What’s great about this, and Stephen Fry is brilliant, is not that he’s absolving Musk, or that he’s criticizing Tesla, but that it is an argument likely leading to Elon Musk protesting,
‘No, my cars are good enough that I can be a Nazi!’
Headlines are being headlines, I get it, but Fry was repeating a joke:
“I heard a very good joke yesterday,” the QI host, 67, told Stig Abell on Times Radio on Thursday.
“Someone said, ‘Musk is not a Nazi… Nazis made really good cars,’” he went on, before bursting out laughing.
Right, and here’s the clip.
Hur hur. I’d wish people would stop assigning hyper-competence to Nazis. They never were. Hitler was a drug addict and the trains didn’t run on time.
Hitler was a drug addict and the trains didn’t run on time.
German trains still don’t run on time. Can’t blame that one on the Nazis, that’s just a German thing.
Still better than Canadian rail. That shit is regularly late. Significantly late.
I had four long distance ICE journeys in the last two months. Three where thirty minutes late, one was two hours late.
Also had four long distance TGV journeys, of which one was about 20 minutes late, and one was an hour late, though that delay happened in Germany.
Apparently, DB is currently working on the infrastructure, but those renovations haven’t been fully funded, and it looks like the conservatives will get in next.
On Via Rail Canada, my train trip was 3h. The delay was 3h. So it literally was double the amount of time.
European train delay is nothing compared to Canadian train delay.
Yeah, OK, my journeys where all around five hours. Double is kinda mad.
Exactly this. My grandmother lived under the Nazis and she said they were fucking idiots. Exactly the same type of incompetent blowhards. The whole hyper scientific ubermensch BS in the cultural zeitgeist is so frustrating. I blame all the WWII video games and movies that played up the myth to have more interesting villains than the sleazy shit stains that they actually were.
The strength of the Germans was that I.) they had a really good industrial base, and ii.) the traditions within the army meant they had extremely well trained soldiers. Both of these predate nazi-rule. For instance, Germans also arguably had the best (equipped) army in WW1.
And drugs.
I blame all the WWII video games and movies that played up the myth to have more interesting villains than the sleazy shit stains that they actually were.
I guess Wolfenstein being banned for glorifying Nazis actually had some merit.
It’s hard to convince people that they’ve been had by a bunch of morons.
A small country took on the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD (TWICE) and very nearly won. The second time with a lunatic at the helm.
What does it take to impress you? To what would you assign their disturbing success?
Nazis took on world in one war, and lost.
“WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD! THE PUREST OF THE PURE! STRONGEST OF THE STRONG!”
[Fights one (1) war]
“Guess we’ll shoot ourselves in a bunker and lose in a big lopsided defeat.”
What is this, the Übermensch Expanded Universe? Maybe actually learn history.
At no point did they “nearly win” against the world. In World War 1 they made desperate attempts to break out of trench warfare because the blockade was obliterating their wartime economy. In World War 2 they were cooked the second they invaded the USSR and the USA landed in the UK. Those were unwinnable areas for them. Even if they eventually managed to wear down the British, the Americans were right behind them manufacturing 100 tanks a day and 15 Aircraft Carriers in 1943 alone. Which means all of those tanks are getting to the European theater.
And once the USSR got it’s production under way the Germans were on the defensive all the way back to Berlin.
and very nearly won.
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
Um it did not take the entire world, for a lot of their early success most of the fighting was against countries that were unprepared and devastated after ww1.
Germany was always the second strongest imperial power in Europe behind Britain from 1871 onwards, and without the English channel that would be debatable.
The Nazis’ initial success in WW2 is entirely dependent on France falling apart the second they were invaded and the Reich getting to loot the entirety of it and the low countries to keep their economy alive. Had France put up even token resistance Germany would have imploded within a few months and the European half of the war would’ve been a minor footnote in the history books next to Japan invading all of Asia.
At no point were the Nazis close to winning. After the Soviets won the battle of Stalingrad in 1943 the Nazis were on full retreat until Berlin got captured.
Even leading up to up 1943, Germany had its oil nearly cut off. They became dependent on Romania for their supply. This may sound like a cartoon, but Nazis were dragging their tanks to the frontline using horses.
Germany simply did not have the industrial or logistic capacity to win WW2 at any point. The Nazis had already ransacked the German economy through privatization reforms and selling off anything that wasn’t nailed down. Invading Poland incurred a bunch of sanctions and embargos that resulted in Germany’s only primary oil trade coming from uhhh…the Soviet Union, so the Nazis had the brilliant idea of declaring war on their main source of gasoline.
Small country? They were a highly industrialized, highly educated and still quite materially wealthy colonial power going into the wars. They didn’t need to be competent. Enough people went along with them and there was plenty of residual wealth to burn on the war machine.
You don’t need to be an architect to burn down a building.
To what would you assign their disturbing success?
Material support from the Western ruling class who wanted Hitler to destroy communism for them.
This, the biggest mistake Germany made was interfering with dominant western European capital (i.e. the US, UK, and France). If they had just devoured the eastern European countries and fought Russia then capital would not have batted an eye.
What does it take to impress you? To what would you assign their disturbing success?
Meth chocolate, fascism, and taking on armies using WWI tech and tactics
It can’t be discounted the amount of luck they had early on, as well.
Yup, biggest thing is that their attack, though expected by quite a few powers, came out of left field and add in the rushing forward on armies still using cavalry units and the early massive land grab via Germany makes sense
Nazi
👆nazi
Do Japan and Italy just not count as part of the world? I mean Japan took over half of Asia and the Pasific while Italy took the Mediterranean countries. Germany took over part of northern Europe and helped a bit of North Africa.
You do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to them
Still a Nazi.
Just America shrinkflated Nazism so the intelligence had to go. Still 100% of the hate and malice America loves to eat though.
Yes. He’s still a Nazi. You’re not getting the point.
Fry is trying to provoke Musk into saying, “yes, they’re good enough,” turning it an admission that he is indeed a Nazi.
I would describe Elon Musk as an autistic adult whose weird behavior patterns and way too much money are dangerous in a system that gives money way too much power.
edit: just to be clear to the angry arrow smashers, I’m not offering excuses, rationalizations or support for Elon Musk, just a purely clinical view of his behavior, and why it’s so dangerous that our system gives so much power to money. Without the influence his billions give him he would be just another annoying weird guy. Some people would probably even feel some sympathy for him if it didn’t carry the risk of being called Evil.
His potential neurodivergence does not excuse the evil. The majority of autistic people comprehend morality.
Yeah I guess we’re not allowed to talk about this guy clinically at all. Has to be about good vs evil.
I would describe the wealthiest person in the world, Elon Musk, as the oligarchic son of an apartheid mining oligarch. His personality “quirks” are an irrelevant distraction that excuse & explain nothing.
