4 ms·

Sour comment for whatever reason... It's actually pretty simple - imagine the world that is and probably will be with him, and then one without him. We underdo

Sour comment for whatever reason... It's actually pretty simple - imagine the world that is and probably will be with him, and then one without him. We underdogs hate to be not credited for the hard work we do, but his positive impact on mankind as a whole is quite substantial, and as time goes by it will be only magnified. Hard to argue with this. SpaceX and Tesla are really a bit more than just a sum of all the engineers (and other folks) involved. If you like to pick negative things on people, then there are no heroes, there are no ideals to look up to. Every single great person in history had a dark side, like it or not. I guess that's part of what makes us humans. Personally, I like him. With all the warts, emotions and whatnot. Results matter, rest are details for pub discussion after 5th beer. World generally thinks similarly on this topic.

bilbo0s 8y ago
The world with him, is a whole lot like the world without him though. I mean, I did the thought experiment, and I honestly don't see many things that would be different? Are you arguing that without Musk, we wouldn't have commercial space companies, or electric cars? If so, I find that a bit difficult to believe. The part of your comment about no one being a hero is correct. None of us are any better than anyone else, that's for sure. (It's the main reason I try never to point fingers in life actually.) But the idea that we would be worse off without Musk is just a bridge too far. Even a world absent Steve Jobs, would have created PCs and smart phones. And, with respect to impact, Musk is no Steve Jobs.
- Roritharr 8y ago
  I, living in Germany and having worked with and for our car companies, am completely convinced that without him we wouldn't have the electric shift we're seeing right now. We'd have another two decades of half hearted attempts at all kinds of technologies, especially bio fuels but no real progress. Tesla changed the game and I can only imagine it's the same with SpaceX.
  - blkhawk 8y ago
    And at least 15 Years of "clean diesel" marketing.
  - JoshCole 8y ago
    Thank God for that. I don't mean anything bad about Germany when I say that. It's just that I don't think people realize how important it is to have good incentives. Getting rich on the basis of successfully electrifying the world is a very good incentive to have. Legacy automakers have to fight their own incentives. As a consequence, they can't quite manage to make the full turn. Regulation has helped curb this a little, but Elon Musk founded the company without the corrupted incentives. Their market capitalization in the electrical energy sector is a direct consequence of this. Anyone who knows about climate science ought to be happy with his accomplishments. There is a causal link between Elon Musk putting all his money into SpaceX and Tesla and their successes. This is true from the obvious way (they were literally close to death with his last infusion), but its a truth that is more than superficial.
- tigershark 8y ago
  As far as I remember he was laughed at for just thinking to build reusable rockets or to sell electric cars. Either I or you have very serious memory problems. But I’m pretty confident that I can link several sources to corroborate my recalling of the events, can you do the same? If you can prove that the people that were laughing at him would have brought the electric car mainstream and would have invented reusable rockets without him than you are right. I’m eagerly waiting for your ironclad proof.
  - saiya-jin 8y ago
    It's hard to not admire somebody who get all those laughs and delivered in very short time span. Not only that, we don't only have reusable rockets, we have freakin' vertical landing! Thought to be unrealistic by proper NASA engineers. For a very long time people didn't have that WOW experience for space technologies, and this one delivered. Mankind needs people like him - with all ecological doom and gloom slowly unfolding, next mandatory frontier is clearly space. Also, disrupting entrenched monopolies/oligopolies that got just too comfortable milking people of their money for very minor improvements of their products.
- DennisP 8y ago
  Tesla completely changed the public perception of electric cars, from slow eco-friendly compacts to high-performance sports cars. Without Tesla I doubt that Mercedes would be spending $12 billion on electric cars, or Porsche would be releasing an electric car next year with a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds and a nationwide fast charging network in the U.S. Tesla proved that it's possible and that there's demand for it. SpaceX significantly lowered launch costs even before achieving reusability, and with reusability is changing the game completely. However, Jeff Bezos isn't that far behind with Blue Origin, and probably wasn't inspired by SpaceX; he started a long time ago and was a space nut from an early age. Still, it's better to have two great companies with cheap reusable rockets, rather than just one, and the two companies have somewhat different long-term goals.
  - vital_sol 8y ago
    Well, Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin is so far behind that they haven't launched anything to the Low Earth Orbit yet, and as far as I know they don't have plans to launch to LEO for the next few years. So wrg to reusable launch vehicles, so far SpaceX is the only game in town. OTOH, Jeff Bezos has more money and can speed things up if he wants.
    - DennisP 8y ago
      Sure, I'm just saying that without Musk we'd still get reusable launch, just a few years later. Blue Origin is definitely behind but they've been focusing on advanced engines, and just licensed one to ULA, which is flying it in 2020. And of course BO is planning to fly suborbital passengers next year. Suborbital is way easier the LEO, but flying passengers at all is something SpaceX hasn't gotten to yet. I'm a huge SpaceX fan and until recently I kinda scoffed at Blue Origin, but after seeing more about it I was more impressed. (On the other hand, the New Glenn is only first-stage reusable, so they might need to get that flying well before the BFR is ready.)
    - hef19898 8y ago
      SpaceX is the only serious private company. And without government launches they would have a hard time as well. In the de-facto public sector you have the Russians, Ariane, the Chinese, the Indians... It's not that there wouldn't be anything in space without SpaceX. The thing I love about SpaceX is how they showed what can be done without the over abundance of bureaucracy you see elsewhere. Not that programs like Ariane would have learned the smallest bit from it.

bilbo0s 8y ago

The world with him, is a whole lot like the world without him though. I mean, I did the thought experiment, and I honestly don't see many things that would be different? Are you arguing that without Musk, we wouldn't have commercial space companies, or electric cars? If so, I find that a bit difficult to believe. The part of your comment about no one being a hero is correct. None of us are any better than anyone else, that's for sure. (It's the main reason I try never to point fingers in life actually.) But the idea that we would be worse off without Musk is just a bridge too far. Even a world absent Steve Jobs, would have created PCs and smart phones. And, with respect to impact, Musk is no Steve Jobs.

Roritharr 8y ago
I, living in Germany and having worked with and for our car companies, am completely convinced that without him we wouldn't have the electric shift we're seeing right now. We'd have another two decades of half hearted attempts at all kinds of technologies, especially bio fuels but no real progress. Tesla changed the game and I can only imagine it's the same with SpaceX.
- blkhawk 8y ago
  And at least 15 Years of "clean diesel" marketing.
- JoshCole 8y ago
  Thank God for that. I don't mean anything bad about Germany when I say that. It's just that I don't think people realize how important it is to have good incentives. Getting rich on the basis of successfully electrifying the world is a very good incentive to have. Legacy automakers have to fight their own incentives. As a consequence, they can't quite manage to make the full turn. Regulation has helped curb this a little, but Elon Musk founded the company without the corrupted incentives. Their market capitalization in the electrical energy sector is a direct consequence of this. Anyone who knows about climate science ought to be happy with his accomplishments. There is a causal link between Elon Musk putting all his money into SpaceX and Tesla and their successes. This is true from the obvious way (they were literally close to death with his last infusion), but its a truth that is more than superficial.
tigershark 8y ago
As far as I remember he was laughed at for just thinking to build reusable rockets or to sell electric cars. Either I or you have very serious memory problems. But I’m pretty confident that I can link several sources to corroborate my recalling of the events, can you do the same? If you can prove that the people that were laughing at him would have brought the electric car mainstream and would have invented reusable rockets without him than you are right. I’m eagerly waiting for your ironclad proof.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  It's hard to not admire somebody who get all those laughs and delivered in very short time span. Not only that, we don't only have reusable rockets, we have freakin' vertical landing! Thought to be unrealistic by proper NASA engineers. For a very long time people didn't have that WOW experience for space technologies, and this one delivered. Mankind needs people like him - with all ecological doom and gloom slowly unfolding, next mandatory frontier is clearly space. Also, disrupting entrenched monopolies/oligopolies that got just too comfortable milking people of their money for very minor improvements of their products.
DennisP 8y ago
Tesla completely changed the public perception of electric cars, from slow eco-friendly compacts to high-performance sports cars. Without Tesla I doubt that Mercedes would be spending $12 billion on electric cars, or Porsche would be releasing an electric car next year with a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds and a nationwide fast charging network in the U.S. Tesla proved that it's possible and that there's demand for it. SpaceX significantly lowered launch costs even before achieving reusability, and with reusability is changing the game completely. However, Jeff Bezos isn't that far behind with Blue Origin, and probably wasn't inspired by SpaceX; he started a long time ago and was a space nut from an early age. Still, it's better to have two great companies with cheap reusable rockets, rather than just one, and the two companies have somewhat different long-term goals.
- vital_sol 8y ago
  Well, Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin is so far behind that they haven't launched anything to the Low Earth Orbit yet, and as far as I know they don't have plans to launch to LEO for the next few years. So wrg to reusable launch vehicles, so far SpaceX is the only game in town. OTOH, Jeff Bezos has more money and can speed things up if he wants.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Sure, I'm just saying that without Musk we'd still get reusable launch, just a few years later. Blue Origin is definitely behind but they've been focusing on advanced engines, and just licensed one to ULA, which is flying it in 2020. And of course BO is planning to fly suborbital passengers next year. Suborbital is way easier the LEO, but flying passengers at all is something SpaceX hasn't gotten to yet. I'm a huge SpaceX fan and until recently I kinda scoffed at Blue Origin, but after seeing more about it I was more impressed. (On the other hand, the New Glenn is only first-stage reusable, so they might need to get that flying well before the BFR is ready.)
  - hef19898 8y ago
    SpaceX is the only serious private company. And without government launches they would have a hard time as well. In the de-facto public sector you have the Russians, Ariane, the Chinese, the Indians... It's not that there wouldn't be anything in space without SpaceX. The thing I love about SpaceX is how they showed what can be done without the over abundance of bureaucracy you see elsewhere. Not that programs like Ariane would have learned the smallest bit from it.