I am not a Musk fan at all, in fact I despise Musk 4.0, but what he accomplished prior to losing his mind is undeniable. He founded SpaceX, which absolutely accelerated our access to space by 20-40 years. Half of the satellites in orbit belong to SpaceX. SpaceX put more mass into orbit last year than all other countries combined.
He accelerated the adoption of electric vehicles by at least ten years. If the worst of climate change predictions turn out to be true, this could make him one of the most beneficial humans of our time... that's assuming that his naive geopolitical angling doesn't kill us all, and that his brain implants don't turn us into corporate zombies.
My point is, there is much about him to criticize, but he has delivered a lot in the past.
If the worst of climate change predictions turn out to be true, this could make him one of the most beneficial humans of our time...
Not really. Methane from cows causes more harm to the environment than cars do. If he had gotten the world to go vegan, that would have been doing the impossible. Musk made an idea fashionable and sold carbon credits.
I mean, Musk went the practical route. Make things that nearly everyone wants... fast cars that you can refuel at home for next to no cost.
But I hear you about food. However, the sad joke is: we don't need vegan purity. If we could just convince everyone in wealthy countries to skip meat for only two days per week, then the we might actually hit 2C max temp increase. But everyone is all about paleo meat-only or vegan/vegetarian purity crap. We just needed some moderation, but that's not as sexy as being a vegan or a Hummer driver.
We will pilot our extremes straight into the ground.
All the scientifically relevant stuff would have gotten into space, Musk, SpaceX or not. All those Starlink satelites? I am still not convinced they provide any actual added value, besides giving SpaceX another product to raise funds against (Elon tried the same thing with FSD, which worked out less good so far).
Also, we were well on our path to EVs, Tesla (not Musk himself alone) accelerated that. Ten years so is bold claim, and attributing that all to one single person is just nonesense.
Edit: Tesla made shit tons of money by selling CO2 credits to legacy car makers, so in reality Musk (rather Tesla, but that distinctions is difficult) had close to no positive impact on climate change and instead profited of others continue to polute. All Musk cares about is his image as being the tech-god savior of mankind, that and money.
I am not a Musk fan at all, in fact I despise Musk 4.0, but what he accomplished prior to losing his mind is undeniable. He founded SpaceX, which absolutely accelerated our access to space by 20-40 years. Half of the satellites in orbit belong to SpaceX. SpaceX put more mass into orbit last year than all other countries combined.
He accelerated the adoption of electric vehicles by at least ten years. If the worst of climate change predictions turn out to be true, this could make him one of the most beneficial humans of our time... that's assuming that his naive geopolitical angling doesn't kill us all, and that his brain implants don't turn us into corporate zombies.
My point is, there is much about him to criticize, but he has delivered a lot in the past.
If the worst of climate change predictions turn out to be true, this could make him one of the most beneficial humans of our time...
Not really. Methane from cows causes more harm to the environment than cars do. If he had gotten the world to go vegan, that would have been doing the impossible. Musk made an idea fashionable and sold carbon credits.
I mean, Musk went the practical route. Make things that nearly everyone wants... fast cars that you can refuel at home for next to no cost.
But I hear you about food. However, the sad joke is: we don't need vegan purity. If we could just convince everyone in wealthy countries to skip meat for only two days per week, then the we might actually hit 2C max temp increase. But everyone is all about paleo meat-only or vegan/vegetarian purity crap. We just needed some moderation, but that's not as sexy as being a vegan or a Hummer driver.
We will pilot our extremes straight into the ground.
3 replies →
[dead]
All the scientifically relevant stuff would have gotten into space, Musk, SpaceX or not. All those Starlink satelites? I am still not convinced they provide any actual added value, besides giving SpaceX another product to raise funds against (Elon tried the same thing with FSD, which worked out less good so far).
Also, we were well on our path to EVs, Tesla (not Musk himself alone) accelerated that. Ten years so is bold claim, and attributing that all to one single person is just nonesense.
Edit: Tesla made shit tons of money by selling CO2 credits to legacy car makers, so in reality Musk (rather Tesla, but that distinctions is difficult) had close to no positive impact on climate change and instead profited of others continue to polute. All Musk cares about is his image as being the tech-god savior of mankind, that and money.
> All those Starlink satelites? I am still not convinced they provide any actual added value
Tell that to the Ukrainians. I'm told that they're big fans of Starlink as of late, I wonder why.
2 replies →
My car drove itself to work this morning, were you trying to be sarcastic?