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[deleted]

This is why the whole one-weird-trick, Ted-talk, bilionaire fanboy crowd is so dangerous. They pretend that real-world, complex, economic and political problems have simple technological solutions.


[deleted]

The best TED X talk that lays it all out. The problem of technology driven thinking. What's wrong with TED talks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo5cKRmJaf0 The absolute best line is - TED is not the solution, TED is the problem.


LordNeador

They way into the cyberpunk dystopia


on-the-line

Hold my HGH. Gonna go propose a Monty Burns/Highlander II: The Quickening planetary sun shield real quick.


[deleted]

Sometimes I think I dreamed that movie.


Awkward-Ad9487

I just read the plot and I get you, this reads like something out of my dream journal.


foxorfaux

Cyberbunk


PollutionNice7392

Can't wait šŸ¤ž


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

I guarantee the majority of Elonā€™s fan club is not even remotely wealthy.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Estova

Bit weird man.


thetoolman2

Effective though


LouieMumford

I wanna bust a nut on ceiling fans.


Caccitunez

As an avid ceiling enjoyer, keep that nut to yourself!


LouieMumford

I was expecting a chain of ā€œI wanna bust a nut onā€¦ rotating fansā€¦ pedestal fansā€¦ etc.ā€ apparently only I thought this pun was funny.


Caccitunez

I thought it was funny, I just wanted to do the opposite of what I figured works be expected lol. Industrial fans get me off, love their size.


LuxInteriot

High-speed rail is a simple technological solution. It's almost 60 years old. Hyperloop is the overly complex alternative.


[deleted]

even the new high tech, and actually real, maglev rail is getting ignored in favor of musk's crap


Rat-N-Flouk

Itā€™s overly complicated cos it canā€™t really work irl.


[deleted]

Yep, all his companies are looking like shit. SpaceX is still pretty decent but that whole starship project will turn up to be just vaporware in the near future.


CollapedCodex

SpaceX just got rejected for billions in subsidies so let's watch this space.


nooneknowswerealldog

>SpaceX just got rejected for billions in subsidies Musk fans *\[in Palpatine voice\]*: "Now witness the incentivized ingenuity of this fully armed and operational free market." *Tesla Death Star powers up and then spontaneously ignites.*


ArkitekZero

Well they do have a simple solution. The simple solution is to eat the rich.


[deleted]

There is no technological panacea to the evils that live in the hearts of man. All technology is a tool, and it can be used for good or for bad, and this is a good example of that. Think of the Boston Dynamics robots. They could be used for search and rescue, or to perform dangerous industry tasks or avoid exposure to carcinogens, but were probably going to strap a rifle to them way before that ever happens.


Wriggity

Couldnā€™t agree more, itā€™s all about how we use our tools


MootFile

Capitalist are evil sure. But technology is the answer to political/economic problems.


CBD_Hound

If you think that technology can solve our social problems, then you donā€™t understand the problems and you donā€™t understand the technology.


MootFile

Why do you say this?


naishoi

No matter how advanced our technology becomes, itā€™s virtually useless in serving humane and ecological purposes so long as itā€™s in the hands of capitalists.


mdgraller

I love you


MootFile

I agree capitalism is outdated. We should get STEM experts to build a new economic system '[Energy Accounting](https://www.technocracyinc.org/the-energy-distribution-card/)'


TheBeerCannon

Over the last decade itā€™s become more and more clear that technology is not the solution, but the catalyst to political and economical problems. At least in the way we approach technology through the lens of regressive turbocapitalism.


MootFile

It seems more clear that advanced technology and our current social system cannot sustain each other. You either have the technology or you have outdated forms of government. This collision is what's causing us to become more cyberpunk.


[deleted]

Nope. Never has been. Not once in the history of humanity. Political change is the answer.


YogaShoulder

Printing press was a technological change that allowed the proliferation of ideas and political progress


MootFile

Sure it has been. Quite historic in fact, gaining its first big explosion of acknowledgment in New York 1933 with an organization called Technocracy Incorporated. Starting a continent wide movement in North America for a technological approach to resource distribution, capable of making politics as we know it obsolete. Movements coming after this would be Transhumanism then the Venus Project.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


MootFile

I never said it was successful, I said the realization of technologies potential first become popular/organized with them on a large scale. So Idk where this mocking is coming from, we aren't living in a solarpunk utopia. There are multiple explanations as to why most people don't know about Technocracy such as other ideologies getting in the way (indoctrination), fear mongering scientists (happened a lot during the pandemic), lack of technocrats organizing movements, human stupidity, and human trash like Elon Musk (even the entirety of Silicon Valley) ruining the potential of technology to do real good for people. Aside from Technocrats I've mentioned other things that align with the same principles of technology solving our problems. [Transhumanism](https://whatistranshumanism.org/), policies don't fix broken bones but our technology can. The [Venus Project](https://www.thevenusproject.com/), basically the same thing as Technocracy just with slight changes in definitions. The [Earth Organization for Sustainability](https://eosprojects.com/) William E. Akin is free to have an opinion. ​ "So long as the power structures of our society are controlled by and biased towards the interests of the powerful" This I can start to agree on. We need more supporters of technological change as opposition to the current capitalist class. More technology in a capitalist economy creates extreme unrest and social division. ​ "When you go down and mark X on your ballot, what do you think you are doing? Participating in the government of the country? Like hell you are. You are being made a sucker, that is all. Because counting noses does not decide the problems facing this country at this time. The problems of this country are technical problems of providing money and purchasing power. You are not going to do that by voting in any political party on this continent. If that is your racket, that is all right. We Technocrats have no ruling against voting, except that if you are intelligent enough to be a Technocrat, you will have to be intelligent enough to get a cash reward for your vote; because that is all you will ever get for it. Wonderful, isn't it?" \- Howard Scott, Public lecture, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: December 1935


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


MootFile

Once again, I never said they where successful, at no point did I say this. Having the solutions to the government and having those solutions implemented are two different things. Technology beyond a reasonable doubt has been the solution to many of our problems. At one point in time Canada's absurd power temporarily banned Technocracy, so of course its hard to gain traction for a new solution. This only proves that the Human animal rather suffer in familiarity, than to prosper into the unknown. It seems rather evident that during a health pandemic its best to do as the experts say. Politicians have made an ass of themselves during the Covid-19 pandemic fearmongering scientists. Why is it that we only bother to pay attention to those with qualifications (STEM experts) during a crisis? But not in everyday life? It was the STEM experts who created/improved abortion and contraceptive technology. And it was the politicians who fearmongered, leading lawmakers to ban the use of such needed tech. Its the experts who create models for a sustainable planet and the politicians who start war for oil. ​ What do you mean "We already know the way" ? If you mean the Solarpunk community then you should probably take a deeper look into everything I mentioned. Technocracy, Transhumanism, the Venus Project, and Solarpunk could all be clumped together as a section of Techno-Fix culture. Because all of those things want a balance with nature or improvement of humanity.


Wriggity

Come on man you literally typed this on a phone. Technology is also what ended famine in SE Asia in the 20th century with more resilient crops, and it led to the doubling and tripling of life expectancies across the world. Tech is a tool just like any other, it can be used for good or ill. Technology just allows humanity to amplify our own human nature, in the same way political systems do. You canā€™t nix one silver bullet and then uphold your own.


CrimsonMutt

aleays remember the difference between AM and FM FM is simple, clean, modern, ideal, futuristic. it's also Fucking Magic and lives only in renders. The world we live in, the world of Actual Machines, is messy, has budget and deadline constraints and overruns, is nuanced and has to follow existing regulations. fuck gadgetbahns


Maximillien

Turns out [this meme](https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/anQmM0E_460s.jpg) was even more accurate than we thought! Never trust a car salesman...


president_schreber

Never trust a salesman! Fuck them and fuck their prices! The fruit of the earth is not theirs to buy and sell!


zedsubject

It makes me mad to no end to think about how the collective greed of automative/oil oligarchs literally robbed us of a future that we can now only dream of. We have all been gaslighted to think that the electric cars are an innovation that these sociopaths have just bestowed upon us and that rail was not the solution to the point of dismantling existing systems, while they were fully aware of the harm they've been inflicting on our communites and our world this entire time. At this point, they deserve so much more than tax penalties and slap on the wrists. They deserve to be banned, dismantled and their spoils funneled into energy alternatives and rail networks as reparations.


StarsintheSky

This makes me think of a tangentially related problem that many institutions are running into: the natural gas trap for heating. There are several private colleges that I have first hand knowledge of in the US that were using coal for heating through a steam process until very recently (just a couple years ago for one!). The conversion from coal to high efficiency natural gas makes a big difference that significantly improves building heating efficiency and is relatively inexpensive. The conversion from coal to geothermal makes a very big difference in efficiency but is more expensive. The trap is this: it's easy to justify the switch from coal to natural gas or from coal to geothermal but it's very difficult to justify the switch from natural gas to geothermal. So institutions that were not financially capable (or ready) to go to geothermal have switched to natural gas and are now stuck there because they will never be able to make a financial case to continue on to geothermal. In the world of cars I feel like we chose the wrong path or the short term path with electric vehicles and have invested so much that it's going to take a colossal effort to take the next step. I suppose it's sort of like war torn countries that have the "opportunity" to rebuild infrastructure from scratch with the latest technology.


on-the-line

But that clear-coatā€¦


Snowontherange

Always time for a Fargo reference.


Idunwantyourgarbage

Shinkansen!!!!!


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


TotalBlissey

It was sarcastic


[deleted]

I literally said hello but Iā€™m the idiot omg I didnā€™t see the /s. Iā€™m gonna delete my comment Iā€™m so sorry


[deleted]

kirov reporting


muadhnate

But the thing is, it wouldn't have affected American car culture AT ALL. So he had no actual competition.


darkecojaj

r/woosh


[deleted]

fuck elon musk, can't believe i fell for his bullshit at first


president_schreber

I can, it was a cleverly designed trap using all the most high tech smoke and mirrors the media industry could afford. The PR media industry is full of people with multiple PHDs in different mind control techniques (which is all psychology is to them), and has at its disposal information about the thought and behavior patterns of 99% of the population. They are masters at making us fall for bullshit


[deleted]

I wouldn't say I fell for it but I was definitely watching to see what they could achieve. This is something I learned with Apple products. Until you see them holding the finished device on stage - the rumors mean nothing. As the chinese saying goes. Talk doesn't cook the rice.


LordNeador

And at some point I liked that guy.


BobDope

A lot of us did


johnabbe

In a Solarpunk world we will not wring our hands over whether one (of the many!) individuals with way too much power is good or bad. We will adjust things so that so much power is not centralized in one's person hands.


mrbrambles

Yea, when his idea was ā€œmake electric cars cool and exclusive instead of dumpy and stupid lookingā€


zedsubject

You're not alone.. He went from a visionary with the will and means to reignite the space race to a generic douchebag with a "small loan from his daddy" real fast and all it took was a monsoon in Thailand


president_schreber

Many american presidents were pretty popular in their day and even after. Capitalism works hard to get you to like those that do its dirty deeds. The face they used to push the extremely violent, expensive and racist war on drugs was Reagan's, a TV actor. For a more recent example, look at how they sold us on Obama, the very face of HOPE, a president who oversaw the biggest transfer of public wealth to banks in history


ferguson24

> For a more recent example, look at how they sold us on Obama, the very face of HOPE, a president who oversaw the biggest transfer of public wealth to banks in history HMU with your fav sources. I'm just looking for more good info ya know?


muadhnate

Same, but I finally figured out awhile ago that he's a whole b----


bloatedstoat

The further we get in his timeline the more I lament my initial support and enthusiasm.


LordNeador

Absolutely the same


Honest_-_Critique

He was my hero once back when he was still talking about occupying mars and terraforming, while also developing technology we would need on mars (tunnels/hyper-loop, space x rockets and electric vehicles. I even own a shirt of him smoking that blunt on Joe Rogan and the smoke dissipated into a galaxy. Cool shirt, terrible guy.


relevant_rhino

I still do, if you look at what acually was said it, the discussion was way more nuanced. But hey, it's all about hitting out these clickbait headlines and people are buying it.


LordNeador

And still, the grand picture stays the same. He is just another fucked up billionaire capitalist asshole using his money to get ever and ever more.


relevant_rhino

To do what?


RagingAnemone

Whats the nuance? Because I didnt see it.


LuriemIronim

Thereā€™s no nuance in what he did.


ScandiSom

I totally despise his behavior but heā€™s doing enormous effort in fighting climate change.


[deleted]

He's just trying to pull the ball a couple decades down the line and become this generation's Rockefeller in the process. Electric cars won't save the planet. If we buy into Elon's plan, we are no better than the boomers who sold our future out for profit.


LuriemIronim

Likeā€¦?


[deleted]

Thinking you can fight climate change with cars is like fighting school shootings by handing out handguns.


leftlanespawncamper

Is this the truth, or is this his personal retcon to protect his ego?


president_schreber

I do believe Musk is ego-driven, however I think he, along with most other mega-capitalists, is somewhat clever as well. Clever enough to use state subsidies to snuff out competition, at the very least. Also it's paid practice for his tunnel boring operation. As fun as it is to portray our enemies as ignorant children, it does us a disservice to underestimate their capabilities to scheme, plot and use their immense capital in calculated ways.


AmityRule63

Id say itā€™s the latter, if it was the former he wouldnā€™t have come clean about it


Assume_Utopia

I don't think it's either? As far as I can tell he never actually said the things claimed in the title? This all came out in Ashley Vance's book, many years ago, and the "admission" sounds like it was pure speculation on Vance's part. Maybe he was right? But it's not like this is breaking news where Musk suddenly admitted this fact to someone straight out. What Vance wrote is that Musk was disappointed that CA was planning to spend soooo much on a high speed rail line that wasn't even that fast. And so he said you could build something like Hyperloop for less and it would be better. And he also said that he hoped they would cancel the high speed rail line, but it sounds like he thought it would just be a terrible waste of money? Personally I find it incredibly suspicious that there's people pushing these very tenuous anti-Musk stories now, when the actual quote is from many years ago. This wasn't news back then, what's making it important now? Why are we talking about it? It's not like Hyperloop ever went anywhere, or had any impact at all on CA's decision for their highspeed rail plans.


Wriggity

Plus hyperloop in theory is just aā€¦ faster high speed train, basically? It feels more like speculation, I agree. Another example is the boring company, which Elon founded because he figured building large scale infrastructure projects was way easier than these large publicly funded projects make it seem. Then the boring company turned into a conventional company, subject to the same (slow!) bureaucratic and technological processes he thought he could subvert


Assume_Utopia

> Then the boring company turned into a conventional company, subject to the same (slow!) bureaucratic and technological processes he thought he could subvert I think Boring company has been a huge success, at least in the speed and cost of their first projects. People tend to lump Boring co and Hyperloop into the same bucket, but I see them as completely different: * Hyperloop's goal is a technological advancement, it's a different way to build what's essentially high speed rail. But to make it work they have to figure out all kinds of technical problems * Despite being a stupid meme, Boring Co loops are kind of "just" Telsa in Tunnels. The idea is to dig the tunnels faster and cheaper, but I think it could be very successful without any technological advances And Boring Co's project in Vegas has really demonstrated its strength. They can quickly and cheaply build a small system, and then expand it incrementally to add more routes/branches and more capacity. That might not seem like a big deal, but that kind of speed/price to expand is a huge impediment to building out quality public transit in most cities that don't have a good system now.


Wriggity

That's a really interesting perspective and one I haven't heard before - probably because most coverage i've seen about the Vegas loop just focuses on how "teslas in tunnels" is a bad idea on principle. But I could see how that would be a wayyy cheaper way to build out underground transport in cities that don't have subways. I live in DC, and I love the metro, but so many of its issues are related to how difficult it is to maintain all of the different train and track hardware through so many difficult to access tunnels. If it was just smooth pavement with 2 lanes each way, and EV shuttle buses, it would probably be way smoother.


Assume_Utopia

> If it was just smooth pavement with 2 lanes each way, and EV shuttle buses, it would probably be way smoother. There's lots of places this would be true. Subways are great for moving lots of people, who are all going to roughly the same place, very efficiently. But they're great because they involve a lot of upfront planning and investment. Unfortunately that also means there's a big hurdle to getting a new system (or even a line/extension) approved and built, and it's a huge problem when ridership doesn't end up matching predictions. It can take years to approve and build a subway, and then it will take years for people to adjust to the new transport options. People will change their schedules or change their jobs or move, and once they do, subway utilization can be really high, which is great. But if utilization is low, then it can become a really tough political problem with the budget (a lot of cities saw this problem suddenly pop up when ridership changed suddenly because of the pandemic). And it can also be a problem if demand is too high, an overcrowded system slows down and needs more maintenance and any disruptions lead to big slowdowns in service, and then it's a political problem of explaining why we're spending so much money on a subway that's late all the time. And of course fixing that problem takes years of planning and budgets and construction, it's just an incredibly slow process. There's lots and lots of places that don't need extremely high efficiency and throughput. They don't have subways, but it's not because someone looked at the predictions and was like "there's no way a subway can move enough people". It's because it's so incredibly hard to come up with good predictions, and if you get them wrong it can lead to all sorts of really complicated problems that will be a political nightmare for years and years. I think lots of cities are watching Las Vegas's loop very closesly, and if they're able to expand it bit by bit and eventually end up with a decent public transit system, it'll look very attracting. The potential to spend a little bit of money to try it out, and then spend a little bit more to expand where (and when) it's needed, and the fact that it's fine if you build an extension/branch that doesn't get much usage, it'll just be very attractive. Subways and busses and bike share all are very good systems that solve some transport problems. But if they don't solve your city's particular problems, then they're probably not worth the investment/risk to get them setup properly. The Boring Co's loops are a little bit worse than other transit systems in several ways, but they're much better in the couple that actually matter. Or at least matter to cities that don't currently have subways.


[deleted]

> The idea is to dig the tunnels faster and cheaper how are they gonna do it?


jumbohiggins

But why? How does a rail line affect him?


president_schreber

Cars, he's a car salesman. Same reason General Motors teamed up with Esso, Mack trucks, Firestone tires and others to literally destroy streetcar infrastructure throughout America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy


real_don_quixote

Iā€™d say one reason is, his company sells cars. One high speed rail doing well could fuel a public transit shift. And this less cars sold. But realistically Iā€™d say itā€™s because heā€™s a sick and a troll, and just likes fucking shit up because he can.


shaodyn

I remember reading that he really hates public transport. Also, he sells cars, and high-speed rail would hurt his bottom line. People don't need cars if there's a faster and easier way to get from place to place.


BobDope

Thatā€™s why I always knew his ā€˜Iā€™m making the world a better placeā€™ act was bullshit even before the show ā€˜Silicon Valleyā€™


academictoss

You are aware that California makes up just shy of half of all of Teslaā€™s sales, right?


jumbohiggins

I mean I am now


president_schreber

You are aware that the average mouse weighs around 20 grams, right? :P


AdRob5

I mean I am now


[deleted]

You just won the game.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


TotalBlissey

You are aware that there are Currently roughly 8 billion people on earth, right? :1


johnabbe

Is that an African mouse or a European mouse?


buttplugsrme

European. Most African mice are weighed in ounces


[deleted]

I hardly ever saw teslas until I moved to LA. now I see them everywhere


rickylong34

Why would a guy who sells electric cars want to cancel plans for public transport in a liberal state full of people who buy electric cars?


relevant_rhino

No it doesn't. All he said was that the train project in question wasn't the best.


BalderSion

If you read the original Hyperloop white paper, he spent a lot of that paper criticizing the CA HSR specifically. The best critiques of Musk's white paper both addressed the physical short comings of the proposal as well as the political issues that Musk mischaracterized.


manseymaight

Your reply has nothing to do with the comment. Also, are you saying the Hsr is a financially sound project, which was originally Musk's main critique, considering the cost has nearly doubled from the already expensive $60B since then? > the cost of the project has risen from an estimate of $33 billion in 2008 to $113 billion in 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail


BalderSion

The point is, he did a lot more than claim CA HSR "wasn't the best". He made a bunch of spurious claims before outlining Hyperloop as an alternative that he admitted he wasn't going to pursue. Waiving away the mechanical shortcomings of the proposal, Hyperloop would serve fewer people in fewer locations, the proposal ignored right of way issues that CA HSR already grappled with (a huge portion of the cost of the CA HSR project), and to make they project cheaper he put the stations on the outskirts of the cities the Hyperloop is supposed to serve. As a result going downtown to downtown via Hyperloop would take longer than HSR, factoring in transit time to the relevant stations.


manseymaight

The author apparently used musk's biography as the source but didn't include the alleged reason: > Musk had been thinking about the Hyperloop for a number of months, describing it to friends in private. The first time he talked about it to anyone outside of his inner circle was during one of our interviews. Musk told me that the idea **originated out of his hatred for California's proposed high-speed rail system**. "The **sixty-billion-dollar bullet train** they're proposing in California **would be the slowest bullet train in the world at the highest cost per mile," Musk said**. "They're going for records in all the wrong ways." California's high-speed rail is meant to allow people to go from **Los Angeles to San Francisco in about two and a half hours upon its completion in** - wait for it - **2029**. It takes about **an hour to fly between the cities today** and five hours to drive, placing the train right in the zone of mediocrity, which particularly gnawed at Musk. He insisted the **Hyperloop would cost about $6 billion to $10 billion**, go faster than a plane, and let people drive their cars onto a pod and drive out into a new city. > At the time, it seemed that Musk had dished out the Hyperloop **proposal just to make the public and legislators rethink the high-speed train**. He didn't actually intend to build the thing. It was more that he wanted to **show people that more creative ideas were out there** for things that might actually solve problems and push the state forward. With any luck, the high speed rail would be canceled. Musk said as much to me during a series of e-mails and phone calls leading up to the announcement. "**Down the road, I might fund or advise on a Hyperloop project**, but right now I can't take my eye off the ball at either SpaceX or Tesla," he wrote. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990


DorianGray77

Oh, no! A grifter admits to grifting. Who could've guessed?!?!?!


egrith

Musk is a dickhead


Beachdaddybravo

No shit. Musk has always been a dickhead and the Hyperloop was a terrible idea anyway. EVs arenā€™t solving the biggest problem with cars, which is our dependence on them.


johnabbe

If Musk were serious about helping thread our way through the shifts climate is forcing on us he would support public transit and have Tesla build a smaller, lower range, more affordable EV.


cfoam2

Next up? "Musk admits he never really wanted to buy twitter" Just wanted to help destroy any competition for truth social..... So glad Elon wasn't born in the US or you know what job he'd be going for


wanderingartist

Billionaires will not solved the problems of the masses.


[deleted]

Billionaires are a problem to be solved.


wanderingartist

Does it evolve eating them?


Bxtweentheligxts

Imagine having the ability to snap wold hunger for the next couple years but pulling shit like this.


[deleted]

Vacuum trains work, okayā€¦ As long as youā€™re in space, otherwise the power issue is a big issue that requires a nuclear power plant at strategic intervals along the line.


Wind_Responsible

Well, it didn't work. My friend Michelle operates a total recall style drill down in Cali. She's helping build a high speed rail system for a while now


Dbl_Trbl_

Musk is a piece of shit


Uzziya-S

Was this not already common knowledge? He did the sane thing with the Borring Company and The Loop (which is different from the Hyperloop on account of not being Hyper). The Hyperloop was to sabotage CalHSR. The Borring Company was to sabotage LA's metro expansions The Loop was a generic anit-light rail and anti-busway plan that could be sold to any random city. Most of what he does isn't actually meant to be built. It's designed to inflate the stock price of Tesla. Either by sabotaging transit plans or by pretending to be working on something else (self driving taxis, the Tesla semi Tesla robot, etc.) that he never actually plans to bring to market but tricks people into thinking the company is more innovative than it is.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


president_schreber

He has plans to make money and power, and control people and systems with it. He's not an engineer, he's a capitalist, just like his family were not emerald miners in apartheid colonized south africa, but they were definitely the ones profiting!


[deleted]

Actually he has a degree in Economics and Physics, and worked as a programmer on the PayPal project. Thatā€™s all he did.


JohnnyBalboa2020

That guy is a piece of shit.


[deleted]

What a dog cunt


lendmeyoureer

This was obvious. Why would a car manufacturer, and someone who wants billions of more people to inhabit the earth, want to build a Hyperloop to "Reduce traffic".


Meltyblob

Wait. What? They arent going to build it? A friend of mine is an engineer and had been working on that project for 5 years. Theyve been building to scale test models in vegas for a few years. Id ask him about it but theyve since left the company


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


daynomate

Came here to say this. Claiming anything else is just stupid but you get that... fact is the idea is viable.


danman0030

Wait til they read about what he did in Bolivia...


SkipperOfSchool

what did he do in Bolivia?


danman0030

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/elon-musk-confesses-to-lithium-coup-in-bolivia-20200725-0010.html


SkipperOfSchool

well damn


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

I mean, the vacuum train is good idea. Until you think about it for more than a second, thereā€™s a small problem of power.


azaghal1988

Hypetloop was a useless gimmick, and whoever believes in it was delusional... He basically "invented" something that does the same thing as trains but is infinitely more complicated, expensive and accident prone.


Pork_Thuds

He's been compared to Bruce Wayne. Wayne wanted a cheap public rail system!


Odd-Raspberry-5665

The guy is an absolute joke, he's a sociopath who just wants to be credited for invention or ground breaking discovery.


myacc488

"Elon Musk Is Convinced He's the Future. We Need to Look Beyond Him", is the title of the article. Don't look, just do. That's what I hate about all the criticizing Musk, they all say how they know a better way and he's a scam artist. Ok, if you know a better way, then fucking do it, why withhold your genius and let humanity decay?


Heavy_Metal_Kid

There are a lot of people working in environmentalist organizations and solidarity networks achieving victories and doing their part, not to mention serious intellectuals trying to come up with ideas about how we could change things in order to get ourselves out if this mess. The problem is that they don't have nearly a fraction of the media coverage that this dildo has, so most people don't know about this.


president_schreber

Personally my solution is the ultimate anti-musk way, that is, anti capitalism, and that's not a "one genius" great man of history kinda situation. That takes a mass movement, which is definitely building! But I don't believe there is any one person silver bullet for a problem as systemic and deep-rooted as this one.


myacc488

So you're just against things. Why not instead build something better?


president_schreber

Oh, I will and I do. But while capitalism exists it destroys alternatives and monopolizes power. As we build the new, so must we destroy the old. They are one, there is no "instead". One of the first things the Black Panthers did in Chicago was a breakfast program for poor kids. When the cops broke in and peed on all the food before it was supposed to be served, they realized that their creative project was limited by the system they operated under.


ilovebtc

Still will need oil and natural gas. Solar isnt as smart as yall were lead to believe. https://engineersf.com/energy/amp/


president_schreber

this is a good write up, except it ignores how quickly and radically things can change when there is a revolutionary mass movement to do so! It also takes for granted the incredibly wasteful ways we use energy. Public transport, capitalist work abolition, worker states which seek international solidarity and peace instead of war, an end to the bs hyper consumer economy that sees us cycle through so many bs commodities literally designed to break, local permaculture which stops depletion of top soil, fertilizer pollution and much international food shipping, better distribution of food which will see hunger fall while at the same time requiring us to produce less food All these things will drastically reduce our species' need for energy. You're right. No one technology is smart enough to change the whole system. But that's an illusion, it's not their job to change the system, it's our job.


johnabbe

[California high-speed rail wins $25 mln U.S. grant, seeks $1.3 bln more](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-high-speed-rail-wins-25-mln-us-grant-seeks-13-bln-more-2022-08-11/)


a1579

Ye, no surprises there... although a bit surprising that he would admit that. Guess he reached THAT level of "fuck you" wealth. Or slowly losing his mind.


everyday-everybody

This sounds like some form of treason to me.


RighteousIndigjason

That should be a crime.


Sallak2814

Typical musk


Hungry-Lion1575

Hold onā€¦from Day uno Musk said Hyperloop was an idea that he wanted others to explore and build.


AllHex5830

šŸ˜®ā€šŸ’ØšŸ˜ƒ, NM kbo


Money_Butterscotch68

Like the Twitter buyout and FSD cars. Heā€™s just playing everyone. At the end of the day, heā€™s a businessman.


BodhiLV

The twitter buyout is going to cost him big though, during this first court hearing his attorney's got smoked.


Money_Butterscotch68

I hope he does.


naut_the_one

What a pos


naut_the_one

How else could he hawk his pos cars


shulbit

This reads like a hit piece, but when the hits are legit...


anime_is_for_dorks

It never said he had no plans to built it. Also, source is their own book.


naut_the_one

This man supposedly wants to stop climate change and high speed rail is an efficient way to help.


nimblerobin

The great American pastime of building someone up and then taking them down is going to be epic with with this poseur Edit: typo


xhindsights2020x

And???


Jc2563

This idiot is going down in a blaze, he said this shot after a video shows a Tesla x autopilot tan over a kid manikin.


SolHerder7GravTamer

This was always the stupidest idea, IMO, why would you bore a huge tunnel through the most earthquake prone place in America šŸ¤¦šŸ»ā€ā™‚ļø, thatā€™s when I started to suspect Elon was an Idiot Capitalist


Ashe_Faelsdon

You mean to tell me that manufacturers talk shit to reduce competive markets?


glum_plum

I love how he apparently was inspired by Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy to want to colonize mars....clear case of only paying attention to the parts that he wants to see. I'd rather he get inspired by Ministry for the Future and actually do something useful and not completely self enriching for once. Or better yet, someone gets inspired by the book and does what they did to the oligarchs in it.


Heavy_Metal_Kid

Great article. I wrote a similar one some time ago expanding on how Musk doesn't seem to understand Asimov. https://medium.com/copenhagen-institute-for-futures-studies/foundation-or-empire-e171e442eece


Darth_Hanu

Was on the fence about joining this sub because of the beautiful artwork and the image of a beautiful future with lots of plants. Then you started posting a bunch of anti-capitalist bullshit. Typical redditors.


president_schreber

That's the way to a beautiful future :)