He uses that attention and focus in ways that benefit the world at large. Like helping build more ethical AI's, or getting people to Mars. There's nothing wrong with that IMHO.
My concern is he losing his focus. I know I get distracted from the work I am supposed to be doing (sometimes my paid job but even more so at home). I really should be finishing some home renovation work but there is that mail box I need to finish, and the 3D printed lid for a mouse trap, and the synthesizer I am thinking of building, oh wait there is an nice branch from the plum tree we trimmed that I could turn into a flute on the lathe...
Elon really needs to focus on the energy and transportation thing that he really is good at.
sorry to pick you up on this, and i’m unable to phrase this in such a way as to not sound inflammatory (again, apologies):
* which ethical AI would that be?
* how many people has elon sent to mars now?
elon has marketed an image to people, one of a tony stark-like figure, that might do or say the wrong thing at the time, but who truly wants to make everything better.
the reality is that, whilst perhaps not a conman (although i find my opinion of him leaning to that end more each day), he’s definitely just another profit-driven business man, with little to no regard of the people around him. and probably a sociopath.
bill gates has done (a lot) more for humanity. and i’m not particularly fond of him, either.
There is something wrong instigating further extreme resource exhaustion to serve boyish Star Trek pipe dreams.
There’s absolutely no guarantee he’s on the right track. Humans expanding away from Earth is as likely as us being able to rewrite the speed of light.
There’s no rewriting the fundamentals of reality. One really bad day and Mars colony is wiped out. How much damage we do here before getting there is a real concern.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people consider some problems here on earth to be hopelessly intractable, but simultaneously consider a livable human colony on Mars to be not only achievable, but also not subject to the same supposedly intractable problems of today.
There really isn't a comparison between engineers figuring out how to build a sustainable biosphere on Mars, and the problems that we're presumably discussing on Earth, like climate change and pollution, which are political problems inasmuch as billion dollar business models are benefiting from them, and actively fighting your efforts to interfere.
I like how you try to extricate getting to Mars as it’s own thing despite the industrial effort to do so exacerbating climate problems that are political problems.
Please, go on. I want to hear more about how thermodynamics can be waved away for “just an engineering project.”
This is what I mean. Obsession and success with engineering has titillated people to the point of blind faith. Externalities do not exist in their conceptual void. It’s become akin to unfalsifiable religious belief.
> I like how you try to extricate getting to Mars as it’s own thing despite the industrial effort to do so exacerbating climate problems that are political problems.
If humanity doesn't spend the resources on spreading humanity throughout the universe, then the resources will be spent on disposable plastic toys that fill landfills. It's not as if an edenic utopia is being despoiled for this boondoggle. Our environment isn't in its precarious state because of too much space travel. We're debating over the disposition of a tiny fraction of our dwindling material resources, negligible in the grand scheme.
> I want to hear more about how thermodynamics can be waved away for “just an engineering project.”
If we have a limited period before climate doomsday, then we'd better get cracking on space travel before it's too late.
