Is Elon Musk the greatest visionary or the greatest snake oil salesman of our age?

[TheHoodedClaw]

NASA have had ridiculous amounts of funding, screwed up any body else trying to get into the game and still haven't done anything comparable to the moon landing, getting something unmanned onto Mars is no where near as impressive as getting men on the moon in fucking 1969.

Unmanned objects is far easier than getting manned stuff anywhere.

Do you think it's worth starting a thread in the science forum to discuss NASA - what went right and what went wrong, and where to go forward? It might get some participation there?

 

[elbows]

I explained why my experience of getting all my employment in the private sector affected my thinking about people that create such jobs. I suggested that my experience shaped my way of thinking and that your different way of thinking probably arose from your different employment experiences. You misunderstood this.

All of my employment has been in the private sector and yet somehow I was still able to reach conclusions that were more about parasites and scum than worshipping the 'wealth creators'.

 

[weltweit]

All of my employment has been in the private sector and yet somehow I was still able to reach conclusions that were more about parasites and scum than worshipping the 'wealth creators'.

Worship is further than I go, I just observe that without people starting companies many of the positions I have had (most even) would likely have not existed. If you view these individuals as parasitic scum, do you have a preferred alternative to provide jobs?

 

[elbows]

Not that I'd waste my time trying to share with you right now, no.

Meanwhile even a quick look at Musks wikipedia page gives more than a few clues about just a few of the problems with the version of reality these 'self-made wealth creators' would have us swallow.

Musk has stated that he does not believe the U.S. government should provide subsidies to companies but should instead use a carbon tax to price in the negative externality of air pollution and discourage "bad behavior." Musk argues that the free market would achieve the "best solution," and that producing environmentally unfriendly vehicles should come with its own consequences.[167]

Musk's statements have been widely criticized, with Stanford University Professor Fred Turner noting that "if you're an entrepreneur like Elon Musk, you will take the money where you can get it, but at the same time believe as a matter of faith that it's entrepreneurship and technology that are the sources of social change, not the state. It is not quite self-delusion, but there is a habit of thinking of oneself as a free-standing, independent agent, and of not acknowledging the subsidies that one received. And this goes on all the time in Silicon Valley."[168] Author Michael Shellenberger argued that "in the case of Musk, it is hard not to read that as a kind of defensiveness. And I think there is a business reason for it. They are dealing with a lot of investors for whom subsidies are not the basis for a long-term viable business, and they often want to exaggerate the speed with which they are going to be able to become independent." Shellenberger continues, "we would all be better off if these entrepreneurs were a bit more grateful, a bit more humble." While journalist and author Jim Motavalli, who interviewed Musk for High Voltage, his 2011 book about the electric vehicle industry, speculated that "Elon is now looking at it from the point of view of a winner, and he doesn't want to see other people win because they get government money – I do think there is a tendency of people, once they have succeeded, to want to pull the ladder up after them."[169]

Elon Musk - Wikipedia

 

[elbows]

Anyway, its not simply a question of how to provide jobs. It is a question of how humans organise, and ideas about ownership and control. The current orthodoxy is stifling, and to debate jobs on those terms is almost to give up before we begin.

 

[Nylock]

You missed my point, by a metric mile.

NASA have had ridiculous amounts of funding, screwed up any body else trying to get into the game and still haven't done anything comparable to the moon landing, getting something unmanned onto Mars is no where near as impressive as getting men on the moon in fucking 1969.

Unmanned objects is far easier than getting manned stuff anywhere.

NASA are also continuously hamstrung and beholden to government policy and the whims of politicians. Private companies aren't. If NASA was left to it's own devices and not continually fucked about with or held hostage by the next suit with an agenda, they would probably be a lot less wasteful. Every shift in policy or focus forces NASA to shelve/flush a load of effort and start again.

Also manned flight covering a quarter of a million miles in a week turnaround is an order of magnitude simpler than hurling something on autopilot 20+ million miles towards a planet known as a space probe killer and then successfully landing something on the surface autonomously without direct human influence...

 

[elbows]

NASA are also continuously hamstrung and beholden to government policy and the whims of politicians. Private companies aren't.

Thats just not true, especially with certain industries. The politicians and subsidies of one kind or another are important enough to the business people that they feel the need to throw money at the political classes in a number of ways, in anticipation of receiving far more of the public purse back in return.

 

[Nylock]

ok then

 

[weltweit]

Anyway, its not simply a question of how to provide jobs. It is a question of how humans organise, and ideas about ownership and control. The current orthodoxy is stifling, and to debate jobs on those terms is almost to give up before we begin.

Someone starting a company with little capital faces the steepest risks, growing from just the initial founder to the founder + 1 employee means a doubling of the cost base in one step. Never, past that, will the growth in costs be so steep.

A founder with plenty of cash makes that initial step with much greater ease, Musk with his billions from paypal easily stepped far past this micro situation at startup.

 

[redsquirrel]

I explained why my experience of getting all my employment in the private sector affected my thinking about people that create such jobs.

Your admiration for employers may be a viewpoint affected by your employment experience (and all your other experiences) but the reasons for your admiration was stated as a fact

I tend to admire people who start businesses that create employment for the rest of us,

I guess it might depend on whom you rely for your own employment?

(my emphasis) This reads more like something from the Victorian era than the modern day.


But these “facts” are nonsense. To say that workers rely on capital to create employment for obviously utterly ahistoric, for most of human history and across societies employment has not come from businesses. Indeed even in the UK today many, many people are involved in unpaid employment.

Your facts are complete arse about face, it is capital that relies on workers, without stealing from the workers the capitalist cannot make a penny in profit. Indeed without workers their business is defunct.

 

[Almor]

Someone starting a company with little capital faces the steepest risks, growing from just the initial founder to the founder + 1 employee means a doubling of the cost base in one step. Never, past that, will the growth in costs be so steep.

A founder with plenty of cash makes that initial step with much greater ease, Musk with his billions from paypal easily stepped far past this micro situation at startup.

What risk? That they'll have to get a job like the rest of us if the money runs out?

A company I used to work for recently spent millions of pounds (probably more than twice the money that the company spent last year) setting up a new site for expansion, do you think it cost the founder millions to employ his first employee?

 

[8ball]

What risk? That they'll have to get a job like the rest of us if the money runs out?

A company I used to work for recently spent millions of pounds (probably more than twice the money that the company spent last year) setting up a new site for expansion, do you think it cost the founder millions to employ his first employee?

Da wut?

 

[elbows]

edit - Oh it didnt quote the tweet he was responding to so I shall.

 

[phillm]

can Joe Public short Musk's tottering empire ?

 

[The Boy]

edit - Oh it didnt quote the tweet he was responding to so I shall.

I may be getting old and losing my ability to twatters, but what am I missing here?

 

[yield]

Worker testifies that Tesla stopped him from organizing union
Reuters. 12/06/18

A Tesla Inc employee organizing a union was asked by a supervisor and company security guards to leave the factory after handing out pro-union flyers, the worker said at a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing on Monday over whether Tesla had violated federal safeguards for employee activity.

The NLRB general counsel brought the case before a board administrative law judge after receiving complaints from three Tesla workers and the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)

 

[elbows]

I may be getting old and losing my ability to twatters, but what am I missing here?

Honestly, it wasnt good enough to be worth explaining.

 

[elbows]

 

[teqniq]

 

[teqniq]

Also...

 

[elbows]

Quality

 

[teqniq]

Tesla belonging to husband of US actor Mary McCormack shown shooting flames from undercarriage

 

[gawkrodger]

he's been having a weird rant on twitter informing that he's a socialist, they aren't and then told David Harvey that he doesn't understand Marx

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Elon, mate, you would have had a very interesting conversation with Banks if you'd ever met him. You and Bezos actually.

 

[mojo pixy]

Another idiot in favour of sci-fi luxury communism but who's scared shitless of the real thing. Yawn eh.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Social media's great because it shows up these cunts for the massive bellends they are when given free reign to talk in the commons just like the rest of us but fuck me if it isn't awful that we have to listen to them.

 

[teqniq]

Indeed, he so very obviously has no clue as to where Banks is coming from.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Elon, mate, you would have had a very interesting conversation with Banks if you'd ever met him. You and Bezos actually.

Haha, I’ve been following this weird banter through the Black Socialists of America twitter account. He keeps bringing up Iain Banks again and again “he was very anti unions in the culture books” THEY ARE FUCKING WORKS OF FICTION YE DICK

I feel particularly offended having read all his non sci fi stuff in my teenage years.

 

[NoXion]

I never got any anti-union vibes from Banks's science fiction. What have I missed?

 

[Crispy]

If Musk/Bezos were in a Culture book, they'd be the bad guys.
They'd probably get subtly played by a Contact Mind to use their powers for good without even realising it. The fact that this hasn't happened proves that Contact doesn't exist