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Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

ycombinator.com

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Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#341

Post by projektir »

rwallace wrote: post #325
djcooley wrote: post #228

I have all the respect in the world for what Mr. Musk has accomplished, but it has come at an amazing cost to the people around him. He is worshiped from afar but reviled by many the closer you get to his inner circle. Go read "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." The question I always ask myself with the people who move mountains is what cost did that progress come at? What would someone'…

There are any number of people who are far more toxic to those around them without having accomplished any significant progress in the process, so Elon Musk is a poor choice of target for that criticism.

I don't know about that, Musk has that effect on some of the best people, and his effect, due to his status, is very strong.

I'm actually highly concerned about Musk's overall effect on society, specifically due to the kind of people he'll have that effect on.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#342

Post by dclowd9901 »

trentnix wrote: post #153
kstenerud wrote: post #105

It always saddens me when I see a slew of Debbie Downer comments from the HN crowd. "Yes, he ushered in the electric car revolution, but the production carbon footprint is still huge!" "Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!" "Yes, he's paving the way to Mars, but what has he done for world hunger?" And it not just with Musk, but really with anyone who has been successful. I would have t…

I read something a couple of decades ago that's helped me avoid, occasionally, the mindset that causes me to be a curmudgeon: someone else's success is not my problem. Thats not to say that any particular criticism is unjustified. Just that tearing down someone for its own sake is not good for anyone - rock throwers included.

> someone else's success is not my problem.

I'm pretty sure in a zero-sum game (e.g. Our market reality), this is the opposite of true.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#343

Post by dpark »

varjag wrote: post #233
astazangasta wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The income is not evenly distributed.

That can't be the reason on the national level. People used to buy plenty of Fords.

People still buy plenty of Fords. Far, far more Fords than Teslas. What are you taking about?

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#344

Post by Paul_S »

CodeMage wrote: post #340
Paul_S wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug dealers? You want them to quit their jobs? --- Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a bett…

Believe it or not, there are different motivations people have for choosing their careers. Some become footballers because they want to rake in as much money as Beckham, others because they enjoy football so much that they decide that's what they want to do all the time. I'm pretty sure most people don't have just one overriding motivation for what they do, but an amalgam of different factors. Your statement about ma…

Most of the world population doesn't have the kind of opportunities you do. You are probably at the top 5% of the 7 billion population. Chances are you can choose between a 100k job and a 120k job that you find unsavory and maybe you choose the lower paid one. Most of the population has different choices to make. You are the one projecting your privelaged position onto the rest of the world.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#345

Post by greysphere »

rdiddly wrote: post #193
kstenerud wrote: post #105

It always saddens me when I see a slew of Debbie Downer comments from the HN crowd. "Yes, he ushered in the electric car revolution, but the production carbon footprint is still huge!" "Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!" "Yes, he's paving the way to Mars, but what has he done for world hunger?" And it not just with Musk, but really with anyone who has been successful. I would have t…

There are rational, non-envy-based reasons to object to all the hero-worship. For example, all the things "he" did above were actually done by big teams of people working together, but Elon gets all the credit. He deserves credit, but not all of it. And let's not forget the millions of people who worked to generate wealth that could be transferred via, and taxed by, PayPal, accruing the fortune with which to start al…

"...and taxed by, PayPal..."

PayPal (really X.com) was founded based on: "17% of the world's economy is lost to the financial industry. Wtf, they are just numbers in a database, can't we do better?"

I dunno what the percent is now, or whether PayPal decreased it significantly (or increased it even), but the difference is Elon's ability to look at problems, reduce them to fundamentals, decide if they can be improved upon or not, then working toward moving reality in that direction.

So, if the 'PayPal tax' is unacceptable to you, the "visionary" thing to do would be, figure out what the root causes of that tax are, figure out why they are unnecessary and how much correcting them will move the needle. Any significant progress in this area would be worth well more than a billion dollars, and you'd have no problem raising that capital. Make it happen!

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#346

Post by [deleted] »

mikepk wrote: post #252
djcooley wrote: post #228

I have all the respect in the world for what Mr. Musk has accomplished, but it has come at an amazing cost to the people around him. He is worshiped from afar but reviled by many the closer you get to his inner circle. Go read "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." The question I always ask myself with the people who move mountains is what cost did that progress come at? What would someone'…

"I admit that mathematical science is a good thing. But excessive devotion to it is a bad thing. If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb." -- Aldus Huxley

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#347

Post by LordHumungous »

etendue wrote: post #7

How would one go about meaningfully contributing to solving problems in genetics without having done the work leading to a MD or PhD (or both)?

So, I can't answer about solving big problems, but I did genetic engineering research in grad school on bacteria. One could very easily conduct serious genetic engineering in one's bedroom for less that $500 or so. Of course this is fairly basic stuff, but still, you'd be amazed what is possible with very little equipment.

For example, there is a yearly competition called iGEM, which is synthetic biology competition for undergrads. Some of the stuff they do with limited resources is quite impressive.

http://igem.org/Main_Page

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#349

Post by sbuttgereit »

Paul_S wrote: post #278
iMuzz wrote: post #2

Question/Answer I found interesting: Sama> How should someone figure out how they should be useful? Elon> Whatever this thing is you are trying to create.. What would be the utility delta compared to the current state of the art times how many people it would affect?

What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug dealers? You want them to quit their jobs? --- Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a bett…

...make the world a better place.

Just what the hell does anyone even mean by "make the world a better place"?!

I am willing to bet that if we held a forum to settle what a "better world" means, we'd have to adjourn it with no resolution. The questions of better world for whom, and on what terms, by what definition, what expense and, oh yeah, who pays the bill and why would never find one conclusion.

What you really mean to say is that Capitalist market rewarded choices does make the world a better place according to your definition of it. But don't lay claim to speak for the world when for many Capitalism market rewards are making the world a better place.

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