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Comment by sebringj | Hacker News Reader

The author wrote: "Evolution is driven by random mutations - mistakes, not plans." But...plans are often mistaken or go awry and random mutations are not actually mistakes as there is no plan. But to note, Elon has really been a driver to push space tech forward so it does take people to decide to do this, but zooming way back, there does seem to be an overall pattern of building things on top of other things and so forth, creating an ever increasing complex solution that enables humans to do more than ever before.

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Saying evolution is driven by mistakes is confusing and attributing agency to the algorithm. "Mistakes" don't exist when it comes to evolution as the outcome is not driven by anything and as such cannot "end up" in the wrong place. As an example, tigers aren't less evolved than humans, rather both species have the same level of evolution, tigers happen to have evolved tools to hunt with their teeth and claws, and that wasn't as rewarding as optimizing for brain size, but neither species is more correct than the other.

They're mistakes in the sense that there is a "plan" -- replication of a genome with full fidelity. A mutation is an error/mistake in replication.

Kind of but not really as there is no correct blueprint or end result in mind as there can be beneficial mutations. Its kind of like the philosophy of a tree in the forest falling making a sound when no one is around to experience sound type thing as it comes down to a human perception at that point of what correct is supposed to be but I do understand what you mean as there are clearly bad errors that happen resulting in terrible birth defects etc that clearly are not good outcomes for the organism resulting in immediate or painful death.

Elon has contributed to space? I thought he was a military/nasa supplier.

If anyone has insight, I'm interested.

First organization to ever reuse an orbital booster, instead of rebuilding it from scratch for each launch. Among many other things (commercial crew, raptor engine, etc)

They provided the funding, but he pushed the cost of manufacture down so low that new things can be done with the same resources.

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