4 ms·

Trump is Putin's agent, but Musk is just sabotaging everything, including himself, for no apparent reason at all.

by karmakurtisaani 2y ago

namaria 2y ago
They are both puppets of forces they don't fully understand.
- omnimus 2y ago
  Arent we all?
  - npteljes 2y ago
    I believe we are. And that is why we need to very cleverly design the systems that we employ and live in, so that the risk stemming from this weakness is minimized. Or checked, and balanced, if you will.
VectorLock 2y ago
To make Mars viable you first have to make Earth _really_ bad.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  It is not possible to make Earth bad enough for Mars to be viable.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Nah, at this point I suspect the Martians actually felt threatened by the progress SpaceX made, and switched Musk for a lookalike, in order to stop the Mars mission and kick us around a bit for good measure, so humanity is looking inwards worried about geopolitical stability, instead of continuing to advance. I mean, given how he went 180 on everything almost instantly, that's one of the most plausible explanations.
silverquiet 2y ago
The reason is his amusement, something that I assume gets harder when your hedonic treadmill has long ago accelerated beyond what seems humanly possible. As someone who has trollish tendencies myself, I cannot help but feel a bit of grudging respect for his recent accomplishments in that regard, though as one of the "NPCs" in the country he has chosen to troll, I can't say I'm terribly amused. And as someone with a Jewish girlfriend, I'm a bit worried about how far he intends to take the ironic Nazi-ism.
ben_w 2y ago
Trump and Musk both pattern-match to my understanding of clinical narcissism. With the usual caveats: 1. I'm not a qualified psychiatrist 2. You could tell that without me saying so, because qualified psychiatrists know better than to diagnose people from public behaviours alone 3. Even private interviews for diagnosis are not perfectly reliable 4. Gell-Mann amnesia effect on public reporting

Trump is Putin's agent, but Musk is just sabotaging everything, including himself, for no apparent reason at all.

namaria 2y ago

They are both puppets of forces they don't fully understand.

omnimus 2y ago
Arent we all?
- npteljes 2y ago
  I believe we are. And that is why we need to very cleverly design the systems that we employ and live in, so that the risk stemming from this weakness is minimized. Or checked, and balanced, if you will.

VectorLock 2y ago

To make Mars viable you first have to make Earth _really_ bad.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
It is not possible to make Earth bad enough for Mars to be viable.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Nah, at this point I suspect the Martians actually felt threatened by the progress SpaceX made, and switched Musk for a lookalike, in order to stop the Mars mission and kick us around a bit for good measure, so humanity is looking inwards worried about geopolitical stability, instead of continuing to advance. I mean, given how he went 180 on everything almost instantly, that's one of the most plausible explanations.

silverquiet 2y ago

The reason is his amusement, something that I assume gets harder when your hedonic treadmill has long ago accelerated beyond what seems humanly possible. As someone who has trollish tendencies myself, I cannot help but feel a bit of grudging respect for his recent accomplishments in that regard, though as one of the "NPCs" in the country he has chosen to troll, I can't say I'm terribly amused. And as someone with a Jewish girlfriend, I'm a bit worried about how far he intends to take the ironic Nazi-ism.

ben_w 2y ago

Trump and Musk both pattern-match to my understanding of clinical narcissism. With the usual caveats: 1. I'm not a qualified psychiatrist 2. You could tell that without me saying so, because qualified psychiatrists know better than to diagnose people from public behaviours alone 3. Even private interviews for diagnosis are not perfectly reliable 4. Gell-Mann amnesia effect on public reporting