Elon Musk just got ‘owned’ by a misquote. Take a look at this, found on the social media:

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy,” says Elon Musk.

“The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism,” responds Hannah Arendt, probably before Musk was even born (she died in 1976; he was born in 1971).

In fact, Ms Arendt never wrote those exact words; they are assumed to be a paraphrase of her meaning. The point still stands, though.

And the fact that Musk has huge influence over the President of the United States, while Arendt lies forgotten by most people reminds me of words by a favourite band of mine, The Levellers:

“Years of knowledge wasted and ignored.”