Contributed Chapters to a Book – The Elon Musk Mission – Making The Future Awesome

23 thoughts on “Contributed Chapters to a Book – The Elon Musk Mission – Making The Future Awesome”

1. Elon furthering Putins murdering of civilians in Ukraine by cutting off Starlink.

2. Is there a chapter on how the free speech absolutist wanted to turn off Ukraine’s access to Starlink in the middle of fighting off the Russian invaders, and force Ukraine to cede Crimea to Russia?

   I want to read that chapter.

   Who is going to write it?

   I nominate you, Brian.

   • Marcus,
     I presume your snarky post was because you do not know about all the foul language and insults from the Ukraine, just because Musk suggested they work for a negotiated end to the fighting and suffering.
     If you want to pay for the maintenance etc, just jump in.
     In the meantime, you don’t sound very well informed.
     Maybe just an honest mistake on your part?
     Lots of realities to consider with regard to the current conflict.
     Regards.

     • You can presume anything you like, Riccio44, but you’re wrong. I follow the situation very closely. Musk’s suggestion was grotesque, historically illiterate, and undisguised Kremlin talking points.

       Grotesque: Musk suggested that, among other things, Crimea be given to the Russia invaders as part of any negotiated settlement. It is grotesque because Crimea was illegally annexed– in other words, stolen– by Russia in 2014. It is grotesque because by the time of the tweet I’m thinking of (October 3rd of this year) Russia was more than seven months into an invasion of Ukraine during which time they have willfully targeted civilian infrastructure and housing. For that reason alone (among others) the Russians– specifically Putin, the Kremlin, and the Russian military– are war criminals on a scale not seen since World War II. Rewarding these murderer with exactly what they want is grotesque.

       The so-called free speech absolutist earned that profanity, don’t you think?

       So far, about 14,000 Ukrainians have died in this war, many of them innocent, defenseless (but targeted) civilians. What is the going rate for an “Eff You” these days? 25K? 50K? 100K?

       Historically illiterate: Musk’s tweet on that date claims that Ukraine’s possession of Crimea is some sort of historical accident. This is nonsense. Whether or not it was a “mistake” by Khruschev back in 1954, the post-Cold War Budapest Memorandum of 1994 explicitly recognizes Ukraine’s borders as including Crimea. Note that part of the reason Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons they had inherited from the Soviets was because of the security guarantees from Russia as part of that 1994 agreement.

       It was not a mistake in 1954. It was not a mistake in 1994.

       Kremlin talking points: I cannot say it any better than Fiona Hill, in her lengthy Politico article: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/17/fiona-hill-putin-war-00061894

       Fiona Hill is a respected expert on Russian affairs at the Brookings Institute, formerly of the US National Security council.

       I know exactly what I’m talking about.
       Do you?

3. Isn’t it amazing how Musk has gone from democrat/climate alarmist darling of decarbonization, to evil Musk-Hitler-Fascist for his free speech absolutism, and the purchase of soon to be former commie echo chamber twitter? I guess when your arguments are baseless, nonscientific(not based on experimentation), or based on paid for opinions(corrupt academia, and medical establishment) reason is a scary thing.

   You’d thing doing the “impossible” by landing boosters, single handedly starting the mass market BEV industry, as well as the non-lead acid behind the meter electric storage industry(powerwalls) would be enough to cancel out the future sin of allowing our societal issues to be subjected to reasoned discussion on corporate social media. But Noooo, the crybullies are so triggered they’ll be in their cry closets for months.

   Sunshine is the ultimate disinfectant, and inevitably truth wins in the marketplace of ideas.

   • Teenager

   • William,
     I once heard a phrase that probably is appropriate.
     “2% of the people do it, 50% watch it and know what happened; the other 48% have no idea what, or if anything happened”
     Musk is in the 2% and I try hard to be in the upper part of the 50%, unfortunately many of the jealous crybabies of whom you speak are also in the 50%.
     Regards.

     • While his technical achievements are unmatched, Elon has shown a serious lack of knowledge and trouble with people skills. He has trouble with responsibility to others and lacks the maturity and judgement obtained by some of his peers. His ego allows him to be swayed by people who say nice things to him. He seems focused on his goals exclusively. In other words, he still has a lot of growing up to do. I do not want to be subject to his whims down here, let alone on Mars. Only his most devoted sheep can put up with such behavior.

   • He got rich, and his cares are now limited to one thing: More money. We’ve seen this before, right?

   • All the left’s causes are just excuses to pursue the will to power, which is why the ‘solutions’ always, without exception, involve giving the left more power.

     Because of this, control over the ‘narrative’ is central to everything they do; If they don’t control the narrative, people are free to point out that their ‘solutions’ don’t actually solve anything except the left’s lack of power, and that, even if one assumes that the problem is real, there are better answers than the left’s. (Like nuclear power if you don’t like fossil fuels.)

     So Musk wasn’t a big deal pursuing electric cars and rockets, but the moment he set his sights on reducing social media censorship, he became an existential threat.

     • Historically, the “left” favors more checks and balances, more rigorous oversight powers, and authorities. The “right” is generally more focused on internal/personal control, is against central power, and is in favor of deregulation. So what you claim is incorrect, the “left” is in favor of a lower concentration of powers: it is not about more power to the “left”, it is about more powers to institutions that can monitor each other granting the following of the rules. The “right”, is in favor of a stronger concentration of power, with less oversight.

       • So the left wants more centralisation of power. Meanwhile the left wants less concentration of power?

         How do you work out that contradiction?

         Meanwhile, let’s ignore the theory and look at practical results. Any time a new rule or restriction has appeared in the last 50 years, it’s almost always come from the left. What right wing restrictions have actually occurred in real life since say… the Hay’s code?

         • Authorities and regulations distribute the powers between different institutions because you institute checks and balances.
           Authoritarianism and deregulation centralize the powers. Rightwing policies tend to remove regulations therefore they favor the centralization of powers, both at political and economic levels.

           • Centralizing power in government is the greatest of all centralizations, and that’s favored by the left. They ‘fight monopoly’ by enlarging the monopoly that has an army and can shoot you if you don’t fall in line.

             • Empowering the government (and the other functions of the state including legislative and judiciary powers) is the way to reduce the concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals.
               Checks and balances within the functions of the state ensure that the state itself cannot exert arbitrary powers on the citizens.
               Deregulating and removing checks and balances is the excuse the wealthy and powerful use to convince the poor and weak that the state is threatening their freedom. In practice, the wealthy and powerful do not want external control acting on them. On the other hand being wealthy and powerful they have plenty of resources to invest in controlling the poor and weak.
               For example, very wealthy people might promote legislation that weakens the controls on pollution, health, and safety because they can easily relocate, have access to very expensive private healthcare worldwide, and have a personal security detail. Poor people cannot do that.
               If a factory pollutes the owner of the factory likely does not want to be accountable for the pollution (local and/or planet-wide). The general interest (local and/or planet-wide) is to have an external agent stronger than the local owner that enforces anti-pollution laws promoting the development of less polluting industrial processes.

   • I think the shine started to come off the apple when he started lashing out and defaming people as pedophiles for no good reason. His recent toadying to Putin and Medvedev on the topic of Ukraine and Crimea is not a good look, either.

     If you disagree on either of those points, do be so good as to actively defend your position instead of just ignoring them.

   • Musk cares about money.
     When he was producing in California and needed Californians’ taxpayer money to subsidize TESLA he was a Democrat, now that his business is more heavily linked to republican-leaning states he is a Republican.

4. <>
   ?
   Not unless there’s a chapter for “How to make Musk shut up on subjects other than engineering inanimate objects”.

   • Usual NBF comments dysfunction. That’s a quote for
     “””
     BUY this book (….) for foes who want the latest details.
     “””

     • Agreed. Hyper-self-promoting blusterers, narcisstic talking heads, and obnoxious blabber-boasters are truly frustrating. Riding on waves of self-initiated glory and megalomanical aspirations, their airhorn personalities blanket our society in loud, Time Square-bright products and services. Many people of limited technical skill and knowledge coast on their coat-tails, as if they too were an integral part of the success — but, but, but: would Apple be where it is without Jobs hamming it up on stage (and toxifying the actual technical doers behind the scene to push out hyper-evolutionary (not revolutionary in the sense of first designed) products on intense schedules))? Microsoft without the myth and Legend of Gates? What about all those ‘influencers’ whose entire purpose in life is to overcome their lack of true techncial accomplishment by being journalists whose area of expertise just happens to be whatever flavour of the day that their editor wants them to be. Such is the nature of success and excess of the West (and will continue to be). Good product + insane promotion = short-term success — add continually faltering competitiors = long-term success. I for one, personally believe that Musk has not transformed the World, but merely accelerated disorganized and stalled technologies, experts, and markets. Maybe that’s what the World needed. Would the EV market be anywhere near its auto market share or have facilitated the supply chains and industrialization without Musk – not a chance. Same with SpaceX. I am not convinced on StarLink or the helperBot or Twitter or the Brain thing – though I am sure someone will make that case. I suppose that it would be nice to think that a world based on the number of PhDs acquired, patents approved, and hours one worked in a week were the only means of assigning wealth and success; that a wide range of techno products and services were marketed on a equal platform of spec comparison; etc; etc; unattainable meritocracy. But a culture of techno as Hollywood entreprise has an unstoppable momentum and a huge abiltiy to gather wealth, technical and non-technical labor, and foremost: Consumer fascination and, though purchases, continued success. Consumer focus and power. China is learning it. Russia has failed at it. Third world countries have yet to realize its potential. The upcoming near-recession (Consumer) will certainly indicate whether such industries can continue to function (with a slight nod to supply chains and political nonsense in the west Pacific and east Europe). What was that old Chinese saying: May You Live in Interesting Times (typically considered a mild insult).

       • “May you live in interesting times” has no known Chinese history. Some western guy spent a while in Peking (sic) in 1920s or so, made a comment with that line, and everyone ran with it without any fact checking.

         However, there was an ancient American saying with much the same meaning. From a well known fellow called Benjamin Franklin. Long, long before 1920. But wisdom always seems cooler if it comes from far away.

         “Happy are the times and places whose history is undiverting.” Poor Richard’s almanac.

   • ^

5. Thank you Brian! Can’t wait to read it!

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