ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
10hr ago
Autonomous Tesla robo taxis started operating unsupervised in Austin last December, and in like 3 more cities this year
Yeah, all 39 of them. Is that what's supposed to carry the company?
I also wouldn't categorize prototypes as "absolutely nowhere"
Absolutely nowhere in terms of generating profits for the company, and being able to justify it's valuation in a rational way, seems accurate to me.
but at the very least the phrase "lalaland sci-fi prediction" should not be used to describe literal, physical things that I look out my car window and see driving past, don't you think?
The things Elon predicted / promised can't actually be seen. The Cybertruck is not an indestructible post-apocaliptic tank, and he didn't produce millions of them as he was telling his investors. His autonomous cars aren't safer than human drivers. The Semi can't economically beat diesel, let alone rail.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
12hr ago
Any regulatory action will be stayed by a friendly Texas circuit judge and then blocked by SCOTUS as it would be (a) trivially obviously politically motivated
Why? Even under Trump Starship is grounded (don't know if this is still valid, but didn't see any news calling it off). A hostile administration could launch these sort of investigations more often, and slow-walk them, how would that be blocked and overturned as unconstitutional?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
12hr ago
This makes it likely that once they are confident that uncontrolled re-entry is a mitigated risk orbital starship launches will go from "never" to "always".
Any guesses as to when?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
13hr ago
They could try to use the SEC
How about the FAA or the EPA? I'm pretty sure someone creative could fish out a few other letters out of the soup to screw him over with.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
13hr ago
The democrats are going to get back in office at some point, and they are almost certainly going to try to permanently remove Musk's access to anything resembling wealth or power when they do so
Yeah, I hate this. If this is how it pans out I will not claim credit for any of the predictions.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
13hr ago
Come on, make an argument.
I think "it's not scaleable" is an argument. It might be wrong, but it's an argument.
Do you disagree that continuous satellite imagery and communications servers (already proven technologies) represent huge industries?
I haven't a clue.
Why does an email from five years ago give you the impression that Elon thinks it's all going to collapse?
Because he said they need to launch an enhanced version of Starlink, and that the Falcon 9 is unable to do it, and because they have not been launching these enhanced Starlinks with Starship, or in any other way (to my knowledge).
My bet is that SpaceX is undervalued and its stock will rise. Tell me where you think it will be in ~2 years.
You zeroed in on exactly the kind of bet I don't want to make. Stonk prices are irrational. Tesla is worth more than all other auto makers combined, and has delivered nothing that would justify that valuation, why would it be different for SpaceX? If I thought I could predict stock price movements, I wouldn't be making bets with internet people, I would be speculating on the stock market.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
13hr ago
I didn't elect him.
Americans did. And even if they're not your kind of Americans, I think someone should think long and hard about how they got to become the kind of Americans that can elect a mayor of New York.
You (the rootless affluent liberals who sneer at normie Americans)
Tiresome. You mention old-world bigotries in the other comment, but your bigotry is so advanced that not only do you have a reflexive hostility to a particular group you disagree with, you think anyone who disagrees with you must be a part of that group.
Yes the current focus is on illegal immigrants, but we can discuss expanding the effort to include Communists and Salafists once the border is secure.
Well, that's music to my ears! You're the first Creedal Nation enjoyer I've talked to that's even willing to entertain the idea. Everyone else was either squirming and trying to wriggle out of the conversation, or was rejecting the idea outright.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
14hr ago
Did you click the old reddit link, and then removed the prefix? That won't work, reddit does some stupid redirect pointing you to that deleted post. If you don't want to change your settings, try copying the link url from the comment, removing the old. prefix, and only then going that cursed site.
What's the bear case?
That what he has doesn't scale, and what he has is currently maintained by investors / borrowed cash. That Starship isn't "unimaginable giga-tech", it's necessary for the whole thing to not collapse (this certainly seems to be the impression Elon himself has).
I don't know man, I don't know how to have a conversation with someone so high on hype. Make a specific prediction within a reasonable time frame, as in the past, I'll be happy to put my name on the other side of it. That's the only way I found I can have a productive conversation on the topic.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
15hr ago
Your link is broken
It's not. The site has an old .reddit.com redirect in it's settings, that's broken. Just switch it to reddit.com (without old.) and it will work.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
15hr ago
The general tendency of SpaceX is that Elon wildly overpromises impossible deadlines that he fails to meet, and he still ends up years ahead of what everyone else in the industry thought was even remotely possible
People were saying that about Tesla, and he was doing well for a while, and then he started promising goofy stuff like autonomous cars, robo taxis, electric trucks of various sizes, and humanoid robots, got absolutely nowhere with either of these things, and then got overtaken by the competition. xAI can't even keep up with it's competition from the start, and is a giant money pit that can plausibly sink SpaceX all on it's own. The only company that remotely fits your description is SpaceX itself because of how much more they launch than other providers, and I'll just repeat " $41.3 billion in accumulated losses" as a response.
I just remembered that I considered adding a "lessons learned" section where I also mention a few things that happened, which made me think that I was originally too harsh on Elon, but when I read stuff like this I figure I need to double down on negative coverage to compensate for the lalaland sci-fi predictions.
Starship bet update
A few years ago I made a series of bets about Starship making it to orbit with other posters, last rounded up here:
- I won my bet with @slothlikesamwise, in July 2025
- There was a series of predictions at various confidence intervals made by @self_made_human, and we have just passed the final 90% one.
- Since last year I have added a bet with @roystgnr, that SpaceX will make it to Mars by 2029. That one will obviously take a while to resolve, but since SpaceX has officially deprioritized Mars in favor of the Moon, it looks like my chances are looking good. In fairness that's a low-condifence bet where I offered 3:1 odds.
- Finally my bet with @TheDag which will be resolved by end of the year.
The last one is a real nail-biter. When I heard about the SpaceX IPO I first thought it's time to call it a day. My model for my predictions about Elon was that he has a hype-compulsion, making wilder and wilder promises to get money out of investors, and as it becomes clear he won't be able to reach the hyped up goal, at some point they will get fed up with him. So when the news of the $85.7 billion came out, I figured that even if I do win, it will be on a technicality - maybe they won't pull it off by end of this year, but this sort of money will surely be enough to get them over whatever humps they run into on the road.... Then again maybe not! It also turned out that they have $41.3 billion in accumulated losses since their founding, and have burned $4.3 billion on AI in Q1 2026 alone, so maybe I will lose on a technicality instead, where they will indeed get to orbit by end of year, but will be dragged down by the unprofitable parts of the company.
I now believe that such a "loss on a technicality" is a pretty likely outcome, precisely because of the IPO. Like I said last year, if my bet was with Elon, he probably could have ordered the damn rocket to be put in orbit, just to prove a point, and while I'm lucky enough to have made my bet with internet randos instead, the IPO changes the dynamics such that he will be very tempted to do such things just to prove a point. Currently 95% of SpaceX stock held by insiders is locked up and it will be gradually released over the course of the year. Stonks are largely guided by hype, hype is generated with media articles (such as "SpaceX makes history with Starship orbital launch!!!11"), so while a frivolous orbital launch would make little sense before, it could make a lot of sense now. There's already talk of Starship 14 being orbital, and I fully expect them to schedule it just before one of these unlock dates.
That said, it's not over until it's over! Just because they might want to do it, doesn't mean they'll pull it off. This whole bet is starting to feel like an episode of Wacky Races.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Well, the joke was that the original quote says "...the worst..."
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Personally, I still hold “democracy is the best government except for the others”.
Truer words have never been said.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Its not what I want vs what you want, its what seems to work best with the constraints we have.
Since when? The Covid response had very little to do with what works. Transgender medicine has very little to do with what works. "Racism is a public health crisis" had very little to do with what works. Why should I believe that another politically charged topic has something to do with what works?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
So? Is it written somewhere that we can't return to an old solution? I'm also not sure I buy that it had no effect at all. And if the solutions seems too cruel, we can always just do the original idea of not subsidizing PrEP. Take your pick, but I don't see why you should get everything you want, and I nothing.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I've not seen anyone talk about it but his statement that aliens are likely on Earth domesticating humanity to keep us from expanding further is insane and calls into question how his reasoning skills have developed over the years.
I mean, It would explain the state of the world better than anything that ever came out of academia or any "respectable" source.
Can I just point to history to show that we are very good as a species in judging our own behaviour objectively against others? The existence of the Russell conjugation proves it really, as it is describing a very common behaviour, for which the term would not need to be created if the action did not exist.
I don't think that's anywhere near sufficient, when I could probably match any instance of a Russel Conjugation you can name off the top off your head with a case of Stereotype Accuracy that I can name off the top of mine. If you want to argue that his particular subject is a case of a Russel Conjugation, you have to do so specifically, particularly when the gay community proudly endorses the observation about itself that you are implicitly disputing.
As for smoking, "sin" taxes are indeed one way to square the circle, because they also disincentivize buying the product. But for gay people sex is the "product"
Well, after establishing that there's nothing inappropriate about the government stepping in to discourage actions that impose a cost on society, it feels like this is just haggling over the price, especially that in the case of smoking the government does not limit itself to taxes. It also issues large amounts of anti-smoking propaganda, bans pro-smoking propaganda, and passes regulations to make the act of smoking as inconvenient as possible. We might be able to meet in the middle where PrEP is still subsidized, but all the government, corporate, and NGO pride messaging is replaced with loud and unrepentant homophobia.
We are well aware that groups cannot be trusted to tell extreme outliers apart from non-outliers when social distaste is involved
Consensus building. No I am not aware of that, and would appreciate it if you would argue for that explicitly. Even if it was true, I don't need to rely on my ability to discern extreme outliers, because the gay community readily admits they are one, so unless you want to argue they have a distaste for themselves, your argent seems baseless.
Plus the study that showed it was cheaper for smokers is contested. It was funded by Phillip Morris after all.
I appreciate the correction, though I reserve the right to skepticism until I look into it further.
Either way you'll notice that, if this is true, it is precisely why tobacco is covered by heavy vice taxes.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
some people smoke
They're not amateur alligator wrestlers, they actually minimize their burden on society. They're more like the old men that used to go out "to hunt" in the dead of winter, knowing they will never come back.
Yes but to an extent everyone is an amateur alligator wrestler.
Yes, but that doesn't mean anything. Saying "everyone is an extreme outlier, to an extent" is just saying "everyone is". "To an extent" nullifies the "extreme outlier" descriptor, which was the defining feature of the group I was pointing to.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
That's why a dating app should be made by the government with tax dollars.
Seize the means of reproduction!
I actually agree in an ideal world, but I can already see the bitter political fights over dating site policy, and get really really sad.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
It's not "I got mine". I'm more than happy to chip in for the healthcare of someone who got mauled in a freak alligator attack, but my enthusiasm drops suddenly when I find out they're an amateur alligator-wrestler.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
That is what it means to be a "Creedal Nation"
You just elected a third world communist to be the mayor of New York. There is no creed that will get you booted out, so it's not a creedal nation.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
No. We can't simultaneously have a rule that say we should "proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be" and then cry about Gish Gallops.
Not to mention, this isn't even a Gish Gallop. The tactic Duane Gish perfected was citing many studies out of context, in a way that make it seem they agree with his point to people who haven't read them, and it turning out that they don't once you look into them. The reason the Gish Gallop was effective in stage debates was that it takes more effort to research and refute the claims, then it is to make them. It was also trivially countered - because Gish's repertoire was actually quite limited, one of his opponents prepared for a debate, and was actually pre-bunking all his claims in real time, making him look like an idiot. Things like this don't tend to happen on this forum, and definitely not from Gattsuru.
Be honest about what this is: you being upset that your side does actually look bad, and being unable to provide counter arguments.
If you have three different topics with something substantive to say, you should post three different comments.
Yes, I'm sure you will be less upset when you have 3 top level Gattsuru comments instead of one.
I don't know about that. I don't think these south Asian "socialists" are quite what they portray themselves as, and people like Elon might end up getting along just fine with them. See also: Trump.
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