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Musk can be both an successful entrepreneur and a conman. Just like how Musk can be a successful entrepreneur and an absolutely terrible father. These things

by Teever 6mo ago

Musk can be both an successful entrepreneur and a conman. Just like how Musk can be a successful entrepreneur and an absolutely terrible father. These things often go together like peanut butter and jam. Ten amazing goals, and delivers on three is exactly how a con works -- The con-man over promises massively, delivers on the easier or more profitable stuff and then glosses over the stuff that they didn't deliver on. The key difference between an overly ambitious but honest person and a conman is that a conman has absolutely no intention of folowing through on any of the things promise if they don't have to. They only deliver on what they have to to keep the con going and that's what Musk has been doing for well over a decade. I'm sure at some point he genuinely believed that self driving cars are right around the corner but he's come to realize that htey aren't and it doesn't matter because he can just make that same promise ove rand over and rubes fall for it time and time again. As for your point regarding Von Braun, I highly recommend this biography[0] of him if you haven't read it. It contains details about that episode of his life and many more fascinating ones. I'm glad that you chose to defend Von Braun in your reply because it is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. People in the space community have been reflexively minimizing the hrm done by 'great men' for decades simply because they think space stuff is cool. Just be honest with yourself about why you like Von Braun. You don't need to paint him in a sympathetic light becauase his persuit of something cool resulted in him making a pact with the devil that almost resulted in his death. The question isn't whether or not a person like Musk is a successful entrepreneur or whether or not someone like Von Braun was a spectacular project manager. The question is whether not his current slate of promises -- space data centres, domestic robots, robotaxis etc... are credible. I think that your choice to omit commenting on them is illuminating -- you know they're not credible. You know they exist to serve his financial interests and bolster his upcoming IPO with little regard for veracity or legality. So yeah the question in my mind isn't "Does he do cool stuff?" but "is the cool stuff he does worth the negative externalities that he dumps on society?" and I think the answer to that is likely to be no. Musk like all the other current crop of American oligarchs are weakening America's grip on the world and it will have calamitous effects on the American people. [0] https://www.amazon.ca/Von-Braun-Dreamer-Space-Engineer/dp/0307389375 https://www.amazon.ca/Von-Braun-Dreamer-Space-Engineer/dp/03...

WalterBright 6mo ago
> Ten amazing goals, and delivers on three is exactly how a con works A very cynical take. I've tried and failed at many things, and succeeded here and there. Does that make me a con man? If you're not failing, then you aren't trying. > is the cool stuff he does worth the negative externalities that he dumps on society? Musk's Tesla is estimated to have saved 20,000 lives. And then there's Neuralink. And Starlink, which stepped in to help the hurricane Helene victims when FEMA fell flat. > Musk like all the other current crop of American oligarchs are weakening America's grip on the world That's quite a claim. I don't see any evidence of that. > you know they're not credible. You know they exist to serve his financial interests and bolster his upcoming IPO with little regard for veracity or legality. Assuming your arguments are so compelling that I must be secretly agreeing with you is the "false consensus fallacy". My knowledge of von Braun comes from the book "V2" by Dornberger. As for the practical effect of the V2 program, see "Impact" by King. (Spoiler: the V2 program was enormously expensive yet ineffective, and shortened the war. It was ineffective because its guidance system was not accurate enough.) Von Braun at one point was imprisoned by the SS and threatened with execution if he didn't stop dreaming about interplanetary flight and get busy with the military use of the V2. Wikipedia's take on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun Pretty much all the liquid fueled rockets of today can trace their lineage back to the V2. The Saturn V was a scaled up V2. Von Braun's team figured out all the crucial details of how to make a liquid rocket engine work: 1. boundary layer cooling 2. nozzle cooled by liquid oxygen, which also preheated the oxygen 3. baffles to prevent pogo-ing 4. turbo-pumps 5. first supersonic airframe 6. first guidance mechanism
- Teever 6mo ago
  I've taken some time to reflect on the comments that you've written here before responding. You asked rhetorically what I would do if I was placed in Von Braun's shoes, as if it were the kind of thing that I had never taken the time to think about. But boy let me tell you it is definitely something that I've thought about. Far more than you I'm quite certain. As it has been told to me, my grandfather was forcibly conscripted into the SS after the Nazis invaded Estonia. The choice was "Join up with the side that has better food and better weapons. Join the winning side and fight the Russians -- your sworn enemies. Or die." So he picked the better food and weapons. It worked out okay for him. Just like Von Braun. but not so much the side that he picked. Just like Von Braun. I'm skeptical of the noble story that Von Braun tells about his arrest for dreaming about space too much or whatever. It's pretty self serving. The truth of the matter is that Von Braun had many off roads before he wound up in the situation where he was made to don an SS uniform. And more off roads before he wound up under the SS gun. He didn't take them. Why? Because he didn't care about that shit. He cared about space more than he cared about people. That's how every empire falls.[0] I wonder what your father would say about that Walter. [0] https://genius.com/John-prine-thats-how-every-empire-falls-lyrics https://genius.com/John-prine-thats-how-every-empire-falls-l...

by Teever 6mo ago

WalterBright 6mo ago

> Ten amazing goals, and delivers on three is exactly how a con works A very cynical take. I've tried and failed at many things, and succeeded here and there. Does that make me a con man? If you're not failing, then you aren't trying. > is the cool stuff he does worth the negative externalities that he dumps on society? Musk's Tesla is estimated to have saved 20,000 lives. And then there's Neuralink. And Starlink, which stepped in to help the hurricane Helene victims when FEMA fell flat. > Musk like all the other current crop of American oligarchs are weakening America's grip on the world That's quite a claim. I don't see any evidence of that. > you know they're not credible. You know they exist to serve his financial interests and bolster his upcoming IPO with little regard for veracity or legality. Assuming your arguments are so compelling that I must be secretly agreeing with you is the "false consensus fallacy". My knowledge of von Braun comes from the book "V2" by Dornberger. As for the practical effect of the V2 program, see "Impact" by King. (Spoiler: the V2 program was enormously expensive yet ineffective, and shortened the war. It was ineffective because its guidance system was not accurate enough.) Von Braun at one point was imprisoned by the SS and threatened with execution if he didn't stop dreaming about interplanetary flight and get busy with the military use of the V2. Wikipedia's take on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun Pretty much all the liquid fueled rockets of today can trace their lineage back to the V2. The Saturn V was a scaled up V2. Von Braun's team figured out all the crucial details of how to make a liquid rocket engine work: 1. boundary layer cooling 2. nozzle cooled by liquid oxygen, which also preheated the oxygen 3. baffles to prevent pogo-ing 4. turbo-pumps 5. first supersonic airframe 6. first guidance mechanism

Teever 6mo ago
I've taken some time to reflect on the comments that you've written here before responding. You asked rhetorically what I would do if I was placed in Von Braun's shoes, as if it were the kind of thing that I had never taken the time to think about. But boy let me tell you it is definitely something that I've thought about. Far more than you I'm quite certain. As it has been told to me, my grandfather was forcibly conscripted into the SS after the Nazis invaded Estonia. The choice was "Join up with the side that has better food and better weapons. Join the winning side and fight the Russians -- your sworn enemies. Or die." So he picked the better food and weapons. It worked out okay for him. Just like Von Braun. but not so much the side that he picked. Just like Von Braun. I'm skeptical of the noble story that Von Braun tells about his arrest for dreaming about space too much or whatever. It's pretty self serving. The truth of the matter is that Von Braun had many off roads before he wound up in the situation where he was made to don an SS uniform. And more off roads before he wound up under the SS gun. He didn't take them. Why? Because he didn't care about that shit. He cared about space more than he cared about people. That's how every empire falls.[0] I wonder what your father would say about that Walter. [0] https://genius.com/John-prine-thats-how-every-empire-falls-lyrics https://genius.com/John-prine-thats-how-every-empire-falls-l...