angrysoba
Philosophile
No, it is called being on-topic. You want to ask about someone else, start your own thread.
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Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla
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No, it is called being on-topic. You want to ask about someone else, start your own thread.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Besides, the reason for the existence of this thread is because it originated as part of the thread that discussed Elon Musk taking over Twitter.
It is reasonable to have a discussion about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter without capitulating to demands that people talk about Tate or Gates or Jobs (PBUH) or Disney etc...
But that thread became embroiled in questions about how Musk's takeover of Twitter was going to impact his running of Tesla and SpaceX and threatened to go off-topic.
It seems completely reasonable to also discuss these things, but just like the problem of trying to focus on Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX all at the same time, a single thread mixed up a lot of issues, so I can understand why the mods split the thread.
It is reasonable to have a discussion about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter without capitulating to demands that people talk about Tate or Gates or Jobs (PBUH) or Disney etc...
But that thread became embroiled in questions about how Musk's takeover of Twitter was going to impact his running of Tesla and SpaceX and threatened to go off-topic.
It seems completely reasonable to also discuss these things, but just like the problem of trying to focus on Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX all at the same time, a single thread mixed up a lot of issues, so I can understand why the mods split the thread.
Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
Pretty much. This background has much to do with why I have difficulty seeing Ziggurat and theprestige's attempted lines of argument lately as anything other than a bunch of hollow BS as they try to fit things into a preferred box. Ziggurat's ongoing and excessive focus on the political subset of what's going on has been blatant, even more so when it seems to be largely to the exclusion of considering distinctly non-political things without them being specifically raised at that point. For example, such was the case when I referred to things like advertisers being rather unhappy about stuff like being charged for ads that they didn't buy and a dramatic drop in customer service to them after Musk's mass firings and he just assumed, very incorrectly, that I was speaking of Media Matters' little poke at a weak point that Musk has created and that Musk and his allies seem to have no intention of accepting responsibility for. theprestige is being more coy, but sure looks like he's intentionally leaving out a bunch of very relevant things as he tries to create the appearance that things are much like Ziggurat assumes.
If it weren't for Musk's very public actions with Twitter that started the conversation here about him and Twitter, he'd fairly certainly still be treated much like all those other people that theprestige has brought up in his whataboutism. He got national attention and we ended up with an appropriate outlet for discussion. National attention means that a bunch of problematic stuff from the past became much more well known, as well, which fed into the discussion here. That would likely have petered out long ago, of course, except for Musk's ongoing antics and that he's had defenders largely all along, which naturally extends discussion greatly. This latest round of argument seems like little more than denial of the natural progression of things under the circumstances actually at hand in favor of a politically motivated caricature.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Fair point. I abey my objection.
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
History remembers Henry Ford primarily for the Model T and modern manufacturing techniques.
At this point, if I had to guess I think Musk's primary accomplishment in the history books will be reusable rocket boosters, followed by his accomplishment in making EV's more marketable. But that's not to say there may not be future endeavors that equal or surpass these.
I think, at best, his politics will be a mere footnote.
At this point, if I had to guess I think Musk's primary accomplishment in the history books will be reusable rocket boosters, followed by his accomplishment in making EV's more marketable. But that's not to say there may not be future endeavors that equal or surpass these.
I think, at best, his politics will be a mere footnote.
...but history remembers Howard Hughes mostly for going crazy - despite all the work with aeronautics and satellites. I could totally see Musk going that route. (John McAfee is another, more recent example.)
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
That's what I think. I don't speak for anyone else. I have said as much before. He thinks going to Mars will save the human race. That we should all have lots of children. That there are no limits to economic growth. It is libertarianism fundamentalism.
The corollary is that Libertarians will tend to defend him.
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Can he really be said to have a political stance, a publicly known one? I've seen very little evidence of any ideological stance bar perhaps one, and is one that is appropriate for this thread and that is he opposes unions. But is that from a political/ideology stance or rather he thinks they stop him doing as he wishes?
SpuriusMaximus
Penultimate Amazing
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- 25,458
No. It's a real BS technique, and logically invalid. You don't need any special reason or circumstances to point it out when it's used.
SpuriusMaximus
Penultimate Amazing
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The difference is that Musk is nowhere near Ford in actually having such achievements (other than in his own self-aggrandizing narrative.) Virtually none of what he's doing is really new, in the technological sense. Virtually all that's actually new in his case is fluff like the obsession with stainless steel or the letter X.
Reusing rockets, or at least the expensive engines, is NOT a new idea. The Shuttle was exactly an exercise in reusing the part that mattered, namely the engines, and was at least considered by lots of other people (e.g., the SLA.) Landing vertically with engines also is as old as the moon lander, and for the booster or whole spaceship it was at least tried in recent years by others before Musk.
Now I'm not saying it makes him bad or whatever. Just not as revolutionary as many people seem to think.
As for making stuff marketable... well, if you lie enough, you can make just about anything marketable. I mean, Victor Lustig made the Eiffel Tower marketable. He sold it twice
The Falcon 9 really is a major achievement. It's not just reusing rockets, it's doing so economically that's the real game changer. There's a reason that Falcon has revolutionized the launch industry and the space shuttle didn't.
Bringing down the price of launching mass to orbit by an order of magnitude is a big deal.
And if Starship succeeds, that will be another game changer, and likely at least another order of magnitude drop in launch costs, which will have effects that reverberate through the industry (if launch costs go down enough it will make sense to launch cheaper payloads, for instance).
Bringing down the price of launching mass to orbit by an order of magnitude is a big deal.
And if Starship succeeds, that will be another game changer, and likely at least another order of magnitude drop in launch costs, which will have effects that reverberate through the industry (if launch costs go down enough it will make sense to launch cheaper payloads, for instance).
Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
But it's not bringing down the costs by an order of magnitude, it's bringing them down by roughly ten percent.
If the cost of maintenance is zero.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I don't know about costs, but it's bringing the price per kilo of payload down by about two thirds for Falcon 9, compared to Ariane 5. Falcon Heavy is even cheaper.
Curiously, the Wikipedia article doesn't report prices for ULA. But it does say that Ariane and ULA have both asked for government help, to stay in business in the face of competition from SpaceX.
What's your
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spa...#2010-2020s:_Competition_and_pricing_pressure
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
From that same NASA paper, "The Recent Large Reduction in Space Launch Cost":
The fundamental cause of the past high commercial launch cost seems to be lack of competition. The US launch industry has been a monopoly, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), and its main customer has been the US government, NASA and the military, which need high reliability and had little incentive to exert cost pressure. The ULA lost most of the commercial market to Russia and Arianespace which are also heavily subsidized by their governments. (Zimmerman, 2012)
The more I learn about this, the more I think the real scam is ULA, not SpaceX. It doesn't help that ULA was formed by Boeing and Lockheed as a space launch services cartel. "The greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world that the real anti-competitive taxpayer ripoff was SpaceX and not ULA."
- Verbal Kint, probably
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
So tell me, what did Henry Ford do that was 'really new'?
You pretend to make a reasoned argument, but your words betray you. I could debunk your assertions but what's the point? You aren't interested in facts and logic. The self-aggrandizing narrative is yours - and the other self-opinionated Musk haters.
There are many things that Musk could legitimately be criticized for, and stuff he can be praised for too. But nobody's talking about that because the haters are laser focused on feeding their narrative no matter how ridiculous their arguments. Somehow they think people will buy their emotive BS - and sadly they are largely right. But you aren't fooling me...
GraculusTheGreenBird
Muse
To be fair, what Musk did with electric, battery powered cars is not remotely new.
They were a big seller in the early 1900s in Europe, particularly fashionably popular amongst women apparently, before they tastes changed and the ICE took over.
And they have been on the roads in the UK since at least the 1940s, in the form of milk floats.
As Wikipedia says in its entry for Milk floats,
"In August 1967, the UK Electric Vehicle Association put out a press release stating that Britain had more battery-electric vehicles on its roads than the rest of the world combined."
As milk floats have been adjusted to reach speeds of 80mph, its not even as if he invented fast battery powered electric vehicles.
He has indeed popularised electric vehicles recently, but hasn't actually invented anything.
They were a big seller in the early 1900s in Europe, particularly fashionably popular amongst women apparently, before they tastes changed and the ICE took over.
And they have been on the roads in the UK since at least the 1940s, in the form of milk floats.
As Wikipedia says in its entry for Milk floats,
"In August 1967, the UK Electric Vehicle Association put out a press release stating that Britain had more battery-electric vehicles on its roads than the rest of the world combined."
As milk floats have been adjusted to reach speeds of 80mph, its not even as if he invented fast battery powered electric vehicles.
He has indeed popularised electric vehicles recently, but hasn't actually invented anything.
jeremyp
Philosopher
The idea was not his but that of Tesla's actual founders. He came in as an early investor but we do not know where Tesla would be if somebody else had funded them. Maybe they'd be doing much better without his interfering.
To get back to the raison d'être of the thread, is it any coincidence that, since Musk got distracted by Twitter, Tesla has finally been able to deliver a few Cybertrucks, a few semis, and even do an update on the model 3?
dirtywick
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
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i agree on two points, one is that he bought and currently owns several companies that were already making products people like, so there's some praise from one the haters. the second, and at the risk of being a hater who isn't interested in logic for a second: i'd question just how integral musk currently is to all of his various companies. is CEO of tesla something that can be done part time while CEO of spacex also part time while CEO of twitter also part time while also playing on your phone for significant amounts of the day, and also travelling around hanging out with celebrities and doing podcasts?
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
He has said himself. He can add a billion dollars to a company with just ten minutes. He is the greatest genius ever.
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