America & World IV: Trump's Taxing Day

[Cassius_Smoke]

"Always bet on black" and Snipes on a Plane are the only things I remember from Passenger 57.

It's rubbish really. I only said it for a joke.

[QualityChimp]

Hahahah, amazing!

[briareos_kerensky]

SpaceX employees write an open letter denouncing Musk's behaviour.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk-internal-open-letter-behavior

SpaceX's response? Fire everyone who signed it.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/17/23172262/spacex-fires-employees-open-letter-elon-musk-complaints

[CMcK]

So much for Musk being a proponent of free speech.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Musk is a weird one. He seems to have some good ideas and intentions for technology. He's probably the only rich guy trying to progress things with battery and space technology and that hyperloop. But on the flip side he's completely insane. He really is like a bond villain.

[fishbowlhead]

Yep, he’s completely lost it now, should probably be taken off the boards of tesla & spaceX to preserve them going forward in all honesty.

[CMcK]

Musk is a weird one. He seems to have some good ideas and intentions for technology. He's probably the only rich guy trying to progress things with battery and space technology and that hyperloop. But on the flip side he's completely insane. He really is like a bond villain.

He’s apparently helping save the world with expensive electric cars while flying all over the place in a private plane. And the carbon footprint of space flights is enormous. Tesla’s battery tech isn’t anything special and is made by Panasonic and not even exclusive to Tesla. Or Panasonic.
I don’t know why people believe a thing he says. Cybertruck, Tesla Roadster and full self driving are still nowhere in sight despite his proclamations. And the Tesla fanboys fed his ego something rotten. I think he loves the celebrity thing and will do pretty much anything to feed that.

[charlesr]

I might be wrong, but didn't he open source all of the battery tech so everyone could benefit?

[Brad]

Tesla open sourced all their patents in 2014 in an attempt to get other car manufacturers to at least try and make electric cars.

[Brad]

Keeping on topic though yes, it is possible for someone to be an inventor, a visionary, and at the same time be a massive tool.

[CMcK]

Tesla open sourced all their patents in 2014 in an attempt to get other car manufacturers to at least try and make electric cars.

Although they did go after companies that used that open source tech…

It seems like Musk takes the credit for things that other people came up with. And that feeds his ego too. He’s not even a Tesla founder but had the title retrospectively applied FFS.

[Brad]

Although they did go after companies that used that open source tech…

It seems like Musk takes the credit for things that other people came up with. And that feeds his ego too. He’s not even a Tesla founder but had the title retrospectively applied FFS.

They open sourced the patents. The person they sued stole the source code. Not the same thing

So, if you want to do something the same as Tesla's Autopilot system (which they have patented), to build (specifically) an electric car, then you can. If you download a load of Tesla source code just before leaving the company to go to a chinese electric car startup then no.

[Neon Ignition]

Musk is good at spotting a business opportunity and manipulating it, other than that he's pretty much rotten through and through. He comes across as the classic case of rich guy who is socially weak and has had too few people to speaking to him honestly for far too long. It's all media circus now but if he retains his status there's a good chance his later years will prove to be dark.


Speaking of dark:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/climate/supreme-court-climate-epa.html

The US Axis of Evil, sometimes referred to as the Supreme Court, will in days pass severe limits on the nations ability to respond to climate change

[Asura]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/c...imate-epa.html
The US Axis of Evil, sometimes referred to as the Supreme Court, will in days pass severe limits on the nations ability to respond to climate change

You've gotta love Americans (being ironic here).

It's... Weird. Something I genuinely love about the US is how many of them, and their culture in general, believes in humanity. Like their idea of advocating for personal liberty and freedom above all; those ideals, you've got to admit there's a boundless optimism there. They believe the solution is to give people the freedom to fix problems their way, and in the end, that'll be for the best.

I think many of us like that in concept but see it as hopelessly naive, because humans on the whole aren't good. Like I'm not some misanthrope Joker fanboy who believes humanity can't be saved because he was bullied once, but I think history has shown that without means to prevent them, humans can do terrible things. We're not all-bad, but we're certainly not all-good either, and believing we're either one of these extremes doesn't really help.

[QualityChimp]

Keeping on topic though yes, it is possible for someone to be an inventor, a visionary, and at the same time be a massive tool.

Speaking from personal experience, you can be a massive tool without being an inventor and visionary.