Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[grumbler]

Musk hasn't reached Mars yet, but already, he's planning to reach other solar systems.

There are visionaries.  There are dreamers.  And then, there are bullshitters.

Elon Musk Says Future SpaceX Starship 'Will Travel To Other Star Systems' After Rocket's Latest Test

To be fair, he's just arguing that a "future version of starship" will be capable of interstellar travel, not the spaceship they are currently building.  Some future spaceship version will almost certainly do so.

The closest star is 4.3 light years away.  So at least he got one thing right.   The starship that reaches the next solar system will need to be "a lot more advanced".

Yeah.  Seems like a lot of angst for angst's sake that people go nuts over such a truism as his statement.  He says enough dumb things that there's no need to get upset when he says something that is not dumb.

[crazy canuck]

Musk hasn't reached Mars yet, but already, he's planning to reach other solar systems.

There are visionaries.  There are dreamers.  And then, there are bullshitters.

Elon Musk Says Future SpaceX Starship 'Will Travel To Other Star Systems' After Rocket's Latest Test

To be fair, he's just arguing that a "future version of starship" will be capable of interstellar travel, not the spaceship they are currently building.  Some future spaceship version will almost certainly do so.

The closest star is 4.3 light years away.  So at least he got one thing right.   The starship that reaches the next solar system will need to be "a lot more advanced".

Yeah.  Seems like a lot of angst for angst's sake that people go nuts over such a truism as his statement.  He says enough dumb things that there's no need to get upset when he says something that is not dumb.

I think what people are reacting to is his certainty that it will be his company that does it, if it is done at all.

But that is the one thing that he does bring to the table, he's a good front man.

[garbon]

A front man for the idea of interstellar travel?

[Josquius]

One of the big ironic things about musks statement is that he actively supports a future path that ensures starships from earth never reach distant stars and we will be lucky to be doing more than chucking sticks at each other in 1000 years.

[crazy canuck]

A front man for the idea of interstellar travel?

How else is a private corporation going to get the funding necessary to do something that is impossible unless the technology is developed to do so?


An argument can be made that it is an unwise allocation of resources. But that's not a question a modern capitalist society asks.  The only relevant question is whether it gets financial backing.

[garbon]

A front man for the idea of interstellar travel?

How else is a private corporation going to get the funding necessary to do something that is impossible unless the technology is developed to do so?


An argument can be made that it is an unwise allocation of resources. But that's not a question a modern capitalist society asks.  The only relevant question is whether it gets financial backing.

I've never spoken to a 'modern capitalist society' so I'm not sure if it has a capacity for asking questions, let alone which sorts of questions it is permitted to ask. 

I do think it made sense when people talk about how he turned electric cars from a fantasy to a reality. I see less that a point in his favor when we are talking space wank of interstellar travel for something that will not happen in our lifetimes. As you mention that necessarily also involves allocation of resources which while electric cars go in the positive, this is decidely in the negative.

Note, before anyone comes in on the vein of 'lot of angst for angst's sake', I wouldn't have paid any mind to what Musk did or did not say about space were it not for these recent posts on it.

[Josquius]

I do think there's a lot of validity in space tourism as a tech mover towards getting more "useful" space stuff down the line.
If we can bring down launch costs enough it could really open up space based industry, mining, and climate change protections.

[crazy canuck]

A front man for the idea of interstellar travel?

How else is a private corporation going to get the funding necessary to do something that is impossible unless the technology is developed to do so?


An argument can be made that it is an unwise allocation of resources. But that's not a question a modern capitalist society asks.  The only relevant question is whether it gets financial backing.

I've never spoken to a 'modern capitalist society' so I'm not sure if it has a capacity for asking questions, let alone which sorts of questions it is permitted to ask. 

I do think it made sense when people talk about how he turned electric cars from a fantasy to a reality. I see less that a point in his favor when we are talking space wank of interstellar travel for something that will not happen in our lifetimes. As you mention that necessarily also involves allocation of resources which while electric cars go in the positive, this is decidely in the negative.

Note, before anyone comes in on the vein of 'lot of angst for angst's sake', I wouldn't have paid any mind to what Musk did or did not say about space were it not for these recent posts on it.

I agree

I think you misunderstood my post as being complementary to Musk.

[The Minsky Moment]

The guy does a lot of drugs, it's as simple as that.

[Syt]

A front man for the idea of interstellar travel?

[viper37]

Musk hasn't reached Mars yet, but already, he's planning to reach other solar systems.

There are visionaries.  There are dreamers.  And then, there are bullshitters.

Elon Musk Says Future SpaceX Starship 'Will Travel To Other Star Systems' After Rocket's Latest Test

To be fair, he's just arguing that a "future version of starship" will be capable of interstellar travel, not the spaceship they are currently building.  Some future spaceship version will almost certainly do so.

Yes, I know, but the way he's talking, he's inferring that it's the next one after that.

[garbon]

A front man for the idea of interstellar travel?

How else is a private corporation going to get the funding necessary to do something that is impossible unless the technology is developed to do so?


An argument can be made that it is an unwise allocation of resources. But that's not a question a modern capitalist society asks.  The only relevant question is whether it gets financial backing.

I've never spoken to a 'modern capitalist society' so I'm not sure if it has a capacity for asking questions, let alone which sorts of questions it is permitted to ask. 

I do think it made sense when people talk about how he turned electric cars from a fantasy to a reality. I see less that a point in his favor when we are talking space wank of interstellar travel for something that will not happen in our lifetimes. As you mention that necessarily also involves allocation of resources which while electric cars go in the positive, this is decidely in the negative.

Note, before anyone comes in on the vein of 'lot of angst for angst's sake', I wouldn't have paid any mind to what Musk did or did not say about space were it not for these recent posts on it.

I agree

I think you misunderstood my post as being complementary to Musk.

I did.

[Sheilbh]

So, I think it's been the last couple years I got into Twitter.  I actually posted a little bit until I got told from my employer not to reveal what my job was (I thought I was just presenting a counter-point to the opposing side, but I do what I am told).

But I'm just astonished how much 100% unapologetic racist shit is showing up in my Twitter feed these days.  Like it's not just a tiny bit.  Like 100% either scientific racism or "great replacement theory" kind of stuff.

I still kind of like what Twitter can do at its best - present a news feed into breaking stories - but it is really kind of hard to swallow the rest of what comes with it.

I honestly don't see it - but I have almost no followers, very, very rarely Tweet anything and only follow people (a couple of thousand). I think other people have a very different experience.

What I see a lot of is really obvious scams (especially crypto) being promoted. The ones I see are often well known UK celebrities like Martin Lewis or Jeremy Vine apparently warning the banking system's about to crash and you need crypto - and I'm fairly sure (never click the links) they're also phishing.

Isn't the key about being an illegal is that you are not showing up in any numbers anywhere? Does the US really have illegal immigrants answering census questions?

Same in the UK. The census is of who is in households - here it's an online form. In the UK at least it asks about background, country of origin and other citizenships etc but doesn't ask about immigration status because it's not a tool to police immigration. It's information gathering.

I think there is a belief that we probably undercount because people don't respond - but I think this is also true for legal migrants and the general point that we don't really know how many people are in the UK.

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/25/elon-musk-hate-speech-lawsuit

Judge dismisses 'vapid' Elon Musk lawsuit against group that cataloged racist content on X

Center for Countering Digital Hate has chronicled rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X since Musk's acquisition

A judge in California on Monday dismissed the tech billionaire Elon Musk's lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit that has published reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X, formerly Twitter, since Musk's acquisition.

The case was dismissed in accordance with the state's anti-Slapp law, which forbids nuisance lawsuits intended to punish the exercise of free speech.

"Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff's true purpose," wrote Charles Breyer, the US district judge, in the ruling. "Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech."

The dismissal was not unexpected. During a hearing last month, Breyer described parts of Musk's case as one of the "most vapid extensions of law that I've ever heard". Breyer also grilled Musk's lawyers on why the company did not file a defamation lawsuit if it felt that CCDH was making false and damaging claims in its reports.

"You didn't bring a defamation claim," Breyer said. "Now you tell me that, actually, this is even better than a defamation claim. But of course, it's not."

Musk, who has claimed himself a "free speech absolutist", did not immediately comment publicly on the ruling. Musk tweeted last week that the "CCDH is a truly evil organization that just wants to destroy the first amendment under the guise of doing good!"

The CCDH celebrated the ruling, with its CEO, Imran Ahmed, stating that he hoped it would embolden other researchers to hold social media companies accountable. CCDH's lawyer in the case, Roberta Kaplan, praised the decision as a vindication of the organization's mission.

"Today's decision proves that even the world's wealthiest man cannot bend the rule of law to his will," said Kaplan. "We are grateful for the district court's careful and comprehensive opinion, which refuses to allow Elon Musk and X Corp to weaponize the courts to censor good-faith research and reporting."

Musk's X filed suit against CCDH last year, alleging that the organization "intentionally and unlawfully accessed data" through scraping the platform's posts to make its reports. CCDH defended its practices as public data gathering and called the allegations "riddled with legal deficiencies", arguing that the true purpose of the lawsuit was to censor speech that criticized Musk.

"Musk's & X Corp's strategy is to keep this case in court for as long as possible to burden us with spiraling legal costs," CCDH posted on X before the hearing. "This is a clear case of Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (Slapp) aimed to scare us away from doing research on X."

Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022, later renaming it X, a slew of major advertisers have left the platform amid a documented rise in hate speech on the platform and a shift away from established news outlets to low-quality viral content. Musk has lashed out over the loss of advertisers with a series of lawsuits against groups that monitor hate speech, including suing CCDH in California and a separate suit in Texas against the progressive non-profit Media Matters.

During an onstage event with the New York Times in November, Musk additionally told advertisers who had left the platform to "go fuck yourself".

The lawsuits have concerned rights groups and researchers who see Musk as one of the world's richest people attempting to leverage his immense wealth to silence critics. Musk's efforts also coincide with a Republican campaign targeting anti-disinformation researchers, including lawsuits against organizations such as the Stanford Internet Observatory and University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public.

Musk is meanwhile facing a class-action lawsuit from former X employees, which alleges that the company failed to pay $500m in severance following his takeover of the platform and subsequent mass layoffs.

[Zanza]

The Q1 Sales figures of Tesla were worse than expected by analysts.

it built 433,000 vehicles but delivered only 387,000. That's down from the 484,507 cars it delivered in the final three months of 2023, and it's also down from the 422,875 vehicle sales in the first quarter of last year.

Considering their rebates, financials will likely not be impressive either.

Also, they stop naming their assisted driving features "full self drive" by adding a "(supervised)".

Looks more and more like a normal car company.