(October 7, 2024 at 11:06 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Elon Musk cares about humanity as a whole. He cares nothing for individuals. Individuals are cogs in the whole and are replaceable. That's how he thinks.

That makes him a real asshole, in my book.

(October 7, 2024 at 11:06 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Elon Musk cares about humanity as a whole. He cares nothing for individuals. Individuals are cogs in the whole and are replaceable. That's how he thinks.

Yeah? Me, from my perspective, he thinks of one individual.

I can guarantee you he doesn't give a shit about me, or you. If he cares about humanity as a whole, why did he threaten Ukraine with cutting off Starlink until the Pentagon told him off? Or perhaps he could sign off on at-cost contracts, if he's so beneficent? Maybe get along with unions in his plants?

I'm not sure where you're getting this philanthropist angle from. Maybe you should get into detail on this. Me, it looks like he doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself.

(October 7, 2024 at 8:21 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Not just subsidies, the valuations depend on products he has never delivered to markets they have no purchase in, too.  It's another too big to fail thing.

I wouldn't mind Colonel Mustard, in the study, with the lead pipe, myself. Too big my ass. Kill it off now.

(October 7, 2024 at 11:33 pm)Fireball Wrote:

(October 7, 2024 at 11:06 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Elon Musk cares about humanity as a whole. He cares nothing for individuals. Individuals are cogs in the whole and are replaceable. That's how he thinks.

That makes him a real asshole, in my book.

No argument.

(October 7, 2024 at 11:44 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(October 7, 2024 at 11:06 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Elon Musk cares about humanity as a whole. He cares nothing for individuals. Individuals are cogs in the whole and are replaceable. That's how he thinks.

Yeah? Me, from my perspective, he thinks of one individual.

I can guarantee you he doesn't give a shit about me, or you. If he cares about humanity as a whole, why did he threaten Ukraine with cutting off Starlink until the Pentagon told him off? Or perhaps he could sign off on at-cost contracts, if he's so beneficent? Maybe get along with unions in his plants?

I'm not sure where you're getting this philanthropist angle from. Maybe you should get into detail on this. Me, it looks like he doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself.

I have read several books on Musk including the histories of Tesla and SpaceX. All were written by third parties. He got rich off of PayPal and put everything into those two companies - both which he acknowledged had a slim chance of success - and he damn-near bankrupted both companies and himself. He honestly believed he was doing good in creating those companies. The man slept on the factory floors until he succeeded. He honestly believes that establishing a settlement on Mars is the most important thing to humanity. But he doesn't care about who he has to trample over to get there. He couldn't care less about the happiness or welfare of those toiling away in his factories aside from them remaining content enough to stay there. Again, he doesn't care about individuals. He's not a nice guy.

He's a heartless bastard. But if he didn't care about what he was doing, he could just buy an island nation in the Caribbean and spend the rest of his life being served by a staff of ten thousand female Olympic gymnasts.

(October 8, 2024 at 12:33 am)AFTT47 Wrote: He's a heartless bastard. But if he didn't care about what he was doing, he could just buy an island nation in the Caribbean and spend the rest of his life being served by a staff of ten thousand female Olympic gymnasts.

Yeah, he cares about scamming people and bloating his ego because he is mentally ill narcissist.

That's what today's tech-bro swindlers are selling us: that they are saviors who care about humanity. Like Sam Bankman-Fried with his 'effective altruism' movement or Elizabeth Holmes who was also this genius on the mission to transform patient care through this new technology that only she is able to conceive.

And then Musk - a guy who admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California.

(October 7, 2024 at 3:25 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: The difference is that the testing is usually done on hardware in a much more mature state. How many other aerospace companies do you see launch rockets with an estimated success rate of just 50%? Where they're happy if the thing just makes it off the pad before it explodes?

NASA, Redstone and Mercury.

The problem with SpaceX is Musk's ego getting in the way of smart decisions. It's going to get people killed and will likely set back space tourism and exploration by a decade or two. You can almost hear the iceberg coming out of the dark.

(October 8, 2024 at 1:27 am)Paleophyte Wrote:

(October 7, 2024 at 3:25 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: The difference is that the testing is usually done on hardware in a much more mature state. How many other aerospace companies do you see launch rockets with an estimated success rate of just 50%? Where they're happy if the thing just makes it off the pad before it explodes?

NASA, Redstone and Mercury.

The problem with SpaceX is Musk's ego getting in the way of smart decisions. It's going to get people killed and will likely set back space tourism and exploration by a decade or two. You can almost hear the iceberg coming out of the dark.

C'mon Paleophyte, it's pretty silly to equivocate contemporary civilian aerospace companies with the US government at a time when they were in a
near-panic over the progress the Soviets had made in space compared to us.

I do share your concerns regarding Musk's caviler attitude regarding space tourism. There have been at least two bold (but risky) missions involving all-civilian crews. I breathed a sigh of relief when the "Hello Moon" guy backed out. I'm old enough to remember the Challenger disaster like it was yesterday.

That said, there is no way that even a disaster would set us back further than SpaceX has already advanced us. Without Falcon 9, a practical, reusable, orbital rocket system would not even be on the horizon. Few people thought it was even possible.

(October 8, 2024 at 1:57 am)AFTT47 Wrote: C'mon Paleophyte, it's pretty silly to equivocate contemporary civilian aerospace companies with the US government at a time when they were in a
near-panic over the progress the Soviets had made in space compared to us.

I do share your concerns regarding Musk's caviler attitude regarding space tourism. There have been at least two bold (but risky) missions involving all-civilian crews. I breathed a sigh of relief when the "Hello Moon" guy backed out. I'm old enough to remember the Challenger disaster like it was yesterday.

That said, there is no way that even a disaster would set us back further than SpaceX has already advanced us. Without Falcon 9, a practical, reusable, orbital rocket system would not even be on the horizon. Few people thought it was even possible.

Yes, he was involved in Falcon 9, but that doesn't mean he can send humans to Mars, create robotaxies, create robot butlers, or some other thing that he promised.

And that Falcon 9 is not reusable fast enough as Musk imagines it to be, thus it will never land Spaceship even on the Moon.

Large image:

Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson in a in new interview: “Nobody has even bothered to kill Kamala because it’s pointless. What do you achieve? Nothing, you just bought another puppet. Nobody is trying to kill Biden, it would be pointless.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...rlson.html