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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

#461

Post by sbuttgereit »

awesomerobot wrote: post #459
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…

Hitler thought he was making the world a better place.

As did Pol Pot and other mass murderers.

This is why I distrust those that want to direct us toward a magical, "better world" and and do so by decrying voluntary exchanges between people as counter to their vision.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#462

Post by metaphorm »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #420
metaphorm wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you should read some Taleb on this subject. ignoring low probability outcomes is not a good risk/success model.

I ask as someone who is vaguely familiar with Taleb's ideas but didn't read the book: That is a really fascinating point, especially considering this is literally a case where you are "betting your (future) life" on the low probability outcome event. I mean, what is your hedge in that case? Does Taleb talk about that too?

I think you should just read the book(s). They're very well written and enlightening.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#463

Post by rwallace »

projektir wrote: post #341
rwallace wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well okay, but there are more constructive ways to put it than the comment I responded to. How about something like, 'while celebrating Musk's achievements, we shouldn't forget that not everything a great man does is worth emulating, e.g. let's not copy the working conditions of SpaceX.'

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#464

Post by canicode »

WWKong wrote: post #417
jimbokun wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He raises the net happiness. He does things no one else does and is a joy to watch. It's like saying if a great musician never lived people would just listen to different music. Sure, but there would be a certain joy and pleasure people never would have experienced, and never realized they were missing.

If they never realized they were missing something, then nothing was lost. Net happiness = same level.

You could say that for just about anything, including Tesla...

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#465

Post by coldpie »

sneak wrote: post #352
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.

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.

Scribd is one of the most garbage technologies I have ever seen. I have no idea what they do other than fuck up what should be plain text.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#466

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#467

Post by Bakary »

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 actually like Elon Musk quite a lot, it's just that I don't appreciate the (admittedly clever) marketing campaign around his persona.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#468

Post by Ericson2314 »

Planet diversification and renewable energy are good priorities, and that not doing them narrows future options dramatically, but the other things on this list are pure sci-fi fandom. Cyborgs and whatnot will probably come around eventually bit I see no reason to hasten them. I'd like to fix our current problems before these things make them more intractable:

- inequality

- workaholism of upper classes skewing culture

- degredidation of biodiversity worldwide

If we move to Mars let's make this planet a temple. 50% earth surface no humans or something.

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#469

Post by jasonsync »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #401
thaumaturgy wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

There must be a framework for that ...

Re: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

#470

Post by BasDirks »

colin725 wrote: post #330
jimbokun wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place." Maybe not, but Messi increases the happiness delta a lot for many, many people. I think the world is a much better place with him as a footballer than an accountant or something.

Are you sure the net happiness from football was really raised by Messi or did he simply shift it to his county and teams he plays for? If you take away his great play doesn't it just make other players stick out more, and fans would derive happiness from other players?

Are you sure the net happiness from football was really raised by Messi or did he simply shift it to his county and teams he plays for?

Yes

If you take away his great play doesn't it just make other players stick out more, and fans would derive happiness from other players?

No

Greatness isn't ONLY about being greater than others.

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