6 ms·

Incredible to think that some people seriously want to get a brain implant created by this guy’s other company.

by pavlov 3y ago

tombert 3y ago
Or want to trust him to run a self-driving car. Or save the world from climate change or something. I think Elon has kind of demonstrated that if you just keep stating that you did something with confidence long enough, some people will actually believe it.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  Some stuff he does works (SpaceX), but lots doesn't...
- pavlov 3y ago
  Five years ago he scammed me out of 7500 euros with the self-driving feature that remains dangerously dysfunctional. (It's sort of the computer vision equivalent of this Twitter regex.) So I'm not falling for his bullshit again. But I suppose that's why he wants to own the world's biggest megaphone — to ensure he doesn't run out of us suckers.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I don't think I've directly given Elon any money [1], but there was a time that I really wanted a Tesla car, and if I didn't live in NYC I probably would have bought one. I'm very glad I didn't now, because I'm pretty convinced I would have done this half-baked quasi-self-driving feature and probably be dead, or worse killed someone else. [1] I own a few ETFs that probably buys Tesla stock, so indirectly sure.
  - misiti3780 3y ago
    I would not v12.3.3 describe dangerously dysfunctional, but you dont have access in Europe yet.
  - drcongo 3y ago
    Hats off for admitting it though, it's worse than owning up to being romance scammed.
- CityOfThrowaway 3y ago
  His companies did literally re-boot the electric car industry, American rockets industry, American battery production, satellite internet business. These aren't the confident boasts of a charlatan, we have very concrete proof this happened.
  - tombert 3y ago
    You might be able to argue the point for SpaceX and Starlink, but honestly I'm not sold on the rest. He bought his way into Tesla, for example. Moreover, I don't even know that I buy the idea that the CEO is really the reason for any company's success; are we going to claim that Bill Gates is responsible for the success of desktop computing? I mean, you can if you want but I would not personally say that. I think it's a combination of good marketing, right-place-right-time, and happening to hire the right people for the job. Even before SpaceX got off the ground, since I was a kid, people have been complaining at how little NASA was accomplishing, so I think someone breaking into the commercial space flight was inevitable. Elon probably does deserve a bit of credit for funding it when he did but I'm not convinced that he was uniquely qualified to to it, and I absolutely reject the notion that "because he was successful with some businesses, he's going to save the world". He also lies. A lot. Like, more often than he tells the truth. He just makes shit up. He has claimed we will have self-driving cars "next year" for the last 6 years. He has repeatedly claimed that it's something we can do "today". He claimed that the Boring Company can "pay for itself with brick production". All of this to me kind of implies his success is more stochastic than any kind of eccentric genius.
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      Or it's a different kind of genius. A lot of these claims helped juice the stock value at critical times. The "battery swap" demo happened to get a specific tax incentive from Uncle Sam[1]. These are specific actions meant to get other people's money - follow-through be damned. [1] https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-battery-swapping-useful-service-or-tax-credit-ploy https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-b...
      - 3y ago
- psunavy03 3y ago
  He has done stuff that actually worked in the past. Yes he's an asshole, and yes, Twitter faceplanted. I'm not sure why these two things require the entire internet to vehemently deny that he can ever succeed at anything and invent increasingly convoluted reasons why Tesla and SpaceX aren't going concerns.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I think what most of the internet gets frustrated at the fact that people take the implication to a logical extreme: he succeeded at SpaceX, therefore he's the savior for humanity and he's infallible and actually a fucking genius and OMG HE'S GOING TO SAVE US FROM THE WOKES. How much of Teslas and SpaceX's success can actually be attributed to him? It's impossible to know, probably more than "0%", but also probably a good chunk less than the "100%" people act like it is. And, as I stated in a sibling thread, he lies all the time. He just makes a lot of shit up. He acts like self driving cars are just around the corner, he pretends that the hyperloop is basically done, he says there's so much shit "we can do today". He calls people pedophiles if they don't want to use his stupid little submarine. There's overconfidence, and then there's grifting investors, and I think at this point it's thoroughly moved to the latter.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
Dude shit on all sorts of stuff but Noland Arbaugh's life is objectively better now and he himself certainly thinks so.
dang 3y ago
Please let's avoid repeating the most obvious flamewar for the thousandth time (if not the 10,000th by now). We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39991316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39991316. Edit: I suppose I need to add that this is not a muskpoint, it's just the principle of HN to try not to repeat things this much. Especially when the repetition is indignation-fueled. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=curiosity%20repetition%20indignation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Incredible to think that some people seriously want to get a brain implant created by this guy’s other company.

by pavlov 3y ago

Incredible to think that some people seriously want to get a brain implant created by this guy’s other company.

Or want to trust him to run a self-driving car. Or save the world from climate change or something. I think Elon has kind of demonstrated that if you just keep stating that you did something with confidence long enough, some people will actually believe it.

throwaway290 3y ago
Some stuff he does works (SpaceX), but lots doesn't...
pavlov 3y ago
Five years ago he scammed me out of 7500 euros with the self-driving feature that remains dangerously dysfunctional. (It's sort of the computer vision equivalent of this Twitter regex.) So I'm not falling for his bullshit again. But I suppose that's why he wants to own the world's biggest megaphone — to ensure he doesn't run out of us suckers.
- tombert 3y ago
  I don't think I've directly given Elon any money [1], but there was a time that I really wanted a Tesla car, and if I didn't live in NYC I probably would have bought one. I'm very glad I didn't now, because I'm pretty convinced I would have done this half-baked quasi-self-driving feature and probably be dead, or worse killed someone else. [1] I own a few ETFs that probably buys Tesla stock, so indirectly sure.
- misiti3780 3y ago
  I would not v12.3.3 describe dangerously dysfunctional, but you dont have access in Europe yet.
- drcongo 3y ago
  Hats off for admitting it though, it's worse than owning up to being romance scammed.
CityOfThrowaway 3y ago
His companies did literally re-boot the electric car industry, American rockets industry, American battery production, satellite internet business. These aren't the confident boasts of a charlatan, we have very concrete proof this happened.
- tombert 3y ago
  You might be able to argue the point for SpaceX and Starlink, but honestly I'm not sold on the rest. He bought his way into Tesla, for example. Moreover, I don't even know that I buy the idea that the CEO is really the reason for any company's success; are we going to claim that Bill Gates is responsible for the success of desktop computing? I mean, you can if you want but I would not personally say that. I think it's a combination of good marketing, right-place-right-time, and happening to hire the right people for the job. Even before SpaceX got off the ground, since I was a kid, people have been complaining at how little NASA was accomplishing, so I think someone breaking into the commercial space flight was inevitable. Elon probably does deserve a bit of credit for funding it when he did but I'm not convinced that he was uniquely qualified to to it, and I absolutely reject the notion that "because he was successful with some businesses, he's going to save the world". He also lies. A lot. Like, more often than he tells the truth. He just makes shit up. He has claimed we will have self-driving cars "next year" for the last 6 years. He has repeatedly claimed that it's something we can do "today". He claimed that the Boring Company can "pay for itself with brick production". All of this to me kind of implies his success is more stochastic than any kind of eccentric genius.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    Or it's a different kind of genius. A lot of these claims helped juice the stock value at critical times. The "battery swap" demo happened to get a specific tax incentive from Uncle Sam[1]. These are specific actions meant to get other people's money - follow-through be damned. [1] https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-battery-swapping-useful-service-or-tax-credit-ploy https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-b...
    - 3y ago
psunavy03 3y ago
He has done stuff that actually worked in the past. Yes he's an asshole, and yes, Twitter faceplanted. I'm not sure why these two things require the entire internet to vehemently deny that he can ever succeed at anything and invent increasingly convoluted reasons why Tesla and SpaceX aren't going concerns.
- tombert 3y ago
  I think what most of the internet gets frustrated at the fact that people take the implication to a logical extreme: he succeeded at SpaceX, therefore he's the savior for humanity and he's infallible and actually a fucking genius and OMG HE'S GOING TO SAVE US FROM THE WOKES. How much of Teslas and SpaceX's success can actually be attributed to him? It's impossible to know, probably more than "0%", but also probably a good chunk less than the "100%" people act like it is. And, as I stated in a sibling thread, he lies all the time. He just makes a lot of shit up. He acts like self driving cars are just around the corner, he pretends that the hyperloop is basically done, he says there's so much shit "we can do today". He calls people pedophiles if they don't want to use his stupid little submarine. There's overconfidence, and then there's grifting investors, and I think at this point it's thoroughly moved to the latter.

tick_tock_tick 3y ago

Dude shit on all sorts of stuff but Noland Arbaugh's life is objectively better now and he himself certainly thinks so.

dang 3y ago

Please let's avoid repeating the most obvious flamewar for the thousandth time (if not the 10,000th by now). We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39991316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39991316. Edit: I suppose I need to add that this is not a muskpoint, it's just the principle of HN to try not to repeat things this much. Especially when the repetition is indignation-fueled. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=curiosity%20repetition%20indignation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...