Elon Musk (No Politics)

[Cyclotron]

The technical prowess in rocketry they had in the apollo era is gone. Destroyed by endless budget cuts and a lack of drive.

I get your point about the loss of prowess at NASA.  SpaceX and several other commercial entities have shown that given the proper leadership, the engineering prowess does exist and is effectively being used. This is what Musk does so well, muster engineers into a mission.

Consider this, with the continuous shuffle and nonsense on budgets at NASA, if they were focused as they have been in the past, more amazing things would come of it. NASA and the US Nuclear energy capabilities are engineering marvels born out of a singular minded leader(s) desire to make reality something that many deemed impossible or not useful.

I personally have no doubt that, unless his mouth gets him into something that completely destroys him, Musk will go down in history as one of the greatess technology industry leaders. I know people are going to read that and claim I'm a fanboy. I am not. I do not own any of their products, used any of their services, nor, to my knowlege, own the stock. But the results speaks for itself.

[EEVblog]

Yes, heated political discussions distort the whole atmosphere of the forum, even if contained within particular subforums or threads. They waste time of potentially good contributors, and are detrimental to their well-being - participating on the forum becomes less fun for them, and chances of some leaving get higher.

I challenge that belief. Just look at some of the non-political arguments that have raged on this very forum, on purely technical topics where both sides dug in their heels and vehemently defended their positions. Sometimes leading to some very ugly exchanges.
So I reject the idea that "politics" is somehow sui generis in fomenting toxic discussions. Really, if two people are determined to fight over something, that something could be something as inconsequential as, say, whether KVL is applicable when external magnetic fields are induced. Or whatever.

Yes, remember, this is an ENGINEERING forum.

Yes. Thanks for helping make my point.

What is your point? That people get into arguments? Welcome to the human race.
What am I supposed to do, read every post on the forum and rap people over the knuckles if they dare get the slightest bit passionate in an argument and aren't being the best of His Majesties British polite?
The very least we can do on an ENGINEERING forum is have some rules that try and keep the collateral damage to engineering and related topics.
Again, you are outvoted, stop harping on about it, you aren't going to change the rules here.

[jonovid]

 there was a time when it was science fiction now its
becoming science fact.  today's reality is more then entertainment for us technology nurds IMO.

[vk6zgo]

Meanwhile in the USA, public entities publish blatantly partisan political material on govt owned websites.

You missed have missed the memo. No more politics please.

I did miss the warning on this thread.

[vk6zgo]

Yes, heated political discussions distort the whole atmosphere of the forum, even if contained within particular subforums or threads. They waste time of potentially good contributors, and are detrimental to their well-being - participating on the forum becomes less fun for them, and chances of some leaving get higher.

I challenge that belief. Just look at some of the non-political arguments that have raged on this very forum, on purely technical topics where both sides dug in their heels and vehemently defended their positions. Sometimes leading to some very ugly exchanges.
So I reject the idea that "politics" is somehow sui generis in fomenting toxic discussions. Really, if two people are determined to fight over something, that something could be something as inconsequential as, say, whether KVL is applicable when external magnetic fields are induced. Or whatever.

Yes, remember, this is an ENGINEERING forum.

Yes. Thanks for helping make my point.

What is your point? That people get into arguments? Welcome to the human race.
What am I supposed to do, read every post on the forum and rap people over the knuckles if they dare get the slightest bit passionate in an argument and aren't being the best of His Majesties British polite?
The very least we can do on an ENGINEERING forum is have some rules that try and keep the collateral damage to engineering and related topics.
Again, you are outvoted, stop harping on about it, you aren't going to change the rules here.

Particular people do get quite upset about minor differences in interpretation of technical comments.

[Psi]

people do get quite upset about minor differences in interpretation of technical comments.

haha, so true.

[Monkeh]

So NASA has been a waste of money because they spend it on things other than pushing commercial spaceflight? You asked what results first, not what rockets they've built lately.

No. ready what it says. I am talking about space FLIGHT. FLYING.

Great. Now, would you care to explain how they've been burning through money on flight if they haven't been working on flight? There's a difference between being upset that they're not spending money developing their own vehicles and being upset they're spending money to do so and failing at it.

Of course, they have been throwing money at the like of SLS - paying private entities to pocket it. Perhaps you should be pointing at the for-profit entities responsible, or the politicians (yes, this edges on politics, sorry Dave) who have no idea what they're authorising money for (except to come back to them).

[tggzzz]

I'm deleting any new political posts.

I hope you manage to avoid both micro moderation and inconsistent moderation. Both cause problems.

[nctnico]

Well, you're right about the risk. Flying on the shuttle was obviously fraught with danger and only because of the bureaucracy.
Simple QA check on that mirror would have suffice to have prevented at least half of the servicing adventures. Hubble, in the end, has been an enormous success. I am a super supporter of it and JWST and many more.

Well, me too.
For my money, NASA should stick, for the most part, to unmanned (unwomaned?) missions, except of course in cases like this where repairs are needed.

This makes a lot of sense. The Americans send people to the moon who could stay for a few days but fas less known is that the Russians had two moon rovers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_programme ) on the moon in the early 70's collecting lots of data over a period of many months at far lower cost and risk. NASA probably took notice of that.

[KE5FX]

For my money, NASA should stick, for the most part, to unmanned (unwomaned?) missions, except of course in cases like this where repairs are needed.

I'm all in favor of remote space exploration through telescopes and other satellites.
To me, the other stuff--the "let's go live on Mars" stuff--is more hubris than anything. Sci-fi fanboi masturbatory fantasies.

Without a manned spaceflight program, it's going to be hard to repair a space telescope or do anything else that requires direct access to space, including learning about how to live and work there. 

Voluntarily giving up human access to space is not a good idea.  Although, again, I wish there were a way to opt out of paying for it.

[special_K]

I'm still not sure what there is to talk about Elon Musk that isn't political. Even his estrangement from his own daughter is politically motivated. Maybe his hairplugs?

Oh geeze, I don't know, maybe Tesla (cars + batteries + solar + robots + FSD), SpaceX, Starlink, X, xAI, Grok, Neuralink...

All those things are political. Tesla is subsidized, SpaceX is a major government contractor, Starlink has global impact, "X" is a website Musk freely admits to altering to push politics he likes and suppress politics he doesn't like, xAI is significant in Memphis' local politics as the pollution caused by massive amounts of on site power generation is apparently negatively effecting air quality and local residents health. Grok has multiple times got into the news when Musk has gone on a drugs bender and fiddled with it, resulting in it for example answering every prompt with unrelated remarks promoting a conspiracy that white south africans are being genocided, and as for Neuralink, the political ramifications of letting capitalists put computer chips in people's brains is so obvious that there is an entire media franchise dealing with it called Ghost in the Shell.

[Cyclotron]

Well, you're right about the risk. Flying on the shuttle was obviously fraught with danger and only because of the bureaucracy.
Simple QA check on that mirror would have suffice to have prevented at least half of the servicing adventures. Hubble, in the end, has been an enormous success. I am a super supporter of it and JWST and many more.

Well, me too.
For my money, NASA should stick, for the most part, to unmanned (unwomaned?) missions, except of course in cases like this where repairs are needed.

This makes a lot of sense. The Americans send people to the moon who could stay for a few days but fas less known is that the Russians had two moon rovers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_programme ) on the moon in the early 70's collecting lots of data over a period of many months at far lower cost and risk. NASA probably took notice of that.

Unmanned stuff is cool but I'd point out that geologist Harrison Schmitt did in his time on the moon more discovery and is credited with the most science done period about the moon and mostly because he visited.

I imagine its like someone sending records of readings back about an unknown instrument that you're trying to build or repair and you being remote to the item. It may be possible to eventually achieve the same goals as being their in person but the amount of time and money spent will be substantially different.

Human space flight is either inevitable or we will no longer continue to exist. While I love the exploration of space in all forms, I think that human space flight is important and hope that it continues and becomes common place.

In 1900, no one would have thought that nearly 10 million people would take to the sky every day and fly about 100 years ago, but that happens all the time. At a risk level that is far lower than driving. 10 years ago no one believed we'd launch and land rockets about every other day but we do. Let's go!

[HuronKing]

A big factor driving Musk's engineering enterprises is his... rather distorted and outdated understanding of history. None of this is news to me - I've been following Musk for a long time and I have personal experience with him. But neat to see it distilled down as part of the broader zeitgeist that's driving the big tech companies he is in charge of:

[EEVblog]

Voluntarily giving up human access to space is not a good idea.

Because someone else will do it. a.k.a China.
Space has always been the high ground, both human and non-human.
In terms of human occupation, that's why there has been no shortage of tussling in terms of space stations.
Humans however have a special proclivity toward ownership of land, and the moon is the next big land grab.

[Cyclotron]

Voluntarily giving up human access to space is not a good idea.

Because someone else will do it. a.k.a China.
Space has always been the high ground, both human and non-human.
In terms of human occupation, that's why there has been no shortage of tussling in terms of space stations.
Humans however have a special proclivity toward ownership of land, and the moon is the next big land grab.

And every asteroid that contains anything of value. And the star named after me. Good ol'e morning star Cyclotron.

[Andy Chee]

Voluntarily giving up human access to space is not a good idea.

Because someone else will do it. a.k.a China.
Space has always been the high ground, both human and non-human.
In terms of human occupation, that's why there has been no shortage of tussling in terms of space stations.
Humans however have a special proclivity toward ownership of land, and the moon is the next big land grab.

More concerning is the human proclivity to defend ownership, particularly when legal methods fail. i.e. any defense of spaceborne assets will inevitably require weaponry

[EEVblog]

More concerning is the human proclivity to defend ownership, particularly when legal methods fail. i.e. any defense of spaceborne assets will inevitably require weaponry

Inevitable.
For All Mankind is a good depiction of this.

[Psi]

Maybe rename the thread to something like   "Elon Musk (no politics)"
Or something to that affect so new people know.

[KE5FX]

The definition of 'politics' that Google pulls up seems largely spot-on:

The activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

That's Musk in a nutshell: an individual who has attained some degree of power over the rest of us and who strives to achieve more of it.  I was fine with that back when I agreed with him.   I would have gone to the wall insisting that we need more people like Elon in charge.

We simply can't discuss Musk without discussing the tremendous influence on human affairs -- i.e., politics -- that he has already had, and the influence that he continually seeks to grow, not only in his adopted country but in places where he has no interests other than purely-commercial ones.  Clearly Musk feels that he is primarily a political actor.  How can it be anything but absurd for us to pretend otherwise? 

They say, "You are your calendar." He spends a large chunk of his time tweeting and amplifying conspiracy theories and far-right political commentary, a large chunk of his time agitating in person for political change in countries such as Germany and the UK, and a large chunk of his time pretending to be good at video games.  When does he have time to get any engineering done?

(And yes, I do see the irony in making a point like that in a forum like this.)

[free_electron]

Great. Now, would you care to explain how they've been burning through money on flight if they haven't been working on flight?

by giving it to private contractors ! Boeing, lockheed martin , spacex and others.
they still need launch vehicles.

[Echo88]

Klaus Kinski (only talk about his acting)

[Electrodynamic]

A big factor driving Musk's engineering enterprises is his... rather distorted and outdated understanding of history. None of this is news to me - I've been following Musk for a long time and I have personal experience with him. But neat to see it distilled down as part of the broader zeitgeist that's driving the big tech companies he is in charge of:

I like the video and think Musk is confused about a few obvious issues.
First, the Romans were not replacing peoples jobs with automation and AI like today. Second, most credible historians agree overpopulation leading to food scarcity, disease and wars destroyed most civilizations. Not rocket science, as resources become more scarce the internal and external competition for them increases.

We could ask, why did people need so many children in older civilizations?. The children were basically slaves bred to perform labor and help the family make more money because life was hard. Obviously this isn't the case today because life is easier and most jobs are being replaced by automation and AI. What are all these "new people" supposed to do when automation, AI and soon humanoid robots will replace the majority of jobs?... nothing. It's ironic that musk is the problem, he has fired countless employees, his factories are all automated and he wants to build millions of robots to replace the people he claims are needed. 

Thus Musk's statement that if we don't continue to populate an already overpopulated and polluted planet with scarce resources it will crumble is complete and utter nonsense imo.

In my opinion, more advanced cultures like Japan which is grossly overpopulated should reduce the population in proportion to the jobs being replaced by automation. The production and GDP will remain constant because less people does not equate to less production. So it seems obvious any truly advanced society which can evolve would have a decreasing population.

[johansen]

In my opinion, more advanced cultures like Japan which is grossly overpopulated should reduce the population in proportion to the jobs being replaced by automation. The production and GDP will remain constant because less people does not equate to less production. So it seems obvious any truly advanced society which can evolve would have a decreasing population.

they already have
The number of deaths in 2024 was more than double the number of births, resulting in a net population loss of nearly 900,000 people. This marks the 18th consecutive year of population decline.
birth rate is now 1.15 ish.

you propose they deport their own citizens?

[Cyclotron]

The definition of 'politics' that Google pulls up seems largely spot-on:

The activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

That's Musk in a nutshell: an individual who has attained some degree of power over the rest of us and who strives to achieve more of it.  I was fine with that back when I agreed with him.   I would have gone to the wall insisting that we need more people like Elon in charge.

We simply can't discuss Musk without discussing the tremendous influence on human affairs -- i.e., politics -- that he has already had, and the influence that he continually seeks to grow, not only in his adopted country but in places where he has no interests other than purely-commercial ones.  Clearly Musk feels that he is primarily a political actor.  How can it be anything but absurd for us to pretend otherwise? 

They say, "You are your calendar." He spends a large chunk of his time tweeting and amplifying conspiracy theories and far-right political commentary, a large chunk of his time agitating in person for political change in countries such as Germany and the UK, and a large chunk of his time pretending to be good at video games.  When does he have time to get any engineering done?

(And yes, I do see the irony in making a point like that in a forum like this.)

Essentially, all wealthy people are significantly involved in the "greater good." It is through their lens that they determine what that means. The majority of them stay relatively quiet, but several on both sides of the fence are vocal.

As you've said, you'd like it to be optional what your taxes fund. I would like the same. Neither of us is going to get that, and neither of us will be able to selectively shut up or change what the wealthy do.

People change, or at least hope they do. I reflect a lot and have changed often over my life. I'm pretty much unrecognizable in my views from my teen years to now. I am a fan that you are self-aware, readily admit that you once were very supportive of Musk, but that changed because either you learned more about his beliefs or he changed. Consider how many of those with substantial wealth and power you are unaware of their stances.

I have also found myself changing my view of people as I have discovered more about them. Bill Gates, for one, though he has earned some of my support back for recent admissions.

I often wonder what Musk really thinks about some things. How much of the real person do we see, and how much of it is him doing it for LOLz?

[KE5FX]

I often wonder what Musk really thinks about some things. How much of the real person do we see, and how much of it is him doing it for LOLz?

No one wants to believe that he's playing 6D chess or whatever more than I do, but the sheer number of own goals argues against that theory.  So either he enjoys being a real-life troll, often at his own expense, or he is genuinely unable to control himself.  I don't see a difference.

There's the Unsworth business already discussed -- what could he possibly have gained by calling someone a pedophile without evidence?

There's the "Funding secured at $420/share" thing that got him into serious hot water with the SEC. No upside other than (very temporary) lulz at short sellers.

There's his offer of $44 billion for Twitter at $54.20/share, which he ended up having to be legally forced to perform.  If he really wanted to do that deal and had sound strategic reasons in mind, then why was he so desperate to get out of it? 

Throwing in his lot with Trump could be seen as rational for someone in his position, given how dependent he was (and is) on government largesse.  Plenty of other entrepreneurs and CEOs were all but tripping over each other to pay tribute.  But nobody else threw any Nazi salutes, did they?  (Save it, they were Nazi salutes, we all saw the video.)  Zero conceivable upside, billions of dollars' worth of downside, but he did it anyway.  It was not rational to do that unless his 6D chess game is heading for a much darker endgame than any of us wants to admit.

So, no, he is not doing it for the LOLz, IMHO.  Only a Batman villain finds it funny to light that much money on fire.