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If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that some people, at least, can rise above petty human squabbling and comp

If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that some people, at least, can rise above petty human squabbling and competition and are legitimately working to better humanity -- look no further than this thread. Every top comment is a skeptical one. "This is clearly a great PR move, but has no teeth." "How do you enforce this guarantee?" Etc. These are reasonable questions, but as Shaw said, all progress comes from unreasonable men. I cannot help but be fundamentally depressed as I read these comments. In my view, Elon Musk has, moreso than any other human except maybe Bill Gates, given every absolute inch of human effort and genius to fight to solve the world's biggest problems. And all we have for him, after benefiting freely from the fruit of his labor, is skepticism. We want more. It's not enough. It's never enough. Yes, Tesla Motors is a company operating in a media-hyped 2014 America. I know some of you are butthurt that he engages in the same "dishonest" PR tactics that other companies do. GET THE FUCK OVER IT. The end product he's producing will save humanity. That all of America has not rallied behind Musk and Tesla as the most important movement and achievement in the last 100 years of human history absolutely blows my mind. Not only do we not recognize his goals or his achievements, we actively try and bring him down and shit on his accomplishments. "Well, they invented a pretty cool electric motor, sure, but they were kind of dishonest in that one press release that one time." Go fuck yourself. I want to say "I'm done with Hacker News", but we know that's not true. I'm supremely disappointed in all of you. Godspeed, Musk. I thought this was a great announcement, and I'm behind you 100%. I just hope you can finish your work before our shitty, myopic, destructive society tears you down. Here's to faith.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
This. You captured perfectly my own sentiment towards this thread, and Tesla-related threads in general. Really, pretty much every single thing Musk does proves that he's trying to honestly help solve biggest problems of humanity, and still people disect his every word in order to find some way to say that yes, he's as selfish bastard as everyone else. I strongly hope that he doesn't give a single damn about such opinions. It would be a shame to see those projects derailed by petty skepticism. Come to think of it, maybe we, as a civilisation, as a culture, are just proving that we don't deserve to live, since not only can't we be bothered to fix the mess we've made, we actively make it difficult for the few of us who want to save us from our own stupidity? > I just hope you can finish your work before our shitty, myopic, distructive society tears you down. Here's to faith. Here's to faith.
JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
Welcome to Hacker News. I sit back and read the pedantic and skeptical comments and just shake my head - this guy made the greatest and most positive contribution in any industry in decades, but all we have are self-opinionated software developers trying to play Patent Lawyer. Kudos to you, and kudos to Elon! Edit: Here's to faith.
richardlblair 12y ago
On top of it all, a lot of these people are hacking away on apps that won't accomplish anything or assist humanity in any way shape or form. They come here, shit all over Musk and his accomplishments, and then go back to making a shitty photo sharing website. Seriously, fuck 'em all Here's to the faith.
guscost 12y ago
Elon Musk is one of the most interesting inventors of our time, and comes across as a completely stand-up guy. Watching companies like Tesla and SpaceX take on and solve these incredibly difficult problems is inspiring. I'd guess that this patent move is motivated by goodwill, and any benefit to Tesla probably goes together with the larger goal of bringing good to the world. But when I see "this man will save humanity by selling chemical battery powered automobiles" it comes across as more than a bit hyperbolic. There is plenty of opportunity to criticize cynical attitudes without making such a ridiculous claim.
- natural219 12y ago
  Fair enough. I'm emotional. I don't usually cuss when making logical points. What I meant to say is, electric battery technology will move humanity in the right step which I strongly believe will have a big impact on curbing climate change, which I feel is one of the biggest challenges humans collectively face.
  - guscost 12y ago
    OK, that makes more sense. For the record I'm not at all concerned about the climate changing (although I'm very interested in conservation and efficiency in general). Additionally it seems that an electric car is not actually going to emit less whatever than one of these wonderful new four-cylinders unless/until we make like France and build out more nuclear infrastructure. Still, Tesla is doing a lot of good by leading the way towards technologies that could bring much improved living conditions, especially in places like Beijing and Los Angeles.
    - marvin 12y ago
      You're wrong on the emissions point - even a contemporary, luxury electric car like the Model S causes less CO2 emissions from a well-to-wheels perspective than an effiient gasoline car, even if run exclusively on coal-generated electricity. The crucial part of the calculation is to also take into consideration the energy required to produce the fuel, which is often skipped when analyzing the CO2 emissions of fossil-powered cars. The drivetrain (batteries) is somewhat more energy-intensive to produce, but the difference is made up after 20,000 miles or so. There's a lot of FUD from the established automobile and energy industries on this topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk On the climate change front, you're probably in disagreement with scientific consensus, but this is not my field of expertise.
deleted 12y ago
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gfodor 12y ago
Agreed. This site is toxic, if it's any consolation in day-to-day discussions with people in Silicon Valley actually doing things I've found nothing but respect and awe of what Tesla and SpaceX are doing. I wouldn't take HN to heart too much, the people actually getting shit done are not posting cynical comments on HN. (Myself included, I've been building less than usual the last year and spending too much time here.)
barnabee 12y ago
There are few people besides Elon Musk seriously working on Important things, and none visibly with such scale and impact (Google X, Facebook, Amazon et al. - show your cards!) Millions (billions?) of people have faith in a benevolent creator whom they have no evidence for (and plenty against) yet we have difficulty trusting someone who's demonstrated time and again the vision and ambition to change the world for the better at great risk (and potentially great reward, of course - he's no charity nor should he be). Screw that. Here's to faith.
jholman 12y ago
This deserves more than just an upvote, so: To faith! (wow, that was a sentence with low prior probability)
Mustafabei 12y ago
Thank you.
ahaproudowl 12y ago
I think this is symptom of media consumption and drama led narratives. We are so used to seeing the great and the good destroyed and pillared by media institutions who have an axe to grind, that when someone does actually do something positive, it is seen with utter cynicism by most (what's in it for them). If you can see past that, you will see that Mr Musk is acting in his own interests and the interests of humanity as a whole at the same time. He is giving away the patents to help create a marketplace he can compete in, he is also giving away the patents because he feels that this will help humanity. There is nothing wrong with either approach really, just a balance that needs to be struck between them. This balance is what the media distorts, it creates a drama where the figurehead is 'good' or 'bad'. The truth is that no one is entirely either, but their actions can be.
happyjim 12y ago
>The end product he's producing will save humanity. Well that's a relief, I was getting a bit worried there what with North Korea and Iran building nukes and the middle east devolving into world war III.
rrss1122 12y ago
"Save humanity"? You should stop telling people to get the fuck over it and to go fuck themselves and get over yourself.
spotted 12y ago
"The end product he's producing will save humanity." If that could only be true. Even with the most noble intent, unfortunately it's all the producing (of everything) that is destroying us. We can't produce our way out of this, anymore than I can drink my way out of alcoholism.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

This. You captured perfectly my own sentiment towards this thread, and Tesla-related threads in general. Really, pretty much every single thing Musk does proves that he's trying to honestly help solve biggest problems of humanity, and still people disect his every word in order to find some way to say that yes, he's as selfish bastard as everyone else. I strongly hope that he doesn't give a single damn about such opinions. It would be a shame to see those projects derailed by petty skepticism. Come to think of it, maybe we, as a civilisation, as a culture, are just proving that we don't deserve to live, since not only can't we be bothered to fix the mess we've made, we actively make it difficult for the few of us who want to save us from our own stupidity? > I just hope you can finish your work before our shitty, myopic, distructive society tears you down. Here's to faith. Here's to faith.

JimmaDaRustla 12y ago

Welcome to Hacker News. I sit back and read the pedantic and skeptical comments and just shake my head - this guy made the greatest and most positive contribution in any industry in decades, but all we have are self-opinionated software developers trying to play Patent Lawyer. Kudos to you, and kudos to Elon! Edit: Here's to faith.

richardlblair 12y ago

On top of it all, a lot of these people are hacking away on apps that won't accomplish anything or assist humanity in any way shape or form. They come here, shit all over Musk and his accomplishments, and then go back to making a shitty photo sharing website. Seriously, fuck 'em all Here's to the faith.

guscost 12y ago

Elon Musk is one of the most interesting inventors of our time, and comes across as a completely stand-up guy. Watching companies like Tesla and SpaceX take on and solve these incredibly difficult problems is inspiring. I'd guess that this patent move is motivated by goodwill, and any benefit to Tesla probably goes together with the larger goal of bringing good to the world. But when I see "this man will save humanity by selling chemical battery powered automobiles" it comes across as more than a bit hyperbolic. There is plenty of opportunity to criticize cynical attitudes without making such a ridiculous claim.

natural219 12y ago
Fair enough. I'm emotional. I don't usually cuss when making logical points. What I meant to say is, electric battery technology will move humanity in the right step which I strongly believe will have a big impact on curbing climate change, which I feel is one of the biggest challenges humans collectively face.
- guscost 12y ago
  OK, that makes more sense. For the record I'm not at all concerned about the climate changing (although I'm very interested in conservation and efficiency in general). Additionally it seems that an electric car is not actually going to emit less whatever than one of these wonderful new four-cylinders unless/until we make like France and build out more nuclear infrastructure. Still, Tesla is doing a lot of good by leading the way towards technologies that could bring much improved living conditions, especially in places like Beijing and Los Angeles.
  - marvin 12y ago
    You're wrong on the emissions point - even a contemporary, luxury electric car like the Model S causes less CO2 emissions from a well-to-wheels perspective than an effiient gasoline car, even if run exclusively on coal-generated electricity. The crucial part of the calculation is to also take into consideration the energy required to produce the fuel, which is often skipped when analyzing the CO2 emissions of fossil-powered cars. The drivetrain (batteries) is somewhat more energy-intensive to produce, but the difference is made up after 20,000 miles or so. There's a lot of FUD from the established automobile and energy industries on this topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk On the climate change front, you're probably in disagreement with scientific consensus, but this is not my field of expertise.

deleted 12y ago

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gfodor 12y ago

Agreed. This site is toxic, if it's any consolation in day-to-day discussions with people in Silicon Valley actually doing things I've found nothing but respect and awe of what Tesla and SpaceX are doing. I wouldn't take HN to heart too much, the people actually getting shit done are not posting cynical comments on HN. (Myself included, I've been building less than usual the last year and spending too much time here.)

barnabee 12y ago

There are few people besides Elon Musk seriously working on Important things, and none visibly with such scale and impact (Google X, Facebook, Amazon et al. - show your cards!) Millions (billions?) of people have faith in a benevolent creator whom they have no evidence for (and plenty against) yet we have difficulty trusting someone who's demonstrated time and again the vision and ambition to change the world for the better at great risk (and potentially great reward, of course - he's no charity nor should he be). Screw that. Here's to faith.

jholman 12y ago

This deserves more than just an upvote, so: To faith! (wow, that was a sentence with low prior probability)

Mustafabei 12y ago

Thank you.

ahaproudowl 12y ago

I think this is symptom of media consumption and drama led narratives. We are so used to seeing the great and the good destroyed and pillared by media institutions who have an axe to grind, that when someone does actually do something positive, it is seen with utter cynicism by most (what's in it for them). If you can see past that, you will see that Mr Musk is acting in his own interests and the interests of humanity as a whole at the same time. He is giving away the patents to help create a marketplace he can compete in, he is also giving away the patents because he feels that this will help humanity. There is nothing wrong with either approach really, just a balance that needs to be struck between them. This balance is what the media distorts, it creates a drama where the figurehead is 'good' or 'bad'. The truth is that no one is entirely either, but their actions can be.

happyjim 12y ago

>The end product he's producing will save humanity. Well that's a relief, I was getting a bit worried there what with North Korea and Iran building nukes and the middle east devolving into world war III.

rrss1122 12y ago

"Save humanity"? You should stop telling people to get the fuck over it and to go fuck themselves and get over yourself.

spotted 12y ago

"The end product he's producing will save humanity." If that could only be true. Even with the most noble intent, unfortunately it's all the producing (of everything) that is destroying us. We can't produce our way out of this, anymore than I can drink my way out of alcoholism.