> I think it's a sad state of affairs when someone simply puts an idea out into the world and says "We think it will work, but needs more input" and people get

> I think it's a sad state of affairs when someone simply puts an idea out into the world and says "We think it will work, but needs more input" and people get extremely angry and spew vitriol and hatred towards them simply for sharing an idea. The way you characterize it, Musk came out with an itty bitty idea, said “hey I think this might work but I need some help figuring things out” and the whole world hated him for it. This is a very generous characterization of Musk, but it has little to do with reality. What actually happened was that Musk has a history of floating ideas around by presenting them as the best thing since sliced bread. Shitting all over conventional wisdom, going as far as to say that it’s all BS in an effort to add credence to his own snake oil because conventional wisdom happens to debunk his claims. All while promising the moon on timelines that would put the Lord Almighty to shame with his 7 days and then, when there’s a big enough wake of unfulfilled promises and exposed BS that could sink an entire continent, that’s when people started to get suspicious en masse. Maybe if he was more focused on improving his plan instead of “faking it till he made it” by claiming he had approval to start building[0], people would take him more seriously. And that’s not even touching on the question of if we actually should entertain every random piece of science fiction, which you seem to imply. Because I don’t know if you’ve read the alpha paper, but we’re dealing with “the laws of physics don’t exist” levels of fiction here. 0: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/20/elon-musk-hyperloop-verbal-government-approval https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/20/elon-musk...