3 ms·

I don't think Elon is either the devil or a saint. He just happens to be over of the few people at his level without a filter. Everyone has weird and extreme v

I don't think Elon is either the devil or a saint. He just happens to be over of the few people at his level without a filter. Everyone has weird and extreme views somewhere on some topic. Most just won't express them.

idopmstuff 3y ago
People see him as a caricature - either Lex Luthor or Tony Stark - but it seems pretty apparent that he's a pretty complicated human being who is very smart, has a weird kind of charisma when speaking on topics he's passionate about and had a pretty terrible childhood. He's a dumbass Twitter troll, but also he has done maybe more than any other human being for climate change by using Tesla to pull the entire automobile industry forwards at least a few years on the EV transition. He's also the reason that the US is far and away the dominant power when it comes to space, and he got us there by spending basically all of his personal fortune (where a lot of other people would've bought yachts or sports teams or whatever with it). I wish he didn't have some of his more insane views, and I wish he wouldn't be a dickhead on the internet. Grand scheme, though, it does feel like we're better off with him than without.
- bloppe 3y ago
  Elon is not that smart. He's an anomalously hard worker. He can focus on one thing for 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for years. That's his super power. I think he's made a lot of impressive accomplishments, and he certainly keeps a lot of smart people on his teams, but his intelligence never played an outsize role in his success
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    I'm just perplexed by people who make this claim. How could you possibly be in a position to judge his intelligence?
    - drcongo 3y ago
      I'm perplexed by you claiming that he's very smart, so same question to you. Personally, based on all available evidence, I don't think he's smart at all. At a guess I reckon a good 75% of HN users are smarter than him or me.
      - idopmstuff 3y ago
        He is one of the most successful people to have ever lived. We regularly have rockets that launch into the air and then land (200+ of these successfully in a row) because of a company he started. I know the counterargument is that he's not smart, he just hires smart people, but if you know smart people, they generally don't get recruited by idiots (even rich ones). He managed to surround himself with rocket scientists and engineers who revolutionized space travel. His company successfully navigated not only the engineering side but also the part that involves dealing with the bureaucracy of the US government. He came up with the idea to launch Starlink (and idea that others failed at before him) in order to create revenue to support rocket launches. I just apply Occam's razor here - given all of these things that he and his companies have accomplished, is it likelier that he's smart or stupid? And if he's stupid but still managed to accomplish these things, why didn't other rich people who are smarter than him accomplish them? How come Bezos is so much worse at creating a space company than Musk? We live in a capitalist society, so if all it takes is a few hundred million dollars and no brains to start SpaceX, which is worth many, many multiples of that, why has no one else done it?
        drcongo 3y ago
        I mean, you're just applying some loose heuristics for what you think defines a smart person, and so am I. If you know smart people, they generally don't spend their days amplifying nazis on Twitter and replying to everything they say with a "rolls on floor laughing" emoji. I think I'd lean towards @bloppe's hunch long before yours, but yours is just as valid.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]

idopmstuff 3y ago

People see him as a caricature - either Lex Luthor or Tony Stark - but it seems pretty apparent that he's a pretty complicated human being who is very smart, has a weird kind of charisma when speaking on topics he's passionate about and had a pretty terrible childhood. He's a dumbass Twitter troll, but also he has done maybe more than any other human being for climate change by using Tesla to pull the entire automobile industry forwards at least a few years on the EV transition. He's also the reason that the US is far and away the dominant power when it comes to space, and he got us there by spending basically all of his personal fortune (where a lot of other people would've bought yachts or sports teams or whatever with it). I wish he didn't have some of his more insane views, and I wish he wouldn't be a dickhead on the internet. Grand scheme, though, it does feel like we're better off with him than without.

bloppe 3y ago
Elon is not that smart. He's an anomalously hard worker. He can focus on one thing for 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for years. That's his super power. I think he's made a lot of impressive accomplishments, and he certainly keeps a lot of smart people on his teams, but his intelligence never played an outsize role in his success
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  I'm just perplexed by people who make this claim. How could you possibly be in a position to judge his intelligence?
  - drcongo 3y ago
    I'm perplexed by you claiming that he's very smart, so same question to you. Personally, based on all available evidence, I don't think he's smart at all. At a guess I reckon a good 75% of HN users are smarter than him or me.
    - idopmstuff 3y ago
      He is one of the most successful people to have ever lived. We regularly have rockets that launch into the air and then land (200+ of these successfully in a row) because of a company he started. I know the counterargument is that he's not smart, he just hires smart people, but if you know smart people, they generally don't get recruited by idiots (even rich ones). He managed to surround himself with rocket scientists and engineers who revolutionized space travel. His company successfully navigated not only the engineering side but also the part that involves dealing with the bureaucracy of the US government. He came up with the idea to launch Starlink (and idea that others failed at before him) in order to create revenue to support rocket launches. I just apply Occam's razor here - given all of these things that he and his companies have accomplished, is it likelier that he's smart or stupid? And if he's stupid but still managed to accomplish these things, why didn't other rich people who are smarter than him accomplish them? How come Bezos is so much worse at creating a space company than Musk? We live in a capitalist society, so if all it takes is a few hundred million dollars and no brains to start SpaceX, which is worth many, many multiples of that, why has no one else done it?
      - drcongo 3y ago
        I mean, you're just applying some loose heuristics for what you think defines a smart person, and so am I. If you know smart people, they generally don't spend their days amplifying nazis on Twitter and replying to everything they say with a "rolls on floor laughing" emoji. I think I'd lean towards @bloppe's hunch long before yours, but yours is just as valid.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]