That question pops into my mind from time to time, too. Hope he's well, and I hope he knows the lasting positive impact he had on so many people.
I weirdly got my first programming job / made a good friend because of him (he tweeted about wishing he could adopt @person. I looked up @person, saw they lived in my city, worked at a company that was hiring. I DM'd @person, and eventually got the job!" Thanks ~2008 _why!
Dude, what? Is it the MINASWAN acronym that's the problem or? If that's "trumpeting moral virtue", I can think of lots of programming languages that trumpet their moral virtue:
"Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude."
"We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic."
"As a community, we want to be friendly too. People from around the world, of all backgrounds, genders, and experience levels are welcome and respected equally. See our community code of conduct for more.
Black lives matter. Trans rights are human rights. No nazi bullsh*t."
Seems morally virtuous, too!
Also also: what does the "whytheluckystiff debacle" have to do with any of this?! Also also also: _why was pretty much the first prominent "dragger" of dhh. Man was an innovator.
Having literal billionaire best buds backing the project probably helps one gain traction, no? Toss in a dash of weird culture war bullshit, and… well. Distro popularity isn’t exactly a meritocratic system.
“Open borders” was pretty much standard across the world prior to World War 1. These tightly controlled immigration policies are, historically speaking, incredibly new.
I think it’s self evident that the U.S. benefited greatly from its mass immigration inflows in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Your statement has no basis whatsoever in reality. The US, for example, had a four-decade moratorium on immigration beginning in 1924. Mass immigration flows appeared at various times and places in the past (often accompanied by bloodshed and suffering), but it's highly incorrect to imagine that 21st-century 1st world demographic shifts are some sort of historical norm.
The technology involved in Juicero (or Pets.com, or many others) didn't go away. We could rebuild them any time we wanted to. Those things went away because they weren't able to make enough money to be an ongoing business.
Will AI? That is at least an open question at this point. (I mean, in fairness, Amazon's was an open question for many years too.)
The tech isn't going anywhere. Is there a path to a sustainable business model that uses that tech?
You may have an answer to that question. Can you prove it to someone who doesn't already agree with your answer?
Juicero wasn't useful therefore it went away. Generative AI is useful therefore it won't go away, just like how fire is kMy old yet it's still here to stay.
Juicero had customers that thought it was useful. Both "smoothie juicers" and "smoothie subscriptions" were big product categories equally before and after Juicero tried to unite them with a technological middleman. Kuerig, the Juicero of coffee, remains quite active and profitable (and wasteful).
There are likely _many_ paths to sustainable business models based on AI tech, that will come to fruition over the next decades. However whether they might not be as profitable as OpenAI and Anthropic are gambling on, is more uncertain.
Crypto bros said the same thing about NFT’s and ICO’s and whatever other nonsense they were pushing. And to some extent, they were right, I guess, in that these things still exist. But they’re practically irrelevant.
Your 150 mile daily commute seems like a much bigger factor in this dilemma than the cold temperature range reduction. That’s over 3x the average American daily commute distance! For the huge majority of Americans, the cold weather thing just will not be a factor at all. And yet, it’s probably the #1 fact they know about EV’s.
These problems are (imo) vastly overblown for the way most people drive. The only time the cold temperature reduced range / reduced charge speed are relevant is for long road trips where you’re driving > ~200mi at once. Otherwise, you just charge up at home overnight and easily recoup any normal driving range you used during the day, regardless of the temperature.
Norwegians have apparently figured this out. Despite being pretty damn cold, they’re buying EV’s almost exclusively now (97%).
Around 38% of new cars sales in Finland in 2025 were EVs [1], so they apparently have figured out how to make them work. PHEVs were another 20%. Gas cars were around 39%, and diesel cars were about 4%.
EVs work in cold weather, just the range is reduced.
If it is a second car in the family, used for short range commuting ... or if your lifestyle does not involve frequent long-distance trips, EV is perfectly suitable even in Finland.
In those countries most people own a house so they can plug in every night.
Where I live it's all apartments (without parking because they were built before cars existed) and there's maybe one charging station on the street per 300 spaces or so. A few more in parking garages but you pay hundreds a month to access those.
I don't think an EV will work here until every space has a charger.
Sounds like you might live in a sensible place where you probably don’t need a car at all. That’s the ideal! Unfortunately, much of, e.g., the U.S. (outside of ~4 cities), “cities” are built around individual car ownership. There, where a car is pretty much necessary, and you likely already have a dedicated spot to store it, it often makes sense to choose an EV version.
As others said, Norway isn't that cold - the ocean is pretty warm. That does mean, however, that the temperature varies greatly with how far you are from the sea. Go far enough inland and it can get cold. -30C or, even these days, some places much colder, though only for shorter periods now (global warming).
Most places are barely as cold as -10C, which isn't much of a problem for batteries. And it's often a bit warmer.
I share all the disillusionment and cynicism about Musk, shared here by others.
But he has also done amazing things. When someone declares they are going to create a Martian colony, something literally "out of this world", and against all odds makes unbelievable progress for years, including re-usable rockets that return and land vertically, more efficient powerful engines, and fast operational turnarounds, while making orbital travel mundane, hanging a criticism of schedules on the weak hook of "yet" is myopic.
There will never be a colony on Mars. Not in the way we think about "colonies".
For starters it's too cold, too dry, atmosphere is too thin, and there's no reasonably sustainable power source.
But all of that is irrelevant because there's no magnetic field. So radiation. So unlivable.
There's also no point in a colony there. If life ends on earth it ends on Mars. There are no materials there we want. It offers exactly nothing we can't do better here, for much less money.
Will we land on Mars? Sure. There's always the goal of being first. But live there? No. Unsupported by earth? Very much no.
I personally believe that the legacy we send to the stars will be silicon.
Robots have landed on Mars. Maybe they will even figure out how to use minerals on Mars to build more of themselves. It is plausible to me that as far as space exploration is concerned that it will be autonomous within a few hundred years.
'..it might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years- provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and embarrassments as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials. No doubt the problem has attractions for those it interests, but to the ordinary man it would seem as if effort might be employed more profitably.' Oct 9 1903
I think many may not understand your quote, especially given the nature of the language and the apparent non sequitur: https://archive.is/F3nnP
That's an archive of the article it's originally from, from the NYTimes - "Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly", October 1903. The Wright Bros first successful flight would come in December 1903. The NYTimes also similarly published about the impossibility of spaceflight relatively shortly before it happened.
I anxiously await the day for the NYTimes to dismiss colonizing Mars as impossible, as it means we are most certainly on the cusp of achieving exactly that.
The value of flight is incalculable. Especially if we see it as a precursor to satellites. A lot of people invested a lot in getting g it to work. Many people died making it better and better. The cost in treasure and lives was substantial, but the return is worth it.
Contrast to the moon. The prestige was great, the investment enormous. The return was more-or-less zero. There was a reason Apollo 18 was canceled, and we stopped going.
(Current efforts are in no rush, and are mostly about prestige.)
The value of a colony on Mars is precisely zero. We might visit a couple times. But colonize? Nope.
The value of the first Mars colony may be zero depending on how you value it just as the value of the first Wright flier was 'precisely zero' or even negative. It didn't carry cargo and it killed or injured many of those that dared to fly on it.
Assigning zero long term value however to another entire planet worth of resources just seems like a failure of imagination.
You can't get to the 777 without the Wright Flyer.
I'd add to this that Mars also isn't the end, but rather the beginning. The moment the first human steps on Mars, we will already be thinking ever more outward to ever more exotic targets, perhaps Europa being next. The bigger picture is starting the process of putting humans into the cosmos - and so it's not just another planet full of resources, land, and unknown discoveries awaiting us - but an entire solar system, and on a longer time frame - an entire galaxy.
And I think once we start iterating on these concepts, the timelines might not be as long as might otherwise be expected. Forget the 777 - it's completely stupefying that we went from the Wright Flier to the SR-71 Blackbird [1] in 61 years. That beast is another product of the magic of the 60s - long-term sustained flight at Mach 3.2 - 2450+mph. London to New York in less than 2 hours. There really was something in the water in the US in the 60s.
You're right there's a reason Apollo 18 was cancelled, but I'm not sure what you'd reference this. The main issue is that Nixon was increasingly paranoid that there was going to be a catastrophic failure in the Apollo program, and that it would affect his political career. He tried to hard to the cancel the program immediately after the first successful landing. NASA had already drawn up plans for not only getting to Mars, but for a complete human settlement of outer space with large space stations and more. This was all cancelled.
So I think the comparison with flight is perfect. Imagine after the Wright Bros. flight, which countless people had died in the process of seeking to achieve, we had one uninvolved entity able to say 'yeah, I'm responsible for all this' and then canceled everything in a simple self-motivated political calculation to try to 'go out on top' so to speak.
The Moon was never the goal, anymore than the Wright Flyer was the goal. It was one small step on a very lengthy journey - a major milestone for sure, but nowhere near the end of the road. And that's where we remain in space, but thanks to the fact that so much expertise was lost in the ~60 year do-nothing era, we're now having to essentially start over. On the bright side, this time the driver's going to be private industry, just like with airplanes - and there will be no myopic politician to cancel it.
How are robotaxis coming along, versus the promises?
How are Optimus robots coming along, versus the promises?
How is the 2nd edition Roadster coming along, versus the promises?
You need to stop thinking of Musk in terms of a person who has "done amazing things" and letting that lead you to a belief that he has some kind of special ability in this space.
He's the money guy. He's occasionally managed to acquire talent that has done amazing things. This does not give him an innate "make amazing things happen" ability. He can throw money at bad ideas and ineffectual people. He can make something happen given the size of his wealth, but whether that actually achieves any of the stated goals is largely independent of his own actions.
Lots of late deliveries. This seems to be important to you.
On the one hand, we have major advance, after major advance. But on the other hand, we have crossed out dates on a calendar! Cool things that were mentioned but haven't happen yet! Sad calendar! It's a real toss up!
Puzzle question: is aspirational calendar-target overoptimism good or bad if you get things done late, but sooner than you would have, or at least, more things than you would have, than if you had set more "realistic" targets. Like decades. And then been late for that.
I suggest instead complaining, you your time and Elon's tardiness to beat him to the punch! Lemonade punch.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are late at things, but without the contrast of famous wins, nobody complains. It is so unfair!
People don’t look at the complexity of a human character. They take the easiest extreme and run with it. I was on another HN thread where practically everyone was calling Elon a psychopath.
If you think objectively Elon is not a psychopath.
He has a higher body count than any serial killer who has ever lived with DOGE alone. He may or may not be clinically diagnosable, but he's a monster either way
While I share your opinion on his character, the first part of what you say is also true for almost everyone who wielded the kinds and scales power that was given to him via DOGE: Every battleship is a hospital not built, etc.
It's sad that this is believed when it's most often the opposite. Especially in this case we have a literal historical example. You'll never guess what Henry Kaiser built before creating Kaiser, the largest set of hospitals in CA.
I can't imagine why you think that's a good example.
The money spent on the ships* could not be double-spent on hospitals. The workers whose manual labour was dedicated to those later ships could not be simultaneously dedicated to more hospitals. The crew of a battleship cannot be simultaneously working in a hospital, the maintenance teams repairing it cannot be simultaneously repairing a hospital.
Every resource-management game demonstrates this principle, even if they're all gross simplifications.
* Wikipedia says Kaiser's ships were cargo and transport, not battleships, which means they had the potential to be a net positive on the economy. This is better than a battleship, because domestic military gear can't be a net positive: the point is to keep matériel and personnel around to deter enemies, and only use them for training and when enemies aren't deterred.
... Did you just suggest gp is "worse than Hitler" for suggesting Elon Musk, a man who's very publicly called empathy a "fundamental weakness" and "threat to Western Civilization", a sociopath? And you went on to compare the powerless women tried for witchcraft to the richest man in the history of the planet? Please go touch grass, my dude.
I suggested he's not in touch with reality when he accuses someone of being a sociopath who is clearly not.
I compared him to the MOB that burned those women. That's the main comparison. You're the same because you and him would put elon to the slaughter because you're mob mentality is as violent as hitler.
> Here's a test: Given the opportunity to kill Elon, you probably would. Given that you think Elon is a sociopath or evil incarnate.
I'm generally against the death penalty. I'd be fine with just stripping him of his wealth and locking him in prison for the rest of his life. He doesn't need to die, but it would be good to minimize/eliminate his influence on the world.
The destruction of the last vestiges of rule of law in the United States, an act in which Musk played a substantial role, unfortunately means he will likely not be prosecuted - but make no mistake, he has committed many crimes.
And now that we are living in a lawless nation, we will all get to see how bad an idea that is.
The president is using the DoJ to represent him in a civil appeal.
The president is creating a slush fund to pay off people who acted violently on his behalf.
The president has declared himself and his family immune from IRS investigation indefinitely.
The president is selling pardons.
The president is running influence schemes in the form of crypto sales and ballroom "donations".
The president is at a minimum enabling the people who are playing the markets (traditional and these new prediction atrocities) in advance of his on again / off again announcements about Iran, tariffs, etc. It's not out of the question that he approves of the activity and/or receives benefits himself.
The president uses mob tactics. Tariffs and DoJ threats are used to run protection rackets. Play along, pay up, and you can make your problems go away. For a bit. They'll be back later and they'll want more.
I value it. But I value it practically and NOT delusionally in the sense that I understand that even though there is law, there will always be people who break the law.
Then when I take this non-delusional perspective and apply it to the US I understand that the US and every country on the face of the earth has a degree of corruption.
Then I do another realistic comparison about the DEGREE of corruption... and we find that the US is relatively NOT lawless when compared with MANY countries.
Also Elon is not a psychopath. But you and many on this thread are delusional.
Of course there will always be people who break the law. There are always people who are going to attempt to do things they're not supposed to do for a variety of reasons.
Rule of law is about consistent application of the law. Laws that aren't consistently applied are just words on paper.
It seems to me that what you actually intended to say is "there will always be people who break the law and get away with it due to their wealth and status."
And yes, there will probably always be some degree of that too. But in a society that claims to follow the rule of law, the goal should always be to minimize the inconsistent application of the law. Part of that is challenging these events when we see them. Like the extreme corruption of the Trump administration versus every president that came before, including his own first term.
Treating an increase of corruption as inevitable is not, in my opinion, valuing the rule of law. It's at best a half-hearted "whatcha gonna do?" shrug-off.
> The good thing about China is that apart from Taiwan they have little territoral ambitions
One of the reasons China wants Taiwan is because it would enable further territorial expansions into The Philippines and Japan. China considers any neighboring Democratic nation a threat. Taiwan is just their first / easiest prospective target.
If you have access to PBS, there's a very good documentary that touches on this a bit called Invisible Nation.
I weirdly got my first programming job / made a good friend because of him (he tweeted about wishing he could adopt @person. I looked up @person, saw they lived in my city, worked at a company that was hiring. I DM'd @person, and eventually got the job!" Thanks ~2008 _why!
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