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> 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.

> 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 7mo 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...

Teever 7mo 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...