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I think Musk did a gesture he expected people would interpret as a Hitler salute. I don't think he wants to gas 6 million Jews or invade Russia.
I am now basically going through markets and betting opposite to any position with an overrepresentation of Yes voters from this poll.
Reason Has a solution for Elon and the people overreacting to this. https://youtube.com/shorts/VM13POYtw_Q
Not really. I think Elon is just retarded, tries to act like an edgy /pol/ user sometimes, but isn't an actual Nazi or anything. Maybe the adderall he's taking melted his brain, idk
Can someone post a similar poll for the other dozens to hundreds of political leaders who have been caught on video making the same exact gesture, including Emanuel Macron, Kamala Harris, and others?
@DanielSacks Anyone can make polls so you're more than welcome to but I don't think the results will be particularly interesting.
Also "the same exact gesture" seems pretty far from the truth from the videos I've seen lol
I made a variation of this question that disambiguates two different intentions ("sincere" vs "troll").
https://manifold.markets/MalcolmOcean/elons-gesture-at-the-inauguration-w?play=true
direct comparison:
![](https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/mantic-markets.appspot.com/o/user-images%2Fdefault%2F79RydO2JCi.gif?alt=media&token=0b0316a0-3e00-4e73-a329-50c99fdd41a3)
edit: gif isn't playing for me so here's where i got it from
I tried to operationalise the question of "Is Musk an Actual Nazi":
https://manifold.markets/draaglom/will-musk-explicitly-endorse-or-pra?play=true
I think he knew that what he did would be interpreted that way, and he did it to upset people, rather than as an expression of belief. I count that as yes.
I think YES, but not in the "declaring allegiance to the NSDAP" way. It was likely more of a combination of aspergers flailing and edgy 4chan humor that was taken very seriously by the media.
This discourse is making me think "you know, if Elon's not a genius, maybe it's just that the left is really really dumb"
I'm Jewish and hate both Nazis and their salutes. So is Elon's partner and the mother of three of his children who attended the event he was at and retweeted a video of him speaking at it. I don't particularly like Elon at all, but I do like evaluating events with competing interpretations:
I agree with the ADL's assessment that it was an awkward, unintentional gesture. Foolish and not self-aware? Sure. Some sort of 4D chess in doing a Nazi salute on live television to try and shift the overton window of fascist signaling? No, obviously not lol. Nor was he trying to do a "Roman salute" (which is just the same thing, as the fascist salute was based on some idealized version of the Roman salute).
Just based on the mechanics of the gesture:
-While various commentators have been trying to collectively gaslight people by saying that it traditionally started with one's hand on one's heart, that is just not how it has ever looked. Historical nazis doing the salute began with their hand at their side or near their shoulder, not crossed over their chest on their heart.
-Elon said something like "my heart goes out to you" which matches up with the gesture of placing his hand on his heart and then thrusting it out as if extending it to the audience. If he'd done this gesture with his palm facing outwards or upwards, this would never have been an issue.
-The angle of the video is again relevant. If you were in the audience at the time, rather than watching on TV, it would have appeared more like the palm was pointing outwards, not down.
People can believe what they want to believe, but ask yourself this: how would you bet on a market on Elon's motivations if there were a technology available that let it be objectively determined by measuring his brain waves or whatever? Would you still be willing to bet that he intentionally did a fascist salute?
@benshindel He endorsed the German far right party AfD, and he retweets antisemitic conspiracy theories. He already had to go on an apology tour once for saying "This is the actual truth" to someone who said Jews specifically are to blame for the US immigration problems. What more does he need to do to convince you? AFAICT the only reason the ADL is defending him is because he is part of the Trump admin which has taken a broadly pro-Israel stance (a position of convenience, similar to the born again Christians that are pro-Israel, not out of any real affinity).
@benshindel Here ben tell me more about how these two things look different https://x.com/esjesjesj/status/1881716580876497257
@jjjj I am also Jewish and do not believe Elon is even slightly antisemitic. I don't know what antisemitic theories he retweeted but the "you have said the actual truth" tweet, while made by an antisemite, was mostly correct.
@jjjj If you keep calling pushing back against Muslim migration, trans insanity, and like... moderate Euroskepticism "Nazi", spoiler, that's how you get people to like the Nazis. The AfD is far closer to far-left than Nazi considering they won't even denounce gay marriage, proudly state that they're "pro-democracy" (as if such a position isn't incoherent), and are headed by a homosexual woman. If we transported JFK to 2024 you'd call him a Nazi too
@benshindel I think this analysis misses the most obvious explanation for the intentional side, which is that Elon likes thinking of himself as a troll and is pretty severely addicted to negative attention from the center-left. I agree that Elon probably wasn't trying to do some semi-covert 4D chess allegiance signalling, I'd put that at maybe 3%, but I'd put it at around 35% that he intentionally made a gesture knowing it would look like a Nazi salute and be covered that way, and conditional on that being true, at around 90% that in the counterfactual world where he, for some reason, had a guarantee that nobody would interpret it that way, would not have made the same gesture. Would that count as "doing a fascist salute intentionally"? I'm not sure but my instinct is to say 'yes'.
@jjjj Yes I am aware, I don't think that being far-right, anti-immigration, or even xenophobic is the same thing as being a neo-nazi.
And frankly I'm tired of left wingers using the labels 'antisemitism' and 'nazi' to tarnish anybody they don't like.
@jjjj I don't know what you think you need to convince me of. I don't really like Elon Musk. But this poll is whether he "intentionally did a Nazi salute". He did not.
Moreover, I'm sure you can cherry-pick videos of neo-Nazis, the dumbest humans imaginable, doing all kinds of wacky salutes with forms of all kind. But the fact remains that touching one's heart is just not how one would, intentionally or subconsciously, typically do a Nazi salute. And it's either disingenuous or just misinformed to imply otherwise.
"People can believe what they want to believe, but ask yourself this: how would you bet on a market on Elon's motivations if there were a technology available that let it be objectively determined by measuring his brain waves or whatever? Would you still be willing to bet that he intentionally did a fascist salute?"
Yes, I absolutely would be willing to bet on that. Whether it's some weird demented humor or meant to be done with more plausible deniability or whatever, it's undeniable that the Hitler salute was intentional.
@Gameknight yet most people say that it wasn't. Simply claiming something is undeniable, then failing to make your case, isn't convincing, it's a bad faith absolute statement