And yet we still have a solar system, empty of life other than Earth, we can expand to. Why try to cross an ocean when everything we could want is across the river?
Two things baffle me:
1. The idea that Terran life is toxic and must not be allowed on other planets in the solar system.
2. The one person who is advancing our space faring abilities by leaps and bounds is routinely vilified and excoriated on HackerNews.
2. I’m a big fan of the guy, except he went completely off the rails on political stuff… It’s hard that both can be true at the same time.
There are a lot of ethical issues surrounding Neuralink and how it would be used. It might be good for certain medical stuff but I can see how it can be abused.
> There are a lot of ethical issues surrounding Neuralink and how it would be used
Like what? (There are always ethical issues with new medical technology.)
> It might be good for certain medical stuff
Yes, like giving sight to the blind! What a monster Musk is!
P.S. two of my largest medical fears are becoming paralyzed or going blind. Neuralink has promise in making these treatable. I'm all for it!
> Like what? (There are always ethical issues with new medical technology.)
Like mind control, thought surveillance, neural torture (the last one would be easiest).
I think these are inevitable technologies, I don't blame Neuralink in particular.
Mean people already do these things. Other people are already trying to use AI to decode your brainwaves and thoughts. There's no evidence Neuralink is doing anything unethical.
> What a monster Musk is!
Glad we’re on the same page.
When I was using Zortech C++ in the ‘80s, I never imagined I’d be talking to the author nearly half a century later about his support for a fascist Nazi near-trillionaire.
Wtf is wrong with you.
I wouldn't support Musk if he was a fascist nazi. My personal views are libertarian.
I don’t think he is a fascist nazi either. But I do think he is happy to support them as long as they make him feel special, and that’s bad enough.
The man is deeply unwell and desperate for approval and accolades. From anyone.
I think we can agree that Musk is strongly motivated. He works insanely hard and takes huge personal risks with his fortune.
He says why he does it - over and over - to save humanity by spreading it out into space.
> desperate for approval and accolades. From anyone.
If true, it is rather common behavior, not deeply unwell. Politicians 100% fall into that category. So do movie stars. So does every Olympic athlete. So what.
1) There may well be other biospheres in the solar system. There is some indirect and inconclusive evidence of microbial life on Mars, and even in the Venusian atmosphere. This dates back to results from the Viking and Venera, as well as more recent research. Earth life could be destructive to native life in these places, and vice versa (since they would likely be extremophiles) resulting in invasive species.
2) Musk is putting a lot of money into these things but he is still heavily subsidised by US government money and facilities (a loophole in the Outer Space Treaty allows individuals and corporations to claim other planets but not countries.)
> There is some indirect and inconclusive evidence of microbial life on Mars, and even in the Venusian atmosphere. This dates back to results from the Viking and Venera, as well as more recent research.
Yes, I've been hearing that forever. Every probe shrinks the envelope on the possibility.
> Earth life could be destructive to native life in these places,
Better us than slime mold.
> and vice versa (since they would likely be extremophiles) resulting in invasive species.
Perhaps. If anyone was transporting things back from there, there'd be a long space voyage where any such toxicity to the astronauts would be pretty clear.
2. Musk is not getting subsidies. He does get government contracts, where he exchanges rockets for money. That is not a subsidy, like if I make boxes and sell them to the government I am not getting a subsidy.
2. How do you define loans, tax credits and other subsidies then? You claim it’s this person specifically advancing space faring capabilities- which literally would not be possible without the US government. So please elaborate, as you’re not making sense.
1. A loan is not a subsidy. Loans get paid back with interest.
2. Tax credits - the tax code is full of various credits. Anyone can use those credits.
3. Other subsidies - like what?
> which literally would not be possible without the US government
The US government buying launches at prices far cheaper than NASA is not a subsidy.
> The one person who is advancing our space faring abilities by leaps and bounds
The overwhelming amount of the work is done by NASA, ESA, CNSA (China, going to the Moon), and other space agencies. Musk has built orbital rockets.
> routinely vilified and excoriated on HackerNews.
That's disingenuous and you know it. Why make such claims?
> Musk has built orbital rockets.
Musk has built lots of cheap orbital rockets. That changes everything.
> That's disingenuous and you know it. Why make such claims?
See the other responses in this thread.
>Why try to cross an ocean when everything we could want is across the river?
That "river" is still vast and nothing we want is on the other side.
>1. The idea that Terran life is toxic and must not be allowed on other planets in the solar system.
It's less the idea that Terran life is toxic and more that we're still hoping to find some forms of primitive life elsewhere in the solar system, and don't want those efforts thwarted by cross-contamination. You decided the rest of the solar system is dead, not the scientific community.
>2. The one person who is advancing our space faring abilities by leaps and bounds is routinely vilified and excoriated on HackerNews.
If you really can't comprehend the reason why Elon Musk is villified by people then there's no point in trying to explain it to you.
Suffice to say that owning a rocket company doesn't absolve a person of their sins to everyone, even on Hacker News.
> nothing we want is on the other side
Wow.
> You decided the rest of the solar system is dead, not the scientific community.
The odds are heavily stacked against other life existing, and get worse with every probe. Of course, nobody can prove there is no other life. And it's not very credible that Terran life will out-compete locally evolved life.
And the idea that preserving some slime mold on Pluto justifies us constraining ourselves to Earth is just sad.
> If you really can't comprehend the reason why Elon Musk is villified by people then there's no point in trying to explain it to you.
I once asked another Musk-hater on HN why? All he could come up with is Musk called a diver a pedo-boy. I pointed out that Musk only did that because the diver went on national TV and told Musk to shove his submarine up his backside.
If you've got a better reason, I'd love to hear it!
Notwithstanding the other myriad of reasons to not like Elon Musk (of which there are many)…
You’re equivocating a childish insult with insisting that a person is a pedophile and hiring a private investigator to prove so and then writing scathing emails to reporters because they refuse to repeat claims uncritically. This is an appalling failing of morality on your part.
I’m frankly not inclined to dive into why I, previously a big fan of Elon Musk, find him personally repugnant because I expect you to apply the same standards to everything he does. That doesn’t take away from SpaceX, but we shouldn’t overlook his failings just because rockets are cool.
> hiring a private investigator
Only after being sued. When you sue someone, they're going to try to defend themselves.
Both of them should have just shrugged it off.
> then writing scathing emails
doesn't make someone evil. The whole incident was childish from both sides, but nobody was actually hurt.
He hired the private investigator before he was sued.
You left out the part where he claimed a person was a pedophile and when asked if it was just an insult basically said “no I really think he’s a pedophile”, and started stating made up bullshit about child brides as fact. He only backtracked when he was sued. That is NOT the same as just throwing insults.
More nuance:
"Mr. Musk made these statements based on reports he received from a private investigator he hired to investigate Mr. Unsworth in preparation for the litigation that Mr. Unsworth had already threatened. Unbeknownst to Mr. Musk, the investigator’s reports were fabricated, and the investigator himself turned out to be a convicted felon who had gone to prison for fraud."
"Mr. Musk’s tweet was the culmination of an argument between two people that was punctuated by insults—not a factual accusation of the crime of pedophilia. The firm also demonstrated that Mr. Unsworth had not suffered any injury."
There's more: https://www.quinnemanuel.com/the-firm/our-notable-victories/...
Childish behavior - sure (on both sides). Anybody hurt - no.