That’s why I am glad I reached sexual maturity during the age of high speed internet pornography....it “teaches” how not to put women on the pedestal and deal with them like you would deal with a man : money upfront and contracts to regulate every exchange and most importantly not to ever trust them ….. evolution selected for traits and behaviors necessary to procure resources for their future offspring , they would not hesitate to do so at other agents expenses
ernestdezoe
I think one area where the private sector is strangely inactive is weather forecasting , it has so many potential clients ranging from farmers to vacationers …actual models are useless beyond a 15-day timeframe
Unless the extraterrestrial species are the only macroscopic life-form on their planet, it’s likely they evolved among other species and did not exterminate them all. This might lead to them having cultural values about preserving biodiversity and not exterminating species unless really necessary.
To me that’s not a culture , but a bias (the hunter gatherer bias).....there are thousands of animal species serving no real purpose for our cause and still we slow down our growth because of concerns regarding their survival , not only that , but after having analyzed our daily values and necessities it becomes perfectly crystal clear how we’d only really need the 5 big crops + plants for photosynthesis , insects and impollinators in order to survive and thrive , plus we would be able to support much more people ! Imagine a planet where 15 billions humans live and each and everyone of them consumes 2700 kcal/day and contributes to the world’s economy because nobody has to suffer hunger anymore.… that would be possible if we got rid of wastes and inefficiencies . So In my opinion if we ever find other forms of intelligent life and we can’t trade with them , eat them , learn from them or acquire knowledge studying them , then yes I am all up for bombing them , just as I am all up for (and I know many will hate me for this :-D ) running a railway + HVDC line through the giant panda’s territory , or finally get rid of domesticated animals like cows which convert calories and proteins from grains so poorly .
Also I agree with @woodchopper , we should stop sending messages literally “Across the Universe” in order to avoid perishing . An other approach we might use in the remote future could be only using old technologies to broadcast an “hello signal”..… stuff we’ve long moved from , so we could try to select for civilizations which are way behind us technologically so we could sort of be in control of their destiny like your usual anthill , but even then it could be a trap or they might catch up during the time necessary to make the trip or they could be monitored by some other advanced civilization which is not monitoring us , so we would just signal our presence to them as well...
- 3 Nov 2016 1:14 UTC; 0 points) 's comment on Open thread, Oct. 24 - Oct. 30, 2016 by (
Watching from Japan seems to me that the Musk bubble is gonna burst in Q1 2017....the TSLA/SCTY merger is just nuts considering how both companies consistently fail to make a profit , they completely ignored the most interesting niche in transport automation which is self driving trucks...
Also the new Nevada factory which resulted in gran fanfare (as always with Tesla) and costs for taxpayers (as always with Tesla) in reality is a Panasonic factory and half empty anyway .
Since the loss of the rocket and it’s 250M dollars payload SpaceX has held 2 big PR events focusing on Mars colonization and beyond which is ridiculous considering how the cause of the accident is still unknown , finally both companies (TSLA/SCTY and SpaceX) employ a disproportionate amount of people in PR and media relations , but differently from other tech/car companies the goal here seems not solely to sell a product or a service , but to reinforce a real cult of personality around the CEO who seems not too necessary inclined to respect the rules on insider trading , on a lighter note ever engaging tweets of Master Plans conceived during the night and jokingly under the influence seemed to have a positive correlation with the stock price to the point that a mindful analyst could perhaps think that it was in fact done on purpose .
Other serious problems are complaints by workers and engineers which often lament long hours and are never recognized their work during the frequent , grandiose , almost Hughesesque PR events , perhaps to keep feeding the narrative of an ubiquitous CEO to the general public and investors , such narrative has been marketed particularly on social media and especially on Reddit , here articles regarding Musk and his companies frequently reach the first page and specific subreddits like /r/futurology are clearly used as advertising space which is only made slightly more credible by the amount of organic shill in the comment section which perhaps not surprisingly aligns with the PR strategy of the company ; reserving to the product a marginal position to focus instead on maintaining and reinforcing the cult of personality around the CEO who is often compared to comic book heroes like Iron Man ; which after all seems quite appropriate considering how Elon Musk succeeded in non coming off as an hypocrite to the masses considering his stance on climate change and his recent purchase of an extremely luxurious , extremely polluting 73 million dollars Gulfstream G650 private jet powered by the evil antiheroes of the fossil fuel industry that he seem so determinate to overthrow......
On a small unrelated to the analisys note it should be noted how he popularized the “Simulation Argument ” failing to acknowledge any credit to the person who wrote the original paper Dr. Nick Bostrom who instead received a 500k donation for his Future of Humanity Institute .
Issues of conflict of interest would be a lot stronger without a merger when it comes to selling the new integrated product.
Ok , so what would be the reason for Tesla to partner with a failed company like SCTY which by the way left a total mess in Buffalo , NY , and not with a solid Forbes2000 (#245 worldwide in sales) company like Panasonic with whom they already share technology + they provided equipment for the Nevada factory and one of the major players worldwide in the solar panel research (which obviously is fundamental for the car integration) and production? Plus musk’s cousin was heavily exposed and the Tesla CEO is set to make a substantial profit from the merger , the integrated products seem just a cover up for this orchestrated bailout while they would have been taken seriously with a solid partner like Panasonic...The whole thing smells fishy to say the least....something Donald Trump Jr. would do , not a man who advocates transparency , strict rules for the fossil fuels industry and claims that he wants to singlehandedly save humanity (tweeting stolen ideas from his private jet , while engineers do the heavy lifting) , engineers are not just technical problem solver working for a salary , they are pretty jaded as it is with long hours and zero recognition , if this merger goes through (and the market reacts rationally) those working at Tesla who have options would be quite pissed off
In Japan a person could sit next to Yasukazu Endo (the president of the Central Japan Railway Co which is developing the Maglev trains scheduled to begin commercial service in 2027 - note the realistic deadline - ) in the subway (yes , he takes the subway to go to work) and would not recognize him , why it has to be different in the US ? These corporate and personal cults (originating mainly from SoCal) cause so much damage because they get in the way of critical thinking and lead to a situation where CEOs think they can get away with everything because people and investors would still follow them ( the 2009 pre-cult Elon Musk would have never even thought about a merging with a de facto failed company like SCTY) .
SoCal is the area in the world that produces the most new technology.
So think of what it could potentially become if people didn’t get on their on their knees to blindly blow characters like Elon Musk , Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Holmes (the fastest growing cult leader up until last year) without ever questioning their methods/behaviors....there is no such thing as too much selective pressure
Also I’m sure you meant design , the actual production phase happens elsewhere
I’m mean the development. There’s a lot of software development required that’s important even if the actual factory is in China.
Agree , I exchanged the word development for design
If people are under too much pressure they can’t freely explore creative ideas
This somehow is only valid for CEOs , not engineers who do the heavy lifting....
People work for him because they believe in his vision
Here lies the damaging cult element , people buy into his cult only to find themselves with a low pay , long hours job , and , on top of that zero recognition once the superstar CEO steps on stage like he’s Axl Rose or some other rockstar from the 80s ready to take on the crowd full of screaming cult followers , who ironically probably envy those working for him...and , lacking critical thinking , fail to question everything that he does
It’s standard for US companies that engineers don’t get public recognition for the ideas they develop. You can’t give thousands of engineers personal public recognition. You can just make the company popular and then when an engineer tells their friends “I work at X” they get their recognition.
And that is perfectly ok , as long as they get a decent pay and an acceptable hours...and MOST IMPORTANTLY the CEO doesn’t impose a cult of personality regime in his company (like I said this mostly happens in SoCal and Seattle )....my point is the CEO should stay relatively silent , away from the public eye and let the numbers do the talking , PR and marketing are great as long as they are focused on products . In tech there should be more executives like Yasukazu Endo or IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad , guy is worth 40 billions and you couldn’t spot him in a crowd , takes the bus every day , and buys his clothes at the local flea market...seems to me that , while engineers of different companies are competing in a brain measuring contest against each other , founders and CEOs of said companies are having a dick measuring contest in the press instead...the winner emerges as the new cult figure which people would elevate and throw money at without ever questioning their behaviors or hypocrisy , when the dust settles engineers who won the battle that really matters (the technical one) end up burned out and with little money to show for their sacrifices , while people at the helm would keep using their cult of personality to attract more young brains to drain . This is exactly what Musk does , and it is so wrong , that I don’t know how people are failing to see it.
Last time I remember Musk thanking his engineers it must have been 2009 , he’s done so many PR events since and tweeted more tweets than many actors and musicians who differently from him “live” and “die” depending on their cult of personality following : NOT A SINGLE THANKS TO THE EMPLOYEES
but is there any particular reason you think yours is special?
Because when CEOs stay relatively silent , away from the public eye , personality cults don’t emerge and only numbers do the talking (balance sheets , customer reviews , hours worked by employees , their salary...) so people would immediately question fishy and/or hypocrite behaviors , which is something desirable
If you look at SpaceX competitors nobody would recognize Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of Boeing at the street either.
Checks out , always thought Boeing was a serious company in fact they don’t to rely on cult of personality , corporate cult or massive PR
So did you just say this is something americans really want (at least for consumer product) ? Some megalomaniac narcissist with massive conflict of interest using PR and cult of personality to try and forcefully push down their throats a product they don’t really need using a cool video presentation in a basketball arena? That would explain a lot because I remember the first iPhone quite well and it was terrible , no 3G , no support for 3rd party apps no GPS....while direct competitors like Palm , NokiaN95 and PocketPC all had such things , in fact I recall that when one friend of mine bought the first iPhone I was quite excited to see what it could do to live up to the hype that preceded it’s launch...turns out my 2005 PocketPC (incidentally Ballmer era) could do the exact same things.
public vision
Honestly this just seems a PR strategy to conceal the truth form the public’s eyes .The relationship between a company and it’s clients or the general public (if a consumer product) is ALWAYS adversarial , every tactic employed to conceal this reality (excessive PR , cult of personality , corporate cult , CEO media appearances ) is only adopted to increase margins or create a situation where executives and CEOs would be able to get away with stuff , they would not be able to get away with otherwise. That’s why people should not buy into this and always keep their critical thinking turned on
Boeing is a serious company and makes money but it still didn’t build reusable rockets on it’s own. It doesn’t produce disruptive innovation.
Which Musk obviously developed all by himself , while studying Axl Rose moves so he could woo his cult members at the (at this point) weekly PR event—underpaid engineers don’t have anything to do with that /s -
The iPhone won because it provided a simplicity and not because it managed to do many things. You might not value simplicity but many people did and as a result Apple made a lot of money.
We would never know what product would have won with the same amount of PR , marketing and CEO cult of personality following
No, the company wants to make money and if it does so by providing value for the customer there’s nothing adversarial about it. It’s quite often win-win.
The company wants to make money and if in order to do so it has to forcefully push down people’s throats a sub optimal product , such sub optimal product would be forcefully pushed using PR , marketing cult of personality , corporate cult...
The customer must remain rational and separate signal from noise (ignoring PR , cult of personality , corporate cult) in order to get the best deal , he’d be only able to do that by comparing specifics between multiple products or services and buy the one with the best specs/price ratio , not the one with the best press (apart from trusted consumer reviews) …..Also the customer must always try to find a way to undercut the company if possible in order to get the best possible deal at the company expenses like me right now , I am following your advise and I am torrenting the “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” instead of buying it and having my 20 dollar bill split between Bezos (other guy with a cult like following) , AMZN shareholders and Ben Horowitz and I think you did the same...:-)
I’m still not sure what are you optimising for
Society , average quality of life , average lifespan
Notably, the canonical example of a narcissistic PR-obsessed CEO is Steve Jobs. He… did rather well.
He did , society on the other hand , polluted by toxic concepts like the ones promoted by him and Mark Zuckerberg....not so much...Steve Jobs transformed a phone from being a useful , practical tool into a luxurious status symbol people feel the need to upgrade every 6 months , people praise him for having done such thing, but I honestly fail to grasp how this is a desirable outcome , Zuckerberg did the exact same thing with personal blogs...people used to care about the content they put online in their personal blog...now it’s all about selfies wasting bandwidth , hosting space and electricity...on top of that you have companies paying to claim their rights to use such platform to forcefully push down people throats stuff they don’t even need...Puking....so much brainpower terribly allocated..companies like AAPL (mobile division), FB and Sony for that matter (even though there isn’t a cult of personality around the CEO , though there is a corporate cult) have done so much damage in terms of resources wasted (brainpower , capital , electricity , hosting space , raw materials) and people are lining up to elevate CEOs due to the huge cult of personality around them....Companies which don’t invest in PR and corporate cult instead get destroyed by the press and the general public even though they move the world (Saudi Aramco , Exxon , BP , Royal Dutch Shell , Sinopec) and are not trying to forcefully push products down people’s throats but instead providing stuff which is (as of today) objectively necessary like petroleum and gas products which (as of today) constitutes the foundation of the world’s economy on top of which narcissistic PR-obsessed CEOs can build their empire and pontificate on global warming from their oil powered private jets...If you think about it the damage is comparable ; big oil poisons the biosphere (but as of today we could not live without) while FB , AAPL (mobile division) and Sony poison the minds (other than creating damages because of wasted resources like energy , electricity , raw materials...)
I agree that selling stuff like ITER or IV Gen nuclear reactors or HVDC power lines to the general public or convincing people to donate/invest in companies working on such solutions might seem to far fetched , we won’t ever see people walking people wearing Siemens or Toshiba or ABB t-shirts either....but avoiding selling them shit would surely be a good a good leap forward
the propensity of CEOs to personal aggrandisement is basically irrelevant.
That is wrong , because CEOs who have a cult following use their status to shape the future of society , Musk is de facto using his influence to de facto burn out kids straight out of collage in order to reach the goal of colonizing Mars
What if we used that brainpower to understand what consciousness is in order to perhaps one day have Whole Brain Emulation instead ? At that point we could have an Earth with the average surface temperature of 150F and no biological life on it and we’d still be able to thrive if we had enough energy to support ourselves , plus it would make space travel far easier , this would (positively) impact our quality of life and lifespan quite substantially , much more than colonizing Mars , so you could argue that Musk with his actions is having a negative impact on society by using his influence to allocate brainpower in a suboptimal way
And Facebook is about the power of the (social) network, not about personal blogs at all.
And gathering data so people could have products they don’t need forcefully pushed down their throats more efficiently....
So you don’t like market allocation? You want central planning?
With limited use central planning might be good....tell me for example what utility does the entertainment industry have for society , or the sports industry , or the music industry for that matter , that’s all wasted brainpower that could be employed in energy , healthcare , infrastructure (the important stuff) . Plus these people are elevated by society and paid millions for their (non)contribution to society...this encourages people to become non contributing member of society (actors , musicians , athletes) themselves....people like Kimkardshian , Tiger Woods , Katty Perry....what is their contribution to society? Zip , still they are sitting over 400M each...that would not happen with (limited) central planning
That’s a pretty crowded space, with the rock stars, baseball pitchers, K-pop singers, politicians, etc. etc. all milling in there. I still don’t think the CEOs influence is noticeable.
I just made you the Musk example on colonizing Mars vs Whole Brain Emulation
Boggle. Pretty much every person on Earth voluntarily gives money to the entertainment industry in exchange for entertainment. You think they all are wrong and should be prevented from doing that? No music for you? No games, no movies, no nothing?
They are wrong because that brainpower (musicians , athletes , actors , TV authors and presenters) could be used for example (if redirected to healthcare) to extend their lives or find a cure for the pathology they don’t have yet but they will develop , they are wrong but they don’t know it yet , they’ll find out about how wrong they were when they’ll scramble to get the best experimental treatment but they would not have enough money to pay for it because they spent 15000 to go to the SuperBowl 2 years earlier
Yes, and I don’t know anyone—and haven’t even heard of anyone—who decided to dedicate his/her life to colonizing Mars because Musk is such an awesome guy.
Many kids straight out of collage find themselves with long hours and low pay because they drank the Musk Kool Aid , plus it’s not only people dedicating their lives...in technology many things overlap so people could consider exploring a particular field because it could also have applications in space exploration...also you fail to take into account investors and donators which would flock at Musk but less so with projects like the one of Aubrey De Grey or WBE
But you will tell them that they are wrong right now! X-) How’s that working out for you?
Don’t we do the same with alcoholics , drug addicts , overweight people and suicides ?
Let’s take me. I listen to music, play games, watch movies. You’re saying that’s all WRONG. Instead I should be doing.. what? And why?
Ok so :
1 ) Diminishing these people (actors , musicians , tv host..) influence over society : this can be done quite easily by not buying but pirating every source of entertainment that you consume...there are many warez and torrent tracker out there to satisfy even the most avid consumer
2 ) Don’t ever buy entertainment again , as companies go out of business they will lower their margins and offer way better deals , don’t fall for it
3) Every entertainment/sport business has now gone bankruptcy , no new continent is produced , but you’ll still be able to listen to classic songs , classic movies , classic games...
4) As the consumption of old content becomes not enjoyable anymore , switch to producing your own content for your own enjoyment and consumption (acing with your friends , composing , pick up an instrument and exercise to keep getting better at playing it , practicing sport to relive stress and stay fit , gym , physical exercise.......)
He set the vision and provided the structure that made the achievement possible.
Would you say that his contributions are proportional to his profits? (money , influence , status , cult following..)
But the brainpower behind such companies would be working at NASA , Volvo , FORD… Also you seem to forget subsides and corporate welfare...without taxpayers no Musk company would exist today as they would have gone bankrupt a dozen times , plus he and his companies are still heavily in debt with taxpayers , especially in Nevada and Buffalo , NY
Taxpayers want electric vehicles in cities so that less asthmatics die due to pollution. The tax rebates for electric cars make sense policy wise.
You can’t say that without a vote...also when people were asked to vote with their wallet which is arguably the best way to cast a vote electric cars always got beaten by a wide margin
- 3 Nov 2016 1:14 UTC; 0 points) 's comment on Open thread, Oct. 24 - Oct. 30, 2016 by (
When people asked to vote with their wallet the made the decision to contribute to kill a few of their neighbors. That doesn’t make it right. Clean air in cities is a public good. Clean air is a classic issue of the tragedy of the commons and governments are supposed to act in defend the commons.
You could argue that they were not killing their neighbors , but saving their children which would have not been born were they had to pay 75k for a Tesla (a heavy burden on finances)… a 2003 Mercedes C 240 at 4k instead seems a good bargain so a couple would feel financially secure enough to have a kid..
Government while picking winners and losers more often than not doesn’t look at the whole picture , people should be informed by honest reports clearly stating how better would their lives be tomorrow if they made a sacrifice today and about the extremely beneficial impacts on their lives if the whole population made such sacrifices , but ultimately they should be free to decide what to do with their own money
Personally I would love the government to outright ban the entertainment industry , the sport industry , gambling , the fashion industry and a whole bunch of other sectors of the economy so that brainpower and capital could be redirected towards the important stuff (energy , healthcare , infrastructure , cyberinfrastructure , research , basic research....) but at the same time I am conscious that it will never happen because no substantial change has ever been enforced from the top without at least 20% of the population wanting it badly...and guess what ….unfortunately for me people flock to Vegas , love to watch Netflix , pay attention to fashion and spend up to 7000 $ for a seat at the SuperBowl...so I have to resign myself to convince people not to throw their money , attention and brainpower to such economic black holes which don’t contribute in any way to the advancement of society .
I can’t find poll data directly for electric cars but wind and solar subventions are popular. Given the question “prefer the government to increase, decrease, or not change the financial support and incentives it gives for producing energy from alternative sources such as wind and solar?” in 2009 77% said “increase”.
That’s because people were not allowed to vote with their wallet , they have to somehow materially see money leaving their wallet to make a conscious decision , otherwise we’re just playing the feel good card without looking at the whole picture....people must be informed that switching from fossil fuels to solar and winds means sacrifice and reduced economic prosperity in the short medium term , but a better future and a more radious perspective in the long term , so they’d be able to make a conscious decision , concealing that information is wrong , damaging and most importantly ineffective
- 3 Nov 2016 1:14 UTC; 0 points) 's comment on Open thread, Oct. 24 - Oct. 30, 2016 by (
If people worked from home ( 80% of american workforce is employed in services so basically moving information around is their job) and tossed meat , North America alone could support something like 2 billions people...the amount of energy consumed by private transportation (15860 Trillion BTU) and commercial buildings (17993 Trillion BTU) is insane (33853 Trillion BTU) , in fact it’s 34.7 % of the total energy consumption in the US (97350 Trillion BTU) , more insane is how haven’t we tossed meat yet given how poorly it converts calories and proteins from feed