John Carmack's Tesla Review at End of Latest Armadillo Update
armadilloaerospace.com
armadilloaerospace.com
Here's a guy who skips college, teaches himself to program, and pioneers the modern video game industry. Though his id partner John Romero rests on his laurels once they become rich and famous, Carmack pushes forward obsessively, almost single-handedly advancing the boundaries of 3D technology with each new game engine release while competing against much larger engineering teams from much larger companies. Then he decides to teach himself rocket science. From this post we learn that he gave up his discretionary spending and became frugal and money conscious again to chase space dreams that bled lots of money and probably wouldn't amount to anything. Now several years later he has a legitimate space company that's doing work for NASA and is poised for real scientific breakthroughs in 2009. Meanwhile, he's still working at id on the next breakthrough 3D game. All the while, never taking investment money, and always giving back his knowledge by sharing highly detailed technical posts like this one (and his old .plan updates) and by eventually open-sourcing all of his work.
This guy is the ultimate hacker. He epitomizes everything that this site is supposed to be about. And you guys are quibbling about the environment? FAIL!
I don't read the comments that way. I read them as "We thought that Carmack was an ideal but now we find that he's a heretic - what do we do?"
Perhaps because I'm not a gamer, I don't see the point in enumerating Carmack's accomplishments. I'm happy for him, but I'm here to talk about hacking, not hero worship. I vote for stories and comments here by what they say, not who's saying them.
And no, I am not an engineer, nor have I ever claimed to be one, and I don't see how a meta-question to hackers about their philosophy is "trivial political Redditism".
The discussion on the environment may have been somewhat tangential to the article, but the comments had been thought about and the debate was not the kind of derisive bickering on Reddit. If that topic interests the readers of this site, how is it irrelevant?
I do admire Carmack's achievements, drive, versatility and most of all his drive. That doesn't mean that I'm not at liberty to disagree with part of his philosophy. At the end of the day this article was posted as a review of the Tesla by someone who we like, who has had a number of supercars. That has nothing to do with any of his achievements which makes your comment as sideways as that of the topic of the environment.
I suppose at its core, any value judgment treads into the religious. It's probably none too surprising that I disagree with this statement. But it's interesting seeing this judgment so completely distilled.
I'll ask HN. Do you care for the environment, only for the sentient beings (including animals) of which they are part, only the humans living inside it, or, largely, only for yourself?
It's not something most people would be willing to admit to in public, but I do think that it's pretty common. The vast majority of people only care about things that either directly affect them, or fit into the tribe/team/us-not-them slot. The only way to have a mass movement is to directly appeal to self-interest, or to hijack the team slot.
Since environmental disaster due to global warming or species extinction is at least decades off, environmentalists who want environmentalist goals to be achieved have, as I see it, three choices:
They can say that disaster is nearly upon us in the next 3-10 years. This is likely to backfire in 3-10 years, of course.
They can try to hijack the team association by making environmentalism into a pseudo-religion. This has more potential, but more downside, since if it goes too far it could result in a cultural mood that discourages solutions civilization needs, like higher-density energy and high-yield agriculture.
Lastly, they can just try to build things that people would rather use, and which are better for the environment, such as the subject of this thread, the Tesla.
It seems to me that productive people who are worried about the environment would be best served by doing that last, since it has more leverage potential, and since there are already a lot of people working on the first two.
So, while I largely share this viewpoint, I'm disappointed that there aren't at least a few dinosaurs around to observe. OTOH, what would we have given up if our ancestors were competing with even a few dinosaurs?
Notice, I'm not taking the position that nothing is lost when we change the environment. But, I do think that we should use the environment to further human goals, including the lesser goal of retaining some truly wild space for us to enjoy.
In part this is a reaction to the casually anti-human stance of some people who say things like "the environment would be better off without humans." We're part of the environment. We wouldn't be better off without humans.
Call me a "speciest", but for now, I see no reason why we shouldn't dominate other species (remaining aware of a sliding scale of intelligence and suffering), as long as it's not likely to be suicidal.
What baffles me is, how on earth do id and Fountainhead games exemplify Objectivist ideals?
(Note: I really don't know the social details of objectivism, e.g. how cultish it really is in practice. Just the basic philosophy.)
By the way, noticed you're at Courant. Do you know Adi, by any chance?
Don't know Adi.
Frankly, I find this third argument very compelling. The environment is a highly complicated system with many chaotic behaviors that make it unreasonable to point to some aspect of the environment as being uniquely critical to human life. Some things are more critical than others, sure, but I think it's unreasonable to completely ignore any aspect of the environment on that basis.
As per these arguments, I would also disagree with the quoted statement. Besides, the author makes a strawman out of environmentalism. It isn't about "self-flagellation," it's about engaging in a sustainable lifestyle.
I personally am much more motivated by the idea of doing something more efficiently and with less (or zero) waste than I am by the notion of self-sacrifice. I think we should 'protect the environment' only because I find the less wasteful path more aesthetically appealing, and I have faith that man can be more efficient and less wasteful through his own ingenuity, without resorting to self-flagellation.
He is partly right, there have been a lot of holier-than-thou types. The problem also is it's a pretty selfish attitude to only care about the environment when it's convenient.
The right answer is of course somewhere in the middle. I feel that things like the Tesla will get us closer to the need not to compromise on fun for the sake of the planet. However until we reach that point we should also consider the impact we are having and look for ways we can reduce the burden we are.
Recently I saw Top Gear review the Tesla, and I twigged what Carmack said about the drivetrain. The Tesla has one gear. No multi-gear-box, no (or less) gearbox oil, no shifter or paddle shift, no oily engine and spark plugs and cylinders and valves and fuel pumps and air intakes... it's a motor with one moving part.
Suddenly, I feel the same way about this - quieter, smoother, simpler, more maintainable - it will be the standard type of car one day.
"We are also trying a new fabrication technology for making chambers – rapid prototyping investment casting from http://www.proivc.com/ . This is more expensive than the spun-pipe based chambers we have been using, but it frees us from the limits of standard pipe sizes, and makes changing nozzle dimensions easier. The surface finish is rougher than we had hoped, and there was some slight ovaling in the chamber, but it is still promising. We haven’t fired them yet."