Elon Musk needs to be stopped.

[dante1111]

I think Musk will stop himself and self cancel

He has never invented anything, he has been in a fortunate position to have been given money from his Dad and then bought his way into investments, all he does is have ideas that are not new but asks scientists to make shit for him.

One day he will open his dumb mouth and say something so monumentally stupid that the whole world will have a collective face palm or head slap.

[pockets]

Originally Posted by dante1111

One day he will open his dumb mouth and say something so monumentally stupid that the whole world will have a collective face palm or head slap.

This should have happened already, but it hasn't. Why not? There are many quotes that I could share that would, at least partially, shed some light on this, but I'll just give you one.

"Man is a rational animal. So at least we have been told. Throughout a long life I have searched diligently for evidence in favor of this statement." - Bertrand Russell

[ViceLikeEye]

Originally Posted by dante1111

One day he will open his dumb mouth and say something so monumentally stupid that the whole world will have a collective face palm or head slap.

I hope you're right, but the problem with cult followers; They almost never question their leaders. For example, the idiom "Drank the Kool-Aid" means loyalty to the end, AKA strongly believing in and accepting a deadly, deranged, or foolish ideology or concept based only upon the overpowering coaxing of another; the expression is also used to refer to a person who wrongly has faith in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards.

The reason we have this idiom below:

Back in November 1978, Americans were shocked by newspaper headlines about the deaths of more than 900 people in the South American nation of Guyana, in what appeared to be a combination of mass murder and suicide by poison. The carnage took place at a jungle camp known as Jonestown. Its founder was a charismatic American religious leader, the Rev. Jim Jones, who had led many of the cult followers of his former San Francisco-based Peoples Temple sect there.

Residents of the commune later committed suicide by drinking a grape flavored beverage (Kool-Aid) laced with potassium cyanide; some were forced to drink it, some (such as small children) drank it unknowingly.[3] Roughly 918 people died.

The point of this is, Musk has way more followers, who see him as Electric Jesus, AKA engineer, inventor, scientist, etc (sane, critical thinkers know he's none of those things). I don't think his cult followers will facepalm or question him. They drank the Kool-Aid and see him as the answer to everything.

[Panopsis]

I don't think anyone can honestly say they've engaged deeply with Elon Musk's philosophy only to arrive at the conclusion that he's a false prophet. Quite the contrary, Musk is constantly stressing the need for people to base their judgments on science, reason, and evidence rather than faith, to think for themselves rather than trusting authority. At no point does he try to indoctrinate people with anything except the values of logic, meritocracy, and freedom of speech -- which is in direct antithesis to the brainwashed obedience that a cult leader would actually demand. Musk has even stated one of his main goals is the eradication of what he calls "the woke mind virus" -- by which he means precisely the kind of cult-like, uncritical acceptance of prevailing moral fashion that seems to rob many people of their common sense, not to mention common decency.

Musk is of course far from perfect, and his autistic brain sometimes fails to detect social cues that the neurotypical can easily see. He himself admits he sometimes says foolish things (who doesn't, after all) and it's clear he doesn't always vet his sources sufficiently (which, again, will happen to any public figure who puts his or her thinking on public display as extensively as Musk does). His autism does, however, seem to grant him certain insights that might escape other people at first. His efforts to shine a light on the ways in which legacy media has lost its credibility, for example, whether by distorting the truth or deliberately failing to report the truth, has led him to declare that legacy media is dead, and the people are the media now. Understandably, this has led to legacy media trying to find any way possible to disparage or otherwise demonize him -- an effort that has apparently proven only too successful in some quarters where people already have all-but-blind faith in the media's chosen narratives.

In the end, whether you agree with him or not, what Musk's been able to accomplish thus far is little short of meteoric. To build so many successful companies so quickly with so much risk involved -- it almost defies belief. Just the other day, Jensen Huang, CEO of the most valuable company in the world, Nvidia, was amazed that Musk was able to orchestrate the construction of what is now the world's most powerful supercomputer, Colossus, in about three weeks, when such a feat would normally take three years or more to pull off. To be not only the world's richest man worth well over $400 billion, but to have almost twice as much money as the next richest man, Jeff Bezos, and also to do that while garnering well over 200 million followers on X, is mind-boggling. Rocketry, EVs, robotics, AI, computer-brain interfaces, satellite broadband, encryption, solar power, video games, interplanetary colonization, social media, etc. -- that is an incredible range of interests . . . and yet Musk is also a micromanager who wants to oversee all the goings-on at his businesses, down to the bolts on his rockets or the code that runs X. This guy could easily have kept his mouth shut to avoid offending anyone and risking the success of his businesses, but he's said that he cares enough about humanity and its future that he felt he had to speak truth to power, come what may. If you think that makes him a moron or a bad person, then you might want to cast your critical eye back toward yourself for a time and actually try to grasp the extent of Musk's accomplishments before attempting to discredit him.

[Easymuse]

.

musk is NO "false prophet". He is very lucky and he is disgustingly rich. He hasn't "done" anything. He has however, bought and paid for (rich) the right stuff to get the things done that he puts his name on (lucky).

I just love having these friendly conversations with all my friends here on PS.

He is claiming the California fires not being put out on "DEI"; also some other racist shit. He uses phrases like "the woke mind virus". [<< edited >>]

I really enjoy reading all the nice conversational comments by all you posters.

[<< edited >>]

I'm glad we have this opportunity to openly discuss the topics of the day in such a friendly and generally interesting way.

If anyone is interested in the [<< edited >>] parts ... just PM me.

[ViceLikeEye]

Originally Posted by Panopsis

I don't think anyone can honestly say they've engaged deeply with Elon Musk's philosophy only to arrive at the conclusion that he's a false prophet. Quite the contrary, Musk is constantly stressing the need for people to base their judgments on science, reason, and evidence rather than faith, to think for themselves rather than trusting authority. At no point does he try to indoctrinate people with anything except the values of logic, meritocracy, and freedom of speech -- which is in direct antithesis to the brainwashed obedience that a cult leader would actually demand. Musk has even stated one of his main goals is the eradication of what he calls "the woke mind virus" -- by which he means precisely the kind of cult-like, uncritical acceptance of prevailing moral fashion that seems to rob many people of their common sense, not to mention common decency.

There's so much to disagree with, especially in this first paragraph. However, since my counterpoints are political and religious, I'm not going to engage.

If you want to believe that Musk is Tony Stark, that's your opinion. And if people want to pay $20,000 more for a "Founders Edition" Cybertruck and the only difference to the normal one, is a fucking badge on the side that says "Founders Edition", it's their money to waste. They've been duped, because they're fucking brainwashed, by a cult leader.

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by ViceLikeEye

And if people want to pay $20,000 more for a "Founders Edition" Cybertruck and the only difference to the normal one, is a fucking badge on the side that says "Founders Edition", it's their money to waste. They've been duped, because they're fucking brainwashed, by a cult leader.

I agree and yet disagree with this. The folks that will pay an extra $20,000 for a "Founders Edition" are just idiots with more money than sense and they will pay extra for anything to flaunt their money over others.

Where I disagree is that they have been brainwashed. These idiots will pay anything for anything that others don't have.

We all can agree however, that they are IDIOTS!!!

[rexie_boy]

A true hero for our times.

[linkmail2]

Too often I make the mistake of bringing up politics here, so I won't say much about Musk except that his most passionate supporters are exactly who one would expect to support him so passionately.

Also, why isn't he first in line to have a Neural Link installed? Lead by example, Mr. Visionary!

[Panopsis]

He is very lucky and he is disgustingly rich. He hasn't "done" anything. He has however, bought and paid for (rich) the right stuff to get the things done that he puts his name on (lucky).

Everyone will have differing opinions about Musk as a human being, and that's totally understandable. Some people like his views and personality, other people . . . obviously not so much. But what Musk has accomplished as an engineer, investor, and CEO is hard to dispute. Even the most vocal of Musk's critics, such as Sam Harris, acknowledge he's the greatest entrepreneur of his generation as well as a brilliant engineer. To accrue Musk's success to dumb luck would be like claiming Warren Buffett was just in the right place at the right time when it comes to investing. Winning a million dollars in the lottery is luck; building nearly a dozen start-ups into multi-million dollar businesses from the ground up takes a lot more than that.

If you want to believe that Musk is Tony Stark, that's your opinion. And if people want to pay $20,000 more for a "Founders Edition" Cybertruck and the only difference to the normal one, is a fucking badge on the side that says "Founders Edition", it's their money to waste.

You're probably right in saying the Foundation Series Cybertruck is more about bragging rights and conspicuous consumption than anything else. But there's a lot more to it than just a badge -- for example, it comes with full self-driving mode, lifetime premium Starlink connectivity, Powershare functionality, etc. Not worth $20K to most people, but the full self-driving feature alone would cost $8k.

Also, why isn't he first in line to have a Neural Link installed? Lead by example, Mr. Visionary!

Neuralink is still very experimental and Musk would be foolish to undergo the surgery so early on. The first Neuralink patient is doing fine, but many of the electrode threads implanted in his brain came loose and the interface doesn't work as well as it initially did. Neuralink fixed the thread retraction problem with their second patient, and just a few days ago a third patient got an implant that should perform even better. Right now they're mainly focused on helping paralyzed and blind people, although as they further refine the technology they'll advance to performing surgeries on the general public, as it's the next logical step to connect ourselves with the digital world. I don't think I want to become a Borg just yet, but a lot of people will, including Musk.


It still baffles me why people would want to stop Musk when he's doing more than just about anyone to fast-track humanity toward a better, more technologically advanced future. If you disagree with his outlook, fine, but as long as he's not breaking any laws, why hope he gets canceled or try to impede his progress? Not even Musk thinks of himself as Tony Stark, but it's hard to deny that he's successfully solved some very tricky problems and gets things done where others falter. There are so many incompetent people in positions of authority everywhere you look (due in no small part to the "woke mind virus" as Musk would say), why go after one of the few who's actually competent?