Why is this flagged? Surely one of the most influential people in the tech space (and the richest man in the world) doing a nazi salute is pertinent to Hacker News?
Because people are tired of hearing about Trump and Musk literally all day long and every day. It's almost impossible not to hear about them. And most likely, it will last at least 4 years. Seriously, at that stage, I think everybody had already a well forged opinion on this whole situation and no new information can change it.
I'll flag any post that contains Trump or Musk in the title.
And you don't actually "hear" people discussing in threads you don't click on. I don't want to hear about Apple, ever, nothing they do or make interests me, or ever will. Yet I wouldn't dream of curtailing others discussing that stuff.
I doubt this is meant as a nazi salute at all. This is click and outrage bait. I did not flag this article, but I believe many question the honesty here.
Whatever you hear as an explanation for this, Musk knew how this would be seen/received and made a show of doing it.
If I suspend all possible disbelief, the best scenario is a rich white kid raised in Apartheid South Africa giving "Roman Salutes" to troll people for his own personal LOLs?
I tried, watching the video a few times. I can't believe that he didn't know what he was doing.
At best, he wants to demonstrate that he can make one of the worst gestures anyone can do in this position and suffer no consequences. Some kind of demonstration of power.
He will do anything so that his biggest fans love him even more. They think this was so based and now he's a god among men for doing this so all is well
"... commonly considered a symbol of fascism that had been based on a custom popularly attributed to ancient Rome.[1] However, no Roman text gives this description, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern so-called "Roman" salute."
What are you trying to accomplish with this comment, protecting the reputation of the ancient Romans? The article you linked says, in the first line: "The Roman salute, also known as the Fascist salute"
While (ancient) Romans may have not done this salute, the salute is commonly referred to as Roman salute nonetheless
Trolling in the most idiotic, childish way possible is exactly what he's doing. He's done this forever. This is the guy who literally publicly trolled the SEC on Twitter when they charged him with fraud in 2018. The same guy who named the car models of his $1 Trillion company to spell "S3XY". He clearly has some kind of unresolved complex originating from his childhood that has stopped him from progressing to the mentality of a normal adult. What he fears most is being ignored. He needs everyone to be talking about him all the time.
How do you not unflag this? This is a historic moment with the whole country watching. Not separate from technology intellectual curiosity or the world. What does it say that this discussion is being suppressed?
I mean, it changes nothing on one hand, but it also crosses another line. From a European perspective (my perspective), this has burned all his credibility in Europe outside of fringe groups, there is no ambiguity.
> As a person with a strong track record of criticizing Elon Musk, I feel extremely confident asserting that this was not a Nazi salute. Elon Musk is a friend to the Jews. This is a man with Aspergers exuberantly throwing his heart to the crowd. We don't need to invent outrage.
Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Ha, Nazi, Schmazi" says Wernher von Braun
Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department" says Wernher von Braun
Readit News
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775519 for more
If Hacker News is about the tech industry then we need to see the tech industry clearly, warts and all.
We cannot run away from it. We cannot memory hole it.
There's clearly forces flagging all the remotely important things, just take this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42777938
It seems, YC and HN made their decision.
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I'll flag any post that contains Trump or Musk in the title.
Also people just don't want to hear about it on HN when it is all over the media already
And you don't actually "hear" people discussing in threads you don't click on. I don't want to hear about Apple, ever, nothing they do or make interests me, or ever will. Yet I wouldn't dream of curtailing others discussing that stuff.
We used to hang these guys.
If I suspend all possible disbelief, the best scenario is a rich white kid raised in Apartheid South Africa giving "Roman Salutes" to troll people for his own personal LOLs?
I tried, watching the video a few times. I can't believe that he didn't know what he was doing.
At best, he wants to demonstrate that he can make one of the worst gestures anyone can do in this position and suffer no consequences. Some kind of demonstration of power.
"... commonly considered a symbol of fascism that had been based on a custom popularly attributed to ancient Rome.[1] However, no Roman text gives this description, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern so-called "Roman" salute."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_salute
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While (ancient) Romans may have not done this salute, the salute is commonly referred to as Roman salute nonetheless
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=joV-9FFoA3Q
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/would-...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-08-22/tesla-reputat...
https://nltimes.nl/2025/01/19/tesla-owners-react-elon-musks-...
This will not help it.
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(mirror: https://files.catbox.moe/icky5m.mp4 )
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https://x.com/bungarsargon/status/1881439445523775961
> As a person with a strong track record of criticizing Elon Musk, I feel extremely confident asserting that this was not a Nazi salute. Elon Musk is a friend to the Jews. This is a man with Aspergers exuberantly throwing his heart to the crowd. We don't need to invent outrage.
"Opinion editor of Newsweek", 150k followers.
...
I usually try to avoid politically charged content here but if you think this wont affect you, you are out of touch.
This is a disturbing thing to me when people want to discuss the tech but without the politics (and the rocket launches but not the fallout).