5 ms·

True, but you'd think that Musk, given his background and aspirations, would have greater appreciation for the JWST.

georgemcbay 2y ago
According to Sam Altman "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it", this (and a lot of Elon's actions, see for example the Thailand cave incident) seems to perfectly fit that assessment. [and to be clear, my quoting of Sam Altman is not meant to be taken as an endorsement of Sam Altman, but I suspect he has decent insight into Elon]
- munchler 2y ago
  That is interesting, and pathological if true. Thank you for the insight.
verytrivial 2y ago
That Musk is dead.
- lamontcg 2y ago
  Doubt he ever really existed, he was just better at keeping his psychopathy under wraps.
doctorwho42 2y ago
What background? Buying other people's dreams and aspirations (aka their companies, their ideas, and their motivation)? This isn't shocking but rage inducing.... We spent forever building this thing and successfully getting it up and operational... I know people who have worked on this... Elon musk isn't even a real physicist, he is a business and hype man that is able to get young engineers with dreams of contributing to a great dream to work for him with a terrible work-life balance.
dr_dshiv 2y ago
The assumption is that there is a way to do JWST at far less money at far greater scale. Apply same logic to everything. It won’t always hold. Those places become mistakes to be fixed. Elon and Trump might be evil. But I don’t really believe in evil. And I keep underestimating both of them. It’s no longer a matter of choice; but if there is a positive possibility, I like to imagine it and make it a plausible pathway. Tons of bad things can happen; is there a path where the current direction could be very very good?
- peterlada 2y ago
  No.
  - dr_dshiv 2y ago
    Just with regards to space-tech: clearly there will be huge advances in the next few years. Government will become vastly more efficient. And for a left field example: I suspect that the next few years will see a rapid advancement in the science of solar radiation management, aka geoengineering. This was never going to happen with status quo leadership. But the fact is that we will not stop using fossil fuels in the next couple decades. So we clearly need to minimize the known risk of climate change, (even for the unknown risks of geoengineering). It costs about $10b to put enough calcium carbonate or sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to achieve heat balance and stop runaway climate change effects. Can’t have Florida flood, right? Beyond that, there is a genuine likelihood that there will be a better economy and less war. I’m not claiming this is the most likely outcome. But there is a reasonable chance that the next few years will work out really, really well.
    - andyjsong 2y ago
      If you think there is a chance we're going to start deploying stratospheric aerosol injection, might as well get good at it, if you want to help scale up deployments: https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launch-and-cool-the-planet https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launc...
    - 2y ago
bdangubic 2y ago
he is not profiting from it so…
Rebelgecko 2y ago
JWST launched on an Ariane

According to Sam Altman "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it", this (and a lot of Elon's actions, see for example the Thailand cave incident) seems to perfectly fit that assessment. [and to be clear, my quoting of Sam Altman is not meant to be taken as an endorsement of Sam Altman, but I suspect he has decent insight into Elon]

munchler 2y ago
That is interesting, and pathological if true. Thank you for the insight.

verytrivial 2y ago

That Musk is dead.

lamontcg 2y ago
Doubt he ever really existed, he was just better at keeping his psychopathy under wraps.

doctorwho42 2y ago

What background? Buying other people's dreams and aspirations (aka their companies, their ideas, and their motivation)? This isn't shocking but rage inducing.... We spent forever building this thing and successfully getting it up and operational... I know people who have worked on this... Elon musk isn't even a real physicist, he is a business and hype man that is able to get young engineers with dreams of contributing to a great dream to work for him with a terrible work-life balance.

dr_dshiv 2y ago

The assumption is that there is a way to do JWST at far less money at far greater scale. Apply same logic to everything. It won’t always hold. Those places become mistakes to be fixed. Elon and Trump might be evil. But I don’t really believe in evil. And I keep underestimating both of them. It’s no longer a matter of choice; but if there is a positive possibility, I like to imagine it and make it a plausible pathway. Tons of bad things can happen; is there a path where the current direction could be very very good?

peterlada 2y ago
No.
- dr_dshiv 2y ago
  Just with regards to space-tech: clearly there will be huge advances in the next few years. Government will become vastly more efficient. And for a left field example: I suspect that the next few years will see a rapid advancement in the science of solar radiation management, aka geoengineering. This was never going to happen with status quo leadership. But the fact is that we will not stop using fossil fuels in the next couple decades. So we clearly need to minimize the known risk of climate change, (even for the unknown risks of geoengineering). It costs about $10b to put enough calcium carbonate or sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to achieve heat balance and stop runaway climate change effects. Can’t have Florida flood, right? Beyond that, there is a genuine likelihood that there will be a better economy and less war. I’m not claiming this is the most likely outcome. But there is a reasonable chance that the next few years will work out really, really well.
  - andyjsong 2y ago
    If you think there is a chance we're going to start deploying stratospheric aerosol injection, might as well get good at it, if you want to help scale up deployments: https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launch-and-cool-the-planet https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launc...
  - 2y ago

bdangubic 2y ago

he is not profiting from it so…

Rebelgecko 2y ago

JWST launched on an Ariane