13 ms·

> They move fast and break things. You forgot the third: they (Silicon Valley) also change the world. For the better. Most of my (and my family’s) every day w

by nickpp 3y ago

> They move fast and break things. You forgot the third: they (Silicon Valley) also change the world. For the better. Most of my (and my family’s) every day work and fun are coming from SV. I would not give it up for anything else. If occasionally breaking things is the price - I am more than willing to pay it.

bayindirh 3y ago
> they change the world. For the better. That's up for a through debate, but not today. Let's leave it at I don't agree that part 100%.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > That's up for a through debate, but not today Were it not for Tesla, America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport. The tradeoffs are incredibly germane to the topic.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    I look SV's effect on global scale, because I neither live in the US, nor located on the continent itself. Also, the debate is about SV's global impact at full spectrum, not only about Tesla. So, yes, it's up for debate. Lastly this doesn't change the fact that Tesla fared the worst in the automaking competition this year w.r.t. everyone else, and they're faking till they're making it. More automakers are always good, but more pretending is always bad (cough VW, Cummins, cough).
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > So, yes, it's up for debate I never disagreed. I’m saying the case at hand, EVs, provide a potent balance of the tradeoffs Silicon Valley’s methods involve. On one hand, you get the capacity for transformational change. Change that can be for the general good. On the other hand, we have costs ranging from a culture of normalised lying to ideological nothingburgers gaining currency due to their proximity to, well, currency. Put another way, remove Silicon Valley from the equation and yes, we have safer cars. But we also have little reason to be optimistic about ever hitting carbon zero in this country. The latter is more globally relevant than the former.
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    Even if we take for granted that Tesla is a net positive, Tesla isn't SV. For every Tesla there is a Facebook that is a net negative. Just ask Myanmar.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Tesla isn't SV. For every Tesla there is a Facebook Totally agree. But looking at specifics, and dissecting why they work or do not, helps suss out patterns. For example, Tesla’s benefits are amplified—perhaps even characterised—by their ecosystem effect. That doesn’t happen when you have a quasi-monopoly like Facebook. On the other hand, their downsides are largely a function of lying. That’s common across Silicon Valley, and may similarly have a systematic treatment. (Or, at least, if you’re replicating the model, consider removing that in your iteration.)
    - nickpp 3y ago
      TV helped changing quite a few regimes throughout history, and not always for the better. However, I do not think anybody would dispute the fact that TV was, overall, a net positive for mankind. Same with Silicon Valley. There are certain negative aspects to it but overall we are discussing this on the amazing supercomputer it created, with software it wrote, on platforms it maintains [1]. I seriously doubt the majority of people would want to go back to a world without SV's innovations. [1] of course it wasn't SV alone, there were many contributions from all around the world, it's just that SV spearheaded the changes and lead us on this path.
      - _Algernon_ 3y ago
        I can't recall him ever writing black on white that TV was a net negative for humanity, but the thesis of Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves to Death seems to heavily imply it. It is - as far as I can tell - a pretty influencial thesis on these matters.
        3y ago
  - gizmo 3y ago
    I doubt that. The innovation in lithium ion batteries was fueled by the demand for consumer electronics, laptops in particular. It’s the batteries that made electric cars possible. Tesla’s did kick off the trend of big screens in cars. I prefer buttons to touch screen interactions while driving, but many people want an iPad and Tesla made that happen.
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      Giving where credit's due, some of the high-discharge long-endurance Li-Ion research is done by Tesla. Other electronic devices generally converge towards slow-discharge, semi-fast charge, low self-discharge batteries. EVs are unique in their battery requirements. They demand high-discharge, high-endurance, very fast charge batteries, and Tesla did some research on that front. What's important that they were not the sole researchers in that area. On the other hand, they lack the know-how required to make cars efficiently and assemble them with state of the art methods (minimal/standardized fasteners, fatigue management, fast manufacturing with consistent quality and finishing, etc.).
      - gizmo 3y ago
        The Roadster used completely standard 18650 cells that were already in mass production.
      - DennisP 3y ago
        Tesla's manufacturing has come a long way in the past few years. In 2018, Sandy Munro famously tore down the new Model 3 with a lot of criticism for things like their excess of parts, fasteners, and welds. They made a lot of changes, including some he suggested, and now Munro tends to rave about how well they're engineered for ease of manufacture. This is a guy who gets paid by Big 3 auto companies to help improve their manufacturing. A great visual is this video of someone snapping together much of a Model Y like legos, in ten minutes by himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawGMl8sHzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawGMl8sHzc Another fun one is Munro's comparison of the thermal management systems for a Model Y and Ford Mach-E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc
  - Someone 3y ago
    > Were it not for Tesla, America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport That, too, is up for discussion, but not for now. I’ll leave it by saying that, without Tesla willing to sell cars at a loss for a long time, it might be a bit less further on that path, but I think California and/or the EU would have forced it by now to get on that path, by setting goals for cars sold within their jurisdictions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect) There also can be discussion about whether Tesla’s path is the right pat, but that definitely is for another time.
    - fsloth 3y ago
      Without Tesla German incumbents would have lobbied EU just to mandate biofuels and there would be fever EV:s. Tesla did drag an industry kicking and screaming to EVs.
      - mensetmanusman 3y ago
        They would have made new ICE vehicles that have zero emissions! (during testing only)
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > California and/or the EU would have forced it by now to get on that path For hybrids, maybe. California is a major oil producer [1]. That lobby counterbalanced the environmental wing for decades. If there wasn’t a mass-market EV, Sacramento wouldn’t have had many options. > that definitely is for another time Lol, is this a thing now? We’re obviously discussing it at this time. [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_m.htm
    - richardw 3y ago
      You think the GM and Ford gigafactories would have taken up the slack, ignoring the chance to milk existing ICE investments for another decade? The charging network would have spontaneously emerged and somehow been as good as what Tesla delivers?
  - lucideer 3y ago
    > on a path towards electrified transport If not for Tesla, America (& the Western world in general) might not be on a path towards private inefficient electrified road transport, leaving much more room for investment in & upselling of vastly more sustainable non-road transport, as has been done in China. Musk in particular has form here - consistently blocking & derailing all potential high-speed rail projects for the west coast in favour of white elephants (the material result being a maintained reliance on roads, and - by extension - his big cobalt-mine-dependent business).
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > derailing all potential high-speed rail projects for the west coast Musk ran California’s high-speed rail through the Central Valley? I like public transport. But America isn’t built for it. Switching to trains would mean upending and dissolving tens of millions’ communities. There was no other path without EVs and trains galore; it was—and is—between EVs and ICE cars.
      - lucideer 3y ago
        > Musk ran Seems a very honest interpretation of events to purport that Musk has had no influence over transport in California. > America isn’t built for it. That rhetoric is used the world over as an excuse to bolster against progressive innovation of all kinds. It's been debunked countless times. "Dissolving" communities to make way for rail is of course also nonsense.
      - beedeebeedee 3y ago
        > I like public transport. But America isn’t built for it. You mean, America was un-built from it. We had it, but the car and oil industry lobbied it away. We can rebuild it. Don't believe the hype.
      - badpun 3y ago
        Weren't communities dissolved to build the massive highway network US has?
  - JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
    > > America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport And that is good news because? So that 100 year from now the avg temperature would be 0.005C less because we'd have substitued the black pollutant produced by Arabs with Star and Stipes Lithium (or lithium which comes from countries that are in the sphere of influence of the US) This effort is a spit in the face of people who are alive and have big problems right now, that's the reason why they are engaging in rolling coal as a form of protest against this nonsense.
- hmottestad 3y ago
  In Norway they revolutionised the car market. They were the very first electric car that people actually wanted to buy. If it hadn’t been for Tesla proving the market for electric cars, I don’t think any other brands would have bothered. So far in 2023 83% of all new cars are electric. In 2022 every fourth car sold (including petrol/diesel) was a Tesla. https://elbil.no/om-elbil/elbilstatistikk/ https://elbil.no/om-elbil/elbilstatistikk/ https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/hver-fjerde-nybil-var-en-tesla/77336639 https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/hver-fjerde-nybil-var-en-tesl...
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    Norway has been has been massively subsidising EVs for a decade. While Tesla probably played a role in EV adoption, I think you are overstating it by a lot. If the main factor wasn't economic we would see these same stats in every other country where a Tesla can be bought.
    - dataking 3y ago
      Norway is one of the countries with the highest GDP per capita. I think this puts the norwegian consumer in a better position to by an EV even if it costs more than a comparable ICE vehicle. Not sure that is true all over the world.
      - greenyoda 3y ago
        Ironically, a big chunk of Norway's wealth has come from being one of the world's largest oil producers (currently about 1.7M barrels per day).[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...
    - xoa 3y ago
      >Norway has been has been massively subsidising EVs for a decade. And every country has been massively subsidizing ICEs since their creation, both explicitly and implicitly (by failing to price in the enormous externalities, engaging in nasty geopolitics up to and including war for oil, tolerance for enormous human atrocities and authoritarian regimes, etc). Economics certainly matters, but there still have to be vehicles people want to actually buy and can perform as they wish. For me BEVs haven't hit that yet even though I could afford one. Like, there's been a surprisingly slow rollout when it comes to trucks, I think the Cybertruck is the first one I'd consider a real useful (in theory) truck with a minimum of a 6.5' bed. Except build quality is apparently pants, there is all the Tesla spying, and they downgraded the max range option from 500 (paper, which they also apparently lied about) miles (which even on paper would be like 300-350 miles in winter which would be a good useful range), and other problems. Even if the US Government offered me 50% subsidies or something ludicrous for a BEV truck it wouldn't matter if there's literally nothing I want to buy. I think building cars that were actively good vs what came before mattered, as does the charging network. Even if Tesla has run into awful scaling problems and founder-syndrome as happens so often that doesn't IMO negate that.
oblio 3y ago
There is this paradox of technology where despite a ton of technology it seems that productivity is not shooting up for society as a whole. I'll try to find the article. It looks more like technology is <<redistributing>> wealth, which is SUPER scary since technology inherently allows concentration. Facebook killed 1 million newspapers, yay, now 1 American corporation can siphon all those profits to... no one even knows where, since it's probably parked in some tax haven. It created 10k jobs paid 500k each by killing 10 million jobs each paid 60k. I'm not super convinced the end result is better. Edit: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/productivity-paradox/background.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/produ... > The productivity paradox (also the Solow computer paradox) is the peculiar observation made in business process analysis that, as more investment is made in information technology, worker productivity may go down instead of up. This observation has been firmly supported with empirical evidence from the 1970s to the early 1990s.
- nickpp 3y ago
  > I'm not super convinced the end result is better. He said from the warm comfort of his home, with a full belly, writing on a supercomputer created in SV, with software written in SV, on a platform build by SV on a global network created, of course, by the SV. Would you give up technology then? Nobody stops you but I seriously doubt the productivity of hand-plowing fields is in any way higher than that of modern farm equipment.
  - fireflash38 3y ago
    Ah, the old "you can't criticize anything unless you're a luddite". Inevitably, you'd excuse them too cause they don't have experience. Make an actual argument.
    - nickpp 3y ago
      Have you read the post I was replying to? It was a classic anti-tech Luddite statement.
- mlrtime 3y ago

by nickpp 3y ago

bayindirh 3y ago

> they change the world. For the better. That's up for a through debate, but not today. Let's leave it at I don't agree that part 100%.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> That's up for a through debate, but not today Were it not for Tesla, America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport. The tradeoffs are incredibly germane to the topic.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  I look SV's effect on global scale, because I neither live in the US, nor located on the continent itself. Also, the debate is about SV's global impact at full spectrum, not only about Tesla. So, yes, it's up for debate. Lastly this doesn't change the fact that Tesla fared the worst in the automaking competition this year w.r.t. everyone else, and they're faking till they're making it. More automakers are always good, but more pretending is always bad (cough VW, Cummins, cough).
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > So, yes, it's up for debate I never disagreed. I’m saying the case at hand, EVs, provide a potent balance of the tradeoffs Silicon Valley’s methods involve. On one hand, you get the capacity for transformational change. Change that can be for the general good. On the other hand, we have costs ranging from a culture of normalised lying to ideological nothingburgers gaining currency due to their proximity to, well, currency. Put another way, remove Silicon Valley from the equation and yes, we have safer cars. But we also have little reason to be optimistic about ever hitting carbon zero in this country. The latter is more globally relevant than the former.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  Even if we take for granted that Tesla is a net positive, Tesla isn't SV. For every Tesla there is a Facebook that is a net negative. Just ask Myanmar.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Tesla isn't SV. For every Tesla there is a Facebook Totally agree. But looking at specifics, and dissecting why they work or do not, helps suss out patterns. For example, Tesla’s benefits are amplified—perhaps even characterised—by their ecosystem effect. That doesn’t happen when you have a quasi-monopoly like Facebook. On the other hand, their downsides are largely a function of lying. That’s common across Silicon Valley, and may similarly have a systematic treatment. (Or, at least, if you’re replicating the model, consider removing that in your iteration.)
  - nickpp 3y ago
    TV helped changing quite a few regimes throughout history, and not always for the better. However, I do not think anybody would dispute the fact that TV was, overall, a net positive for mankind. Same with Silicon Valley. There are certain negative aspects to it but overall we are discussing this on the amazing supercomputer it created, with software it wrote, on platforms it maintains [1]. I seriously doubt the majority of people would want to go back to a world without SV's innovations. [1] of course it wasn't SV alone, there were many contributions from all around the world, it's just that SV spearheaded the changes and lead us on this path.
    - _Algernon_ 3y ago
      I can't recall him ever writing black on white that TV was a net negative for humanity, but the thesis of Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves to Death seems to heavily imply it. It is - as far as I can tell - a pretty influencial thesis on these matters.
      - 3y ago
- gizmo 3y ago
  I doubt that. The innovation in lithium ion batteries was fueled by the demand for consumer electronics, laptops in particular. It’s the batteries that made electric cars possible. Tesla’s did kick off the trend of big screens in cars. I prefer buttons to touch screen interactions while driving, but many people want an iPad and Tesla made that happen.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Giving where credit's due, some of the high-discharge long-endurance Li-Ion research is done by Tesla. Other electronic devices generally converge towards slow-discharge, semi-fast charge, low self-discharge batteries. EVs are unique in their battery requirements. They demand high-discharge, high-endurance, very fast charge batteries, and Tesla did some research on that front. What's important that they were not the sole researchers in that area. On the other hand, they lack the know-how required to make cars efficiently and assemble them with state of the art methods (minimal/standardized fasteners, fatigue management, fast manufacturing with consistent quality and finishing, etc.).
    - gizmo 3y ago
      The Roadster used completely standard 18650 cells that were already in mass production.
    - DennisP 3y ago
      Tesla's manufacturing has come a long way in the past few years. In 2018, Sandy Munro famously tore down the new Model 3 with a lot of criticism for things like their excess of parts, fasteners, and welds. They made a lot of changes, including some he suggested, and now Munro tends to rave about how well they're engineered for ease of manufacture. This is a guy who gets paid by Big 3 auto companies to help improve their manufacturing. A great visual is this video of someone snapping together much of a Model Y like legos, in ten minutes by himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawGMl8sHzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawGMl8sHzc Another fun one is Munro's comparison of the thermal management systems for a Model Y and Ford Mach-E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc
- Someone 3y ago
  > Were it not for Tesla, America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport That, too, is up for discussion, but not for now. I’ll leave it by saying that, without Tesla willing to sell cars at a loss for a long time, it might be a bit less further on that path, but I think California and/or the EU would have forced it by now to get on that path, by setting goals for cars sold within their jurisdictions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect) There also can be discussion about whether Tesla’s path is the right pat, but that definitely is for another time.
  - fsloth 3y ago
    Without Tesla German incumbents would have lobbied EU just to mandate biofuels and there would be fever EV:s. Tesla did drag an industry kicking and screaming to EVs.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      They would have made new ICE vehicles that have zero emissions! (during testing only)
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > California and/or the EU would have forced it by now to get on that path For hybrids, maybe. California is a major oil producer [1]. That lobby counterbalanced the environmental wing for decades. If there wasn’t a mass-market EV, Sacramento wouldn’t have had many options. > that definitely is for another time Lol, is this a thing now? We’re obviously discussing it at this time. [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_m.htm
  - richardw 3y ago
    You think the GM and Ford gigafactories would have taken up the slack, ignoring the chance to milk existing ICE investments for another decade? The charging network would have spontaneously emerged and somehow been as good as what Tesla delivers?
- lucideer 3y ago
  > on a path towards electrified transport If not for Tesla, America (& the Western world in general) might not be on a path towards private inefficient electrified road transport, leaving much more room for investment in & upselling of vastly more sustainable non-road transport, as has been done in China. Musk in particular has form here - consistently blocking & derailing all potential high-speed rail projects for the west coast in favour of white elephants (the material result being a maintained reliance on roads, and - by extension - his big cobalt-mine-dependent business).
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > derailing all potential high-speed rail projects for the west coast Musk ran California’s high-speed rail through the Central Valley? I like public transport. But America isn’t built for it. Switching to trains would mean upending and dissolving tens of millions’ communities. There was no other path without EVs and trains galore; it was—and is—between EVs and ICE cars.
    - lucideer 3y ago
      > Musk ran Seems a very honest interpretation of events to purport that Musk has had no influence over transport in California. > America isn’t built for it. That rhetoric is used the world over as an excuse to bolster against progressive innovation of all kinds. It's been debunked countless times. "Dissolving" communities to make way for rail is of course also nonsense.
    - beedeebeedee 3y ago
      > I like public transport. But America isn’t built for it. You mean, America was un-built from it. We had it, but the car and oil industry lobbied it away. We can rebuild it. Don't believe the hype.
    - badpun 3y ago
      Weren't communities dissolved to build the massive highway network US has?
- JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
  > > America wouldn’t be on a path towards electrified transport And that is good news because? So that 100 year from now the avg temperature would be 0.005C less because we'd have substitued the black pollutant produced by Arabs with Star and Stipes Lithium (or lithium which comes from countries that are in the sphere of influence of the US) This effort is a spit in the face of people who are alive and have big problems right now, that's the reason why they are engaging in rolling coal as a form of protest against this nonsense.
hmottestad 3y ago
In Norway they revolutionised the car market. They were the very first electric car that people actually wanted to buy. If it hadn’t been for Tesla proving the market for electric cars, I don’t think any other brands would have bothered. So far in 2023 83% of all new cars are electric. In 2022 every fourth car sold (including petrol/diesel) was a Tesla. https://elbil.no/om-elbil/elbilstatistikk/ https://elbil.no/om-elbil/elbilstatistikk/ https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/hver-fjerde-nybil-var-en-tesla/77336639 https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/hver-fjerde-nybil-var-en-tesl...
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  Norway has been has been massively subsidising EVs for a decade. While Tesla probably played a role in EV adoption, I think you are overstating it by a lot. If the main factor wasn't economic we would see these same stats in every other country where a Tesla can be bought.
  - dataking 3y ago
    Norway is one of the countries with the highest GDP per capita. I think this puts the norwegian consumer in a better position to by an EV even if it costs more than a comparable ICE vehicle. Not sure that is true all over the world.
    - greenyoda 3y ago
      Ironically, a big chunk of Norway's wealth has come from being one of the world's largest oil producers (currently about 1.7M barrels per day).[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...
  - xoa 3y ago
    >Norway has been has been massively subsidising EVs for a decade. And every country has been massively subsidizing ICEs since their creation, both explicitly and implicitly (by failing to price in the enormous externalities, engaging in nasty geopolitics up to and including war for oil, tolerance for enormous human atrocities and authoritarian regimes, etc). Economics certainly matters, but there still have to be vehicles people want to actually buy and can perform as they wish. For me BEVs haven't hit that yet even though I could afford one. Like, there's been a surprisingly slow rollout when it comes to trucks, I think the Cybertruck is the first one I'd consider a real useful (in theory) truck with a minimum of a 6.5' bed. Except build quality is apparently pants, there is all the Tesla spying, and they downgraded the max range option from 500 (paper, which they also apparently lied about) miles (which even on paper would be like 300-350 miles in winter which would be a good useful range), and other problems. Even if the US Government offered me 50% subsidies or something ludicrous for a BEV truck it wouldn't matter if there's literally nothing I want to buy. I think building cars that were actively good vs what came before mattered, as does the charging network. Even if Tesla has run into awful scaling problems and founder-syndrome as happens so often that doesn't IMO negate that.

oblio 3y ago

There is this paradox of technology where despite a ton of technology it seems that productivity is not shooting up for society as a whole. I'll try to find the article. It looks more like technology is <<redistributing>> wealth, which is SUPER scary since technology inherently allows concentration. Facebook killed 1 million newspapers, yay, now 1 American corporation can siphon all those profits to... no one even knows where, since it's probably parked in some tax haven. It created 10k jobs paid 500k each by killing 10 million jobs each paid 60k. I'm not super convinced the end result is better. Edit: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/productivity-paradox/background.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/produ... > The productivity paradox (also the Solow computer paradox) is the peculiar observation made in business process analysis that, as more investment is made in information technology, worker productivity may go down instead of up. This observation has been firmly supported with empirical evidence from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

nickpp 3y ago
> I'm not super convinced the end result is better. He said from the warm comfort of his home, with a full belly, writing on a supercomputer created in SV, with software written in SV, on a platform build by SV on a global network created, of course, by the SV. Would you give up technology then? Nobody stops you but I seriously doubt the productivity of hand-plowing fields is in any way higher than that of modern farm equipment.
- fireflash38 3y ago
  Ah, the old "you can't criticize anything unless you're a luddite". Inevitably, you'd excuse them too cause they don't have experience. Make an actual argument.
  - nickpp 3y ago
    Have you read the post I was replying to? It was a classic anti-tech Luddite statement.
mlrtime 3y ago