Comment by AlchemistCamp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlchemistCamp | Hacker News Reader

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The problem with that goal, even if one were to assume your assessment of him is correct, is that you'd be advocating for the end of adoption of electric vehicles and keeping humanity a single planet species forever, thus increasing our existential risks.

Since his success metric for launching Tesla was the success of green tech itself rather than Tesla's market share and his goals for SpaceX were similarly broad rather than purely financial, making a point of trying to make him fail is also negatively aligned with long term civilizational outcomes. It would take a very petty person to hope that we go back to throwing away rockets after a single use, just because they have a beef with the person in and inspired others to build a reusable one.

If you feel that the 2018-2021 era version of Twitter was its ideal state, that's defensible even if a bit odd. But hoping a platform millions love fails, just because of the guy who bought it (and has a track record of doing great things for humanity), then your goal sucks.

It’s pretty bizarre take to think that just because Elon has done amazing things for humanity (which I’ll take at face value), that you should root for him to succeed at whatever he does, regardless of how destructive it is.

I hope he fails hard at this and returns to making rockets. Tesla could disappear at this point and I don’t think it would matter, but SpaceX feels important still.

Well hopefully you're not implying that's my take, because I don't think you should root for him to succeed at everything he does.

I think you should focus on what you want to make in the world rather than how to hurt others.

Even within the scope of companies to destroy, Twitter seems like an exceptionally poor target. Is Twitter really so much more threatening than Apple, Google, MS, FB, Tiktok, Tencent, any company marketing cigarettes etc, that it's worthy of setting aside all the productive things you can do with your life and make it your ambition to bring it down?

The amount of negative energy focused at it is downright pathological given its size and impacts, IMO.

That’s basically what you said, yes:

“The problem with that goal…is that you'd be advocating for the end of adoption of electric vehicles and keeping humanity a single planet species forever”

I don’t care about Twitter itself, but I hope that Elon’s cruel and destructive approach fails.

And I’m not so entranced by his self-aggrandizing mythology that I think him failing at Twitter will have any impact whatsoever on adoption of electric vehicles or our ability to get to space. Give me a break lol

> ”I don’t care about Twitter itself, but I hope that Elon’s cruel and destructive approach fails.”

Cruel and destructive?

That’s quite the extreme and bizarre interpretation of recent events, and it’s not very charitable. I hope you find something a bit more positive to focus your energies on.

The truth is, neither of us can know what the long term consequences of the leadership change will be but it’s almost certainly not worth doing this to yourself over it.

lol, I’m fine man, you seem more twisted up over other people’s opinions :)

Happy thanksgiving!

> you'd be advocating for the end of adoption of electric vehicles and keeping humanity a single planet species forever thus increasing our existential risks.

Even if you thought that we could become multi-planetary (incl. not just getting to other planets but living there in our current human form), thinking that Elon Musk is the only person on earth ever who could make this happen is pretty cultish. I mean, come on. Do you really believe he is humanity's savior?

I believe in humanity’s ability to do it.

Also, you completely missed the point. Since his ultimate goal with SpaceX is a multi-planetary future, the only way to make him “fail” at that goal is to ensure a single or zero-planetary future for humanity.

Seems kinda dark.

Now you are redefining what failure looks like. I'd bet most people that don't want 'Elon the bully' to succeed are talking about their businesses failing (e.g Twitter going down). If you're somehow claiming Musk's succeeds even if SpaceX fails as a business but another company from another founder succeeds in making a multi-planetary future, that's quite the mental gymnastics, but, whatever lets you keep the saviour image of Musk you have I suppose.

I’m not redefining anything. I’m literally referring to the stated goals for each of those two companies.

Please take a look at the HN guidelines. The personal swipe in your comment violates them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine.

Thanks for the nudge on the guidelines, you're right.

You are however redefining the meaning in this conversation or just not really aware that no one here wants that 'mission' to fail, we want Elon's methods to fail because they set a bad precedent for current and future leaders.

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