Elon Musk

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

do tell

curious to read a critique that amounts to more than 'hyperlol'

I think it's dumb that he's throwing around numbers when he doesn't even have a working prototype. It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project. I also think the "open source" thing is pretty silly since it's not like code where an individual can make some kind of improvement and test it out to see if it works. I guess an open source design is an interesting idea after the fact if he actually gets it working and other people want to build his design, but it still seems basically irrelevant.

Didn't he make his fortune with Peter thiel?
I don't know if that is "guilt by association" or "looking better by comparison"

It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project

^^^

A key part of his criticism of the other rail plan is that it's "more expensive to operate (if unsubsidized)." I'd like to see some more detailed numbers on that though. Why would we count the cost of unsubsidized rail against air travel which is heavily subsidized? All that really matters is cost to the traveller, and unlike airlines, I'm assuming the high speed rail system is not going to be run as a for-profit business. He also makes no comparison of the environmental costs of air flight vs. the planned high speed rail system.

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

― eris bueller (lukas), Monday, August 12, 2013 11:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm generally contemptuous of futurists, primarily because they seem to think energy and climate change problems will just sort themselves out, but a mass transit system that relies on solar power and transports people across one of the busiest stretches of highway in America is a good thing. I looked at the first two feeds you suggested and they seemed to just be saying this is just a toy for rich people, which is afaict completely unsupported by his proposal. He's not suggesting a magic carpet for billionaires; it's mass transit that uses solar power. This is a good thing! Maybe it's completely impossible hogwash, but I'd like to see actual engineering criticism of it instead of casual dismissals based on suspicion of ideas from rich people.

the main challenges are not engineering-related, their political

anybody who is over the age of 25, has lived in a city for any length of time, and paid a modicum of attention to the world around them knows that these kinds of massive public works projects tend to be underbid by shady contractors and then they go wildly over the original schedule and budget. so the fact that he's coming in saying he can do it so much cheaper with a totally new and untested technology is a huge red flag. to me it immediately suggests that the whole thing is not serious.

if he honestly thinks this is a feasible plan he should raise some funding and build a private line from LA to Vegas.

It's transparently unserious in that he doesn't want to do it himself and "regrets even mentioning it"

right, that aspect has been p funny

haha, I missed that part

ya seems like he said something offhandedly then realized abt his celebrity

a mass transit system that relies on solar power and transports people across one of the busiest stretches of highway in America is a good thing.

people don't commute the LA to SF corridor though. i have a hard time believing a transit system would fill the role of the 5 freeway. it's mostly trucks anyway.

You know what would do really well in transportation corridors like that? Plain old freight trains.

I swear, the interstate highway system and the fact it's mostly used for semi truck freight is the biggest money hole in our post-WW2 car-dependent wonderland

there already are freight trains

people don't commute the LA to SF corridor though.

?! they most certainly do. there are these things called commuter flights, they are booked solid all the time.

there are a lot more trucks xp

what exactly are you proposing?

a solar powered superhighway paved with bitcoins duh

that we subsidize more public transport of freight in addition to passengers? or at least reallocate money away from interstate highways

idk, iatee and his ideas about gas prices to thread

HOOS otm

ah, ok. I thought maybe there was a problem with CA's existing freight lines. I don't really know anything about them but I do see freight trains going up and down the state all the time.

If this thing actually worked the political will would develop pretty quickly. If the Acela line was shipping people 400 miles in 30 minutes every state would want one.

Which is why yeah, he should just fucking build one. I wonder what a good demonstration distance would be.

Kemi Badenoch...

“I think Elon Musk has been a fantastic thing for freedom of speech. I will hold my hand up and say, I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk.”

hes still got it!

I instant translate "freedom of speech" to "normalizing racism" in my head whenever I read these quotes now.

“I think Elon Musk has been a fantastic thing for normalizing racism." Translates much better.

Kemi Badenoch is black though, if that matters, I'm not sure in her case tbh.

given how homophobic and transphobic she is, you could say "normalizing bigotry" without even having to get into her ideas about wokeism, CRT, etc.

Normalizing fascism/hate/bigotry sure. Black people can also be racist. Most people are.

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-starlink-russia-shahed-135-drone-elon-musk-spacex-1959563

I'm sure this would have been a big scandal a few decades ago, but now it's like whatever

i didn't know about it, but it's been reported since at least Feb

Ukraine's military intelligence agency said in February that Russian forces were using Starlink terminals along the front lines, pointing specifically to Russia's 83rd Separate Air Assault Brigade that it said was operating in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region at the time.

if elon musk had a choice to destroy all of humanity except for the people who have sex with him in order to get money, and then populate the rest of the history of humanity with his own special creepy gene poll on a shitty exoplanet, he would do it

Gene poll: XX/XY/other

shocker: this guy basically is exactly who conservatives think George Soros is. good thing the federal government gives him so much money!

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/elon-musk-political-donations-stephen-miller-desantis-39464294?mod=hp_lead_pos7

"Elon Musk’s financial support for Republican causes has been much more extensive and started earlier than previously known.

The Tesla CEO quietly gave tens of millions of dollars to groups with ties to Trump aide Stephen Miller and supporters of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid, according to people familiar with the matter.

The financial contributions, which haven’t previously been reported, show how Musk, who seemed to undergo a rapid political transformation this year, was a major force in funding Republican initiatives and candidates well before starting a super political-action committee in support of former President Donald Trump.

They also make him one of the biggest donors to conservative causes, which in combination with his large social-media following makes him one of the most influential figures in U.S. politics. His track record thus far in backing winners, however, is mixed at best.

In the fall of 2022, more than $50 million of Musk’s money funded a series of advertising campaigns by a group called Citizens for Sanity, according to people familiar with his involvement and tax filings for the group. The bulk of the ads ran in battleground states days before the midterm elections and attacked Democrats on controversial issues such as medical care for transgender children and illegal immigration.

Citizens for Sanity was incorporated in Delaware in June 2022, with salaried employees from Miller’s nonprofit legal group listed as its directors and officers.

Miller, a senior aide in Trump’s White House, was an architect of the previous administration’s restrictive immigration policies and a leading backer of its socially conservative initiatives.

The following year, Musk gave $10 million in support of DeSantis as he ran for president, people familiar with his donation said.

The money was routed through a group called Faithful & Strong Policies, according to the people familiar with the matter. Musk’s contribution to DeSantis’s presidential efforts hasn’t previously been reported.

More than half of the money ended up in the coffers of a pro-DeSantis political-action committee called Never Back Down. DeSantis dropped out of the race in January.

Representatives for Musk and DeSantis didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Republican consultants and lawyers helped keep Musk’s fingerprints off the transactions. He used a limited-liability company to send money to groups that are known for the section of Internal Revenue Service code they fall under: 501(c)(4). Sometimes called “social welfare organizations,” or “dark money” groups, they are exempt from disclosing donors and can raise unlimited amounts of money from people and companies.

They are required to report grants they make, allowing The Wall Street Journal to track money through a series of such groups that people familiar with the matter said was Musk’s. When discussing Musk’s contributions to Citizens for Sanity, people involved in the transactions often communicated on the encrypted messaging app Signal, one of those people said.

Musk’s track record in politics so far is spotty. The Journal recently reported that the billionaire secretly invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into attack ads targeting the liberal district attorney in Austin, Texas, who easily won his primary in March despite Musk’s efforts to unseat him. DeSantis exited the presidential race before the first primary, misreading Trump’s durability. And most of the ads placed by Miller’s group aired in battleground states in the run-up to bad midterm elections for Republicans."

https://i.imgur.com/NCS6LHM.png

guess who also seems to have extensive connections to Diddy

Concerning. Looking into it.

Is anyone Keeping an eye on Diddy’s jail cell?

I don't care. Do u?

https://i.imgur.com/RDOitbZ.png

https://bsky.app/profile/paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3l5sieupjwl2t

the face looks much more decayed now.

'Tis the Power of TRUMP!

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2dz5dqkt64fdbvnutc4472w/bafkreibvpk3s674g3sxinwbz3b7w4wxyaehuqwv56g4f4yznmuo42ixi2y@jpeg

i wonder if that face is some sort of 'alpha dogging' that musk thinks hes doing

I think he’s trying to do the Kubrick Stare

or communicate "I'm adopting a deferential pose as required, but we both know I'm better than you"

The most cursed Make A Wish

kinda fucked up that a guy who rakes in a ton of cash from government contracts used that money to buy a social media site in order to turn it into a right-wing hellhole and is now doing Trump rallies. imagine how the right would react to a situation like that on the other side.

also his Mom is using the platform to tell people to vote multiple times