this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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I feel bad for the reasonable employees at SpaceX - this sucks for decent people.
I don't. Look, we already had this discussion years ago. You don't feel bad for the stormtrooper, or their families when you blow up the deathstar. They knew what they were getting into.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who started at SpaceX before we all truly knew the monster musk is. Also, the work they are doing is incredibly important. It’s hard to give that up. It shouldn’t be this hard to empathize with people
Knowing many people who've worked for him, you have about 6 months at a MuskCo brand company max before you really know what a piece of shit he is, and either a.) leave ASAP, b.) convince yourself it won't be so bad and hang on for ~2 years, or c.) fall into the cult of personality and believe that Daddy Elon loves his little proles and cares very much about all the hard work you're doing [EMPLOYEE NUMBER HERE].
The absolute last stop on the "Musk is Tony Stark but IRL epic gamer Redditor and likes weed and Rick and Morty!" train was when he called that cave diver a pedophile. It was apparent well before then, but anyone acting like they had no idea what a piece of shit he was after that either didn't hear about it, or was willfully ignorant because they wanted to continue pretending that basing their entire personality around a billionaire wasn't a terrible idea.
I thought that spacex was "incredibly important" once. Now I realize it's a fast track to a more fucked earth. By the time we get to "planet B" "planet A" is going to be a fiery ball of shit.
I’m not saying SpaceX isn’t without valid critiques, but if you don’t see the value of reusable rockets and can’t even give them credit for spearheading that, I’m not sure what else to say. Make no mistake I think Elon Musk is a bigoted piece of shit, but I can also acknowledge that SpaceX has done important work
Yes, the rocket is reusable. The fuel is not, and by lowering the cost per kg of space freight, it has driven more usage of rockets. Which use non-renewable fuel at astounding rates and make huge emissions for a minor payload total.
We’re seeing extreme temperatures and unseasonal weather events already - James Webb is cool and the ISS does need service missions but Starlink is just more orbital trash waiting to happen.
Rocket launches are not why climate change is occurring.
It’s not helping. We aren’t going to get a “deus ex machina” moment on righting damage done to the environment. Yes focus on the bigger goals and pollution sources, but this is a trend in the wrong way to enlarge Elon’s money pile.
Starlink will never be orbital trash in any meaningful way. If everything failed today, they'd all deorbit within 5 years. It's only in higher orbits where shit gets stuck for decades or hundreds of years.
You're right. They'll be atmospheric pollution. That's what "burn up on reentry" means.
Well in that case, 100% of things that we've launched into space are either
1: Space trash
2: Atmospheric Trash
3: Ocean Trash
Except for the 1st stages of F9 and it's fairings, and one or two first stages of some other small start ups.
Edit: sorry and the shuttle. In retrospect with the amount of refurbishment it required it wasn't really "reusable" per say, but it did avoid being ocean trash.
That does seem to be the point this thread is making: Going to space is really bad for Earth's environment. SpaceX and starlink are just accelerating that.
I'd like to see what people's reactions would be if we put all the 6,219 starlink satellites in a pile on the ground and lit them on fire. Would they say "fuck yeah! Fast internet!" or would they say "are you out of your mind?"
And they plan on having 12,000 or something each lasting about 5 years.
Do you know what all those puffy clouds coming out of the engines at engine cut off and start up are? Kerosene or methane and oxygen. Do you know what injecting methane and kerosene into the upper atmosphere does to the planet? No, no one does because it wasn't ever a problem when there were 5 launches a year. Now that there's 5 launches a month we're getting to the find out stage.
Same with starlink. What does aerosolized aluminum (and whatever else is "just burning up" on reentry) do to the upper atmosphere? When there were one or two satellites a year how would you know? Now that there's several a month (20 in the last launch that didn't make it up) we'll find out.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say none of that will prove beneficial to life on earth. But yeah, the rocket is pretty cool.
But they didn't. The guy had me in the first half when he cried because Buzz Aldrin didn't like him. Elon wasn't always so obvious with his bullshit. There was a time when he looked minted as a purveyor of a bright future - the mask slipped.
The mask has been off for at least 8 years.
No sympathy for anyone who still stans that phony.
When did he call that rescuer a "pedo"? Because that's when I changed my mind on him forever.
Edit: It was June 2018.
Then he fired his PR team not long after that. He pushed out all the people getting paid to help him not look like an idiot.
Musk should likely have all his storage media searched, just randomly accusing people of things like pedophilia for no reason is often projection, "don't look at me, I clearly can't be one as I'm the most vocal about being against them, look over here instead" or whatever
I mean, the stormtroopers were largely either conscripted, or they were clones who were raised in it. Very few were actual mercenaries or people who had a choice to join or not. I still feel bad for them.
Stormtroopers is fair. What about maintenance staff?
What about prisoners?
Does Elon Musk profit off slave labor from prisoners?
Considering the mining industries for many of the rare earth metals needed? Yeah he does.
Plus there's the whole apartheid emerald slave mine thing, which is how daddy made the money he got to play with.
I don't think any of those people are being relocated to Texas.
Lucky for them, eh?
I'm curious, is it reasonable to blame employees for their employers actions like this? I mean to a certain extent perhaps, depending on your position in the company (like if you are part of upper management then you are more responsible obviously).
Many people are just trying to get by and getting jobs is not easy. Is it okay to blame a person for working somewhere if they don't have much other choice? Capitalism kinda forces you to work within the system like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z6SFL5fCCg
"Innocent contractors"
Wtf 🤮
In my book it doesn't matter if you are building or operating the gas chambers.
I think Andor settled this fairly definitively.
I'm a little surprised that this comment has gotten so many upvotes.
Would you apply this same logic to the real world? For example, imagine if a manufacturing facility for Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics was bombed and thousands of working class Americans died. These people are building bombs that are being used in an ongoing genocide.
Would you consider this a heinous terrorist act, or a noble strike in the fight for freedom?
Noble strike.
Death to american hegemony.
Especially when the job market contracted with all the IT company layoffs, some people may be stuck in jobs they hate because opportunities are few and they'd rather not be homeless or have their kids not have food and so on.
Maybe 5 years ago. They've had plenty of time to see reason and jump ship to anyone else. Elon hasn't exactly been quiet with his escapades...
People hate switching jobs.
if you're working at spacex or tesla you're not reasonable.
... or xitter.
I have always felt Twixxer rolls off the tongue better, so I'm surprised Xitter seems to have gained more traction.
In this narrow case, it's considered proper/correct to pronounce the "x" like an "sh", which greatly improves the tongue rolling.
If you're working at one if his companies at this stage you probably already know about his management "style" and you've either already updated your resume or you're just cool with it.
Let's not forget the Golden Handcuffs. Although given what was reported from Twitter, I'm not sure that applies.