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He’s building things other places won’t touch because of the economics Everyone wants to sit and cross t’s and dot i’s because they are trained those matter mo

He’s building things other places won’t touch because of the economics Everyone wants to sit and cross t’s and dot i’s because they are trained those matter more than net new If those are the only conversations you have, only doing things you’re sure will be comfortable the economy and society stagnate Economics are not the law of the land or reality. They’re a control mechanism for our output as a thinking, feeling, creative species Let’s just make more banal phone apps I guess. The ones where the economics are well known to keep us safe See stories about kids not playing outside or being allowed a quasi dangerous chemistry set No one wants to be wrong so we take the safe route, which protects the status quo we all bitch about

Avshalom 8y ago
Literally every industry he's involved in has competitors several of which pre-date his entrance in each.
- jek3939 8y ago
  And yet none of them are landing autonomous reusable rocket modules Of all the 100% electric cars on road, he has two in the top 5 Who else has been pushing battery storage and solar systems that aren’t ugly af and simply made of old parts glued together in parallel? All these other experts with experience can’t seem to hang with Johnny come lately. Humans don’t have a history of being petty over others not being the same as them, or worse, outperforming them. We’d never cherry pick facts, and ignore the whole story. Why that would make us no better than animals
  - Avshalom 8y ago
    >>And yet none of them are landing autonomous reusable rocket modules I watched Armadillo do that in 2005 >Of all the 100% electric cars on road, he has two in the top 5 And neither invented the category nor managed to turn a profit on it >Who else has been pushing battery storage and solar systems that aren’t ugly af and simply made of old parts glued together in parallel? For batteries: Panasonic, LG but also literally every battery company and chemistry department in the world. For solar panels: also every chemistry department and dozens of companies, "China" as a vague term. And these other experts: they're making money instead of losing it. But even then this whole post buys into the idea that I some how have to disprove that Elon Musk does these things. He doesn't. Companies that Elon Musk is CEO of do those things.
    - erikpukinskis 8y ago
      When people are talking about SpaceX’s accomplishments, you can assume an implied “* from orbit” I guarantee you John Carmack would not say he did anything close to what Musk did.
      - Avshalom 8y ago
        Yeah but they 'didn't do anything close' to what SpaceX (not Musk) did, 12.5 years ago. That nobody bothered to do it in the (presumably) 20 years that it was viable is probably an indication that while aesthetically cool it's probably not all that economically practical.
        no-s 8y ago
        i suspect the space industrial complex had built up a great deal of inefficiency, creating an economically practical exploitable opportunity for anyone with the gumption to face down the status quo. Heck, the heat shield on the dragon capsule is in the NASA database, practically free tech invented and tested in the 70's and dismissed by possibly dozens of programs except for a tiny few. SpaceX did a little appropriate tweaking and made it commercially viable and probably more suitable than everything else, despite industry groupthink...

Avshalom 8y ago

Literally every industry he's involved in has competitors several of which pre-date his entrance in each.

jek3939 8y ago
And yet none of them are landing autonomous reusable rocket modules Of all the 100% electric cars on road, he has two in the top 5 Who else has been pushing battery storage and solar systems that aren’t ugly af and simply made of old parts glued together in parallel? All these other experts with experience can’t seem to hang with Johnny come lately. Humans don’t have a history of being petty over others not being the same as them, or worse, outperforming them. We’d never cherry pick facts, and ignore the whole story. Why that would make us no better than animals
- Avshalom 8y ago
  >>And yet none of them are landing autonomous reusable rocket modules I watched Armadillo do that in 2005 >Of all the 100% electric cars on road, he has two in the top 5 And neither invented the category nor managed to turn a profit on it >Who else has been pushing battery storage and solar systems that aren’t ugly af and simply made of old parts glued together in parallel? For batteries: Panasonic, LG but also literally every battery company and chemistry department in the world. For solar panels: also every chemistry department and dozens of companies, "China" as a vague term. And these other experts: they're making money instead of losing it. But even then this whole post buys into the idea that I some how have to disprove that Elon Musk does these things. He doesn't. Companies that Elon Musk is CEO of do those things.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    When people are talking about SpaceX’s accomplishments, you can assume an implied “* from orbit” I guarantee you John Carmack would not say he did anything close to what Musk did.
    - Avshalom 8y ago
      Yeah but they 'didn't do anything close' to what SpaceX (not Musk) did, 12.5 years ago. That nobody bothered to do it in the (presumably) 20 years that it was viable is probably an indication that while aesthetically cool it's probably not all that economically practical.
      - no-s 8y ago
        i suspect the space industrial complex had built up a great deal of inefficiency, creating an economically practical exploitable opportunity for anyone with the gumption to face down the status quo. Heck, the heat shield on the dragon capsule is in the NASA database, practically free tech invented and tested in the 70's and dismissed by possibly dozens of programs except for a tiny few. SpaceX did a little appropriate tweaking and made it commercially viable and probably more suitable than everything else, despite industry groupthink...