Comment by robbiep
1 year ago
Past performance is a piss poor indicator of future performance.
You can’t deny (I don’t think) that the things he’s done are amazing. He’s in the zone where he’s smelt too many of his farts though, and believes he can do no wrong, which is historically a very bad place to be. I hope, for all of the awesome things he’s said he’d like to do, that they don’t come agutsa due to that
> Past performance is a piss poor indicator of future performance.
This is such a baseless and almost comically wrong heuristic I'm curious how it's one you landed on. I'm earnestly curious, do you use the same heuristic in other areas of your life?
If you were in the market for a car, would you let the past performance of other vehicles you've owned influence that decision? It seems to me to be such a simple and fundamental part of decision making, I'm fascinated you've gotten along thus far without it.
I treat my life as a series of independent variables… much like HN comments where sometimes sticking the snappy retort in regarding a brilliant but flawed individual might jolt someone out of their hero worship, but point taken
“past performance is a poor indicator of future performance” is quite a weak statement. It’s the one of the best predictors there is. There are very few exceptions. When you were called out you doubled down with complete nonsense. If everything were a series of independent variables, then every day after work, how do you decide whether to return home to your loving spouse (of many years) and children, why not go to a bar and find some strange? Why bother calling up your longtime friends to hang out, why not go to a bar and talk to the person next to you - a lifetime of (past) friendship is no indication of future kinship! Why bother writing a response to a forum post, when one moment from now, everything will be independent of everything else, and you have no expectations of feeling the same way? Finally, you excuse any flaws in your travesty of ideas by claiming that sniping at “Elon worshipers” is such a just cause that it excuses any sort of flawed thinking. This is a fine demonstration of echo chamber thinking.
> Past performance is a piss poor indicator of future performance.
Really?
It's my understanding Elon isn't popular anymore (I could care less), but this point does not help whatever it is you're trying to say. I deal a lot with statistics and making predictions from past performance, and you most definitely can determine future performance with a high amount of accuracy. This shouldn't really need said.
You are probably right about him smelling too many of his farts, but you really hurt your main thesis right off the bat with that first claim.
Past performance is no guarantee of future performance but not a bad indicator.
Past performance is the only data available to help predict the future.
Don't forget about prophecy
Prophecy generally falls in line with "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
If you have enough real-world data, and learned the patterns of history, along with fundamental principles that seem to be precursors or prerequisites to change, then a prophet is more or less someone with a honed and an extended-expanded open mind neural network compared to most.
P.S. It's why it's a really good idea to allow immigrants fleeing from communist countries, as they'll be best and perhaps first to detect and sound the alarm bells if fascism patterns begin to emerge in their new country.
> the things he's done are amazing
The things he's _purchased_ are amazing.
The things he purchased were fine. They became revolutionary under him.
The man has a lot of flaws and since covid drifted into ideologies I don't agree with. I also wouldn't buy a Tesla. But there is no denying that both Tesla and SpaceX revolutionized their respective industries. And it seems safe to say that neither would have managed to do this without Musk. And at least SpaceX manages to sustain a substantial lead over the competition and continues revolutionizing industries.
This is obviously untrue. what you’re really saying is “I don’t agree with Elons views so it would be uncomfortable for me to think that he has some admirable qualities, so I don’t allow myself to think about it”
SpaceX, the topic of this thread, was wholly started by him, with him being very hands own since the beginning till at least the first F9. Just watch any fab tour with him, be the old ones from 2005 or the new ones at Texas.
He is also a founder at Tesla, as when he entered the round A financing Tesla was just three guys, some networking, and nothing more. Even the "Tesla" trademark and logo registration was made by SpaceX people. He didn't found his own car company with just J. B. Straubel (another Tesla founder who was being paid by him to develop electric car batteries at the time) because he thought it would be better to cooperate with that other group that was was inspired by the same idea and he though he would be able to concentrate more on SpaceX that way. He was wrong and had to take the CEO position on Tesla later to avoid bankrupcy, move the Model S design headquarters to SpaceX, etc. And it's now nothing like what it was when he first put money on it.
It's amazing the mental gymnastics otherwise intelligent people reach for just to allow themselves to feel superior over someone whose politics they disagree with.
It's a self defense mechanism after all - someone demonstrably successful and accomplished holding different views forces you to introspect the narratives you were sold... so it's easier to just argue against the former.
I would venture a guess that the bulk of Elon animosity started exactly at twitter acquisition time, when the people selling the narratives lost their merchanting channel and so they made sure to poison the well beforehand.