is bad. Doesn't matter who is on the receiving end. It's still bad.
  
  Yeah, this one is a step too far for me. Instead of attributing his behavior to his well-established narcissism and power hungry freak behavior, he didn't call Trump out because....he's a man?? His identity as a piece of shit takes precedence here, not his gender.
  OP is one of the nicest individuals on this platform so I'm very, very surprised by this post

Hey. As a man, I resent being lumped in with Elon on this.
The whole "but they do the bad thing" is a what about-ism; and many of us don't associate with people who we need to do mental gymnastics to justify their actions.
If I had a friend or acquaintance who was a child r*pist, I would have one less friend or acquaintances the day I found that out. I don't need anyone in my life that I have to justify their actions because of how shitty they actually are. My life is complicated, and/or, difficult enough... I don't need people in it that add to that with their drama and/or felony criminal activity. I don't care how "important" or "influential" they are, I will just remove myself from the situation and politely decline any future interactions with that individual regardless of all other factors.
Since I started abiding by this philosophy, I've lost more "friends" than I care to count, but the friends I still have, are people actually worth knowing. They're people who make me better as a person. I hope they feel the same about me, but that's entirely up to them to make a decision about.
In any case. Generalizing an entire gender because of the actions of one dude? Not cool. That would be like if I based my opinions on women off of the example set by someone like Carla Homolka. First of all, fuck that bitch and the horse she rode in on; she should eat the curb for the horrors she has committed; but also, she is not an example by which anyone should base an opinion on, about women in general.
Elon may be arguably less horrible than Homolka, but I think I've made my point.
- Hey, so, notice how no women are jumping in to defend themselves or carla homolka? None of us jumping in to object to not being adequately distanced from her?
  This is why you people can't be taken seriously.
  
  Why men can't be taken seriously you mean? I don't know who this Carla Homolka person is, but if you had a post comparing every woman to their actions on the basis of their sex I'm pretty sure you would get women defending themselves in exactly the same way (assuming this person did something terrible from context).
  I'm not sure how you don't see that using "you people" in this way is acceptable in generalizing any other group. There's definitely a pass, socially, when aiming those words at men. Ask yourself why that is.

Didn’t even reveal Trump as a child rapist. It’s just a go-to thing for that immature fool. Remember when kids were trapped in a cave, he tried to get them to use his magic robots to rescue them, and the experienced cave-diving rescuer said that would be a disaster? Suddenly the rescuer became a child rapist.
Trump may be, but Musk doesn’t know one way or the other. He’s just hurt and immature and hurling playground insults.
- I still do not understand how that event didn’t turn the entire world on Musk forever.
  I already didn’t like Musk because of the whole “you can’t use safety yellow paint or backup alarms on forklifts in my factories because I don’t like them,” but calling a hero a pedophile because his ego wasn’t the most important thing in the situation was just so outlandishly childish and evil.
  
  I still remember watching what I will call a "hype channel" on YT, talk about Musk being an entrepreneur as if that put him in some kind of authority, that put a bad taste in my mouth, then the whole Hyperloop shit started, and as a railway enthusiast, I just could not see the system working as described, then I started seeing Tesla customers volunteering at Tesla delivery locations to help new customers which felt very culty, and that helped me spot the Musk cult easier, all while my dislike for him grew
- Yeah, I disliked Musk before the cave rescue shitstorm, but that turned my dislike into pure contempt.

I disagree as a man, it is not reflecting gender it is reflecting personality. This is how narcists and ego maniacs behave - and powerful people often fall into that category. Men and women.
- I tend to think there's some causation behind the correlation between power and sociopathy. Furthermore, I don't believe one comes necessarily before the other.
  I just call it the wealth disease.

This tweet sounds like it's from an incel
- Isn’t the term “femcel”?
  
  I thought femcels were different as they don't necessarily blame men for their issues?

Not all men.
But still, way too many men.
- Worse even that the standard lowers with an increasing imbalance in power.
- Louder for everyone on this thread!!!!

I have a pretty low bar for posts from a comm called "witches vs patriarchy" and this still doesn't reach it. Get the fuck out with this trash.

As a man I read this not as "every single man would literally always protect a child rapist", but as "men tend to be loyal to their friends and would often only call them out on sexist behavior if an additional factor comes into play".
Yes, it's hyperbole. On the internet. In a meme community.

Locking this post as we've recieved reports of misandry in which I've personally also addressed in the comments.

Elon is a man and an asshole. Those are separate issues. Most people, men and women, are not that selfish and childish.
It's unfortunate that assholes do tend to be a loud minority among men

If I'm being charitable to the person who wrote this. They mean that it's a thing done by men, but they didn't say all mean. I'd argue it's men like him, except one point. It's not just men. There are women who enable this too. Remember, Jeffery Epstein's right hand man, was a woman.

I'll start caring about these kind of takes when women stop throwing babies in dumpsters.
- What the fuck does that mean?
  
  It means that it's not all women, but it is weird how it's always a woman.

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