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Over unity, infinite compression algorithms, perpetual motion machines, tidal energy (unless you think subsidy is the goal in itself) and so on.
Cold fusion is posted here every few months. Does it fall in this category?
Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.
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I think musk knew very well. It's the investors that fell for it.
There's nothing physically impossible about the Hyperloop (basically a maglev in vacuum tube, nothing wrong with the tech, just not particularly economical). Maglevs have been deployed successfully in some parts of Asia, they are just dreadfully expensive and nimbys have fears about radiation but they are hardly new technology.
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Various folks into the 21st century. Edit: point taken. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_...
Well he lived before modern laws of physics were known… I'm not sure that counts.
Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.
Communism is one of the worst ideas, with the worst track records, and have always captured the most intelligent people, even today. A casual browse through HN comments is enough evidence.
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Various folks into the 21st century. Edit: point taken. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_...
He lived 2 centuries before Newton, 3 centuries before Laplace, 4 centuries before Maxwell and 5 centuries before Noether, Einstein, and Shannon. That he doesn't believe the first law of thermodynamics is hardly his fault.
And in a way that is probably his biggest contribution: to show that if science focuses on that which works and can be generalized there will be massive progress. Because for a single individual, especially in that age his output was extremely impressive and that couldn't have worked if he didn't channel his energy to areas that were deemed to be fruitful.
The human species is first divided into tribes, and much latterly, individuals. ie., Individual human psychology is governed principally by tribal logic -- though 'thinking for oneself' in the broadest sense is always available, it is rarely exercised outside of certain kinds non-social problem environments.
Intellectuals are of course those who choose non-social problem environments. Consider Aristotle placing the purpose of life within Reason, rather than the survival and prosperity of the tribe (the only empirically defensible answer). This should, on the face of all evidence, seem outright absurd.
So, it's no mystery that tribal logic is absent from the academic presentation of human activity. This becomes extraordinarily dangeours when academies find themselves in power or otherwise academic projects (eg., the neocon inclination to democractise) find themselves elevated to tribal practice.
There ought be more explicit presentation of this in our education system -- it is a shame it has to be rediscovered so late.
> This means we can be more easily manipulated through the peripheral route.
This is only true if you're qualified to reason through the information yourself. Pseudointellectuals are easily manipulated (consider the CIA pushing a UFO conspraicy).
By not understanding the tribal logic of our psychology, this article repeats the mistake: thinking for oneself is not an inherent virute, nor is it inherently feasible or purposeful in most cases