I'm going to assume musk knows something about electric cars and something about rockets, but what he most assuredly doesn't know is the limits of his own knowledge.
I'm going to assume musk knows something about electric cars and something about rockets, but what he most assuredly doesn't know is the limits of his own knowledge.
If there were something Elon did not know, it would either exist or not exist.
But if it did not exist, he would not know it, because one cannot know things that not are. So no thing that does not exist can be known to Elon. And it follows from this that no thing exists that Elon does not know.
But if he knows any thing, then he must know every thing, because >every< member of a set that has the attribute of >any< member of that set must share that attribute.
Now Elon knows that he knows everything. We have already shown that what Elon does not know does not exist, and that no thing that does not exist is any thing. Therefore we have proved Elon knows every thing.
This is ineluctable logic and I'm sure Elon would have no trouble following the argument.
The thing about Elon Musk is heтАЩs a coward. He would prefer to complain about people without power while kissing up to people with power. HeтАЩs a classic, Limbaughesque тАЬrooter for the overdog.тАЭ Of course Musk rolls over for Erdogan; rolling over for authoritarians is easy and safe. Standing up to authoritarians is not, and Musk doesnтАЩt trust in his own skills and his own people enough to do so. He doesnтАЩt think he can rebound from annoying Erdogan, so he runs away from the possibility. This palpable fear comes through loud and clear, and I suspect investors can smell his fear. Me, IтАЩd think the whole point of being rich would be the ability to tell bullies like Erdogan to go to hell. Maybe something wonderful would come from it in the long run, maybe even something transformative that would make Musk even more famous and beloved than he is now. But weтАЩll never know because Musk is a coward.
"Fuck you" money appeals to people like us because we were born in the real world.
Dudes like Musk were born in a shark tank where they couldn't trust basic human connection, because from their earliest moments they were taught that everyone around them wants a piece of what they have.
It's no wonder their normal mechanisms of relationship and approval end up utterly broken.
Not making any excuses for Musk, he's shown repeatedly that his ego makes a dried eggshell look durable. That web meeting where he fired a Twitter engineer for very politely correcting him on how the system actually works a few months ago showed that he's too fragile to handle the idea that reality can contradict his thoughts.
Just a sad, vicious, broken little guy who never formed into an adult human.
My theory is the only thing Musk really knows is how to sell a vision.
When that vision is inspiring and new, like electric cars and spaceflight, it's easy to attract engineers and staff who can carry you the rest of the way. That didn't work for Twitter because social media isn't exciting any more, and he made it an obviously nightmarish place to work by firing a large portion of the staff the second he stepped in the door.
This, so much this. He is a pitchman, a long con operator, and he has been very good at building a base of acolyte ball-washers that follow him around.
The major innovations come not from his head, but from actual engineers. Where he has inserted himself (as in the decision to remove radar from the sensors in Tesla's because "Humans can drive by using their stereo vision, so should our driver assists" is one reason why Tesla's in FSD or Autopilot regularly run into stopped emergency vehicles) it has gone poorly.
Being a pitchman is a legit skill, and something that makes any project a million times easier. The problem is when the pitchman mistakes "being able to sell it" with "being an expert in it."
Why would you assume he knows something about either one of those things?
I mean, he MIGHT have picked up a bit about them after he invested in them, but he isn't the guy doing the engineering work. Never was.
What Elon Musk knows is bullshitting. It is his prime skill. He also has an eye for investment opportunities (which would not have done him a lot of good without his family being wealthy) and the ability to BS to improve his investment.
Tesla stock didn't hit the high value it did because they turned out lots of great product.
I mean, the reality is that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs were tech geniuses. Gates was a good, cutthroat businessman with an eye for opportunity. Jobs was an even better BS artist than Elon.
Gates didn't create MS-DOS or Windows. Jobs didn't design the systems he sold.
This is all before we talk about his reliance on government subsidies for his EV sales and NASA contracts for SpaceX. Uncle Sam throws a lot of subsidies and contracts to Elon, which in turn gives him greater revenues, which in turn attracts investors.
That was always a problem with the arms industry--which is a contributing factor to some of the problems that we have today.
Arms design and manufacture is a capital intensive business and requires a lot of kissing up to the government (which leads to other problems, like retired high ranking officers becoming arms industry executives).
You sank a fair bit of capital into R&D and tooling. Sure you sold the US government a few million M-16 variants (so you didn't lose money), but it is going to be another 20 years or more before you get another big purchase like that. Meanwhile you are stuck with a plant that isn't generating a revenue stream... UNLESS you can get a whole bunch of private citizens to buy a "civilianized" version of your weapon.
It wasn't as much of a societal problem when military rifles were muzzle loaders or bolt actions, but it is one now.
A lot of the "research" that is constantly ongoing is really nothing more than providing a revenue stream to companies that don't really have civilian alternatives.. or that you won't let export their product (like F-22s or B-2s or the new Raider bomber).
I am still slightly amazed that they allow export/cooperation) of the F-35.
[It wasn't as much of a societal problem when military rifles were muzzle loaders or bolt actions, but it is one now.]
Plus, back then, IIRC, there were often weapons on the market that were just flat out better than what the military was handing out. Gotta figure a good lever action carbine from the late 1800's would be better in most civilian situations than a 1903 Springfield (not distance shooting, but otherwise). In the 20's and 30's people could get a Tommy gun, but the Marines went to war with the Springfield, and the army had the fine M-1 (for line soldiers), which was good, but was no submachine gun.
And yeah, I know you know all that, and some of those weapons were damn fine in their roles, I'm not arguing they weren't. Just that it was fairly easy to exceed line soldier armament back then, but obviously not so much now.
There is also the larger consideration that the the overall context changed. Up until the early 1900s, there was a "frontier." For much of the history of the US there were areas where there was little or no government, little or no law enforcement, and hostile natives (who were justified in their hostility, TBH).
And, yes, private citizens were often better armed than soldiers... especially post civil war. Heck even the natives were often better armed.
I WILL go so far as to say, however, that the 1903 was one of the best bolt-action rifles of the era :) Better than the Krag-Jorgensen by far.
I would argue for the later version (The "G" model) of the FG 42, which influenced the design of the US M 60 machinegun.
But only a few thousand were made... and many people are actually unaware of the existence of the weapon (the StG 44 is better known)
The M1 was good, but not a fan of the 8 round en bloc clip with the distinctive sound it made when the gun kicked the empty out... plus, garand thumb ;)
From what I have read, his knowledge of rockets and cars leaves a lot to be desired. HeтАЩs asked folks at Tesla to do some downright dangerous things (like removing radar from the тАЬself-drivingтАЭ feature, relying only on cameras!). Tear downs of Teslas have shown key components attached to the vehicle using plastic corner protectors from Home Depot. He ignored experts on the launch pad construction and blew it to hell with the Starship launch a couple of weeks ago. I donтАЩt think what is happening at Twitter is indicative of his тАЬgeniusтАЭ hitting its limits, I think weтАЩre seeing Musk in all his glory and what happens when he doesnтАЩt have тАЬMusk-mindersтАЭ like Tesla and SpaceX employ.
He's rich, not smart. When you have piles of money you have people who think you're hot s--t* and throw their money at you. He's managed to leverage that with producing something at Tesla and SpaceX, but Twitter showed his depth (or rather shallowness).
I think it's deeper than that. Being surrounded by bootlicking yes-men rots your brain and makes you lose all perspective and ability to see the edges of your own knowledge. If everyone around you depends on your for their financial and/or psychological well-being, they're not going to puncture your peculiar errors, which is just going to let them become more entrenched and expansive. We should probably start treating "being a billionaire" as a risk factor for developing a personality disorder, like smoking for heart disease.
I think this is a really good point, Sherm. The best leaders I have known of realize this and either deliberately seek out or make themselves listen to people who don't agree with them. A good leader realizes the pitfalls of being surrounded by "bootlicking yes-men" and has enough confidence in themselves and their ideas that they force themselves to realize they may not be right about everything.
Unfortunately, we have plenty of examples in our private lives as well as many examples in public life of people who are not good leaders.
Well, Trump was never a billionaire and is certainly worth a lot less than claimed. He wants to be like Putin because Putin is surrounded by yes-men which rots every brain.
Another 'very stable genius', no? With so many of them around, I can't for the life of me figure out why the world isn't in much better shape than it is. Go figure.
The real idiots are the people who worship guys like Elon. They also think that because he is smart at a couple of things that he will be smart at everything. The same could be said of Trump worshippers who think that because he was a "successful" businessman and TV show host that he'll also be good at running a country. When they get proven wrong, they ignore the evidence and pretend that there is "Trump/Elon Derangement Syndrome" from the opposition. As usual, people get more angry at those who call out the con than they do at the con man who is actively conning them. The sunk cost fallacy follows Dunning-Krugerism.
None of this is new. Probably the best comparison is with Thomas Edison. His ground-breaking ideas behind getting the US electrified was one that would forever change our society. He was by any means highly successful and endlessly lionized by the press.
Edison was a ruthless competitor, too. There are several books, many long form articles and even YouTube videos on the great competition between Edison's DC (direct current) infrastructure and George Westinghouse's AC (alternation current). Nasty doesn't even begin to describe it.
However, once his early achievements came to fruition and made Edison fabulously wealthy he took on a couple of very expensive "hobby" projects. For instance he made a large bet on "manufactured housing" made of concrete. The idea was basically to build a house as quickly and cheaply as possible by pouring concrete into a house-shaped mold on site. Add a roof and some plumbing et voila! Except that nobody wanted to live inside what amounts to a bunker.
He had other projects with similar results and eventually the board of GE (the company Edison built) removed him from any position of influence. He was still considered a true American hero but he was neutered by his creation.
We're not there yet with Musk but historically speaking it's a matter of time before he's sidelined by his own creations. I think Twitter will eventually begin Musk's decline as a powerhouse of American business acumen.
Yeah. And lemmings follow, well, you know. I often wonder if any of them would actually make a peep on the way down from the cliff edge. Of course, they'd have to realize they were falling first. So, not likely, I guess.
I'm going to assume musk knows something about electric cars and something about rockets, but what he most assuredly doesn't know is the limits of his own knowledge.
By logic this proves Elon knows everything.
If there were something Elon did not know, it would either exist or not exist.
But if it did not exist, he would not know it, because one cannot know things that not are. So no thing that does not exist can be known to Elon. And it follows from this that no thing exists that Elon does not know.
But if he knows any thing, then he must know every thing, because >every< member of a set that has the attribute of >any< member of that set must share that attribute.
Now Elon knows that he knows everything. We have already shown that what Elon does not know does not exist, and that no thing that does not exist is any thing. Therefore we have proved Elon knows every thing.
This is ineluctable logic and I'm sure Elon would have no trouble following the argument.
He doesnтАЩt know anything about cars or rockets. His engineers do.
This. Musk has not created much, if anything, of actual value on his own, anywhere. He's simply the chief parasite.
The thing about Elon Musk is heтАЩs a coward. He would prefer to complain about people without power while kissing up to people with power. HeтАЩs a classic, Limbaughesque тАЬrooter for the overdog.тАЭ Of course Musk rolls over for Erdogan; rolling over for authoritarians is easy and safe. Standing up to authoritarians is not, and Musk doesnтАЩt trust in his own skills and his own people enough to do so. He doesnтАЩt think he can rebound from annoying Erdogan, so he runs away from the possibility. This palpable fear comes through loud and clear, and I suspect investors can smell his fear. Me, IтАЩd think the whole point of being rich would be the ability to tell bullies like Erdogan to go to hell. Maybe something wonderful would come from it in the long run, maybe even something transformative that would make Musk even more famous and beloved than he is now. But weтАЩll never know because Musk is a coward.
"Fuck you" money appeals to people like us because we were born in the real world.
Dudes like Musk were born in a shark tank where they couldn't trust basic human connection, because from their earliest moments they were taught that everyone around them wants a piece of what they have.
It's no wonder their normal mechanisms of relationship and approval end up utterly broken.
Not making any excuses for Musk, he's shown repeatedly that his ego makes a dried eggshell look durable. That web meeting where he fired a Twitter engineer for very politely correcting him on how the system actually works a few months ago showed that he's too fragile to handle the idea that reality can contradict his thoughts.
Just a sad, vicious, broken little guy who never formed into an adult human.
Higher inheritance tax to weed out the nepo babies.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Love your entire comment!
My theory is the only thing Musk really knows is how to sell a vision.
When that vision is inspiring and new, like electric cars and spaceflight, it's easy to attract engineers and staff who can carry you the rest of the way. That didn't work for Twitter because social media isn't exciting any more, and he made it an obviously nightmarish place to work by firing a large portion of the staff the second he stepped in the door.
This, so much this. He is a pitchman, a long con operator, and he has been very good at building a base of acolyte ball-washers that follow him around.
The major innovations come not from his head, but from actual engineers. Where he has inserted himself (as in the decision to remove radar from the sensors in Tesla's because "Humans can drive by using their stereo vision, so should our driver assists" is one reason why Tesla's in FSD or Autopilot regularly run into stopped emergency vehicles) it has gone poorly.
Being a pitchman is a legit skill, and something that makes any project a million times easier. The problem is when the pitchman mistakes "being able to sell it" with "being an expert in it."
And then expands that to "being an expert on everything."
Spot on. If the pitchman is more in tune with the people who build the technology then it is a net positive.
That is NOT what Elon Musk does though. There are dozens of reports where his engineering teams learn about his whims from public presentations.
That is madness.
Why would you assume he knows something about either one of those things?
I mean, he MIGHT have picked up a bit about them after he invested in them, but he isn't the guy doing the engineering work. Never was.
What Elon Musk knows is bullshitting. It is his prime skill. He also has an eye for investment opportunities (which would not have done him a lot of good without his family being wealthy) and the ability to BS to improve his investment.
Tesla stock didn't hit the high value it did because they turned out lots of great product.
I mean, the reality is that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs were tech geniuses. Gates was a good, cutthroat businessman with an eye for opportunity. Jobs was an even better BS artist than Elon.
Gates didn't create MS-DOS or Windows. Jobs didn't design the systems he sold.
This is all before we talk about his reliance on government subsidies for his EV sales and NASA contracts for SpaceX. Uncle Sam throws a lot of subsidies and contracts to Elon, which in turn gives him greater revenues, which in turn attracts investors.
Not just greater revenue, but predictable, reliable revenue streams. Ask Warren Buffet about the premium that attracts . . .
That was always a problem with the arms industry--which is a contributing factor to some of the problems that we have today.
Arms design and manufacture is a capital intensive business and requires a lot of kissing up to the government (which leads to other problems, like retired high ranking officers becoming arms industry executives).
You sank a fair bit of capital into R&D and tooling. Sure you sold the US government a few million M-16 variants (so you didn't lose money), but it is going to be another 20 years or more before you get another big purchase like that. Meanwhile you are stuck with a plant that isn't generating a revenue stream... UNLESS you can get a whole bunch of private citizens to buy a "civilianized" version of your weapon.
It wasn't as much of a societal problem when military rifles were muzzle loaders or bolt actions, but it is one now.
A lot of the "research" that is constantly ongoing is really nothing more than providing a revenue stream to companies that don't really have civilian alternatives.. or that you won't let export their product (like F-22s or B-2s or the new Raider bomber).
I am still slightly amazed that they allow export/cooperation) of the F-35.
[It wasn't as much of a societal problem when military rifles were muzzle loaders or bolt actions, but it is one now.]
Plus, back then, IIRC, there were often weapons on the market that were just flat out better than what the military was handing out. Gotta figure a good lever action carbine from the late 1800's would be better in most civilian situations than a 1903 Springfield (not distance shooting, but otherwise). In the 20's and 30's people could get a Tommy gun, but the Marines went to war with the Springfield, and the army had the fine M-1 (for line soldiers), which was good, but was no submachine gun.
And yeah, I know you know all that, and some of those weapons were damn fine in their roles, I'm not arguing they weren't. Just that it was fairly easy to exceed line soldier armament back then, but obviously not so much now.
There is also the larger consideration that the the overall context changed. Up until the early 1900s, there was a "frontier." For much of the history of the US there were areas where there was little or no government, little or no law enforcement, and hostile natives (who were justified in their hostility, TBH).
And, yes, private citizens were often better armed than soldiers... especially post civil war. Heck even the natives were often better armed.
I WILL go so far as to say, however, that the 1903 was one of the best bolt-action rifles of the era :) Better than the Krag-Jorgensen by far.
And the Garand was as far as I know, the best rifle in WWII.
Hmmmmmm.
I would argue for the later version (The "G" model) of the FG 42, which influenced the design of the US M 60 machinegun.
But only a few thousand were made... and many people are actually unaware of the existence of the weapon (the StG 44 is better known)
The M1 was good, but not a fan of the 8 round en bloc clip with the distinctive sound it made when the gun kicked the empty out... plus, garand thumb ;)
Indeed.
From what I have read, his knowledge of rockets and cars leaves a lot to be desired. HeтАЩs asked folks at Tesla to do some downright dangerous things (like removing radar from the тАЬself-drivingтАЭ feature, relying only on cameras!). Tear downs of Teslas have shown key components attached to the vehicle using plastic corner protectors from Home Depot. He ignored experts on the launch pad construction and blew it to hell with the Starship launch a couple of weeks ago. I donтАЩt think what is happening at Twitter is indicative of his тАЬgeniusтАЭ hitting its limits, I think weтАЩre seeing Musk in all his glory and what happens when he doesnтАЩt have тАЬMusk-mindersтАЭ like Tesla and SpaceX employ.
Classic Dunning-Kruger. Because he is smart about a few things, he assumes he is smart about all things.
Very Trumpian!!
I think he pays some people to be smarter about some things.
He's rich, not smart. When you have piles of money you have people who think you're hot s--t* and throw their money at you. He's managed to leverage that with producing something at Tesla and SpaceX, but Twitter showed his depth (or rather shallowness).
*as compared to "Full of"
I think it's deeper than that. Being surrounded by bootlicking yes-men rots your brain and makes you lose all perspective and ability to see the edges of your own knowledge. If everyone around you depends on your for their financial and/or psychological well-being, they're not going to puncture your peculiar errors, which is just going to let them become more entrenched and expansive. We should probably start treating "being a billionaire" as a risk factor for developing a personality disorder, like smoking for heart disease.
I think this is a really good point, Sherm. The best leaders I have known of realize this and either deliberately seek out or make themselves listen to people who don't agree with them. A good leader realizes the pitfalls of being surrounded by "bootlicking yes-men" and has enough confidence in themselves and their ideas that they force themselves to realize they may not be right about everything.
Unfortunately, we have plenty of examples in our private lives as well as many examples in public life of people who are not good leaders.
Well, Trump was never a billionaire and is certainly worth a lot less than claimed. He wants to be like Putin because Putin is surrounded by yes-men which rots every brain.
Another 'very stable genius', no? With so many of them around, I can't for the life of me figure out why the world isn't in much better shape than it is. Go figure.
The real idiots are the people who worship guys like Elon. They also think that because he is smart at a couple of things that he will be smart at everything. The same could be said of Trump worshippers who think that because he was a "successful" businessman and TV show host that he'll also be good at running a country. When they get proven wrong, they ignore the evidence and pretend that there is "Trump/Elon Derangement Syndrome" from the opposition. As usual, people get more angry at those who call out the con than they do at the con man who is actively conning them. The sunk cost fallacy follows Dunning-Krugerism.
None of this is new. Probably the best comparison is with Thomas Edison. His ground-breaking ideas behind getting the US electrified was one that would forever change our society. He was by any means highly successful and endlessly lionized by the press.
Edison was a ruthless competitor, too. There are several books, many long form articles and even YouTube videos on the great competition between Edison's DC (direct current) infrastructure and George Westinghouse's AC (alternation current). Nasty doesn't even begin to describe it.
However, once his early achievements came to fruition and made Edison fabulously wealthy he took on a couple of very expensive "hobby" projects. For instance he made a large bet on "manufactured housing" made of concrete. The idea was basically to build a house as quickly and cheaply as possible by pouring concrete into a house-shaped mold on site. Add a roof and some plumbing et voila! Except that nobody wanted to live inside what amounts to a bunker.
He had other projects with similar results and eventually the board of GE (the company Edison built) removed him from any position of influence. He was still considered a true American hero but he was neutered by his creation.
We're not there yet with Musk but historically speaking it's a matter of time before he's sidelined by his own creations. I think Twitter will eventually begin Musk's decline as a powerhouse of American business acumen.
'I think Twitter has begun Musk's decline as a powerhouse of American business acumen.'
Fixed it for you. :-)
We can always hope.
Edison even electrocuted to death live elephants to try to paint AC as being too dangerous (among other things). Nasty indeed.
Yeah. And lemmings follow, well, you know. I often wonder if any of them would actually make a peep on the way down from the cliff edge. Of course, they'd have to realize they were falling first. So, not likely, I guess.
I'd posit he's smart at talking people out of their money to support his ideas. He himself has no clue what it takes to do something other than money.
They will all be hearing from Mr. Ed's attorneys.
Yeah, there's the Duning-Kruger Effect in action.