I salute Elon Musk, Captain of Spaceship Earth!

[Giulio Prisco]

Tesla. SpaceX. Neuralink. Now free speech (or at least fair
nonpartisan treatment of hate speech) on Twitter. Elon deserves all
his money and more.

[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 2:30 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

I do not salute Elon Musk for buying Twitter, I wish he hadn't.

 John K Clark

[Giulio Prisco]

Why?

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[Giulio Prisco]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 4:27 PM <sp...@rainier66.com> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks for that Giulio.
>
> Here is a challenge to all who have a public speech platform: you don't need
> to be non-partisan, you don't even need to be fair. Just be transparent.
> Let everyone see how you roll. Be open. It's what we always did here on
> this forum: transparency.

Yes. I want to see MORE free speech on Twitter, but if that is not an
option, then I want to see LESS free speech on Twitter. That is, they
should use exactly the same censorship criteria against both sides,
not only one.

> Keeping a filtering algorithm secret is
> unaccountable power, which always leads to corruption. So... wield the
> power, accept the accountability that goes with it, be transparent.
>
> Way to Elon. I still won't buy your cars, but I will cheer for those who
> do: it is solving some problems.
>
> Speaking of SpaceX, something that hasn't been discussed here but is
> relevant to our interests: that whole notion of fly-back first stages
> landing on their feet has a feature of great importance: it scales up.
>
> spike
>

[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 9:46 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I do not salute Elon Musk for buying Twitter, I wish he hadn't.

> Why?

History has clearly shown that exercising minimal editorial control over Twitter can lead to profoundly negative consequences, and now the world's richest man, who has just bought it, says he will exercise no editorial control at all. I'm not saying what Musk proposes to do should be made illegal, if I own the world's loudest megaphone I have the right to let anybody I want borrow it and say anything they want no matter how crazy or stupid or downright evil it is, but I am saying it would be immoral and irresponsible to do so.

John K Clark

[Giulio Prisco]

Perhaps you have a point here, but Twitter has a partisan bias
problem. One side can say everything, the other side can say nothing.
Copying my reply to Spike: I want to see MORE free speech on Twitter,

but if that is not an option, then I want to see LESS free speech on
Twitter. That is, they should use exactly the same censorship criteria
against both sides, not only one.

> John K Clark
>
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[Dan TheBookMan]

On Apr 27, 2022, at 12:24 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <extrop...@lists.extropy.org> wrote:

On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 1:22 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <extrop...@lists.extropy.org> wrote:

On Apr 26, 2022, at 9:53 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <extrop...@lists.extropy.org> wrote:

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 4:01 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <extrop...@lists.extropy.org> wrote:

On Apr 26, 2022, at 8:25 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extrop...@lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> Ja.  But there are more than two sides.  Musk is African American and a libertarian (oh what a fine example of a libertarian is he, the modern John Galt.)

Recall how in Rand’s novel John Galt got all those government contracts? Remember how Galt was the scion of a wealthy family? You don’t recall those things? Well, that’s because Galt wasn’t born into wealth and didn’t step his way up the financial ladder via dipping into the tax fund. (Yeah, Galt is a fictional character, but his fictional biography is of someone born into a lower middle class family, leaving home at 12, and working his way up from there.)

This isn’t to belittle Musk’s achievements in the area of space technology, cars, and batteries. Hes shaken up those industries. But he’s hardly a John Galt.

### Is Musk a "scion of a wealthy family"? Did he step his way up the financial ladder via dipping into the tax fund?

Yes and yes. Do you know his biography? Do you know about his father’s wealth?

### Are you claiming Errol Musk was rich? How rich exactly?

----------------------------------

That’s hard to tell, but I don’t many poor people who have their kids emeralds to sell to jewelers. Do you?

Do you know how his business have actively pursued and gotten federal and state subsidies?

### Are you claiming Elon Musk made his money from state subsidies? What fraction?

Do look things up in reputable sources. Daily Kos and Gizmodo don't count.

See https://reason.com/podcast/2021/03/03/elon-musk-welfare-king/

It seems like it’d be hard to untangle all this, but federal and state subsidies to his businesses were and something he actively pursues. It can be argued that Tesla cara would’ve been prohibitively expensive early on without the federal subsidies. This is, by the way, how many rich people benefit from the tax base: they get the subsidies, protections, and such. This doesn’t mean they never ever produce or that they don’t do some good. (One can easily imagine someone having Musk’s many lucky breaks ending up broke or just making an initial bump in wealth and resting on that. For instance, he could’ve sold his portion of PayPal and simply retired.)

Regards,

Dan

[Lawrence Crowell]

This adoration of Elon Musk is just another "bid pela-man" trend, similar to what is behind t'Rump. Musk is not a great genius, and in fact his idea of getting to Mars and the rest is simply crazy. He was born into great wealth and has been relatively good at being acquisitive.

LC

[John Clark]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 10:26 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This adoration of Elon Musk is just another "bid pela-man" trend, similar to what is behind t'Rump. Musk is not a great genius, and in fact his idea of getting to Mars and the rest is simply crazy. He was born into great wealth and has been relatively good at being acquisitive.

Musk is no saint and he's done some stupid things, I'm thinking particularly of his COVID missinformation (promoting quack cures like Chloroquine, claiming it was no worse than the common cold, predicting there would be no new cases of Covid in the US after April 2020) but I think comparing him to Trump is going too far. Although I admit saying he's better than Trump is a very low bar to clear.

Yes, Musk's father was rich, but unlike Trump he did not inherit a lot of money from him because the two were estranged. Trump worshiped his father but Elon said his father was "a terrible human being. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done". Think of it this way, would the world be a better place if Donald Trump had never been born? The answer to that deserves a big fat YES! But would the world be a better place if SpaceX and Tesla didn't exist? Probably not. But I still wish he hadn't bought Twitter.

John K Clark

[Lawrence Crowell]

Elon Musk did not start SpaceX or Tesla. Musk acquired them. Musk has a measure of smarts, and he did get a BS level degree in physics --- which is something. He also has a bit of a "future-sense." I also sense a bit of a sort of Napoleon complex with him. He seems to display a sort of egomania with respect to corporate power and wealth. Well, he is at least no t'Rump who has on several occasions declared himself to be Jesus Christ. Musk though needs to be tempered and his power restricted.

LC

[William Flynn Wallace]

Musk though needs to be tempered and his power restricted. LC

This is interesting for a Sunday morning.  What powers does he have that need restricting?  Who will do it?  We should give free rein to our smartest people.  Don't mess with success!   bill w

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[Lawrence Crowell]

Elon Musk is not the smartest guy. He is smarter though than most of the uber-rich. He has a BS in physics, which is something. However, his skill is not inquisitiveness and answering questions, but in acquisitiveness and his ability to gain holdings. From PayPal to SpaceX to Tesla, Musk acquired these companies as they were pursing their technologies. Further, power corrupts and if he is a trillionaire in the future he will be the most powerful man on Earth.

LC