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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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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.

I think "it's not scaleable" is an argument. It might be wrong, but it's an argument.

Objectively, as a matter of fact, it's already scaling. The last five years have put almost as many satellites in space as the previous fifty years put together, and SpaceX is responsible for 50% of that. Starlink has 10k satellites already and only 12 million customers. And SpaceX has been growing its launch capacity every year. This is already enough to make SpaceX an enormous pile of money.

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).

Because of Starship delays SpaceX configured the v2 Mini in 2023 and has since launched thousands of them on Falcon 9. v2 has ~4x the capacity of the old v1.5. SpaceX is not on the verge of bankruptcy but has grown its core business, and your information is five years out of date. This is a classic case of Elon promising impossible deadlines and catastrophizing doom if they don't materialize, failing, and in the process achieving huge success that is beyond what anyone else in the industry thought was possible.

Stonk prices are irrational.

So what?

I do acknowledge that Elon's companies have benefited from an enormous amount of hype. But this is priced in. There is a lot of money betting that this is all smoke and vapor and there is even more money betting that it's not. That's how markets work.

Name a different bet then. Satellites in orbit by 2028? Launches? Payload sizes? Cost per launch? Starlink capacity? Everything is going up.

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?

Tesla is worth that much because it might disrupt the entire auto industry. Cars turned out to be worth more than horses. Tesla's valuation prices in the Expected Value of what would happen if fleets of self-driving cars fundamentally remake society.

But SpaceX is also different from Tesla because it has already demonstrated trillion-dollar technologies. SpaceX's valuation prices in its total dominance over an entirely new economic sector.