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Starbase, LA

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Re: Starbase, LA

#451

Post by jrflowers »

testing22321 wrote: post #340
webdood90 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you’re demonstrating how far your head is in the sand Interesting. Perhaps ironic? If only society cared about genuinely good people like they seem to care about Musk. It's puzzling.

I want to be clear: I don’t care about Musk as a person. I care about facts. I care about achievements. Just the same as saying Israel is committing genocide is not antisemitism, saying Musk has achieved incredible things is not caring about or supporting him. Both cases are simply stating facts without any judgement or show of support/not support.

It is factually true that Elon Musk has a reputation for saying things will happen that do not end up happening. Picking out some things that you like about him and posting them while excluding the dozens of publicly documented examples of him either lying or (very charitably) being so “hopeful” that he’s disconnected from reality is indistinguishable from volunteering support.

If your Tesla (made by a company he took private at $420/share) makes you passive income as a robotaxi while you sleep, which you spend paying off the loan you took out in 2020 for the ticket to Mars that you bought to avoid covid which ended up being pointless because nobody got it past April then I’d understand being confused about his reputation. If not, you kind of just posted a roundabout way of saying that you don’t care or notice when he makes stuff up.

Re: Starbase, LA

#452

Post by nradov »

tootie wrote: post #391
sockaddr wrote: post #74

Elon-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.

This is almost certainly false. The vast majority of government spending goes directly to people that need it or debt service. There is very little outright fraud as DOGE quickly learned. The only meaningful target for cuts is military. And the only solution to debt is higher taxes.

The only solution to debt is growth.

Re: Starbase, LA

#453

Post by iknowstuff »

mcmcmc wrote: post #422
maxlin wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pushback? Anyone wishes they lived there now. SpaceX bought out stragglers off Boca Chica for multiple times the value of their homes

Yes, it’s much easier to buy people off and legally “persuade” them out of their homes when the local economy is depressed and they can’t afford a lawyer.

people getting paid an order of magnitude more money for their property and yet people like you will find a reason to complain. Where is this coming from? Some anti-capitalist, degrowth thing? Genuinely curious

Re: Starbase, LA

#455

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

bko wrote: post #226
boplicity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to forget that Tesla was made possible almost exclusively through government incentives. This is something that most people seem to have forgotten: Tesla exists because the government created incentive programs that paid in cold hard cash. Musk took advantage of those programs, and Tesla absolutely would not have been nearly as successful (and likely not existed) without it.

This is incredibly overstated. There are "incentives" for all sorts of activities. These incentives were available to all manufacturers. We should have "incentives" to produce electric vehicles and manufacturing in America. Insane not to. And these incentives are often "you would normally have to pay us X million in taxes, but we'll let you pay less". When the alternative is something not being built and no tax reven…

> In 2019, the loss was $862 million, but for 2020 there is a huge profit of $721 million.

> However: A closer look at the figures published last week shows that Tesla is still making losses with actual sales of electric cars - around $500,000 in 2020.

> In 2020, carbon certificates brought in $1.6 billion, without this revenue the numbers would still be below red.

https://www.electrichunter.com/ev-news/tesla-makes-money-co2...

With a "profit" margin that jumpy and a history of unrentability, i think it's fair to say that Tesla only exists today because of subsidies. It's not just tax benefits, as you frame it, but in this case EU-CO2 certificates, a direct "revenue" stream.

Re: Starbase, LA

#456

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

woah wrote: post #441
boplicity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to forget that Tesla was made possible almost exclusively through government incentives. This is something that most people seem to have forgotten: Tesla exists because the government created incentive programs that paid in cold hard cash. Musk took advantage of those programs, and Tesla absolutely would not have been nearly as successful (and likely not existed) without it.

The biggest miracle of Tesla is that they somehow got liberals to argue against government incentives for electric cars

... against Alon, not EVs.

Re: Starbase, LA

#457

Post by WalterBright »

nrr wrote: post #437
WalterBright wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can go for that, as long as the research proposals are actually about math research.

The stuff in Airtable seems to be. The lion's share of what's there is research that has applications to, like, sensors and robotics and AI, even if the abstracts themselves don't state that, likely because the PIs behind those proposals aren't aware of those applications of their work. (Just to illustrate how mathematicians can sometimes embody the archetype of Hans Guck-in-die-Luft: I had someone tell me once that…

> Hans Guck-in-die-Luft

I have to upvote you just for that reference!

My mom tore out Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher, thinking it would be disturbing to my young mind.

Re: Starbase, LA

#458

Post by WalterBright »

keeda wrote: post #433
WalterBright wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for evidence is not "willfully ignorant". People making claims have the onus of backing them up. Anyhow, the link to the canceled projects is: https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jnt... I looked at maybe a dozen at random, and only one seemed to have anything about scientific research. Of course, that is not a complete survey, but none of them looked important. I'm sure there are a few tha…

Are we looking at the same link? I scrolled through a bunch of them and I could not find a single one that was NOT related to scientific research. The UI is horrible so I can't link anything on that page, but here's what I see when I click that link: https://i.imgur.com/LzwDuKl.png (Edited to add, these are the abstracts, because I can't fit both in one screen /facepalm: https://i.imgur.com/yQKHViO.png ) Maybe there'…

Maybe you and I have different views on what constitutes scientific research.

Re: Starbase, LA

#459

Post by globalnode »

Game_Ender wrote: post #235
boplicity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to forget that Tesla was made possible almost exclusively through government incentives. This is something that most people seem to have forgotten: Tesla exists because the government created incentive programs that paid in cold hard cash. Musk took advantage of those programs, and Tesla absolutely would not have been nearly as successful (and likely not existed) without it.

The government should find ways to strategically invest in developing major industries. The market for them is global and China has/will have a bigger internal market than the US, so without intentional development we'll get a continued industrial consolidation that is bad for the US and the world. I have robotic lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners made by Chinese companies partly because an intentional policy from China…

the way the us govt has behaved internationally i wouldnt be surprised if countries/people actively boycott made in america.. the market for us goods and services would definitely have shrunk.
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