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This is amazing, I can't believe I haven't seen this page before. How can people still take him seriously? It almost sounds like a bot is Tweeting from his acco

by vecinu 6y ago

This is amazing, I can't believe I haven't seen this page before. How can people still take him seriously? It almost sounds like a bot is Tweeting from his account. > "I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house. [...] Don’t need the cash. Devoting myself to Mars and Earth. Possession just weigh you down." > "Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April" (Posted Mar 2020) Unbelievable, these are just the ones from a year ago. People that take him seriously, could you explain why you do? His predictions on Crypto and BTC now seem even more ridiculous and pump'n'dump-y.

mandeepj 6y ago
Musk is a Meme!
warent 6y ago
Pretty much every famous genius in history has spewed numerous claims, collecting lots of hits and lots of misses along the way. It's part of being human that thinks big. Thinking big means missing the mark a lot. I'm not an Elon fanboy, it's just a little bizarre to me that people mark this guy up as a crazy liar who shouldn't be taken seriously, meanwhile many of his bold claims have actually resulted in advancing tech and science in staggering ways. Like, people were saying the same thing about his claim to land first stage boosters, and here we are. Side note, apparently he is still actively selling off all his possessions.
- sneak 6y ago
  I mean, Starship exists and with each (frequent) test flight it gets closer to delivering on the promise of full reusability, which is jet-age-level shit. F9 is also incredible and has made the impossible possible... and Starlink is one instance of that, which also exists and is usable. You can't really highlight his failures without also giving credit where credit is due to his (and his organizations') successes. I'm really curious how he gets such smart and talented people to work at his companies.
  - mdbug 6y ago
    Fact check: Starship has been in development for about 8 years, has exploded on every landing so far, and has never reached orbit.
    - sneak 6y ago
      That's not true, one exploded before landing a few days ago. :P
    - erikstarck 6y ago
      Uhm. Yeah, prototypes of the next general vessel have exploded while gathering data. Meanwhile, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have made numerous successful and commercial launches and landings.
      - mdbug 6y ago
        I don't want to deny the successes at all. But everything SpaceX has achieved so far was possible before. I guess the statement that Starship is getting closer to its promise can be expressed that way, but it almost sounds like it's already close and in reality it's far from being ready. Also consider that it took NASA about 9 years to fully develop the Space Shuttle from ground up and they didn't lose a single vehicle during testing - 50 years ago!
        chrisco255 6y ago
        No, they lost one when it mattered most: when humans were on board. Besides, Starship is meant as more of a replacement for Apollo than for the shuttle.
        mdbug 6y ago
        This does not contradict what I wrote.
        chrisco255 6y ago
- mxschumacher 6y ago
  Making extremely aggressive predictions about a topic that you know nothing about isn't "thinking big". Somebody with massive media attention and countless acolytes needs to wield their power with care, especially given that a pandemic is driven by human behavior (if it's not a big deal, why wear a mask?). Not knowing what you don't know is just foolish.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > Pretty much every famous genius in history has spewed numerous claims, collecting lots of hits and lots of misses along the way. Of course, so has every famous idiot.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
gpm 6y ago
Very few people are good at everything. Probably no one. If that's your standard for who you should listen to, you should just bury your head in the sand, permanently, on every topic. Elon Musk is demonstrably very good at some things - in particular running companies. I can't think of any other person who has successfully started multiple billion dollar companies. Which isn't to say that they don't exist, but... (see next paragraph) Elon Musk is also much more willing to speak his mind than most successful entrepreneurs (which is why you hear about him). Sometimes he is rather stupid (see paragraph 1), sometimes he is not. Often I think his statements (and to a large extent probably his actual opinions as well) are biased towards what is good for his companies. The information you can get from when he is not being stupid or overly biased is probably worth putting up with the stupid. Finally he's just involved in a lot of cool technology... and however else you feel about him you have to admire him remaining that involved when he has more than enough money to fuck off and retire. Maybe one way to drive home the point is to just answer a lot of yes/no questions about him: Do I think he's overselling autopilot, yes. Do I think he's wrong about bitcoin, yes. Do I think he's wrong about how to run companies, I mean probably also yes, but on average less wrong than basically anyone else talking about it, it's a complex topic but he is good at it. Do I think he's wrong about how to build rockets? Like the answer to companies. Do I think he's wrong about how to build factories? The same again. Do I think he intends to put people on mars? Yes. Do I think he will succeed? I put it at above 50% probability, which is far higher than I think of anyone else. Do I think we will get his self sustaining city? Almost certainly not. And so on and so on.
- alvah 6y ago
  "I can't think of any other person who has successfully started multiple billion dollar companies." Steve Jobs did, I believe there are a couple others too. I agree though, the list is short.
  - AlotOfReading 6y ago
    What was Jobs' second? NeXT wasn't a billion dollar company and he didn't start Pixar. His wiki page doesn't list major involvement with any other companies.
mr_toad 6y ago
‘God does not play dice’
gameswithgo 6y ago
Elon has unfortunately become a classic example of smart person in some domains believing they are smart in all domains. HN, I implore you, never trust a genius in one domain to weigh in an adjacent domain, let alone an entirely different one. Brain power is great but domain specific expertise is greater.
- Tiktaalik 6y ago
  Yeah for example, Elon has done a lot of great stuff with Space X for example, but the shit he says about boring company and public transit, it's so wildly out of touch with reality, wrong and stupid, it's an embarrassment.
  - stephen_g 6y ago
    Yeah, not to mention hyperloop. I’m amazed there are still quite a few people taking that seriously...
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  a classic example of smart person in some domains believing they are smart in all domains That describes every user on this website...
- tigershark 6y ago
  For example two domains as different as rocket science and electric cars do you mean?
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
There are plenty of elon haters around. Some people just can't accept that someone can think outside the box and profit from it. I've seen the same mentality in crypto and other places.

by vecinu 6y ago

mandeepj 6y ago

Musk is a Meme!

warent 6y ago

Pretty much every famous genius in history has spewed numerous claims, collecting lots of hits and lots of misses along the way. It's part of being human that thinks big. Thinking big means missing the mark a lot. I'm not an Elon fanboy, it's just a little bizarre to me that people mark this guy up as a crazy liar who shouldn't be taken seriously, meanwhile many of his bold claims have actually resulted in advancing tech and science in staggering ways. Like, people were saying the same thing about his claim to land first stage boosters, and here we are. Side note, apparently he is still actively selling off all his possessions.

sneak 6y ago
I mean, Starship exists and with each (frequent) test flight it gets closer to delivering on the promise of full reusability, which is jet-age-level shit. F9 is also incredible and has made the impossible possible... and Starlink is one instance of that, which also exists and is usable. You can't really highlight his failures without also giving credit where credit is due to his (and his organizations') successes. I'm really curious how he gets such smart and talented people to work at his companies.
- mdbug 6y ago
  Fact check: Starship has been in development for about 8 years, has exploded on every landing so far, and has never reached orbit.
  - sneak 6y ago
    That's not true, one exploded before landing a few days ago. :P
  - erikstarck 6y ago
    Uhm. Yeah, prototypes of the next general vessel have exploded while gathering data. Meanwhile, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have made numerous successful and commercial launches and landings.
    - mdbug 6y ago
      I don't want to deny the successes at all. But everything SpaceX has achieved so far was possible before. I guess the statement that Starship is getting closer to its promise can be expressed that way, but it almost sounds like it's already close and in reality it's far from being ready. Also consider that it took NASA about 9 years to fully develop the Space Shuttle from ground up and they didn't lose a single vehicle during testing - 50 years ago!
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        No, they lost one when it mattered most: when humans were on board. Besides, Starship is meant as more of a replacement for Apollo than for the shuttle.
        mdbug 6y ago
        This does not contradict what I wrote.
        chrisco255 6y ago
mxschumacher 6y ago
Making extremely aggressive predictions about a topic that you know nothing about isn't "thinking big". Somebody with massive media attention and countless acolytes needs to wield their power with care, especially given that a pandemic is driven by human behavior (if it's not a big deal, why wear a mask?). Not knowing what you don't know is just foolish.
rsynnott 6y ago
> Pretty much every famous genius in history has spewed numerous claims, collecting lots of hits and lots of misses along the way. Of course, so has every famous idiot.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

gpm 6y ago

Very few people are good at everything. Probably no one. If that's your standard for who you should listen to, you should just bury your head in the sand, permanently, on every topic. Elon Musk is demonstrably very good at some things - in particular running companies. I can't think of any other person who has successfully started multiple billion dollar companies. Which isn't to say that they don't exist, but... (see next paragraph) Elon Musk is also much more willing to speak his mind than most successful entrepreneurs (which is why you hear about him). Sometimes he is rather stupid (see paragraph 1), sometimes he is not. Often I think his statements (and to a large extent probably his actual opinions as well) are biased towards what is good for his companies. The information you can get from when he is not being stupid or overly biased is probably worth putting up with the stupid. Finally he's just involved in a lot of cool technology... and however else you feel about him you have to admire him remaining that involved when he has more than enough money to fuck off and retire. Maybe one way to drive home the point is to just answer a lot of yes/no questions about him: Do I think he's overselling autopilot, yes. Do I think he's wrong about bitcoin, yes. Do I think he's wrong about how to run companies, I mean probably also yes, but on average less wrong than basically anyone else talking about it, it's a complex topic but he is good at it. Do I think he's wrong about how to build rockets? Like the answer to companies. Do I think he's wrong about how to build factories? The same again. Do I think he intends to put people on mars? Yes. Do I think he will succeed? I put it at above 50% probability, which is far higher than I think of anyone else. Do I think we will get his self sustaining city? Almost certainly not. And so on and so on.

alvah 6y ago
"I can't think of any other person who has successfully started multiple billion dollar companies." Steve Jobs did, I believe there are a couple others too. I agree though, the list is short.
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  What was Jobs' second? NeXT wasn't a billion dollar company and he didn't start Pixar. His wiki page doesn't list major involvement with any other companies.

mr_toad 6y ago

‘God does not play dice’

gameswithgo 6y ago

Elon has unfortunately become a classic example of smart person in some domains believing they are smart in all domains. HN, I implore you, never trust a genius in one domain to weigh in an adjacent domain, let alone an entirely different one. Brain power is great but domain specific expertise is greater.

Tiktaalik 6y ago
Yeah for example, Elon has done a lot of great stuff with Space X for example, but the shit he says about boring company and public transit, it's so wildly out of touch with reality, wrong and stupid, it's an embarrassment.
- stephen_g 6y ago
  Yeah, not to mention hyperloop. I’m amazed there are still quite a few people taking that seriously...
goatinaboat 6y ago
a classic example of smart person in some domains believing they are smart in all domains That describes every user on this website...
tigershark 6y ago
For example two domains as different as rocket science and electric cars do you mean?

HeadsUpHigh 6y ago

There are plenty of elon haters around. Some people just can't accept that someone can think outside the box and profit from it. I've seen the same mentality in crypto and other places.