Earlier quoted context omitted.
Musk is a marketing genius.
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He doesn't build anything. Everything he's done has been acquisitions that he tries to astroturf as founding.
Starbase, LA
151–160 of 641 posts
Re: Starbase, LA
#152It’s easy to be pessimistic about Musk timelines/ big tech but I am thrilled that ambitious, real world, hard projects are happening in the US again.
You're being down-voted (and so shall I) but I think you're right. Despite all the animosity towards him, Musk is doing things that are economically meaningful for our nation. We'll need a few more of "him" to dig us out of this situation I reckon, but overall I still hope it's possible. (Anyone asking antagonistic questions can go ahead and save their fingers, I won't respond to the petty comments.)
Discounting challenges to your beliefs by burying your head in the sand is certainly a choice.
Re: Starbase, LA
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Incremental domestic capital investment, good. The level of cynicism, shit-talking, and schadenfreude wish-casting in response to this is crazy. Start cheering on successes. Resist the deconstructionist mindset.
>Start cheering on successes. Sure, when success stops being the environmental destruction of every area he sets up shop in for SpaceX launches.
Is it realistic to demand a spaceport with no environmental impact from anyone, SpaceX or not?
Current launch technology inevitably produces a lot of heat and noise and we don't have any rocket model that wouldn't at least rarely fail (and explode).
That said, extant Cape Canaveral does not seem to be lifeless. Lots of birds. IDK how the precise species composition has changed since 1960, but nature as a whole is a lot more resilient than people seem to think.
Re: Starbase, LA
#154> Pecan Island and nearby wetlands are high-value habitat for migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, and other coastal wildlife. SpaceX is not developing the full footprint of the land and will preserve wetlands and wildlife habitat. Pretty cynical corpo-ambiguity-speak, even by Musk standards. We're supposed to be happy they're promising not to develop one-hundred percent of the land footprint? They will lea…
Many industries, and SpaceX particularly, will say this like this, then a couple years later be like "oh, it's actually much easier if we destroy it", _do it_, then claim "oh well, nothing to be done now!" and push forward on something else.
"Promises" or "commitments" like this need to be evaluated based on the previous behavior of the people "making" them (although they were very careful with working to not use either of those words, and just imply them)
Re: Starbase, LA
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are "3,000 new jobs" enough to make a dent though?
Sounds like "legal language" threshold for whatever reason? The Terafab announcement used the same phrase: >The initial phase of Terafab is estimated to require approximately $16.8 billion in capital investments from SpaceX and Tesla, with potential future expansion phases bringing total investment much higher. This facility will employ at least 3,000 people, many of whom will be from Grimes and nearby Brazos County…
> many of whom will be from Grimes
That required a double take
Re: Starbase, LA
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Musk is a marketing genius.
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This sums up my and many others timeline of his understanding of engineering diciplines: https://mastodon.social/@rodhilton/109572674700288958
Re: Starbase, LA
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Musks money and twitter takeover did a lot of work to convince Americans vote for Trump. Then Musk joined the administration and continued digging the hole
Ok. The OP wrote: > You're being down-voted (and so shall I) but I think you're right. Despite all the animosity towards him, Musk is doing things that are economically meaningful for our nation. In the context of the US building big things, ramping up manufacturing, doing Space exploration, &c. and the person I replied to wrote: > Musk has done a huge amount to put us INTO this situation What situation did he put us…
It'd be nice if his companies paid the tax they owe.
Re: Starbase, LA
#158Elon-types won't "dig us out" of our mess. Removing parasitic elements in government spending and policy will. This starts with politics. We first need a healthy, educated, engaged, and safe population. All else follows. These are all things Elon actively works against. You aren't part of his future.
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> He was involved in DOGE, which did nothing but catch fraud and cut worthless spending.
Elon wasn't just involved with DOGE, he was responsible for it. And Elon said he would cut $2 TRILLION in federal spending before ultimately claiming just $110 billion in savings -- which the GAO found he lied about. Considering out budget deficit is about $2 trillion, even his inflated claims are a rounding error.
(To say nothing of the fact that a lot of it was NOT useless spending. For example, Elon ended a program to fund countries in Central America to stop the spread of screw worms. Now screw worms are projected to cost $1.8 billion in damage to Texas alone.)
> while Elon encourages reporting on X
Elon has a track record of banning journalists on Twitter / X, the everything app, when they criticize him. Literally the opposite of encouraging reporting on X.
> We need more "Elons", people like him are actually helping dig us out of this mess.
I would encourage you to start reading independent news sources and forming your own opinions, rather than uncritically believing everything people in power feed to you. Otherwise you end up saying things online that are trivially disprovable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/09/gao-repor...
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/flesh-eating-scr...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-mus...
Re: Starbase, LA
#159Isn't this an absolutely horrible idea to build this here? What happens when the next Category 5 hurricane hits this area? It's an absolute certainty that they will get another Category 5 at some point.
Do you know where NASA's launch facilities are? The Florida coast.
The Florida coast isn't defined by a huge, meandering river. Take a look at some satellite surveys that showcase how the Mississippi River changes over time. We've of course damned up the shorelines upstream where people live in places like New Orleans so there's no inherent seasonal risk of mass flooding, though of course lose the deposited silt and hence further erode the land we've "saved". Further down south toward the mouth, it's marsh land defined by however the river chooses to meander. I'm not sure where exactly SpaceX is planning to setup in LA, but the entire coastline there is chronically very poor, very unpopulated, and not supported to weather flooding of any kind, especially not hurricanes.
Re: Starbase, LA
#160Elon-types won't "dig us out" of our mess. Removing parasitic elements in government spending and policy will. This starts with politics. We first need a healthy, educated, engaged, and safe population. All else follows. These are all things Elon actively works against. You aren't part of his future.
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Conservative media even barely talks about DOGE because of how bad the optics are, and how much of an utter failure it was.