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Not that I approve or disapprove Elon Musk's idea of building tunnels but this blog post seems to dismiss the entire idea just for the sake of being dismissive.

by sweden 8y ago

Not that I approve or disapprove Elon Musk's idea of building tunnels but this blog post seems to dismiss the entire idea just for the sake of being dismissive. The Boring Company seems to be trying with different thoughts and ideas for making these tunnels a reality and they have been quite open to the public with these ideas. It feels to me that the author is taking advantage of this transparency and using it as a weapon for his own agenda. The entire "demo" was a proof-of-concept that they can use as a model in order to see if it works or not, there is nothing wrong with it. It's not like they will be deploying the current idea to the general public of LA starting tomorrow. > Some experts questioned whether the Boring Company had even succeeded at improving the cost of tunnel boring. Right now, it’s not altogether clear that it did. Well, they are still developing the technology, aren't they? > But this design creates congestion at the front end while promising to relieve it on the journey. Drivers will need to line up to wait their turn on the elevator. The idea he presented in the press conference is that the tunnels would complement the current highways and public transportation system, it wouldn't be a full replacement for those. Adding new lanes is incredibly difficult because it would require road work, blocking the entire road to traffic, and also because you are physically limited to the number of lanes that you can possibly add to the road. The idea of tunnels is supposed to work around these limitations.

darawk 8y ago
Indeed, the anti-musk meme around here is weird. The guy is making an effort to make the world better, and he's spending large amounts of his own money to do it. He's built several multi-billion dollar companies, so he's clearly not an idiot. It's weird that after succeeding at creating two companies that tons of people predicted would fail at every turn people don't give him a little more benefit of the doubt than this.
- normal_man 8y ago
  If you think he's purely altruistic you're very naive. He's doing all this to both enrich himself and feed his massive ego. And there are plenty of reasons to dislike him - inserting himself unnecessarily into the cave tragedy, then throwing a tantrum when called out on it? The fact that Tesla and this frankly dumb-sounding tunnel idea receive large subsidies from public funds that no citizens got to vote on?
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Nobody does anything out of pure altruism. But then again, there's also plenty of selfish reasons to retire to Tahiti once you've had a $1 billion exit.
  - Isinlor 8y ago
    What subsidies did the recently unveiled tunnel receive?
  - darawk 8y ago
    > If you think he's purely altruistic you're very naive. You think he started Tesla and SpaceX out of greed, too? Two insanely difficult and competitive industries, that he almost threw away his entire personal fortune from Paypal getting into? Do you know anything about his history at all?
- escape_goat 8y ago
  It's not weird to me that it exists. I like Musk, I like that he has created some amazing things, but he can also be very flaky and a bit of an asshole, and I don't think many people who aren't white have serious hopes of him not being, by instinct if not intent, basically yet another internet tech guy / entitled libertarian / white supremacist. He's created a lot of noise and dissent on Twitter, most seriously with his error-riddled disparagement of journalists who have investigated labour conditions at Tesla. On that platform, his de facto fan club of Musk bros have made great strides in alienating people who wouldn't even otherwise have an opinion. The criticisms in this article are painful for those of us who wish him to succeed, but they aren't really that unfair. The big unveiling WAS a public relations flop. They HAVEN'T yet succeeded in reducing the price of tunnelling. If the tunnel is only usable by automated electric cars, then it IS essentially a private highway for the wealthy. If the tunnels are used to capacity, then entrance/exit congestion IS a real problem that needs to be dealt with. I think the article takes a few truisms to heart (more roads means more congestion) that might not be as applicable to an underground network as to a surface network, and the author clearly has an agenda with regards to social utility. However, it's not an unreasonable reaction from someone who hasn't already bought into the hope that Musk will be successful in his various endeavours.
dahfizz 8y ago
I will never understand why people want to hate musk-type entrepreneurs and innovation so badly. People look for any reason to hate him.
- matz1 8y ago
  Is it hard to understand ? Whatever it its, there are always going to be people who like it and hate it.
- Data_Junkie 8y ago
  I don't know about anybody else, but in my mind I've always kind of thought of the term "haters" as short for "jealous haters".
danso 8y ago
What was the "proof of concept"? When Boring was first unveiled, it was sold not as a tunnel for cars to drive through, but a system that included "electric skates" and subway-car-like pods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI I doubt Boring would have gotten much hype at all if Musk had admitted up front that it'd be little different than an underground highway, something which people have been using for decades.
- sweden 8y ago
  I will just quote myself here: > The Boring Company seems to be trying with different thoughts and ideas for making these tunnels a reality and they have been quite open to the public with these ideas. It feels to me that the author is taking advantage of this transparency and using it as a weapon for his own agenda.
  - danso 8y ago
    Uh OK. I'll ask again, what is the ostensible proof of concept. You assert that Musk/Boring has been "quite open", so it should be quite easy to describe what the proof of concept is, if it is something else besides a tunnel for cars to drive through.
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      They built a 1.2 mile tunnel in LA and revealed it the other day: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boring-company-tunnel-unveiling/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boring-company-tunne...
      - danso 8y ago
        Let me be more specific, what concept is the tunnel supposed to prove or prototype? If it's that he can build a tunnel that a car can drive through, then OK, it's certainly not nothing. I don't see what's wrong with a blog post pointing out how Boring has deviated from its original promise, barring any details from Boring about how they've improved upon the process when building out this tunnel. I mean, I'm not the biggest Musk fanboy, but I don't think I would've ever bet against him if the bet was, "Can Elon Musk dig a tunnel?"
mhermher 8y ago
What concept did he prove? That you can bore a utility tunnel? That a car can drive on a concrete road way? What did we see besides a bunch of smoke and mirrors? This is a solved problem. The obstacles to better public transit are political and economic, not technological.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  This is a solved problem. The obstacles to better public transit are political and economic, not technological. Arguably, you're also talking about SpaceX. Landing a rocket on its tail is something we'd already done. The rocket engines SpaceX uses are tried and true technology. The Falcon rockets are a technological tour de force, but really that's all about implementation. The big barriers were really political and economic. A situation had arisen where an industry had become stagnant, and everyone was scared off from competing. It wouldn't surprise me if the same applied to tunneling.
- t0mbstone 8y ago
  Yes, the concept that he was trying to prove (as I understand it) was that tunnels are an under-utilized transportation resource, and that they are in fact actually quite feasible to dig. "The key to making this work is increasing tunneling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more – this is the goal of The Boring Company" https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/ https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/ Everything else is just icing on the cake. People are forgetting this.
solatic 8y ago
Furthermore, complaining about front-loading congestion shows just how little the author understands about this subject. Front-loading congestion improves the rate of flow and improving the rate of flow improves overall throughput. Metered access to freeways is but one example - it doesn't completely solve congestion issues, but it is rather effective at preventing freeway traffic from coming to a standstill.

by sweden 8y ago

darawk 8y ago

Indeed, the anti-musk meme around here is weird. The guy is making an effort to make the world better, and he's spending large amounts of his own money to do it. He's built several multi-billion dollar companies, so he's clearly not an idiot. It's weird that after succeeding at creating two companies that tons of people predicted would fail at every turn people don't give him a little more benefit of the doubt than this.

normal_man 8y ago
If you think he's purely altruistic you're very naive. He's doing all this to both enrich himself and feed his massive ego. And there are plenty of reasons to dislike him - inserting himself unnecessarily into the cave tragedy, then throwing a tantrum when called out on it? The fact that Tesla and this frankly dumb-sounding tunnel idea receive large subsidies from public funds that no citizens got to vote on?
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Nobody does anything out of pure altruism. But then again, there's also plenty of selfish reasons to retire to Tahiti once you've had a $1 billion exit.
- Isinlor 8y ago
  What subsidies did the recently unveiled tunnel receive?
- darawk 8y ago
  > If you think he's purely altruistic you're very naive. You think he started Tesla and SpaceX out of greed, too? Two insanely difficult and competitive industries, that he almost threw away his entire personal fortune from Paypal getting into? Do you know anything about his history at all?
escape_goat 8y ago
It's not weird to me that it exists. I like Musk, I like that he has created some amazing things, but he can also be very flaky and a bit of an asshole, and I don't think many people who aren't white have serious hopes of him not being, by instinct if not intent, basically yet another internet tech guy / entitled libertarian / white supremacist. He's created a lot of noise and dissent on Twitter, most seriously with his error-riddled disparagement of journalists who have investigated labour conditions at Tesla. On that platform, his de facto fan club of Musk bros have made great strides in alienating people who wouldn't even otherwise have an opinion. The criticisms in this article are painful for those of us who wish him to succeed, but they aren't really that unfair. The big unveiling WAS a public relations flop. They HAVEN'T yet succeeded in reducing the price of tunnelling. If the tunnel is only usable by automated electric cars, then it IS essentially a private highway for the wealthy. If the tunnels are used to capacity, then entrance/exit congestion IS a real problem that needs to be dealt with. I think the article takes a few truisms to heart (more roads means more congestion) that might not be as applicable to an underground network as to a surface network, and the author clearly has an agenda with regards to social utility. However, it's not an unreasonable reaction from someone who hasn't already bought into the hope that Musk will be successful in his various endeavours.

dahfizz 8y ago

I will never understand why people want to hate musk-type entrepreneurs and innovation so badly. People look for any reason to hate him.

matz1 8y ago
Is it hard to understand ? Whatever it its, there are always going to be people who like it and hate it.
Data_Junkie 8y ago
I don't know about anybody else, but in my mind I've always kind of thought of the term "haters" as short for "jealous haters".

danso 8y ago

What was the "proof of concept"? When Boring was first unveiled, it was sold not as a tunnel for cars to drive through, but a system that included "electric skates" and subway-car-like pods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI I doubt Boring would have gotten much hype at all if Musk had admitted up front that it'd be little different than an underground highway, something which people have been using for decades.

sweden 8y ago
I will just quote myself here: > The Boring Company seems to be trying with different thoughts and ideas for making these tunnels a reality and they have been quite open to the public with these ideas. It feels to me that the author is taking advantage of this transparency and using it as a weapon for his own agenda.
- danso 8y ago
  Uh OK. I'll ask again, what is the ostensible proof of concept. You assert that Musk/Boring has been "quite open", so it should be quite easy to describe what the proof of concept is, if it is something else besides a tunnel for cars to drive through.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    They built a 1.2 mile tunnel in LA and revealed it the other day: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boring-company-tunnel-unveiling/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boring-company-tunne...
    - danso 8y ago
      Let me be more specific, what concept is the tunnel supposed to prove or prototype? If it's that he can build a tunnel that a car can drive through, then OK, it's certainly not nothing. I don't see what's wrong with a blog post pointing out how Boring has deviated from its original promise, barring any details from Boring about how they've improved upon the process when building out this tunnel. I mean, I'm not the biggest Musk fanboy, but I don't think I would've ever bet against him if the bet was, "Can Elon Musk dig a tunnel?"

mhermher 8y ago

What concept did he prove? That you can bore a utility tunnel? That a car can drive on a concrete road way? What did we see besides a bunch of smoke and mirrors? This is a solved problem. The obstacles to better public transit are political and economic, not technological.

stcredzero 8y ago
This is a solved problem. The obstacles to better public transit are political and economic, not technological. Arguably, you're also talking about SpaceX. Landing a rocket on its tail is something we'd already done. The rocket engines SpaceX uses are tried and true technology. The Falcon rockets are a technological tour de force, but really that's all about implementation. The big barriers were really political and economic. A situation had arisen where an industry had become stagnant, and everyone was scared off from competing. It wouldn't surprise me if the same applied to tunneling.
t0mbstone 8y ago
Yes, the concept that he was trying to prove (as I understand it) was that tunnels are an under-utilized transportation resource, and that they are in fact actually quite feasible to dig. "The key to making this work is increasing tunneling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more – this is the goal of The Boring Company" https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/ https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/ Everything else is just icing on the cake. People are forgetting this.

solatic 8y ago

Furthermore, complaining about front-loading congestion shows just how little the author understands about this subject. Front-loading congestion improves the rate of flow and improving the rate of flow improves overall throughput. Metered access to freeways is but one example - it doesn't completely solve congestion issues, but it is rather effective at preventing freeway traffic from coming to a standstill.