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

[hitmouse]

A bit more background:

A Thrash Metal Drummer Cost Elon Musk $56 Billion This Week - Theprp.com

Well, there's something ya don't see every day.

www.theprp.com

thrash metal has never really appealed to me before

Oh, the thrash metal drummer is the plaintiff, for a second I read that headline and thought "huh, there can't be many judges who drum in metal bands, surely?"

Anyway, not Musk-specific, but since I can't think of a general tech dystopia thread (maybe we should have one?), this Rebecca Solnit article about SF and Silicon Valley might as well go here:

Rebecca Solnit · In the Shadow of Silicon Valley: Losing San Francisco

I don’t know whether these billionaires know what a city is, but I do know that they have laid their hands on the city...

www.lrb.co.uk

Reckon BigMoaner might appreciate this one.

The choices tech titans make in their personal lives – gated communities, private schools, private jets, mega-yachts, private islands – show that a segregated, shrouded life is their ideal. But they profit off technologies which, while encouraging our own social withdrawal, are focused on capturing as much information about us as possible. That is, we are both more isolated and less private than we’ve ever been. I have never to my knowledge seen any of these billionaires, but by necessity I use their platforms and software and move among their employees. I live in a city and to some extent in a world that has been radically reshaped by their urges and ideals, which are not my urges and ideals.

 

[kabbes]

Weirdly (or not) Cathy Wood just sledges Delaware for doing it

Well, she long since put all her eggs in that basket and double-downed to boot. She can’t back out now without undermining her entire credibility.

 

[gosub]

Well, she long since put all her eggs in that basket and double-downed to boot. She can’t back out now without undermining her entire credibility.

Wouldn't touch her investments with a bargepole.

Irrespective of whether you thinking paying a CEO billions can be justified Delaware are flagging corporate governance (and as you say this is Delaware we are talking about) and she starts slagging off the judgement and it unAmerican....massive red flag.

 

[hitmouse]

In passing, the discussion of Delaware and how corporate-friendly it is or isn't has reminded me of this classic earworm from Ena Da:

 

[8ball]

View attachment 410200

Silas Loom

 

[Lord Camomile]

If Musk can’t even get Delaware to agree to what he wants to do, he really is shit at running things.

That's a very small "if".

 

[bcuster]

Elon Musk Launched His Red Tesla Roadster Into Space 6 Years Ago—Where Is It Now?

Elon’s famous red Roadster should still be wandering somewhere in space.

observer.com

 

[Jeff Robinson]

What sort of lowlife, worthless piece of human dogshit do you need to be for Musk to fund your lawsuit? Well, something like this:

Carano had used her online presence to share a post that implied that being a Republican is similar to being Jewish during Nazi Germany, ridicule mask-wearing during the worst days of Covid-19 and spread conspiracy theories over the 2020 election.

Gina Carano sues Disney and Lucasfilm over firing in suit paid for by Elon Musk

The actor, who was fired from The Mandalorian after ‘abhorrent’ social media posts, is filing a lawsuit funded by the X owner

www.theguardian.com

 

[gosub]

What sort of lowlife, worthless piece of human dogshit do you need to be for Musk to fund your lawsuit? Well, something like this:

Gina Carano sues Disney and Lucasfilm over firing in suit paid for by Elon Musk

The actor, who was fired from The Mandalorian after ‘abhorrent’ social media posts, is filing a lawsuit funded by the X owner

www.theguardian.com

TBF Can imagine the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear (other colours and shapes also applied) being met with a similar distain to someone wearing a red MAGA baseball cap (an entirely volentary act)

 

[Nylock]

Difference being that a maga hat is not a guaranteed one way ticket for a cattle cart to the last shower you'll ever have.

 

[8ball]

What sort of lowlife, worthless piece of human dogshit do you need to be for Musk to fund your lawsuit? Well, something like this:

Gina Carano sues Disney and Lucasfilm over firing in suit paid for by Elon Musk

The actor, who was fired from The Mandalorian after ‘abhorrent’ social media posts, is filing a lawsuit funded by the X owner

www.theguardian.com

Whiny, ill-advised tweets should be punishable by death, really.

Would be an end to these silly lawsuits.

 

[Artaxerxes]

 

[NoXion]

View attachment 411762

In the spirit of manifesting the Streisand Effect, here's the article in question.

 

[Storm Fox]

Two new Common Sense Skepic videos and one from Smarter Everyday featured in the second CSS video.

Spoiler: Common Sense Skeptic Videos

Discussing the difference between Musk and Bezos' very different approaches to getting to the moon and the quiet progress being made as opposed to Musk's teenage-like antic

Spoiler: Smarter Every Day talks to Nasa about the importance of communication which seems to be lacking in NASA.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Elongated muskrat never intended to send spaceships to space. All smoke and mirrors. You cant go to space. He cant go to space, NASA cant go to space, which is why they outsourced the operation to Money and fireworks hyperbole man.
All wank. And space force is a nazi sci fi fan boys wet dream. Sort it out here first and you might move forward, otherwise fuck off with your “leaving the planet “ ideas. You are not bigger than god so stop pretending like a billion dollar bank balance means it so. Space autist.

 

[Storm Fox]

Elongated muskrat never intended to send spaceships to space. All smoke and mirrors. You cant go to space. He cant go to space, NASA cant go to space, which is why they outsourced the operation to Money and fireworks hyperbole man.
All wank. And space force is a nazi sci fi fan boys wet dream. Sort it out here first and you might move forward, otherwise fuck off with your “leaving the planet “ ideas. You are not bigger than god so stop pretending like a billion dollar bank balance means it so. Space autist.

How does the ISS work? You can go at the right time and see it fly over as predicted, and if it wasn't in space, it would burn up.

How does Satellite TV work? The Satellites that broadcast the signal need to be in a geosynchronous orbit and due to the gravity of Earth, and that has to be 36,000km away.
So there is no need for external proof you can do it yourself and some maths.

Finally, you seem to be using autist in a derogatory manner. Not cool.
His autism has no relation to being a shithead.

 

[NoXion]

Elongated muskrat never intended to send spaceships to space. All smoke and mirrors. You cant go to space. He cant go to space, NASA cant go to space, which is why they outsourced the operation to Money and fireworks hyperbole man.
All wank. And space force is a nazi sci fi fan boys wet dream. Sort it out here first and you might move forward, otherwise fuck off with your “leaving the planet “ ideas. You are not bigger than god so stop pretending like a billion dollar bank balance means it so. Space autist.

"NASA cant[sic] go to space"

NASA literally sent an SLS rocket around the Moon.

Now shut the fuck up you ableist shitbag.

 

[teqniq]

I had a friend who has since passed away who was absolutely 100% convinced that the moon landings were faked. I tried talking to him about it a few times but rapidly came to the conclusion there is no reasoning with these people.

 

[8ball]

"NASA cant[sic] go to space"

NASA literally sent an SLS rocket around the Moon.

Now shut the fuck up you ableist shitbag.

I assumed Boris was talking about sending people into space (maybe specifically through the Van Allen belt), as opposed to probes and whatnot.

 

[NoXion]

I assumed Boris was talking about sending people into space (maybe specifically through the Van Allen belt), as opposed to probes and whatnot.

That's a standard shibboleth used by Moon landing deniers that's been debunked a thousand times before. Also the SLS is intended to carry crew, but unlike SpaceX they're taking the slow and careful route and that includes preliminary unmanned flights to ensure the soundness of the design.

 

[teuchter]

Two new Common Sense Skepic videos and one from Smarter Everyday featured in the second CSS video.

Spoiler: Common Sense Skeptic Videos

Discussing the difference between Musk and Bezos' very different approaches to getting to the moon and the quiet progress being made as opposed to Musk's teenage-like antic

Spoiler: Smarter Every Day talks to Nasa about the importance of communication which seems to be lacking in NASA.

I watched that smarter every day one a couple of weeks ago, and I'm not really sure it's about NASA vs Musk. It's him (the Smarter Every Day guy) telling NASA what he thinks are some fundamental problems with their project (it's fairly interesting and worth watching, I'd say).

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

"NASA cant[sic] go to space"

NASA literally sent an SLS rocket around the Moon.

Now shut the fuck up you ableist shitbag.

Of course they did.
I could tell you the last people I would trust to say they have been to space would be the Americans.
There is no space for us. We are on this prison for a reason and we better fucking learn to get along before we use all the resources on absolute fucking stupid vanity and power ideas trying to escape. Isn’t that obvious? And then you have wanky slave trade trust fund got lucky boy promising to create space nazis, to help the yanks. Fucking no. Spread capitalism into the great beyond? It’s a cancer here. Why would it ever be a good idea to take with us further?
Even if we suspend disbelief for a second, and look at his moon rocket shite, the very fact this is like a 200 ton tube filled with kerosene set on fire, trying to leave this wonderful planet, ought to shock you enough into saying hold on, this isn’t right? Why are we lauding this dickhead? At all.
Don’t let my use of the word autist annoy you, I can call it when I see it,
I like to own my labels.
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. A useful little rhyme my mother taught me when I started getting bullied at school for being different.
Space autist was mild.

 

[Storm Fox]

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. A useful little rhyme my mother taught me when I started getting bullied at school for being different.

The 'Sticks and stones' phrase is such bullshit; of course, words hurt. Humans are social animals and words affect people. So, as well as space denialism and ablism, you are now dismissing mental health.

You shouldn't have been bullied at school, and something should have been done, but again, the 'Sticks and stones' phrase isn't helpful. It's victim blaming.

 

[two sheds]

Yes I was bullied at school, too. It taught me that I hate bullying and that I should try to avoid bullying vulnerable people by, for example, calling them names because I know what that feels like.

 

[NoXion]

Of course they did.
I could tell you the last people I would trust to say they have been to space would be the Americans.
There is no space for us. We are on this prison for a reason and we better fucking learn to get along before we use all the resources on absolute fucking stupid vanity and power ideas trying to escape. Isn’t that obvious? And then you have wanky slave trade trust fund got lucky boy promising to create space nazis, to help the yanks. Fucking no. Spread capitalism into the great beyond? It’s a cancer here. Why would it ever be a good idea to take with us further?
Even if we suspend disbelief for a second, and look at his moon rocket shite, the very fact this is like a 200 ton tube filled with kerosene set on fire, trying to leave this wonderful planet, ought to shock you enough into saying hold on, this isn’t right? Why are we lauding this dickhead? At all.
Don’t let my use of the word autist annoy you, I can call it when I see it,
I like to own my labels.
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. A useful little rhyme my mother taught me when I started getting bullied at school for being different.
Space autist was mild.

I'm not disputing that Musk is a piece of shit, but you're going way beyond that into tinfoil fuckhead territory. The Space Race and the Moon landings took place during the Cold War. The Soviets had spies and informants all over the Western world. If they had caught even a sniff of the idea that the Yanks were faking it, then they would shouted that from a bullhorn across the entire globe. But they did absolutely no such thing. Despite the fact that the US and Soviets at the time were mortal enemies who came within a gnat's chuff of blowing each other up. So unless you want to go down the supremely ahistorical route of claiming that decades of Cold War rivalry was all a facade, the idea that astronauts did not land on the Moon is a non-starter. Especially when it was all done out in the open, the progress of the spacecraft was tracked by stations all over the world, and given the primitive state of movie special effects technology of the time it would have in fact been even more difficult to fake it than to do it for real. Hence the old joke about Kubrick insisting that it be shot on-location.

Musk being a piece of shit has nothing whatsoever to do with any ASD he may or may not have. He's a piece of shit because he's billionaire first and foremost, but also because he's a sex pest and a fascist. That you chose to attack him on the basis of supposed autism says a lot about you, none of it good.

 

[BigMoaner]

I see MoOn LaNdInGs has entered the chat

 

[BigMoaner]

Would you use autist in the derogatory sense in front of my asd son, boris? Of course you wouldn’t, so don’t use it here. Your probably better than that.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

I use it in front of myself. I’m proud of who I am. After masking it for many years following bullying into submission to assimilate or die. With hilarious results.
My own daughter is on my spectrum.


Why can’t we realise we are fawning, with no objectivity over the achievements of a guy who has the biggest toys and a stupid mouth ( my apologies to the stupid). That’s it.

With regards to the space stuff, I do not doubt it is there, I do wonder however, if intelligent life does exist, why has it steered us by? Whilst we continue to murder each other for money, and that twat wants to export that way of life for ever more into space for eternity. I can think of more important aspirations we can collectively have.

 

[Storm Fox]

I use it in front of myself. I’m proud of who I am. After masking it for many years following bullying into submission to assimilate or die. With hilarious results.
My own daughter is on my spectrum.


Why can’t we realise we are fawning, with no objectivity over the achievements of a guy who has the biggest toys and a stupid mouth ( my apologies to the stupid). That’s it.

With regards to the space stuff, I do not doubt it is there, I do wonder however, if intelligent life does exist, why has it steered us by? Whilst we continue to murder each other for money, and that twat wants to export that way of life for ever more into space for eternity. I can think of more important aspirations we can collectively have.

I don't think anyone recently on the thread is fawning over Musk. I despise him.
The way you used autist came over as having autism is contemptible and equated it to Musk; I hope something was lost in translation.

Musk (or the actual spaceX engineers despite Musk ) are getting into LEO. I have seen two sets of recently released Starlink satellite trains, and this guy:

Spoiler: Mick West

is writing software to predict Starlink flares; if the satellites weren't in orbit, this software would be able to predict the flares.

NoXion has covered the Moon landings, and as for aliens, that's not really related to humans getting into space.
Whether we should allocate resources to space in the future is not related to what we have done already and made it to the moon and currently have people in LEO.

 

[pbsmooth]

An obvious point but I’m reminded that now Musk is alt-right, anti-woke etc there’s a certain irony that his main business is electric cars and space travel, surely both of which are entirely ‘woke’.