Elon Musk

seems like we should have a thread on this guy, idk

Who he?

It's really an anagram of "Nole Skum."

Suk Lemon

ahe's kinda like tony stark, so i gather from ten mins research, but without the weapons and with clean energy and space

it's kinda surprising he isn't more well known all things considered

seriously. if wiki is even half-accurate shouldn't he be a fixture on Time mag or something?

His family sound really annoying. Was married to, uh, somebody who was in that St Trinians film, uh, the one with Russell Brand.

You realise that if he was ever to become involved in some sort of scandal and subsequent cover-up, newspapers could use the headline, "Elongate"

if he was caught cheating he'd be THE MUSKRAT

dude owes his company's survival to gov programs but
says it's no big deal if Romney wins and makes good on his promise
to obliterate them all.

lots of companies do well out of govt contracts/programs, i'd imagine.

so hyperloop huh

people on twitter so mad. trying to understand why. i guess it boils down to:

1) shouldn't we fix BART / buses / systems that working class people use before building toys for rich people

2) LA-to-SF only is ridiculous, there's like a whole state in there

3) nobody wants to hear half-baked plans from an arrogant rich dude

still, i mean, it's pretty cool, right?

1) shouldn't we fix BART / buses / systems that working class people use before building toys for rich people

There are lots of problems everywhere all the time. Can't let it stop technology from moving forward.

2) LA-to-SF only is ridiculous, there's like a whole state in there

There's a whole country, even! LA-to-SF sounds like a perfectly fine beta test.

3) nobody wants to hear half-baked plans from an arrogant rich dude

Not all rich dudes are arrogant. Elon Musk has never struck me as anything close to that.

people on twitter so mad.

who do you follow?

i'm not getting that impression from all the tech ppl i follow

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

You might be right, Johnny, dunno. I was just trying to figure out why there was this explosion of contempt all over my twitter feed after the announcement.

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

i do follow tim but i guess whatever he said didn't stick

cool monorail bro

lol

i have a plan for a train that goes from boston to atlanta in 10mins, its called lasertrain and ill give you some cool drawings of it in a couple weeks, its ridiculous no one is building it btw it only costs $10

im not gonna build it tho cause im kinda busy

even i can afford that

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

isn't his point that hyperloop would be fraction of the cost and twice as fast?

the douchey thing is that he made a big ol deal abt something thats not at all real

Which is how 70% of architecture and urban planning works.

sure 70% that sounds totally realistic too

I meant 94% sorry.

To me, it really sounds like a kickstarter project... but from a billionaire.

i mean who knows maybe its revolutionary technology but its so preliminary its p comical to call a press conference abt it

maybe this is the best way to convince someone else to give it a shot idk

LOL "elon musk"

This should keep us occupied for a while: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

I wasn't scathing about Musk (I am about futurism in general) - if anything, he has a good track record on quixotic tech quests. I hope he's successful with this. I also hope there's a state left that can use it.

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

Knowing how CA politics works (and the CA rail projects are amazingly political), how would you expect a non-arrogant to even get traction with this?

I have no doubt that Musk will solve the Hyperloop technical issues. I very much have doubts about him navigating Sacramento.

I was describing this to my wife today and kept calling it Supertube.

Bad connotations...

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/supertrain-1_7696.jpg

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

Musk says the Hyperloop is best for distances of 900 miles. Beyond 900 miles, he thinks you're better off in a supersonic jet.

Lol

I never use my supersonic jet anymore as parking is always a total bitch

I have to say I rather like Elon Musk. He's made a massive pile of money and rather than sitting on it or managing it in mundane ways; he's making risky bets on thinks he's passionate about: Cars, Rockets, vacuum tubes.

Hyperloop seems a bit ridiculous to me, vacuum tube powered trains and trains in evacuated tubes are an old chestnut, almost as old as railways themselves. However, he's built a commercially viable private space programme and a car company* in the last ten years so anything is possible.

*Tesla isn't really a car company it's a power train company and if it is still making cars in 5 years I'll be surprised.

ya i'm kinda ll for crackpot genius billionaires actually doing interesting stuff, up until they become str8 up supervillains obv

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

― wk, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 2:23 AM

he might do this

is this dude one of the crazy silicon valley libertarian types or is he just beloved by them?

iirc he has liberal tendencies mixed in w the libertarianism

xp I heard him speak and he seemed not crazy and to have some kind of social or at least environmental conscience, unlike the usual libertarian types, but maybe he's just better at hiding it

(I like him too fwiw and right now he seems one of the most likely "crackpot genius billionaires" to solve some hard problems which are overdue for solving, so I hope he carries on with that. Also hoping that one day I'll get to see/read his computer game that appeared in some 8-bit micro type-in listings mag in the 80s)

he's not as bad as some of the other silicon valley libtards, I'll give him that.

nonetheless, this is a stupid proposal

i thought bitecofer was just some random polling-obsessed professor or something

fish thing is the stupidest thing i'll see all day, well done that person

I went to look at that Bitecofer tweet just to try to understand it. It looks like the left half of the image was posted by some right-winger, so she redid it by adding the big Fascism fish that's going to eat them all. But uh ...

Anyway, reaffirms my longstanding decision to ignore her.

I mean yeah the idea that Communists are a bigger fish than Democrats is laughable horseshit, but on the other hand I have to admit the image has nailed my own deeply islamo-gauchist politics perfectly (except the Democrats should already be in the Fascism fish's mouth)

xp ah ha ok, send Bitecofer back to detournement school

i thought bitecofer was just some random polling-obsessed professor or something

― Luigi No...No!!! (Boring, Maryland), Monday, August 3, 2026 11:44 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

she has a super pac

that tweet doesn't really make sense to me? or at any rate it seems to be saying that Islam is the best weapon we have against fascism. I mean I'm not a dumbass, it's just racist, but it's brainless as an image too

― rob, Monday, August 3, 2026 10:38 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

the muslims and other fish are ganging up on the smol dems instead of fighting fascism

i do feel the contemporary far-right’s continued allegiance to austerity and neoliberalism is its weak point. Offering the same economic gruel to the masses that got us into this mess

xxxxp to rob’s link

the washington consensus let them eat gruel

come on, the bigger fish are clearly consuming the smaller, weaker, no-chance-in-hell fish to gain the calories and nutrients they need to beat the bad fish. there is nearly no daylight between posting this image and reciting the shahada IMO

lol

it is kinda funny that either party could get a permanent majority via a treats based politics but their billionaire bosses wouldnt like that, they prefer staying friends with billionaires to formal political power, tho tbf some of them are the billionaires

i do feel the contemporary far-right’s continued allegiance to austerity and neoliberalism is its weak point. Offering the same economic gruel to the masses that got us into this mess

― Luigi No...No!!! (Boring, Maryland), Monday, August 3, 2026 11:53 AM (three minutes ago)

yeah there was maybe a moment to seize when Tucker Carlson types seemed to be advocating for a form of (national) socialism, but when your fascist leaders are also the world's wealthiest and most sociopathic con men, that's not gonna happen

xp lol

no one will do the real populism they are afraid

(except the Democrats should already be in the Fascism fish's mouth)

i would posit that the Dems are more akin to a remora on the larger fish— it is a symbiotic relationship

also thanks for that article, rob, good stuff

dems are a big lazy sun fish and dsa is a seal swimming up and taking bites of it

if you wanna know why we're sliding into fascism its because people have no critical thinking skills whatsoever anymore. people believing there really are roving gangs of immigrants snatching up and eating people's pets, that there are litter boxes in schools, that womens sports are full of crossdressing men just trying to win a medal, etc. anyone living in the real world should be able to see none of this stuff is true, I mean so many people have kids, don't you think *ONE* of them might mention that there's a litter box in the school bathroom? don't you think someone would take a picture of it? do these people think about that at all or are they so divorced from the real world that they just don't???

obviously you saw a ton of this during Covid, what with people actually believing nurses were getting bounties for Covid patients and therefore were incentivized to kill as many old people as possible for $600 a pop by putting them on these ventilators...you know there are like, hundreds of thousands of people working in health care, many of whom turned out to be absolutely nuts, you don't think we'd see some actual proof of that if it were true? I can kinda understand people getting into this stuff on lockdown which I think drove everyone stir crazy but here we are 5 years post-vaccine and you've got these dipshit Senators talking about long-term vaccine injuries and people committing suicide after getting the shot, I have to wonder, do they know they're lying or are they just living their lives online and seeing these right-wing content creators putting magnets next to their arm and twitching uncontrollably and thinking this is actually real life? I don't know anyone who had complications from the vaccine, I don't know anyone who knows anyone who did, but I sure as hell know a lot of people who died from the virus or developed longterm complications from it. In fact I think pretty much everybody does. Do these people actually ever think about that or is the internet culture war the only thing going on in their brains???

if you wanna know why we're sliding into fascism its because people have no critical thinking skills whatsoever anymore.

if you believe this though you should also ask why and how that happened

**looks at thread title**

lmao

Been listening to Sarah Marshall's podcast on the satanic panic and boy people have always believed all sorts of insane shit in huge numbers.

if you wanna know why we're sliding into fascism its because people have no critical thinking skills whatsoever anymore.

Is believing this showing a lack of critical skills?

if you believe this though you should also ask why and how that happened

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_Us_Down

xp - Nah. Just a penchant for hyperbole that relies on an overestimate of how perceptively people think about anything that is remote from their personal experience.

I have a brother who's an overly online conspiracy guy with fitness/wellness pipline syndrome, and while I wouldn't try to undo his deepest beliefs in one conversation, he was actually pretty receptive to having obvious stuff pointed out to him, like..."Does that really seem likely given this other information?" but that's using our relationship and specialized information I have about, for ex, who uses SNAP benefits in America, to make his position seem silly and the opposite seem more reasonable. But he's still susceptible to the grift because he WANTS to believe. And he'll continue to believe whatever he heard last that fits his worldview and assauages his fears.

I should just start texting him every day a propos of nothing that he's going to get salmonella from raw eggs eventually. Just to be annoying.

haha do it

xp I'm not familiar with that (sleeve's link). I think any thesis addressing this would have to be pretty complex and context-sensitive to be persuasive, but long-term disinvestment in public education is pretty hard to ignore, yes. That said, I don't know anywhere near enough about K-12 pedagogy & curriculum to have a strong take on this

And yeah of course you'd also have to show that there has been a decline in "critical thinking skills" in the first place—not sure that's methodologically possible

how bout skull measurements and IQ? (kidding)

obvs its all very complicated but my feeling is overall peoples critical thinking skills have prob improved over the internet era but the information environment has grown more challenging at a faster rate

also would say that critical thinking is not something that humans are really that into

more and more I tend to blame it on cell phones and social media's perfection of gambling algorithms to keep your attention on them being what caused all this. people CAN think critically but if you picture the country as being a body politic with a crippling gambling addiction, it makes sense

A lot of people accurately have a sense that something is wrong and things are unfair. They're just ready to blame the wrong people for why it is that way, and that readiness is powerful because it bypasses critical thinking by being emotionally appealing to people who are already experiencing heightened fear and resentment about unfairness and the lack of resources in their own lives.

we are for sure in our jackpot era

I wouldn't expect to have a lot of success with changing How People Are, to lagoon's point.

like picture someone quite good at their day job that involves pretty complex tasks with competing actors, subtle moral considerations, etc. that gets fired because they spend $20000 on the corporate credit card on online gambling then you get the whole thing with America in 2026

meanwhile Trump and his idiot boys are exempt from audits, a fair world!

someone should do something about that lot

A lot of people accurately have a sense that something is wrong and things are unfair. They're just ready to blame the wrong people for why it is that way, and that readiness is powerful because it bypasses critical thinking by being emotionally appealing to people who are already experiencing heightened fear and resentment about unfairness and the lack of resources in their own lives.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, August 3, 2026 2:55 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes and essentially this is the entire GOP political project...get into power, break as much shit as possible, turn around and go "this is why we need small government!" so our tax dollars can go to billionaires instead of programs that actually help people in need.

Sports betting is a pretty good metaphor. I think people are right to suspect that not everything is on the up and up, that some players and maybe some refs are on the take, given what we already know it seems unlikely that there aren't some crooked actors still playing. But that then turns into every controversial call or bizarre play that winds up flipping the spread being evidence of the league being rigged. Especially if some dipshit like Dave Portnoy loses money on it. This sort of thing is common in online poker too, so many players whining endlessly about getting cheated when they just don't understand probability...but its not like there haven't been superusers and botnets before.

Yes and essentially this is the entire GOP political project...get into power, break as much shit as possible, turn around and go "this is why we need small government!"

This is the longstanding project for sure, but the key to it is also providing out-group targets of rage and blame — immigrants, Muslims, drag queens, library books, a constantly cycled gallery of scapegoats to distract from the drilling in the wall as they drain the treasury.

A lot of people accurately have a sense that something is wrong and things are unfair.

Too many people ready to be racist and to kick the migrants as the solution they are given.

And I think a lot of people know what they are doing.

I’m with you there, xyzzz. Some recent posts are veering dangerously close to excusing racism and abhorrent beliefs as some sort of addiction.

What is true is that public education has been decimated in the US by conservatives and abetted by liberals, and this decimation is very much in sync with the larger project of keeping people in cycles of ignorance and poverty. Anti-intellectualism is in the very blood of the US project, and the ferocity with which it has been taken up in recent years is alarming. Racism, misogyny, and irrationality go hand in hand with anti-intellectualism, to state the obvious, so it is tempting to blame these larger forces for individuals’ racism and abhorrent beliefs, but this too easily takes away agency from such people. Sure, the algorithms I mentioned earlier in the discussion do a hell of a job at siphoning vulnerable, frustrated, and undereducated people into warped belief systems, but there is plenty out there that is NOT warped that people can find pretty easily.

Having been in higher ed for more than 25 years, I don't remember a moment when other than a blessed majority students came into my students armed with Critical Thinking.

blessed minority

That hasn’t been my experience except in comp classes, which should be abolished anyway afaic

It doesn't upset me, it's an example that higher education and baser human instincts often collaborate.

Hey teach, can I have an extension on my paper about reverse racism?

he just put a new crater in the moon

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3msdmfgelm525

(insert YouTube video of the Mr. Show “we’re going to blow up the moon” sketch)

Truly capable of fucking anything up.

Reminds me of a frequent saying of my mother: “You could break a damn bowling ball.”