Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[HVC]

Europa would be a cooler Sci fi destination anyway. Plus you save on the weight of not having to transport water.

[The Brain]

With a private actor looking not unlikely to lead the first settlement of Mars, and that private actor being Elon Musk, a sovereign state being quickly declared on Mars (probably called &]/%/&R&/&%¤) seems a lot more likely now than it used to.

The whole "declare a sovereign state" thing may not be as simple as it used to be. I mean, we have these alleged micro-nations here and there, but no one consider them real I don't think. If Musk declares himself the Sovereign of &]/%/&R&/&%¤ but the rest of the world (especially the US), then what?

&]/%/&R&/&%¤ is probably not going to be self-sustaining for quite a while and so will be very very vulnerable to embargoes and sanctions. Much of Musk's wealth and influence is bound up in the US financial system. If he declares himself the ruler of &]/%/&R&/&%¤, what's to stop the US from saying "we do not recognize this alleged 'state' and we are freezing Musk's assets until he complies with US law".

I think a precondition for declaring independence is the ability to be self-sustaining, and it may be a bit optimistic to predict that happening in Musk's lifetime.

I mean, how long until we land people on Mars for a first visit? 10 years, optimisitcally? And then from that first visit, to building a base that can sustain a continued presence? And then from there to self-sustaining? I'd expect it to take a while.

1. It's Elon Musk. Doing it for the lols is certainly within the realm of possibility. Or as a high risk, extremely high long-term legacy reward policy.

2. The Outer Space Treaty is largely a feelgood document designed to reduce tension and costs during CW1. If space actually gets colonized reality will likely make itself felt. Wiki gives me the impression that for instance private space mining is already getting legalized by countries like the US.

3. Possession is nine tenths of the law. If there's a state on Mars, who's to take it away? In addition to practical difficulties, if the Outer Space Treaty isn't eroded or made void the US can't legally use military force on Mars.

4. Freezing assets appears somewhat draconian. It's not like he's murdered someone. But I don't know how the treaty has been implemented in US law.

5. Who knows what weird nutjob will be in the White House at the relevant point in time?

6. There may be certain countries who are happy to get influence on Mars by supplying the state if the US says "pass". I don't see independence requiring being self-sustaining. And pushing Mars into a Chinese or Russian orbit might not be considered to be in US interests.

7. Public support for starving plucky Martian colonists into submission might be limited.

[Jacob]

I guess we'll see if it happens.

[The Larch]

Twitter sues Elon Musk over bid to exit $44bn takeover deal
Company seeks to force completion of sale, saying billionaire 'refuses to honor his obligations'

Twitter sued Elon Musk on Tuesday to force him to complete his $44bn takeover of the social media giant after he announced on Friday he would withdraw his bid.

"Musk's exit strategy is a model of hypocrisy," the lawsuit said, accusing the billionaire of making "bad faith" arguments against Twitter and carrying out "public and misleading attacks" on the company.

The suit has kicked off what could be a long legal saga regarding the failed merger. The Tesla CEO and richest man on Earth had reached a deal to buy Twitter on 25 April, offering to purchase all of the company's shares for $54.20 each, but he began to back out over allegations of "spam" accounts on the platform.

"Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done," according to the lawsuit. "Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests."

Because the deal included a provision called a "specific performance clause", the court could force Musk to buy the company as long as he has financing in place, which he claimed to have secured in May.

Musk could be ordered to pay $1bn for walking away, a penalty he indicated in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission he is seeking to evade. The SEC could levy additional penalties against Musk, including removing him from leadership of one or more of the several companies he leads, including Neuralink, Tesla, and SpaceX.

The complaint details how Musk offered to buy Twitter at a relatively high price and backed out after a market slump led to a downturn in tech stocks. In order to successfully escape the deal without penalty, Musk would have to prove "material adverse effect" or breach of contract. "Musk had to try to conjure one of those," the lawsuit states.

To do so, Musk began to focus on the "spam bot" issue, the suit alleges. Twitter claimed spam accounts made up less than 5% of more than 200 million users but Musk insisted that the number was higher and accused Twitter of withholding information on the problem. Twitter revealed this month that it was suspending more than 1m spam accounts a day.

Musk declared his takeover bid on 14 April, and Twitter's board agreed after Musk confirmed a funding package for the deal that included $21bn of his own money.

With the deal, Musk stood to take control of a social media network with more than 200 million users. An avid but critical user of the platform, he had vowed to push through various reforms, including relaxing its content restrictions, ridding the platform of fake and automated accounts and shifting away from its advertising-based revenue model.

Musk announced on 13 May that the deal was "on hold" while he awaited details supporting Twitter's assertion on spam or fake accounts. He asserted the figure was 20% and said Twitter would need to show proof of the lower number for the purchase to go through.

Twitter denies this in the strongly worded complaint, saying Musk continued to tweet, falsely, that Twitter had "failed to cooperate" in providing the information "apparently in the belief that repeating a falsehood enough can make it true".

The lawsuit details a number of tweets Musk sent "disparaging" the company, including a tweet directed at the Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, that contains a poop emoji and a number of memes.

"For Musk, it would seem, Twitter, the interests of its stockholders, the transaction Musk agreed to, and the court process to enforce it all constitute an elaborate joke," the complaint said.

Musk seemed to respond to the lawsuit on Tuesday afternoon, tweeting: "Oh the irony lol."

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, like I said a little while ago, Musk's risk is not jus the 1 Billion penalty. 

[viper37]

I have some great crater side property to sell everyone who thinks Mars colonization is viable.

It ain't right now.  It won't be in 2-3 decades when we can reach it.  It will likely be viable as a research station 75-100 years from now, the way Antartic is "viable".

For long terme colonization to be viable it would depend on what resources we could extract from there and at what costs.  Just like all colonization in history.

To produce on Mars, or in Earth's orbit and then ship it back to Earth, space travel would have to become signficantly easier and faster than now. That means having raw materials that you can transform in space and ship the rest there to manufacture.  Again, clearly not something I see happening in 20-30 years. 

SpaceX first aimed to send people to Mars by 2024. Then 2026.  Now 2029.  NASA has always looked toward the 2030s for its first manned mission to Mars.  The timelines are pretty similar. 

The difference is that Musk plans to have 1 million people living on Mars by 2050 that can sustain themselves.  That is totally unrealistic.
Link

[crazy canuck]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars - even if all the other currently unsolvable problems could be solved.

[viper37]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars - even if all the other currently unsolvable problems could be solved.

I would hope that in a century we would have an easier & faster way to send supplies to Mars, obviously.  If our technological progress stalls, it remains no more viable than it is now.

Side note, I remember reading that to render Mars inhabitable (among many other things), we would need to pump CO2, lots of it, into the atmosphere.  If we develop the tech for carbon extraction and capture here on Earth, we will know were to send it.

[Eddie Teach]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars -

How do you think the people who need it got there? 

[Jacob]

Musk has targeted a 1 million person colony on Mars by 2050?

Seems a bit optimistic.

[Valmy]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars -

How do you think the people who need it got there? 

Well there are long periods where the Sun is between Mars and Earth and during those periods Mars would be inaccessible. The colony would have to be sustainable during those periods. Communications would even be impossible I believe.

Now maybe winter is like that in Antarctica but my understanding is it hardly ever rains or snows there so even in very cold conditions flying in there wouldn't be that difficult once you engineer for the temperature. 

[Valmy]

Musk has targeted a 1 million person colony on Mars by 2050?

Seems a bit optimistic.

A one person colony would be impressive by 2050. Hell one person visiting for five minutes by 2050 would be a nice achievement.

[Jacob]

In other Musk news, apparently Musk and Trump are on the outs now.

I've seen all sorts of reactions to that, including a bunch of "I don't like Trump, but lol I love his vicious take-down of Musk" ones. For the record, I believe Trump is a direct threat to American democracy and actively malignant. Any distance Musk puts between himself and Trump is to Musk's credit.

[Zoupa]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars - even if all the other currently unsolvable problems could be solved.

We could have sent humans to Mars since the 70s. I'm not sure what unsolvable problems you're referring to.

[crazy canuck]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars -

How do you think the people who need it got there? 

Do little math of how long the trip takes, how much can be carried per trip and how many such trips would be needed on an annual basis.