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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

#401

Post by TaylorAlexander »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #374
sneak wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, kudos to Scribd for perhaps the maximum LOC codebase for "how to make plain text completely fucking unusable". There's real irony there in it being an article about delivering value to society through making useful technology.

OK, I was able to clean it up into plain text and post it to Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP Used the $$ selector in Chrome to find Scribd's .ff0 elements, copied them into SublimeText, did some regex work to clean out the tags (a span element for every line? with absolute positioning? Really Scribd?), and then exploited the fact that paragraphs got jammed together with no whitespace between the last punctuati…

I wish somebody had created some kind of universal markup language for text, that would let us easily share it...

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#402

Post by Bakary »

gameshot911 wrote: post #393
sbuttgereit wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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…

The world is a better place when our desires are attained.

Desires are almost bottomless though

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#403

Post by taeric »

dredmorbius wrote: post #363
taeric wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do facelifts extend life? I thought they were purely cosmetic.

If I'm interpreting properly: that's the point.

I interpreted the main claim to be "expensive life extending procedures..." I think if you drop the "life extending," then bringing up facelifts makes sense. Otherwise... it doesn't really seem to fit into the debate in a meaningful way.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#404

Post by karmelapple »

dpark wrote: post #329
karmelapple wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't some entertainment - even if it's somewhat frivolous - for the greater good? An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts. But agreed - that person would win all the Nobel Peace prizes.

> An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts. Not for the vast, vast majority of people watching football. Most people aren't engaging in crime or "unsavory acts" whenever they have to entertain themselves. I think mass entertainment is definitely for the greater good, but not because it reduces crime in any appreciable fashion.

Maybe not crime, but also stops people from doing any other bad things.

Not to mention the good social bits of being a fan of something and being able to bond with strangers over fandom.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#405

Post by meric »

dpc_pw wrote: post #258

Relevant: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-06/how-elon-musk-used-... According to this, the answer to "How to Build the Future" is "make the story big, and get free money from government". Note: I have not fact-checked it or anything. Just find it interesting and relevant, so don't expect me to argue about it, and don't flag me as a troll.

That article complains about the incestuous relationship between SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX. It has a point - SpaceX and Tesla using government support to keep SolarCity afloat.

Zero hedge isn't always right, but they do provide alternative view points rarely seen elsewhere.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#406

Post by Calist0 »

kareemsabri wrote: post #281
nichochar wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true throughout history. Publicly selfless heroes (Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Elon Musk) often have to "sacrifice" (is it conscious?) their private selves, to be able to be the incarnation of what their work is. It bothers a lot of people, personally I am fine with it and would make the same decision. I think it's a personality thing.

Elon Musk is worth $12B. He's a businessman. He lives in a giant mansion. Ghandi owned like 5 things. I'm not knocking Musk, but this is a strange interpretation of a very successful capitalist.

More like he lives at work. I'm sure his giant mansion means very little to him.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#407

Post by Calist0 »

PieterH wrote: post #274
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'…

Since the book is not free to read online, would you provide a tl;dr?

You want a tldr on a biography book?

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#408

Post by thewhitetulip »

byebyetech wrote: post #102
aantix wrote: post #87

Why does Elon continuously talk about AI as if it's taking over the world? At this point, Siri can barely understand me saying the word 'salad'. Slow down Elon... slow down..

I guess Kurzweil and Elon spend some time on WhatsApp. But since Elon thinks in terms of first principles. He probably has this reasoning: 1. Are the any laws of physics that stop us from creating AI ? Answer is No. Nature already built it so its possible. 2. Is it possible to improve AI significantly ? Yes, because if we can build AI, AI can build better AI. 3. How soon can it happen? Since the trend is exponential.…

I feel that he is right being paranoid, because it is not impossible to build an AI, what his goal is to build an open AI so an AI isn't in the hands of a private organization, who knows what they can do. That being said, it is a long time before we have an actual ASI, but its great that we have the open AI initiative, so the AI itself is built in the open, or squarely in the open.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#409

Post by tomcam »

schwarrrtz wrote: post #392
johnloeber wrote: post #351

I am surprised that YC would make this page so remarkably mobile-unfriendly. I don't have the time to listen to the interview, I just want to read the transcript. They could have just pasted it in a reader-friendly format, but instead it's in an annoying Scribd applet. I don't want to sign up for their service or download the app, not to mention that it's a terrible mobile reader anyway. This was very disappointing.

also, whoever / whatever transcribed this did a terrible job. 'accelerate the transmission to sustainable energy'...

Sounds like an excellent assignment for someone of your considerable skill. Have at it!

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#410

Post by guftagu »

MPSimmons wrote: post #317
_RPM wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that worship another person generally aren't well informed. For example, people look at Elon Musk like he's a pop culture icon -- I see people talking about him on my news feed all the time, yet these people aren't even technical. It's just a way for someone to identify to some type of group. Oh look what Elon's doing, he's so great. My reaction is, why are you sharing press articles about this person? Does it…

Are you accusing Elon Musk of being the thinking man's Kim Kardashian?

Comment gold! I'm going to steal that one
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