Someone mentioned this and it always stuck with me - never trust someone who makes failure collective ("we dug our grave”), but success individual.
this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Such a great rule, for real
There wasn't even a "we" here... This was 100% Elon being an arrogant dumbass.
How about the other way around?
- (I) I made that mistake
- (they) We made that mistake
- (I) We made that success
- (they) They made that success
You should look for Last Week Tonight's segment on Elon. I think John Olivers take was fair.
It seemed a bit too fair to Elon Musk IMO. It felt like John Oliver held back the punches.
Oliver completely neglected to cover the fact that Hyperloop was a scam to defraud the Californian taxpayer out of high speed rail. (Elmo wins doubly: through the government grant in Hyperloop and through Tesla car sales.)
Yeah, I was hoping he'd mention more of his "promise X by this year" schtick that he does over and over and never delivers on. Or like showcase the robots being supported by cables walking stifly.
I've seen every Elon video by thunderfoot, I just thought it be helpful to see someone else's critique that is a bit more positive of Elon but cautious.
Didn't even mention Mastodon once.
I recommend Some More News. Their shows are more in depth, longer, and musk is a 2 parter. Plus there is a third episode on self driving cars alone.
Very measured take on the man and his contributions, both good and bad. I appreciated that he drew attention to the fact that once people have decided you're a net positive, they just explain away anything bad about you.
Thunderf00t
Hard pass. Anyone who decided that the shithead reactionary bigots were the side of gamergate they wanted to support isn't getting views from me, thanks.
hbomberguy did a good video on thunderf00t
Thank you for reminding me about that. Time for a rewatch.
I always thought he was legit because he would post great "science" debunking videos and shat on dumb brexiteers. So when I watched the Anita ones I felt the same. Gonna need to watch the hbomber vidya.
Remember Thunderf00t may open himself to lawsuits making these claims publicly. But I'm sure he considered that first, and came to the conclusion, that everything he says, he can document is true. I've run into his material from time to time already from about 15 years ago, and he is 100% a VERY smart guy, that knows what he is talking about.
Except about SpaceX, I'm not going to dig though the threads right now, but he's been hilariously wrong about SpaceX in the past. Though not as bad as common sense skeptic though if I'm remembering right.
How is he wrong about SpaceX? As far as I can tell, he is spot on. If a NASA program had as many failures as SpaceX has, it would be closed down. And the economic claims Musk make for SpaceX are insane.
I think it was the comparisons to other launch vehicles that were very apples to oranges. But as I said, I'd rather not dig through the Reddit threads to find them. I think they were on SpaceX lounge a few years ago? Common sense skeptic commented, but I don't think thunderfoot did.
If a NASA program had as many failures as SpaceX has, it would be closed down.
94 successful Falcon 9 launches this year so far (0 failures) - 90% with reused boosters, with a single booster being flown for the 19th time yesterday - no launch system has ever come close to these kinds of numbers before.
If by "many failures" you are referring to Starship, those are literally test articles/pathfinders/prototypes tested to destruction. It's a different development approach than NASA's, so I am not sure how the comparison is applicable. It took many failed booster landings early in the Falcon program to perfect the droneship landing, and look where it is now.
Starship is a very ambitious program, really pushing the boundaries of our technological capability and challenging a lot of existing conventions. Even Elon admits success is far from certain, but declaring it doomed based on the test flight results so far is really premature.
Starship is a very ambitious program, really pushing the boundaries
Oh boy! Do you mean kind of like Hyperloop and Full Autonomous driving? Or maybe the laughable Human/Robot AI program, where Its stated goal is "to understand the true nature of the universe"?!?! How do you not see Musk is a narcissist, if he believes his own idiocy, he is an idiot, if not he is a con man, there is no between.
declaring it doomed based on the test flight results so far is really premature.
I don't, I just don't believe the economic forecast Musk is claiming. Just like when he in 2019 claimed buying any other car than a Tesla would be stupid, because only Tesla would have full self driving next year.
I don't know much about the Hyperloop - I was never interested in it, and it never seemed like a real project, some kind of Musk BS probably, but I don't know enough to debate it. Full Autonomous driving is definitely also a very ambitious project. I do think it is in principle feasible, and has great potential, but also serious possible obstacles. I think it's worth pursuing to figure it out. I would say that selling it to the mass market is premature at this point, and has been overhyped by Musk a lot. Also don't know anything about the Human/Robot AI program, that also sounds like Musk BS, so I don't really follow it.
I do think Musk is a narcissist, I don't think he is an idiot. I don't think calling him a con-man is really justified. I also don't think he is a genius, more like someone with decent amount of technical competence who often unreasonably clings to slightly insane visions and an ability to assemble talented people and push them to try to execute on those visions and ideas, which sometimes leads to legitimate breakthroughs, for example in case of SpaceX.
I would never take Musk's predictions, economic or technological at face value, he is clearly always talking far ahead of anything currently happening, an his predictions are notoriously unreliable and wildly optimistic. I don't think that takes away much from the actual achievements of both Tesla and especially SpaceX however.
I also personally would never buy a Tesla, for a variety of reasons - I actually have a lot of disagreements with the Tesla philosophy, and will probably never own a self-driving car either, but whatever.
Full Autonomous driving is definitely also a very ambitious project. I do think it is in principle feasible, and has great potential,
Problem is he promised it was basically ready in 2016, and would be available for customers "next year". Yes "we" will eventually get there I think, but it will probably not be Tesla.
I do think Musk is a narcissist, I don’t think he is an idiot.
I agree, He is mostly an idiot because he can't help being a narcissist, it makes him behave irrationally with over confidence.
I also don’t think he is a genius, more like someone with decent amount of technical competence
Exactly, obviously he has some sort of competence running a business, but you can be both competent in one way and an idiot in others at the same time.
I don’t think that takes away much from the actual achievements of both Tesla and especially SpaceX however.
Yes I admit the success of Tesla is a huge achievement, and I too defended Musk for making the electric car cool and also show it was feasible. When the critics began. I still admit that's a significant achievement, but today as ThunderF00t says, just because he may have been a net positive, doesn't mean we should look the other way when he does harm later.