Elon Musk

Kias definitely are a thing again but it's hard to recognize them because the logo looks like "KN"

lol one of the wildest branding choices

oh I don't mean a preponderance of kias. I mean the kia boyz

oh yeah that is definitely still happening, because I don't think Kia or Hyundai fixed the issue for owners

new kia logo is great, so \m/

i wouldn’t say no to a kia stinger

I ended up with an iX as a loaner while some work was being done on my car and I would not call the interior of that car cheap-looking at all

I also would not buy it because I like regular meals, but man was that a nice car

It's been a couple years since I've been in one, but BMW seemed to skimp on things like electric seat adjustments where they seem pretty standard in equivalent Audi and Mercedes. Also, hated some of their control/layout choices.

absolutely no shade on anyone here, there's not much else to say, but the richest person in the world, who now controls one of its most influential media channels, is an openly anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. seems like this should be receiving more attention in the press.

certainly more attention than gaza-related campus cancellations, etc.

I'm not really sure what he's saying. Seems like some theory that Jewish people push the woke mind virus on Whites to make them depressed.

yeah real its bad he should be put in a cubby

xp https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/elon-musks-disturbing-truth/676019/

(here is a link to the press after i complained this was not receiving enough coverage)

however all the german lux brand interiors are prob pretty comparable, tho they each have their own style so its kinda a matter of taste, and the more entry level ones are not as nice as the more expensive one, tho theyre all pretty nice, especially new ones, feel like with new cars in general interiors are pretty effin good, with the exception of putting too much stuff in the touch screen, and maybe having to much stuff to control in general that will break eventually, pickups are the best for just having big physical buttons, theyre like these are big dumb guys theyre gonna want to push a large button with their fat fingers, which really thats all anyone wants

oh I don't mean a preponderance of kias. I mean the kia boyz

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, November 16, 2023 9:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I saw in St. Paul once this newer kia with this laminated basically FAQ card taped up in the window saying this is a newer model that doesn't not have the engine immobilizer flaw that Kia model years XXXX-XXXX have blah blah blah haha i'm assuming they'd had their window broken a few times

my gf had her car broken into twice (attempted thefts) and stolen once in like three months last summer

btw i just looked and all the big three german brands entry level cars come with front power seats, you might be able to get some racing seats optional that are manual for weight reasons, but thats be a rare performance set up on one of their special fast cars

I have a Hyundai which is going through the same thing and as a result of the recall upgrade to fix the security flaw they put a sticker in the window advertising the upgraded security and part of me wonders "is this just like daring someone to try?"

its funny that no cars used to have that anti theft technology and people werent just steeling them like crazy but the fact that one type of car doesnt have it now has really captured the imagination of the youth

(to be clear my gf's car was a kia in question, she had to get rid of it in a small town in wisconsin where the kia boyz hadn't hit yet - someone we know's bf ended up not being able to get insurance on a kia after it was stolen three times)

absolutely no shade on anyone here, there's not much else to say, but the richest person in the world, who now controls one of its most influential media channels, is an openly anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. seems like this should be receiving more attention in the press.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, November 16, 2023 11:28 AM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, and the specific conspiracy he is boosting -- the idea that jewish people are supporting "mass immigration" to america with the intention of causing "white genocide" -- is the same exact conspiracy theory that motivated the pittsburgh synagogue shooter.

it doesn't get much worse. i have no idea what to do with this information.

my friend had a elantra from that era but his was the kind that wasn't susceptible to the attack

didn't stop somebody from breaking in, trying it, and leaving behind a usb cable

I have a Hyundai which is going through the same thing and as a result of the recall upgrade to fix the security flaw they put a sticker in the window advertising the upgraded security and part of me wonders "is this just like daring someone to try?"

― a very very unfair (Neanderthal), Thursday, November 16, 2023 10:59 AM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'd leave it, i think the insane easiness of it was the thrill tbh, these kids aren't stealing other types of cars i doubt, it's basically like someone left a bicycle unlocked on a rack let's take it for a spin type mentality

the one time it was stolen they didn't even take anything out of the car just drove it and left it somewhere

new hyundais and kias are ok, right? my old impreza is on its last legs and suddenly i am feeling too cool to be driving a subaru.

don't tell my impreza i said this.

what kind of impreza do you have?

are there awd hyundai kias

Can someone jack EV Kias as easily as their gas-driven brethren? Can EVs get carjacked, or do they have, like, some biometric killswitch?

xp 2014 base model. almost 200,000 thousand miles and very banged up from years of street parking.

if it's a manual i'm sure you can sell it to some high school kid

that Atlantic article is paywalled but yeah there's something to be said about dumb celebrities desperate for validation and how easy it is for them to fall into the waiting arms of Nazis. like I don't think it's so much that he's always had these views but he's an idiot who really wants to be liked and sound smart and that's kind of hard to do on the left when you don't actually know anything (and also run multiple union-busting businesses with famously terrible working conditions), but remarkably easy to do on the right, and that's how you basically wind up siding with a fascist belief system that you probably never really seriously thought about. you can see how this would happen to say the Dilbert guy but having it happen to the richest guy on Earth is pretty remarkable

https://archive.ph/tGeFB

I think it is also that he’s always had these beliefs, to be clear

I haven’t really commented on it because I feel like this is exactly what he has been for years; I’m not even like “oh he said the quiet part out loud” because he is fundamentally incapable of being quiet.

he comes from a family that moved to south africa because they liked apartheid, and he segregates his factories. i don't see any reason to give him the benefit of the doubt here, even if he's not on record with the "hitler was right" stuff until now.

i agree. frogbs is being too charitable. he grew up under apartheid and he likes the idea of a system like that.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't think Elon himself is a guy who necessarily has developed serious political views because he seems to only view the world through the lens of himself. he'll say whatever he has to to make people think he's edgy and smart and the ultimate memelord. I realize this is giving him way too much credit for no reason but I really do believe if not for the armies of blue checks going "so true!" on everything he posts he would not be doing this

yeah saw someone theorize that the fall of apartheid was a formative and traumatic event in musks life and that the parallels with blm and me too really triggered him provoking him to be more vocal about his awful beliefs, which idk if its true but it really does all line up

he grew up in south africa and then spent ten years working closely with peter thiel. the idea that he doesn't have sincerely held political beliefs seems dubious at best. i can see how recent events would encourage him to be more open about those beliefs, or make them feel more on-topic.

I believe he bought Twitter specifically to do this. His entire argument was “free speech is being stifled, let everyone talk” and made it a priority to let u fettered racists back onto the platform. If there’s an echo chamber, it’s because it was his vision to create it. You’re looking at a symptom/attribute and treating it as a side-effect.

if that's in response to the last sentence of my post, that's fair.

yeah otm, also due to solipsism he thought the new racist twitter would be popular and profitable xp

“u fettered” should have been “unfettered”, I do not believe the other posters here are racists chained to their posting devices *insert PROVE ME WRONG dude here*

Also, that was a response to frogbs, I don’t think we are in fundamental disagreement

well look it's def true that he's almost certainly always been a rightwing shithead but I also think its true he wants to be a known and important figure in more mainstream/leftwing pop culture, from which he's been pretty roundly rejected. which I think caused him to seek that sort of validation on the right. I mean to me it looked like he was mostly unbanning those guys because he wanted them to like him. but idk yall are probably right that he's always been this way just a lot less public about it. by the way I'm not using "he just wants racists to love him" as an argument I just mean he's an extraordinarily needy guy which you don't see from insanely rich dudes who can singlehandedly influence US policy

I don't think there's any contradiction between Musk's racism and reactionary politics being both shallowly considered and deeply felt.

I don't think he's spent much time thinking about any of it, but by god he knows the truth when he retweets it.

well... for people seeking a new electric car, there are now solid alternatives to Tesla, many of them

It'll be interesting to see how his bullshit affects car sales

I don't think there's any contradiction between Musk's racism and reactionary politics being both shallowly considered and deeply felt.

I guess no but he definitely seems like a guy who can oscillate between Mitt Romney and Adolf Hitler depending on who he's talking to, because he is nothing but a dumb reply guy, his whole life is memes, he never has an original thought on his own. so yeah the fact that he made himself the eternal main character of Twitter is really gonna amp this shit way up

thank you to the failing new york times for heeding my call for more prominent coverage of this https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/technology/elon-musk-endorses-antisemitic-post-ibm.html

IBM doesn’t need any more association with Nazis than it already has certainly