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!’

  • rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    The cybertruck is exactly the sort of thing Nazis would come up with. It’s the King Tiger of trucks - impressive specs and appeals to insecure men, but way the fuck too big and designed for unrealistic situations instead of practical reality.

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      2 hours ago

      It can’t realistically tow heavy loads cause the hitch breaks off, and it can’t travel far with heavy loads. Definitely not the king tiger of trucks.

  • Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 hours ago

    Not apologizing and then immediately giving a speech to AfD about not being ashamed of “cultural purity” beg to differ. Either way, him being an actual Nazi is irrelevant. There are 2 options:

    1. He is an actual Nazi and believes in the ideology, which makes him a fucking Nazi. It should be noted that his grandfather was an extremely anti-semitic politician who moved to South Africa because he admired Apartheid…

    2. He did it as a troll. In which case, at a POTUS inauguration he decided to behave like a teenage boy as the richest man in the world and make light of something that saw 6 million Jews slaughtered and remains as a threat to the security of Jews around the world to this day. Which makes him a colossal piece of shit.

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    2 hours ago

    Amazing that during bidens regime all i had to do was date a bdsm guy from austria and get labeled a nazi by even work. I dont know how they found out cause he was half a state away and it was a long distance relationship. I still get called it even with elon prancing about. IDGAF musk is a n*zi. Let those karens on toktok get fired.

  • comfy@lemmy.ml
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    16 hours ago

    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.

  • droplet6585@lemmy.ml
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    20 hours ago

    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.

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      That’s just ignoring history. There are plenty of good reasons to hate the Nazis without needing to do that.

      In the similar way, it’s not necessary to dismiss Soviet Union’s early modernization successes in order to blame them for their crimes against humanity.

      • droplet6585@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        Dismiss what? Fascism is catabolic. They can’t build anything. They can only loot until they run out of weak neighbors.

        The projections of hyper competence and secret knowledge are part of their branding.

        Stop being a fascist apologist.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      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.

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            2 hours ago

            That’s kinda bullshit. Like, yeah, 30 Minutes delay on an ICE Journey aren’t necessarily uncommon, but with distances where the ICE makes sense, they’re usually faster than driving, and a traffic jam underway that delays you by about that isn’t all that unlikely on those distances either.

            With more local transport, it usually runs on time for me, and I use it almost daily. Might vary by region, though.

          • yonder@sh.itjust.works
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            2 hours ago

            In Canada, we have Via rail. They line you up like you’re at an airport and check your ticket before you board the train, and also check your ticket once you’re on the train. They also have enforced weight restrictions on baggage. The trains share tracks with freight, meaning that the train has to stop every once in a while to let a freight train pass. All this to take longer than driving and cost alot as well.

          • Kratzkopf@discuss.tchncs.de
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            4 hours ago

            Sounds like one of those people who prefer standing in a 20 minute traffic jam instead of giving a chance to public transit. If you actually use the german trains from time to time, you will notice how well used they are. They are admittedly often late though.

        • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          15 hours ago

          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.

          • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            DB AG should hire the Japanese who operate the Shinkansen network or scrap the privatization and bring back Deutsche Bundesbahn.

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            15 hours ago

            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.

    • Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      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.

      • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        My Oma survived WWII and the bastard Nazis. Opa , was a Wehrmacht Landser, survived the Eastern Front, including Stalingrad, and was later KIA at Monte Cassino. He warned Oma, while on leave from the Eastern Front, that we are going to lose war and you better head west when the Russians enter Germany. She was 3-days ahead of them, just missed the Dresden bombings and somehow survived the Battle of Berlin. Now the USA has the same incompetent blowhards running the USA straight into the ground. She warned me it could happen anywhere and she was 100% correct.

      • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        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.

        • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Not entirely. You should read the scathing after action reports from Wehrmacht generals who lead the Polish campaign. Basically, they wanted to postpone all offensive operation for at least 3 years because of the high armor losses and correct the deficiencies. The fucktard, Hitler, sent his best generals to desk jobs and replaced them with yes people to continue the war. This is what Bush did during the build up against Iraq and Afghanistan and exactly what Orange Nero wants to do too.

          • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            Two things can be true at the same time. German soldiers were incredibly cruel in non-combat situations, and at the same time highly competent in combat.

        • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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          8 hours ago

          Early Nazis also galvanized a young working force with actual socialist policies that guaranteed them good jobs and housing (before Hitler’s multiple violent party purges, scrapping most of it for a fascist-capitalist junta)

      • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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        13 hours ago

        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.

    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      This is why the left can’t have nice things.

      Like this isn’t the point here. You don’t need to be pointing out this stuff. Just dog pile

    • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      19 hours ago

      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?

      • gift_of_gab@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        To what would you assign their disturbing success?

        I have to ask: What success? They did typical fascist bullshit: They had an economy so bad they had to invade new countries just to loot them to pay for their horrific economy. They picked fight after fight of the smallest kids in the neighbourhood they could find until they met those kids big brothers and sisters. They required fucking slave labour to try to meet their wartime goals because they grossly underestimated just about every single facet of running a country. They privatized state-owned industries, crippling longterm wealth for their people, they instituted tariffs (sound familiar?). Pay remained as bad as they it had been in the depression because while their wages were raised, they were forced to constantly work overtime for no additional pay. Their military was the majority of their economic spending, and they used deficit spending because they were going to literally plunder the countries around them to pay for it. Sound like solid long-term planning? They killed or jailed anyone in the trade unions, and due to their insane tariffs and you know, generally being the worst people in history, lacked incoming trade so things like poultry or clothing was in short supply for the average person.

        Then it took thirty five days for the Nazi German army, along with the Serbian and Soviet armies, to conquer Poland. For every success in the early war they had embarrassing fumbles. They lost entirely because of how fascists work: they need to invade more countries to pay for their insane military spending, make bigger and bigger enemies, then get beat by those enemies, then later people claim they ‘could have if…’

        Yeah, they could have done just fine if they hadn’t been fascist. All of their failings fall to being fascist.

        And the first world war, are you kidding me? Are you seriously suggesting their insistence on investing in overseas colonies while fighting against the British was a brilliant plan? In both wars they were led by colossal morons who constantly underestimated their opponents, while in the second world war in particular having the worst spy agency of any nation. Their insistence on torturing, raping, and murdering everyone they came into contact with meant they just got the answers they wanted to hear, instead of the actual truth, and were constantly on the back foot. Their evil, cruel, and twisted nature was their own downfall; the insistence of their superiority, as you are doing now, is the very reason they failed.

      • Count Regal Inkwell
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        6 hours ago

        Incredible. Literally everything you just said was wrong.

        Germany wasn’t “a small country”. They were an industrialised, highly productive and heavily armed global power. They were slightly battered by post ww1 humiliation regulations pressed on them by the winners (because they ALSO lost that one!). But the instant they told the Allies to eat shit and started using what they had, any claim to “smallness” went out the window.

        And they didn’t “almost win”. They got their asses kicked.

        Every single thing the Nazis wanted to achieve, they failed hard. They wanted to prove the genetic superiority of the German people in the Olympics, instead they were soundly beat. They wanted to expand their territory, they got as far as fucking Poland and France and then stalled for years until a double whammy of Americans and Russians basically curb-stomped them, with the last few years of the Reich consisting of lots of propaganda coping hard about how their soon to come wonder weapons would turn the tide, which never happened because said wonder weapons were stupid ideas that only succeeded at getting more Nazis killed when they failed in testing. They wanted to stop the spread of communism, instead half their country became Soviet domain.

        And then their “strongman” leader blasted his own brains out rather than face the fact that he was a loser in every way one can be a loser.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 hours ago

        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.”

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        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.

      • droplet6585@lemmy.ml
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        19 hours ago

        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.

        • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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          7 hours ago

          Germany didn’t really have much wealth after WW1 due to the restrictions placed on them from the western powers.

          Most of the reason the Nazi party was popular early on was them championing a number of socialist policies designed to bring the country out an economic morass.

          This is a really good book on the subject (and part of a really good trilogy of books about understanding Nazi Germany): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319473.The_Coming_of_the_Third_Reich

          • droplet6585@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            I get what you’re trying to get at. But I’m talking inherent developed material wealth of a region. Actual physical infrastructure like rails, mines, factories, universities and everyone with the required education and training to run all of it.

            If the victors of the first war received the dividends of that real infrastructure- that matters right up until the moment that they don’t anymore.

      • Sonori@beehaw.org
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        15 hours ago

        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.

  • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    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.

    • Orbituary@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      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.

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    14 hours ago

    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.

    • Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 hours ago

      Autism =/= fascism or even being an insensitive moron. Autistic people are often highly sensitive to such topics.

      You’re painting autistic people in a bad light. There is nothing about autism that excuses such behavior.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        5 hours ago

        I don’t think he’s trying to excuse it. I think he’s saying you’d view an autistic Nazi walmart greeter more differently than you’d view an autistic Nazi whose already the wealthiest man in the world, and society’s values are letting that wealth have a huge platform and allowing him to basically run the country unilaterally.

        An autistic Nazi plebian doesn’t have that kind of influence. Many people would probably pity them. An autistic Nazi being given the world is probably a bad thing.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Yeah I guess we’re not allowed to talk about this guy clinically at all. Has to be about good vs evil.