6 ms·

I see this point get made often, but I'm not sure it is an insightful way to look at the world. Tesla cars are only barely related to Mars colonization, and Pay

I see this point get made often, but I'm not sure it is an insightful way to look at the world. Tesla cars are only barely related to Mars colonization, and PayPal is not really at all, which is a product conveniently ignored in your post. Even the SpaceX internet satellite constellation looks almost nothing like what internet access on Mars will be anytime in the forseeable future. It seems like a similarly strong argument could be made that every Google product is designed for Mars colonization. I bring this up because I think it is important that Elon has some projects targeted at making the world better today, like PayPal, the Boring Company, and Starlink, some projects designed to avoid catastrophes a few decades from now, like Tesla and Solar City, and some projects designed to help humanity centuries from now, like SpaceX going to Mars. This is a very nice way of resolving the objection that Elon should focus on Earth's problems, which is to observe that you can both make the world a better place today while also working towards a brighter long term future. I think that to the extent that Elon will inevitably serve as a role model, I want that part of the story to be told as well.

idlewords 7y ago
Mars is going to need some kind of payment system! Also a method for rescuing children trapped in Mars caves.
alaskamiller 7y ago
Elon is new Steve Jobs is the new Jesus. Anyone can foist one's own unbridled ambitions, mixed in with a dash of lottery dreaming, tossed in with a bit of hubris, to come up with whatever the bright shiny future could be.
- gleenn 7y ago
  The difference might be they were also heads of million dollar companies. How many of those have you or I started?
  - alaskamiller 7y ago
    You wouldn't know.
    - jodrellblank 7y ago
      Wouldn't we? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19394730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19394730
      - rrix2 7y ago
        most folks aren't in peoples' posting history trying to prove a point
        alaskamiller 7y ago
        Most folks wouldn't, but some on Hacker News certainly can't lose.
        jodrellblank 7y ago
        Look in my posting history and you'll see plenty of whining about Google (and other tech company's) bulk collection of data. This should give you a feeling why - someone actually looking at a post history is considered intrusive and overstepping a mark. Let alone if that wasn't freely posted in public, but instead gathered surreptitiously and correlated from many sources over much time.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Minor note (mostly since a lot of people don't know this): Musk did not start Tesla. He led investment in their Series A, became chairman of the board, and became actively involved with the company's operations, which allowed him to gain the title of "co-founder," but he was not involved with the company before then.
    - HNLurker2 7y ago
      AFAIK Tesla founders where adviced to go to Elon for venture capital because he may be interested in it.
- nickik 7y ago
  He is not really like Jobs at all. Jobs created nice end user devices and that pretty much all he did. Other then some personal things people like to focus much of their process and goals are vastly different.
wurst_case 7y ago
The reason PayPal is ignored by most people is two reasons. 1. In its current form, it has less resemblance to what he wanted to do with it (its a better product because of this fact) and 2. He famously found the biggest hurdles for humanity and their solutions after selling PayPal and becoming a multi millionaire with nothing but time to spend it. Originally he wanted to put a mini greenhouse on mars as a media stunt.
- serf 7y ago
  >The reason PayPal is ignored by most people is two reasons. You forgot the most important one. 3) PayPal is a huge PR nightmare, a pseudo-bank that sits between legal boundaries whenever it needs to in order to maximize profit, screwing over thousands of folks -- many of them with small businesses that foolishly relied on them as a service. A successful service that everyone uses, and most people hate -- the customers are swept in by me-tooisms and forced participation. If I were Musk, or I was a Musk evangelist , i'd stay far away from that 'accomplishment', as well. He's not responsible for the entirety of the beast, but afaik he IS responsible for the viral aspects of their customer recruitment -- a method I feel is unethical from a monopolistic standpoint for a banking entity to participate in.
  - Benjammer 7y ago
    There's kind of a reason they're called the PayPal Mafia...
  - nickik 7y ago
    PayPal is a nightmare but the reason is that banking and other innovation was so slow. Even if you don't like it, it still solved a massive problem in the internet, or at least made it more possible. You can say PayPal is bad, but pretty much any company starting on that path run in many of the same issues.
discordance 7y ago
PayPal is the component that provided the initial funding for 1 - 5.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
I'm not sure that PayPal is targeted at making the world better today. on edit: changed I'm not sure if to I'm not sure that
L_226 7y ago
I've said it before, but in the context of solar system colonisation the value behind Tesla is not the cars - it is the gigafactory. Developing a serious Human presence off-Earth necessarily requires highly automated heavy industry and manufacturing.

idlewords 7y ago

Mars is going to need some kind of payment system! Also a method for rescuing children trapped in Mars caves.

alaskamiller 7y ago

Elon is new Steve Jobs is the new Jesus. Anyone can foist one's own unbridled ambitions, mixed in with a dash of lottery dreaming, tossed in with a bit of hubris, to come up with whatever the bright shiny future could be.

gleenn 7y ago
The difference might be they were also heads of million dollar companies. How many of those have you or I started?
- alaskamiller 7y ago
  You wouldn't know.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Wouldn't we? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19394730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19394730
    - rrix2 7y ago
      most folks aren't in peoples' posting history trying to prove a point
      - alaskamiller 7y ago
        Most folks wouldn't, but some on Hacker News certainly can't lose.
      - jodrellblank 7y ago
        Look in my posting history and you'll see plenty of whining about Google (and other tech company's) bulk collection of data. This should give you a feeling why - someone actually looking at a post history is considered intrusive and overstepping a mark. Let alone if that wasn't freely posted in public, but instead gathered surreptitiously and correlated from many sources over much time.
- geofft 7y ago
  Minor note (mostly since a lot of people don't know this): Musk did not start Tesla. He led investment in their Series A, became chairman of the board, and became actively involved with the company's operations, which allowed him to gain the title of "co-founder," but he was not involved with the company before then.
  - HNLurker2 7y ago
    AFAIK Tesla founders where adviced to go to Elon for venture capital because he may be interested in it.
nickik 7y ago
He is not really like Jobs at all. Jobs created nice end user devices and that pretty much all he did. Other then some personal things people like to focus much of their process and goals are vastly different.

wurst_case 7y ago

The reason PayPal is ignored by most people is two reasons. 1. In its current form, it has less resemblance to what he wanted to do with it (its a better product because of this fact) and 2. He famously found the biggest hurdles for humanity and their solutions after selling PayPal and becoming a multi millionaire with nothing but time to spend it. Originally he wanted to put a mini greenhouse on mars as a media stunt.

serf 7y ago
>The reason PayPal is ignored by most people is two reasons. You forgot the most important one. 3) PayPal is a huge PR nightmare, a pseudo-bank that sits between legal boundaries whenever it needs to in order to maximize profit, screwing over thousands of folks -- many of them with small businesses that foolishly relied on them as a service. A successful service that everyone uses, and most people hate -- the customers are swept in by me-tooisms and forced participation. If I were Musk, or I was a Musk evangelist , i'd stay far away from that 'accomplishment', as well. He's not responsible for the entirety of the beast, but afaik he IS responsible for the viral aspects of their customer recruitment -- a method I feel is unethical from a monopolistic standpoint for a banking entity to participate in.
- Benjammer 7y ago
  There's kind of a reason they're called the PayPal Mafia...
- nickik 7y ago
  PayPal is a nightmare but the reason is that banking and other innovation was so slow. Even if you don't like it, it still solved a massive problem in the internet, or at least made it more possible. You can say PayPal is bad, but pretty much any company starting on that path run in many of the same issues.

discordance 7y ago

PayPal is the component that provided the initial funding for 1 - 5.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

I'm not sure that PayPal is targeted at making the world better today. on edit: changed I'm not sure if to I'm not sure that

L_226 7y ago

I've said it before, but in the context of solar system colonisation the value behind Tesla is not the cars - it is the gigafactory. Developing a serious Human presence off-Earth necessarily requires highly automated heavy industry and manufacturing.