Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Barrister]

Really?

I thiought I was pretty clear about the man.  I put him in the same category as Steve Jobs.  A fascinating and important figure who is a total asshole to the people around him.  And certainly neither of them were infallible, with plenty of business failures. (Jobs: NeXT, Lisa, Musk: Boring Company, Hyperloop, probably Twitter)

Let's be clear - he's making a total and complete has of owning Twitter.  It's fascinating to watch in a car-crash sort of way.  But I also don't think that Twitter is so important to the world that destroying it has much effect to the world other than on Musk's bottom line.

I was being sarcastic.

I completely agree with you - hence you must be a Musk groupie, since that is what I have been labelled.

[Valmy]

Mercedes-Benz already has better, more capable, autonomous cars in the market than Tesla does. I personally think Tesla won't win this one race. They don't have the headstart they enjoyed when they launched EVs, and their technology choice (essentially they rely solely on cameras instead of also using radar/lidar) may hamper them in the long term.

Again, I'm not dissing Tesla's achievements (and without Musk the company probably dies like any other automaker startup of the 2000s). The company played an amazing part in making EVs popular and showing them as commercially viable products and not novelties.

No argument from me. The most innovative company is often not the one who ends up winning in the long run.

My point is simply that to look at Tesla and claim that the only thing Musk did of note was "attract investment" betrays some kind of emotional investment in hating the guy, not any kind of objective evaluation of what Tesla accomplished.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589639376186724354?s=20&t=b_G2MIJ4C2s8gPd9IWK9lw

 

Tweet appears as removed. What did it say? 

Telling everybody to vote for the Republicans.

I don't know what you want me to Berkut. I have long been a big fan of Elon Musk but he seems determined to undermine and destroy the county and our institutions out of some kind of weird egoism. To me creating false narratives about free speech and encouraging support for the Republicans under the circumstances makes him out to be a really bad actor. You said yourself that he is getting very hard to defend. Yet you keep doing it. I feel very frustrated and betrayed by him. But it isn't like he owes me anything, I just felt like he was sort of on my side here. He clearly isn't and frankly he is becoming incredibly dangerous. IMO.

But there is clearly some way you want me to think about this. What is it?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Really?  Tesla and SpaceX are still huge net positives.

I'd be interested in seeing this expanded upon. Maybe this is where the disconnect comes from.

I personally observe that a lot of people (I'm not saying you), speak about SpaceX and Tesla not as impressive and successful businesses--in line with say, IBM or Shell Oil), but "major contributors to improving humanity." I do not really see or even understand this at all in my observation as to what these two companies have done, but it is at least suggested almost as an "obvious" thing by those who believe it.

In your mind why, specifically, are Tesla and SpaceX major net positives to human society?

Tesla at least purports to be contributed to our fight against climate change. But there is significant evidence out there that switching a huge portion of consumer light vehicles to lithium ion batteries is not going to be even a meaningful reduction in emissions when you fully factor in the manufacture and charging of the cars. In fact even if you don't factor in that the emissions from consumer light vehicles are relatively paltry in comparison to major drivers of emissions.

The development of the Steam video game service is really cool and has made tons of people happy. It has also made Valve many billions of dollars. I think we need to separate "something cool people like" and "greater humanitarian purpose", Steam has achieved one of those, not both. I largely see Tesla in the same vein, but am open to explanations otherwise.

With SpaceX, I just feel like rocket launches are so far removed from things that are meaningful to real human welfare that it's hard for me to not say the entire endeavor is nerd wank. There are certainly real and meaningful benefits accrued to society from space and space commercialization, but most of it is on the margins. The Apollo program is really famous but I would think Norman Borlaug's much less publicized development of dwarf wheat strains for the Indian subcontinent was a massively larger contributor to human welfare than the Apollo program. A huge % of space shit seems to fall into the "cool" but not intrinsically some great contributor to human society for me.

[grumbler]

Tesla does not currently ship an autonomous car to customers.

I believe that every Tesla built since the 2000 model year has the option to include Tesla Autopilot, an Autonomous Level 2 system.  If you have information to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

[Barrister]

Really?  Tesla and SpaceX are still huge net positives.

I'd be interested in seeing this expanded upon. Maybe this is where the disconnect comes from.

SpaceX:
-re-usable rockets has dramatically reduced the cost of going into LEO.  That's allowed all kinds of more satellite launches and all kinds of businesses, such as
-StarLink.  Not possible w/o low-cost launches.  HIgh-speed, low-latency internet anywhere on the earth.  Not a big deal to you or I, but huge in rural areas and developing countries
-w/o SpaceX, the US would have no ability to launch astronauts to the ISS.  The West would still be relying on Roscosmos.

Tesla:
-if renewables are used to power vehicles it will be a significant reduced in greenhouse gasses.  Don't make perfect the enemy of the good
-helped popularize not only their own electric vehicles, but the entire idea of electric vehicles
-seems set to be the first major new car company founded in what - 80 years?  Over 100 in the US at least.

[Valmy]

I mean yeah all that is amazing and that is why I was previously a big fan of Musk.

But if he goes all in on the culture war and uses his influence to entrench the Republicans in power, all that goes away pretty fast. I don't need him to go out there and champion left wing causes, but come on man. I can only tolerate so much, presuming my personal approval matters at all (which it doesn't).

[Barrister]

I mean yeah all that is amazing and that is why I was previously a big fan of Musk.

But if he goes all in on the culture war and uses his influence to entrench the Republicans in power, all that goes away pretty fast. I don't need him to go out there and champion left wing causes, but come on man. I can only tolerate so much, presuming my personal approval matters at all (which it doesn't).

I think Musk now ripping off the mask and endorsing Republicans is stupid as he runs a major social network and is terrible for business.

But do you think this will "move the needle" in US elections?

[Valmy]

I think Musk now ripping off the mask and endorsing Republicans is stupid as he runs a major social network and is terrible for business.

But do you think this will "move the needle" in US elections?

I don't think so in this election but it will in the future. Musk is a hero to many.

[Berkut]

Mercedes-Benz already has better, more capable, autonomous cars in the market than Tesla does. I personally think Tesla won't win this one race. They don't have the headstart they enjoyed when they launched EVs, and their technology choice (essentially they rely solely on cameras instead of also using radar/lidar) may hamper them in the long term.

Again, I'm not dissing Tesla's achievements (and without Musk the company probably dies like any other automaker startup of the 2000s). The company played an amazing part in making EVs popular and showing them as commercially viable products and not novelties.

No argument from me. The most innovative company is often not the one who ends up winning in the long run.

My point is simply that to look at Tesla and claim that the only thing Musk did of note was "attract investment" betrays some kind of emotional investment in hating the guy, not any kind of objective evaluation of what Tesla accomplished.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589639376186724354?s=20&t=b_G2MIJ4C2s8gPd9IWK9lw

 

Tweet appears as removed. What did it say? 

Telling everybody to vote for the Republicans.

I don't know what you want me to Berkut. I have long been a big fan of Elon Musk but he seems determined to undermine and destroy the county and our institutions out of some kind of weird egoism. To me creating false narratives about free speech and encouraging support for the Republicans under the circumstances makes him out to be a really bad actor. You said yourself that he is getting very hard to defend. Yet you keep doing it. I feel very frustrated and betrayed by him. But it isn't like he owes me anything, I just felt like he was sort of on my side here. He clearly isn't and frankly he is becoming incredibly dangerous. IMO.

But there is clearly some way you want me to think about this. What is it?

My only point is that the evaluation that people are making about Musks accomplishments is clearly colored by the fact that they hate the guy.

That's it.

Musk is a clear asshole, and almost certainly not mentally stable in some profound manner. I am not defending him at all, or anything he has done OUTSIDE his actual accomplishments in business and technology.

As always, however, I find it interesting how emotional people get, and how hard it is for people to actually evaluate anything objectively. 

"Musk is an asshole!"

Agreed!

"Musk is a contemptible human being!"

It appears that way!

"Musk taking over Twitter is not good for anyone!"

Yep!

"He is such a jerk! He never even actually accomplished anything of note anyway! He is clearly a moron!"

Uh.....no. That is clearly not true. 

[Berkut]

I mean yeah all that is amazing and that is why I was previously a big fan of Musk.

But if he goes all in on the culture war and uses his influence to entrench the Republicans in power, all that goes away pretty fast. I don't need him to go out there and champion left wing causes, but come on man. I can only tolerate so much, presuming my personal approval matters at all (which it doesn't).

I think Musk now ripping off the mask and endorsing Republicans is stupid as he runs a major social network and is terrible for business.

But do you think this will "move the needle" in US elections?

I actually do think it might move the needle. Not much, but it will move it.

It is yet another way that people who might otherwise feel apprehensive about giving into their tribalism and bigotry will feel ok about jumping on the right wing, Conservitard bandwagon.

Musk could become as toxic as Donald Trump, and I would despise him for it, and would not try to minimize the damage that does or can do.

But it still wouldn't change the fact that unlike Trump, he accomplished some damn amazing things.

[Jacob]

That is less defensible.

Yeah, and now the update is that the report was denied for an account that was clearly designed to impersonate (not only is the handle changed to match the target account, but the account name was made to deceive - changing only a few letters that could easily be scanned to seem like the real deal).

Every sign I see is consistent with Musk having a thin-skinned tantrum over things that affect him, quickly making up new rules to make himself feel better, but not applying them to anyone else outside his little bubble.

[Berkut]

With SpaceX, I just feel like rocket launches are so far removed from things that are meaningful to real human welfare that it's hard for me to not say the entire endeavor is nerd wank. There are certainly real and meaningful benefits accrued to society from space and space commercialization, but most of it is on the margins. The Apollo program is really famous but I would think Norman Borlaug's much less publicized development of dwarf wheat strains for the Indian subcontinent was a massively larger contributor to human welfare than the Apollo program. A huge % of space shit seems to fall into the "cool" but not intrinsically some great contributor to human society for me.

I don't think the ability to throw a metal disc farther then someone else has any great impact on human society.

But I would not argue that the current Olympic gold medal holder in the discuss has not accomplished anything because I don't personally value the thing they worked towards.

"There are real and meaningful benefits to space and space commercializaton". If that is true, then clearly his accomplishments have been real and meaningful as well, regardless of how you feel about the overall "marginal" utility of space and space commercialization.

And someone noting those accomplishments is simply being objective. Someone attempting to dismiss them as not actual accomplishments because the person in question is an asshole, is being emotional, not rational.

Maybe the current discuss Olympic gold medal holder kicks his dog. Doesn't mean he didn't win the damn medal, and noticing that he won the medal doesn't mean you like people who kick their dogs.

This really isn't complicated. I don't think.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So let's put SpaceX more in perspective--for one, almost all SpaceX rockets are built as feature-light and simple as possible. This is one of the major ways they reduce launch costs (by the way, reusing the first stage is "only" about a 30% reduction in launch costs, it is not the order of magnitude many people seem to assume.) But what are the trade offs of designing rockets these ways? It creates rockets that are less adaptable, less able to handle certain situations, and less able to handle very complex payloads and missions.

It ends up...that is damn near perfect for launching stuff to ISS or to low orbit for a satellite swarm. There is a reason it would not bode well for something like one of NASA's exploration missions to Jupiter, as one example, or their recent asteroid intercept. SpaceX's rockets in current are also fairly unmodifiable, for example they cannot have additional stages stacked on them.

This is all to say, SpaceX to take the Olympic discus thrower comparison further, has not thrown a disc further than anyone else. In fact it hasn't come close to the mission parameters and requirements for some of the more complicated long range space missions.

What they have done is been a major player (but not the only, or the first) in lower costs of commercial launches of simple payloads--and that is a good thing.

What I perceive from your comments here is me stating my view on what Musk has actually done as "denigrating." That is not the case. I think what Bill Gates did was really impressive. But he didn't invent GUIs, he didn't invent operating systems, he did not invent the personal computer, he was largely not responsible for the explosion of lower price IBM clone PCs in the 1990s. It isn't saying Bill Gates is bad to point out the divergence between what he actually did and what he didn't do.

Unless you acquired billions of dollars via sheer inheritance, it is generally the case any billionaire has done something impressive in their life, and Musk is no different.

If you've actually listened to Musk interviews--the Rogan one is a good example. He literally says "I'm not a businessman I'm an engineer." He doesn't have an engineering degree nor did he go to engineering school. He is not an engineer. He wants to be thought of in line with guys like Banting & Best who isolated insulin saving millions of lives, or Louis Pasteur et al. He specifically doesn't want to be seen as a historical peer of figures like Bill Gates and John Rockefeller. What he wants and what he is, are at divergence. Pointing that out doesn't equate to saying he has done nothing with his life.

[Berkut]

Glad to see you have come around.

[Zoupa]