4 ms·

And the worst thing is that Elon could've been a living legend by building/funding colleges and schools focused on the tech his companies need, software develop

And the worst thing is that Elon could've been a living legend by building/funding colleges and schools focused on the tech his companies need, software development, robotics etc. Or even given out million dollar scholarships for the very top students. And he still would've been worth over 250 billion easily. Instead he chose to buy the president and start "optimising" the government with AI.

motorest 2y ago
> And the worst thing is that Elon could've been a living legend by building/funding colleges and schools focused on the tech his companies need, software development, robotics etc. Could he, though? I mean, he might have the cash, but if you look at his history you don't see that much interest or respect for basic academic principles, or even any basic academic achievement whatsoever. He conveys an image of someone who is mentally trapped in prepubescence, and who repeatedly does things that a prepubescent kid does to try to gather admiration. I meant who desperately tries to pass themselves off as elite gamers? How long will it take until he moves on to DJing? That's not someone who has any interest in founding education institutions. The man does have an army of terminally online sycophants, which I now wonder whether they are astroturfed.
- e40 2y ago
  I think the point is he could if he was a different person.
  - motorest 2y ago
    > I think the point is he could if he was a different person. That statement is pointless. The critical factor is not money, it's willingness. You do not even need to be the world's richest man to put together a school. There are pro athletes with a fraction of the wealth that already do meaningful investments in education.
- voidspark 2y ago
  He has two degrees. BA in Physics and BSc in Economics
  - motorest 2y ago
    > He has two degrees. BA in Physics and BSc in Economics You should verify your claims https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/ From the article: > Musk's past statements about his educational background, however, have been, at best, imprecise. He has claimed on several occasions to have received a physics degree in 1995 — a claim that was never fully true but which may have aided Musk's early business career.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - rascul 2y ago
      The Snopes article confirms the comment you're replying to. The sentence you left out, before your quote: > The University of Pennsylvania considers Musk to be a graduate of both the economics department and the physics department. And right above that, from the University of Pennsylvania: > Elon Musk earned a B.A. in physics and a B.S. in economics (concentrations: finance and entrepreneurial management) from the University of Pennsylvania. The degrees were awarded on May 19, 1997.
    - weberer 2y ago
      >Does Elon Musk Have an Undergraduate Degree in Physics? >Rating: True >Musk has on previous occasions claimed he received this degree in 1995, but the University of Pennsylvania says it was awarded in 1997. What was the point of your comment?
    - voidspark 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - tessierashpool 2y ago
le-mark 2y ago
Elon has proven to truly be the dumbest smart guy ever. He alienated Tesla’s core customers; tree hugging liberals, and anyone who cares about sustainability. The GOP nor their voters care and never will. I called this Tesla stock crash months ago; did not act on it though.
- rco8786 2y ago
  One interesting thing is that he seems completely unaware that he is the problem. Stepping back from DOGE to focus on Tesla again. He thinks that him getting closer to Tesla will help save the brand, when it's exactly his association with it that caused the damage in the first place. The best thing he could do for Tesla would be to step aside. > I called this Tesla stock crash months ago TSLA is currently up 5% MoM despite really, really horrible earnings and outlook. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent sometimes.
  - klntsky 2y ago
    I don't think stock prices matter as much to him (everybody knows there are lots of expectations baked in the price).
    - rco8786 2y ago
      Nor do I, I'm sure he's aware it's propped up on nothing but fumes and vibes. I was just commenting on OP wishing they had shorted TSLA months ago. Easy to say in hindsight, is all.
- skellera 2y ago
  I think less people care about it politically than you think. Most people I know who have Teslas stand by the product even through Elon’s dumb shit. I think people care more about their own convenience. There’s nothing else in our market that’s even comparable. People talk a lot of shit and it wasn’t great to start but FSD is on a different level now, especially on newer cars like the new Model Y. Having a car that mostly drives itself is the best purchase I’ve ever made. It doesn’t seem to be slowing down sales in Seattle. New Model Ys are everywhere here.
mapt 2y ago
There's a question about his actual goals in government. He's an ambitious person. And AI enables a degree of surveillance state that we find it difficult to even begin to imagine. All the logistical difficulties of something like Orwell's 1984, of the Stasi having 1/3 of Berlin on the books as informants against the other 2/3, go away completely. We have more cameras than ever. Every person gets to enjoy the kind of focus that went into tracking down Luigi. DOGE has exfiltrated all our sensitive databases to servers that they control; Every 'Chinese Wall' intended to ensure some kind of separation of concerns has been broken down, almost certainly including various formally classified intelligence-gathering campaigns. You can't necessarily stuff that genie back in the bottle. If somebody wanted to be... not president, but authoritarian leader of a post-democracy, Musk would be well positioned technologically. It wouldn't be inconceivable to set up an AI to do all the same sort of fraud & identity theft attacks against an individual that for-profit blackhats do, or that a Kiwifarms harassment campaign can do, without much of any actual staffing. Only DOGE starts out with your social security number, your tax records, your drivers' license, license plate reader records, web history, everything. That individual could be a Wall Street Journal editor who wrote something Musk dislikes, or ten thousand Redditors who are making fun of Teslas.
- tessierashpool 2y ago
  If somebody wanted to be... not president, but authoritarian leader of a post-democracy, Musk would be well positioned technologically. of course, that was his very explicit goal. Thiel backed Curtis Yarvin, who came up for the plan for this and called it RAGE. google it, it's all written down. they hoped to put in Bezos or Zuckerberg and have a more efficiently-run dictatorship replacing our democracy. because they didn't understand politics, they got the ketamine addict instead, who renamed RAGE to DOGE so he could also use it to power a crypto pump-and-dump. *edit: and because it was never a realistic plan. because they didn't understand politics
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cryptoegorophy 2y ago
I think we would’ve lived in a different world if Elon didn’t use twitter. We might have actually landed on Mars already.
- more_corn 2y ago
  Twitter board should have allowed him to back out of the deal when he asked.
tomhow 2y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801711 and marked it offtopic (because it turned into a generic thread that has nothing to do with the topic that was being discussed in the parent comments).

motorest 2y ago

> And the worst thing is that Elon could've been a living legend by building/funding colleges and schools focused on the tech his companies need, software development, robotics etc. Could he, though? I mean, he might have the cash, but if you look at his history you don't see that much interest or respect for basic academic principles, or even any basic academic achievement whatsoever. He conveys an image of someone who is mentally trapped in prepubescence, and who repeatedly does things that a prepubescent kid does to try to gather admiration. I meant who desperately tries to pass themselves off as elite gamers? How long will it take until he moves on to DJing? That's not someone who has any interest in founding education institutions. The man does have an army of terminally online sycophants, which I now wonder whether they are astroturfed.

e40 2y ago
I think the point is he could if he was a different person.
- motorest 2y ago
  > I think the point is he could if he was a different person. That statement is pointless. The critical factor is not money, it's willingness. You do not even need to be the world's richest man to put together a school. There are pro athletes with a fraction of the wealth that already do meaningful investments in education.
voidspark 2y ago
He has two degrees. BA in Physics and BSc in Economics
- motorest 2y ago
  > He has two degrees. BA in Physics and BSc in Economics You should verify your claims https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/ From the article: > Musk's past statements about his educational background, however, have been, at best, imprecise. He has claimed on several occasions to have received a physics degree in 1995 — a claim that was never fully true but which may have aided Musk's early business career.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rascul 2y ago
    The Snopes article confirms the comment you're replying to. The sentence you left out, before your quote: > The University of Pennsylvania considers Musk to be a graduate of both the economics department and the physics department. And right above that, from the University of Pennsylvania: > Elon Musk earned a B.A. in physics and a B.S. in economics (concentrations: finance and entrepreneurial management) from the University of Pennsylvania. The degrees were awarded on May 19, 1997.
  - weberer 2y ago
    >Does Elon Musk Have an Undergraduate Degree in Physics? >Rating: True >Musk has on previous occasions claimed he received this degree in 1995, but the University of Pennsylvania says it was awarded in 1997. What was the point of your comment?
  - voidspark 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - tessierashpool 2y ago

le-mark 2y ago

Elon has proven to truly be the dumbest smart guy ever. He alienated Tesla’s core customers; tree hugging liberals, and anyone who cares about sustainability. The GOP nor their voters care and never will. I called this Tesla stock crash months ago; did not act on it though.

rco8786 2y ago
One interesting thing is that he seems completely unaware that he is the problem. Stepping back from DOGE to focus on Tesla again. He thinks that him getting closer to Tesla will help save the brand, when it's exactly his association with it that caused the damage in the first place. The best thing he could do for Tesla would be to step aside. > I called this Tesla stock crash months ago TSLA is currently up 5% MoM despite really, really horrible earnings and outlook. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent sometimes.
- klntsky 2y ago
  I don't think stock prices matter as much to him (everybody knows there are lots of expectations baked in the price).
  - rco8786 2y ago
    Nor do I, I'm sure he's aware it's propped up on nothing but fumes and vibes. I was just commenting on OP wishing they had shorted TSLA months ago. Easy to say in hindsight, is all.
skellera 2y ago
I think less people care about it politically than you think. Most people I know who have Teslas stand by the product even through Elon’s dumb shit. I think people care more about their own convenience. There’s nothing else in our market that’s even comparable. People talk a lot of shit and it wasn’t great to start but FSD is on a different level now, especially on newer cars like the new Model Y. Having a car that mostly drives itself is the best purchase I’ve ever made. It doesn’t seem to be slowing down sales in Seattle. New Model Ys are everywhere here.

mapt 2y ago

There's a question about his actual goals in government. He's an ambitious person. And AI enables a degree of surveillance state that we find it difficult to even begin to imagine. All the logistical difficulties of something like Orwell's 1984, of the Stasi having 1/3 of Berlin on the books as informants against the other 2/3, go away completely. We have more cameras than ever. Every person gets to enjoy the kind of focus that went into tracking down Luigi. DOGE has exfiltrated all our sensitive databases to servers that they control; Every 'Chinese Wall' intended to ensure some kind of separation of concerns has been broken down, almost certainly including various formally classified intelligence-gathering campaigns. You can't necessarily stuff that genie back in the bottle. If somebody wanted to be... not president, but authoritarian leader of a post-democracy, Musk would be well positioned technologically. It wouldn't be inconceivable to set up an AI to do all the same sort of fraud & identity theft attacks against an individual that for-profit blackhats do, or that a Kiwifarms harassment campaign can do, without much of any actual staffing. Only DOGE starts out with your social security number, your tax records, your drivers' license, license plate reader records, web history, everything. That individual could be a Wall Street Journal editor who wrote something Musk dislikes, or ten thousand Redditors who are making fun of Teslas.

tessierashpool 2y ago
If somebody wanted to be... not president, but authoritarian leader of a post-democracy, Musk would be well positioned technologically. of course, that was his very explicit goal. Thiel backed Curtis Yarvin, who came up for the plan for this and called it RAGE. google it, it's all written down. they hoped to put in Bezos or Zuckerberg and have a more efficiently-run dictatorship replacing our democracy. because they didn't understand politics, they got the ketamine addict instead, who renamed RAGE to DOGE so he could also use it to power a crypto pump-and-dump. *edit: and because it was never a realistic plan. because they didn't understand politics
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cryptoegorophy 2y ago

I think we would’ve lived in a different world if Elon didn’t use twitter. We might have actually landed on Mars already.

more_corn 2y ago
Twitter board should have allowed him to back out of the deal when he asked.

tomhow 2y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801711 and marked it offtopic (because it turned into a generic thread that has nothing to do with the topic that was being discussed in the parent comments).