Elon Musk is a twat

[SerendipityJane]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/07/elon-musk-women-testosterone

Do yourself a favor - don’t insult your own intelligence by acting like you really believe that’s what I meant.

Electric cars are going to be a dead end. I think he believes they will develop tech to overcome their limitations,

The only limitation is batteries. A real EV Evangelist would have concentrated their research and manufacturing on swappable batteries, not dodgy non-self driving features.

I know there is a breakthrough in battery technology due "in 5 years". Same as there was in 2010 when I was involved in strategy and the question "what's with EVs came up". We managed to get that right, Bitcoin right, 3D printing right, driverless cars right and generation rent right. All of which were (and still are) of very keen interest to insurers.

@CassieMaddox - for sure the Earth even after global warming and maybe a few other natural disasters would almost certainly be a lot easier to re-terraform than Mars!

Fuck around with nature and find out.

I fail to see how that would be an insult to my intelligence.

Did he basically just say 'interesting observation' and the meme/ the actual statement wasn't something he himself said or further commented on?

Unless someone would like to enlighten me, that's exactly the case. He's probably the type of person who makes statements like these on things he finds though provoking or interesting. I'm not sure how passionately or deeply he actually agrees with it.

I'm not a fan, but it's cringey to see how this inspired such a pile-on, with the Guardian leading the way.

Errol

And the west would have been up shit creek after the outbreak of war between russia and Ukrainian without SpaceX.

Can you explain that one, please? I don't see how it saved the West; as I understand it it, he initially allowed the Ukrainians to use it gratis, then started to charge them.

I'm posting this via Star Link...

It's a pretty serious limitation. If we switch over entirely to electric cars in the next few years as some would like, we will have to do so much mining for rare metals that we'll just have destroyed the environment in a different way.

And huge numbers of cars are resource heavy no matter how you slice it, electric ones even more so.

I find the whole "the tech will improv" thing a bit funny. I don't really see how it's fundamentally differernt than "we'll figure out with tech how to scrub pollution from the atmosphere". It's really just a faith statement.

I am not anti electric cars. They cut down on pollution in the immediate vicinity of the car. Which is without any doubt good. There are issues though abput where the power comes from, and where the batteries come from. There's a risk the pollution just gets shifted from, e.g. American towns/cities to third world countries and it's children there getting poisoned

And Tesla's are great - a lot of that's down to Musk. But he did it with subsidies from the US government among others. Likewise the satellites he launched. That doesn't mean he is useless or anything. But he isn't one brave man pushing forward alone/in the space of cruel government opposition. And he was able to spread the financial risks as well

Keep seeing this quoted in the reply so I googled it
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/18/tech/elon-musk-ketamine-use-don-lemon-interview

This is not true. “Rare earth metals” are not even slightly rare, they are badly named.

Hot stoppable batteries are and always have been a dead end because they take up at least twice as much room as built in batteries and it requires all manufacturers everywhere to use the same spec which stifle innovation. Hot swappable batteries are in fact the dead end you talk about.

tl;dr

Yes Humans will be able to survive and thrive on Mars, as well as the moons of the larger gas giants.

No, humanity will not go extinct. If you want your particular bit to, go for it, the rest of us have something to say to the universe.

OK then.
You aren't covering yourself in glory here. Maybe just stop and have a cursory Google of things like lithium scarcity before you insist you know best.

If you want electric cars, you will have to accept you won't own one*. For a whole host of reasons that are a complex intersection of the technology, the infrastructure and the economics. Try getting an "AI" engine to understand that you are happy to put £50,000 on your drive or in your garage and then not use it for 85% of the time and see what it suggests you do with your money.

There will be local pressures as well. Some idiots in the UK appear to have taken a knock to the head and woken up thinking they can upend millennia of common law and just take ownership of the highway because of their special magic milk float. Which is never going to happen. If for no other reason than MN would simply collapse under the weight of parking threads. And that's before you start on the cable strewn pavements which will make them impossible to walk, let alone wheel along. Although I suspect that won't be a problem for long. If you want to leave 20Kg of copper in the street, that's your gift to the local unofficial recycling community. (Other jurisdictions may have different approaches to how the public highway is owned).

I will grant Lord Musk this: he has twigged that most of problems he faces are really social and cultural problems masquerading as "tech" problems. But that isn't really "genius", Or if it is, I wrote about it for my degree over 40 years ago in "social impacts of computing". Covered "AI" and personal computing. Completely missed any hint everyone would be packing a massive computing engine in their handbag by 2000 though.

*Are statistically unlikely to.

It’s not rare. China has loads for example. Better mining techniques, recycling and reusing batteries, job done.

Not sure what you’re covered in, but it’s sure not glory, or even facts. Smells a bit though.

Cba to argue about whether or not humans will go extinct, as hopefully we will all be dead before it happens. Although sometimes it feels like it could well happen sooner than we think with global warming, pollution etc

I'm sure Elon has a contingency bunker somewhere. A bit like you, me and the apocalypse

Posting without comment

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/08/29/a-worldwide-lithium-shortage-could-come-as-soon-as-2025.html

It’s more like 96% of the time a car is not in use.

Electric, self driving, point to point, commodity, publically owned, transport pods that you can order when you need it for less money than a car, or a bus or a taxi is obviously the future, and one that I am confident we will actually have within 6-9 years in all western metropolitan areas. I’m fairly sure I will only now one more car, and maybe not even that give the battery can still do 220 miles on one charge.

Well I’ll comment - a shortage does not mean “not enough to make cars”

It means the price goes up, better mining techniques are developed, better surveying tools are invented. Like they have done with every other resource ever from tin to coal to oil.

Why do you have so I little faith in humanity ability to solve problems?

Electric, self driving, point to point transport that you can order when you need it for less money than a car, or a bus or a taxi is obviously the future,

Now you're thinking !

I am confident we will actually have within 6-9 years in all western metropolitan areas. I’m fairly sure I will only now one more car, and maybe not even that give the battery can still do 220 miles on one charge.

🤔

Careful chasing the tech side. Start a thread about shared self driving cars ..

you first have to convince the 96% of people who reply with "but that doesn't suit me" that it does. And that isn't easy. And even if you do, you need to make it stick.

In 2019 95% of companies confidently stated that WFH was (I quote) "impossible" for them. Not, "difficult", not "doesn't fit our needs", not even "we don't like it". No. "Impossible". (Personally I try to avoid definitives in predictions).

Come 2020 when it was WFH or bust (literally) and a lot of firms mysteriously suddenly did the impossible, and WFH was not only "possible" but inmost cases mandatory.

And we have spent the past 3 years being gaslit back into it being "impossible". With a massive social amnesia, aided by a complicit press and the politics of envy.

However, people who pay attention would do well to remember that "can't" is too often used as a fig leaf for the much more political "won't".

Hmmmm

a few years ago the world of tech was going to collapse because China imposed quotas on their rare earths metals, and they were the global supplier.

I read a paper at the time by an economist, who expertly delivered the right amount of condescension in writing saying "Bless the Chinese, they think they can game the market". His - totally accurate prediction - was that as soon as the price rose because of scarcity, then other sources would be found and the market would adjust accordingly. Which is exactly what happened, with a few US based mines getting very rich. No shortage of rare earth metals - indeed the price fell as the supply exceeded the previous amount.

Cornish tin is an example of this closer to home Price of tin rises - all of a sudden those uneconomic mines look rather more viable.

As a schoolchild I remember hearing the UK had 300 years of coal reserves. I wonder where they went ?

Well yes @SerendipityJane . I was educated on "the oil will run out soon" but that's not happened yet.

The tin mines is a good example of what is likely to happen with lithium. It will get harder and more expensive to extract so costs will go up.

I doubt Musk is going to advance humanity with his EV vehicles. He's just spinning the hamster wheel.

The tin mines is a good example of what is likely to happen with lithium. It will get harder and more expensive to extract so costs will go up.

Until there is oversupply and the price falls.

Underlying all of this (of course) is OPEC. Which hasn't been mentioned once. However much they are paying their media strategists, it's reaping billions in returns.

Yes. However we are getting off topic, which is the twattiness of Musk 😂