Someone once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Steal a few thousand bucks, and you'd best be prepared to do hard time if you're caught. Steal a few BILLION, and they put you on the cover of Forbes magazine." Elon Musk has internalized this duality, and milked it brilliantly. Propose something big, audacious, and, yes, ridiculous enough, and the moneyed elite will throw themselves- and their money- at your feet.
It remains to be seen how many of Musk's projects actually come to fruition, but that's not the point of it all. It's about raising capital; what happens after that is almost beside the point, because Musk is laughing all the way to the bank.
What is Elon Musk? Prophet? Visionary? Genius? How about con artist extraordinaire??
I think the link you provided in your post is somewhat counter to your article. I am not an Elon Musk fan, I think he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but name one product that doesn’t create some form of pollution. I believe solar is the key here. The sun produces enough energy in a day to power the entire world for a year. It’s a bad choice I guess I would rather buy a Tesla than give my money to the Koch brothers. It’s like elections, I really wish for once I could vote for someone instead of voting against someone.
It's complicated, at least for me. Worrisome that he plays in the public space (Twitter etc) because his orientation and attitudes are fulminations that arise out of his troubled past and the cultivation of American style entrepreneurialism that pushes to out-do even the most avid American entrepreneur. But, c'mon, Tesla does something about fossil fuels even if the tech requirements spawn other types of pollution. Hyperloop is tech in its infancy, but it will likely evolve into another mass transit type system with mass pricing. Elon himself may not be there to see the day, but then Henry Ford wasn't here to see Tesla cars. The battery thing has given rise to his push of solar power, not just to plump Tesla batteries with energy, but to create rooftop systems that have the potential to get houses off the electric grid. Space X? Well, it does throw satellites into the heavens for good purpose as well as potentially evil (including adding to the immense amount of space junk out there), and it is being used by Ukrainians at no cost. That's not a bad thing, is it?
It's complicated because like all of us, Musk be human.
I 100% accept your careful, intelligent, measured view of things. And perhaps I'm wrong to think that anything issuing from That Man is surely evil. I'll tell you what. If he ever produces anything that is truly humanitarian or affordable or ... well, completed ... I'll issue a public apology to Musk on his odious social media platform :-) And I'll do it for you.
I wish I could remember who said it and what the exact words were, but it was something like (from a Boomer no doubt), we thought we would get flying cars but we got Facebook/Twitter/Instagram etc. A disappointing deployment of intellectual capital in other words. We grew up on the Jetsons, but our future became the Flintstones, even to the point of cave wall communication, OKA, emojis. At least Musk has attempted "flying cars", unlike Zuck et al, so Musk gets an A for Absolution by the rest of us. He also offers very strong warnings to humankind about our future if we let AI get out of control and he is in a position to do something about it. We are not. Kudos? We humans have a tendency to believe we have some sort of control over the evolution of our species when we really don't. And right now, the evolution I've witnessed in my life is moving massively in the direction of the ant hill, and in the ant hill, individualism is a laughable concept. Social media, seems to me, while offering a means of venting high emotion, is the tool humans have unwittingly involved the tools required to keep 8 billion people relatively docile. That 1% of us are not docile consists of artists (good I guess), a lot of geniuses in other areas of beneficial and necessary human activity (really good), but also a lot of crazy motherfuckers possessed by a few very bad ideas and armed to their raging teeth.
In terms of twitter, I’ve never twat. Perhaps they should just lock the doors and let them eat each other alive.
BAHAHAHAHAHA! Best idea of the day! And hey, if Elon wanted to pipe in a video feed, I'd pay to see that. No safe words though. Just guts EVERYWHERE.
Someone once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Steal a few thousand bucks, and you'd best be prepared to do hard time if you're caught. Steal a few BILLION, and they put you on the cover of Forbes magazine." Elon Musk has internalized this duality, and milked it brilliantly. Propose something big, audacious, and, yes, ridiculous enough, and the moneyed elite will throw themselves- and their money- at your feet.
It remains to be seen how many of Musk's projects actually come to fruition, but that's not the point of it all. It's about raising capital; what happens after that is almost beside the point, because Musk is laughing all the way to the bank.
What is Elon Musk? Prophet? Visionary? Genius? How about con artist extraordinaire??
That's a great quote. Gotta remember that one.
I think the link you provided in your post is somewhat counter to your article. I am not an Elon Musk fan, I think he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but name one product that doesn’t create some form of pollution. I believe solar is the key here. The sun produces enough energy in a day to power the entire world for a year. It’s a bad choice I guess I would rather buy a Tesla than give my money to the Koch brothers. It’s like elections, I really wish for once I could vote for someone instead of voting against someone.
Thank you for letting me know, Tim. I have all kinds of tabs open at all times. Confusing one for another seems rather inevitable.
If it presents an opposing view, though, I might keep it just for its polemic value.
I agree that owning a Tesla is far preferable to giving money to the Koch brothers!
It's complicated, at least for me. Worrisome that he plays in the public space (Twitter etc) because his orientation and attitudes are fulminations that arise out of his troubled past and the cultivation of American style entrepreneurialism that pushes to out-do even the most avid American entrepreneur. But, c'mon, Tesla does something about fossil fuels even if the tech requirements spawn other types of pollution. Hyperloop is tech in its infancy, but it will likely evolve into another mass transit type system with mass pricing. Elon himself may not be there to see the day, but then Henry Ford wasn't here to see Tesla cars. The battery thing has given rise to his push of solar power, not just to plump Tesla batteries with energy, but to create rooftop systems that have the potential to get houses off the electric grid. Space X? Well, it does throw satellites into the heavens for good purpose as well as potentially evil (including adding to the immense amount of space junk out there), and it is being used by Ukrainians at no cost. That's not a bad thing, is it?
It's complicated because like all of us, Musk be human.
I 100% accept your careful, intelligent, measured view of things. And perhaps I'm wrong to think that anything issuing from That Man is surely evil. I'll tell you what. If he ever produces anything that is truly humanitarian or affordable or ... well, completed ... I'll issue a public apology to Musk on his odious social media platform :-) And I'll do it for you.
I wish I could remember who said it and what the exact words were, but it was something like (from a Boomer no doubt), we thought we would get flying cars but we got Facebook/Twitter/Instagram etc. A disappointing deployment of intellectual capital in other words. We grew up on the Jetsons, but our future became the Flintstones, even to the point of cave wall communication, OKA, emojis. At least Musk has attempted "flying cars", unlike Zuck et al, so Musk gets an A for Absolution by the rest of us. He also offers very strong warnings to humankind about our future if we let AI get out of control and he is in a position to do something about it. We are not. Kudos? We humans have a tendency to believe we have some sort of control over the evolution of our species when we really don't. And right now, the evolution I've witnessed in my life is moving massively in the direction of the ant hill, and in the ant hill, individualism is a laughable concept. Social media, seems to me, while offering a means of venting high emotion, is the tool humans have unwittingly involved the tools required to keep 8 billion people relatively docile. That 1% of us are not docile consists of artists (good I guess), a lot of geniuses in other areas of beneficial and necessary human activity (really good), but also a lot of crazy motherfuckers possessed by a few very bad ideas and armed to their raging teeth.
And that's it in a nutshell, isn't it? The motherfuckers are, unfortunately, usually in positions of power.
Us, on the other hand, not a man jack among us isn't capable of blinding amounts of hubris. I know that I am.