5 ms·

Buddy you’ve drunk too much of the kookaide. Musk is telling stories. Look at what he did to the ca bullet train. Don’t believe his “vision” Is for good.

naasking 4y ago
My claim was not that Musk was "good" in whatever way you conceptualize that. My claim was that Musk's main focuses are commercial ventures that are very targeted at combating the main existential risks facing humanity. This is exactly the kind of good that the OP was talking about.
- simiones 4y ago
  That's your claim, but it's simply and obviously false. SpaceX is not about "making humanity interplanetary", it is about selling cheap rockets for commercial exploitation of space (and/or it is a DoD weapons "defense" program). Tesla is a car company, aimed at making and selling cars. Stopping global warming requires more mass transit, and Musk is actively opposed to that. "Making humanity interplanetary" is simply impossible with current or forseeable technology, so there is no sense in attempting yet (especially since we can develop this technology on Earth, by creating self-sustaining habitats in the Arctic desert, if we really want to).
  - naasking 4y ago
    > SpaceX is not about "making humanity interplanetary", it is about selling cheap rockets for commercial exploitation of space (and/or it is a DoD weapons "defense" program). Sure, as an interim step to making humanity interplanetary. Are you suggesting that he could find commercial success without taking those intermediate steps? > Tesla is a car company, aimed at making and selling cars. Tesla make solar roofs and grid level energy storage. Like I said, it's portfolio is very clearly geared at climate change solutions. > Stopping global warming requires more mass transit, and Musk is actively opposed to that. Maybe he is (I've heard he's a bit of a germaphobe). I suspect he also recognizes that America is a car culture and that that won't change anytime soon.
    - simiones 4y ago
      > Sure, as an interim step to making humanity interplanetary. Are you suggesting that he could find commercial success without taking those intermediate steps? My point is that the rockets are the easiest part of settling Mars. We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. Until we have a 10000+ self-sustaining city underground in the Arctic, there is 0 reason to send more than a handful of people to Mars (like we did to the Moon). So, if you actually care about that, you should be investing in the Arctic city, not Mars. > I suspect he also recognizes that America is a car culture and that that won't change anytime soon. We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least).
      - naasking 4y ago
        > We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? > The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. > We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least). OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change.
        simiones 4y ago
        > Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? Because NASA was usually about pushing the limits of science and engineering, not making money on space launches. Also, it has often been severely mismanaged. > I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. You're the one claiming SpaceX was created to address an existential crisis. I'm telling you SpaceX is not bringing us any closer to being an interplanetary species, and if Musk cared about this goal, he wouldn't have invested in SpaceX to begin with. >OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change. No, they can't. Replacing all ICEs with EVs would basically require doubling the electricity grid in the USA for example, and that is simply not a realistic possibility - especially given that the grid is already far too dirty and we need to replace a huge amount of it with green tech to reach CO2 emissions goals even without the extra pressure from EVs. So, the realistic goal is to significantly expand the much much more efficient public transport (trains, buses, trams, metro) to significantly reduce the amount of cars (which will also do wonders for reducing congestion), and convert just the remaining cars to EVs, at a rate that can be supported by the grid while also shutting down existing coal, oil and gas power production.
roamerz 4y ago
If Musk did have anything to do with slowing or stopping that colossal waste of taxpayer funds I would say his “vision” is superior to any of the politicians who supported it.
- aunetx 4y ago
  Yeah, a what a "waste" to build high-speed trains... I don't even understand how such a gigantic country can even exist without a safe, quick and inexpensive way to transport its citizens (so not by plane or by car).
  - trothamel 4y ago
    How many citizens has the California High Speed Rail project transported?
  - roamerz 4y ago
    Safe? Shall we use BART as an existing example of that? Quick? No. Fast maybe. It’s hard to replicate the quickness of jumping into your car and hopping onto the freeway to get somewhere. Little or no planning required. Yeah the train if it is deployed as envisioned would be faster. Inexpensive? The latest estimate is 107 Billion. Hardly inexpensive.
- wittycardio 4y ago
  You are an active detriment to progress
  - roamerz 4y ago
    Progress is a very subjective term. It’s very okay that your view of progress is different than mine.
    - wittycardio 4y ago
      Some aspects of progress are subjective but mass transit isn't
themgt 4y ago
"Musk killed the California bullet train" is basically a pizzagate-level conspiracy theory. The NYT reporting among many others makes clear the tragicomic level of shambolic mismanagement from the CA gov't. The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system. The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF. The company pulled out in 2011. “There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.” Morocco’s bullet train started service in 2018. But sure, blame Elon for California setting tens of billions of dollars on fire with nothing to show for it. Also Florida just built a high speed rail in under a decade for about 1/30th the per-mile cost of the CA project and it'll be open early next year. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-...
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  This is what people are referring to w.r.t Musk and HSR, not that he caused the mismanagement: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 Separately the Florida "HSR" isn't all that comparable because it only goes 80mph with a planned max of 125mph for future routes, and afaict a lot of it was built on an existing corridor. Again, not to say California HSR has been well managed, but imo it's not a particularly useful datapoint to compare against.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    So Musk was one of the huge number of people who could see the California HSR was a disastrous project before it even started. Is that really the meat of this "allegation"?
    - 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
The HSR was boondoggle from the start. It's like designing a downtown to airport subway but then in the political process all political entities in between make it required it serve their community before approving the plan so you end us with a snaking line that takes 60 minutes to get to the airport instead of a straight line taking 15 minutes.

naasking 4y ago

My claim was not that Musk was "good" in whatever way you conceptualize that. My claim was that Musk's main focuses are commercial ventures that are very targeted at combating the main existential risks facing humanity. This is exactly the kind of good that the OP was talking about.

simiones 4y ago
That's your claim, but it's simply and obviously false. SpaceX is not about "making humanity interplanetary", it is about selling cheap rockets for commercial exploitation of space (and/or it is a DoD weapons "defense" program). Tesla is a car company, aimed at making and selling cars. Stopping global warming requires more mass transit, and Musk is actively opposed to that. "Making humanity interplanetary" is simply impossible with current or forseeable technology, so there is no sense in attempting yet (especially since we can develop this technology on Earth, by creating self-sustaining habitats in the Arctic desert, if we really want to).
- naasking 4y ago
  > SpaceX is not about "making humanity interplanetary", it is about selling cheap rockets for commercial exploitation of space (and/or it is a DoD weapons "defense" program). Sure, as an interim step to making humanity interplanetary. Are you suggesting that he could find commercial success without taking those intermediate steps? > Tesla is a car company, aimed at making and selling cars. Tesla make solar roofs and grid level energy storage. Like I said, it's portfolio is very clearly geared at climate change solutions. > Stopping global warming requires more mass transit, and Musk is actively opposed to that. Maybe he is (I've heard he's a bit of a germaphobe). I suspect he also recognizes that America is a car culture and that that won't change anytime soon.
  - simiones 4y ago
    > Sure, as an interim step to making humanity interplanetary. Are you suggesting that he could find commercial success without taking those intermediate steps? My point is that the rockets are the easiest part of settling Mars. We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. Until we have a 10000+ self-sustaining city underground in the Arctic, there is 0 reason to send more than a handful of people to Mars (like we did to the Moon). So, if you actually care about that, you should be investing in the Arctic city, not Mars. > I suspect he also recognizes that America is a car culture and that that won't change anytime soon. We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least).
    - naasking 4y ago
      > We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? > The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. > We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least). OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change.
      - simiones 4y ago
        > Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? Because NASA was usually about pushing the limits of science and engineering, not making money on space launches. Also, it has often been severely mismanaged. > I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. You're the one claiming SpaceX was created to address an existential crisis. I'm telling you SpaceX is not bringing us any closer to being an interplanetary species, and if Musk cared about this goal, he wouldn't have invested in SpaceX to begin with. >OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change. No, they can't. Replacing all ICEs with EVs would basically require doubling the electricity grid in the USA for example, and that is simply not a realistic possibility - especially given that the grid is already far too dirty and we need to replace a huge amount of it with green tech to reach CO2 emissions goals even without the extra pressure from EVs. So, the realistic goal is to significantly expand the much much more efficient public transport (trains, buses, trams, metro) to significantly reduce the amount of cars (which will also do wonders for reducing congestion), and convert just the remaining cars to EVs, at a rate that can be supported by the grid while also shutting down existing coal, oil and gas power production.

roamerz 4y ago

If Musk did have anything to do with slowing or stopping that colossal waste of taxpayer funds I would say his “vision” is superior to any of the politicians who supported it.

aunetx 4y ago
Yeah, a what a "waste" to build high-speed trains... I don't even understand how such a gigantic country can even exist without a safe, quick and inexpensive way to transport its citizens (so not by plane or by car).
- trothamel 4y ago
  How many citizens has the California High Speed Rail project transported?
- roamerz 4y ago
  Safe? Shall we use BART as an existing example of that? Quick? No. Fast maybe. It’s hard to replicate the quickness of jumping into your car and hopping onto the freeway to get somewhere. Little or no planning required. Yeah the train if it is deployed as envisioned would be faster. Inexpensive? The latest estimate is 107 Billion. Hardly inexpensive.
wittycardio 4y ago
You are an active detriment to progress
- roamerz 4y ago
  Progress is a very subjective term. It’s very okay that your view of progress is different than mine.
  - wittycardio 4y ago
    Some aspects of progress are subjective but mass transit isn't

themgt 4y ago

"Musk killed the California bullet train" is basically a pizzagate-level conspiracy theory. The NYT reporting among many others makes clear the tragicomic level of shambolic mismanagement from the CA gov't. The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system. The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF. The company pulled out in 2011. “There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.” Morocco’s bullet train started service in 2018. But sure, blame Elon for California setting tens of billions of dollars on fire with nothing to show for it. Also Florida just built a high speed rail in under a decade for about 1/30th the per-mile cost of the CA project and it'll be open early next year. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-...

enragedcacti 4y ago
This is what people are referring to w.r.t Musk and HSR, not that he caused the mismanagement: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 Separately the Florida "HSR" isn't all that comparable because it only goes 80mph with a planned max of 125mph for future routes, and afaict a lot of it was built on an existing corridor. Again, not to say California HSR has been well managed, but imo it's not a particularly useful datapoint to compare against.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  So Musk was one of the huge number of people who could see the California HSR was a disastrous project before it even started. Is that really the meat of this "allegation"?
  - 4y ago

mc32 4y ago

The HSR was boondoggle from the start. It's like designing a downtown to airport subway but then in the political process all political entities in between make it required it serve their community before approving the plan so you end us with a snaking line that takes 60 minutes to get to the airport instead of a straight line taking 15 minutes.