This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I just wanted a way to get out of the "would the Enterprise win against a Star Destroyer" type nerd slapfights. I agree it was far from optimal, but it was the only thing I could come up with, and no one actually stopped to raise that particular objection at the time. The bet-takers thought Elon is great, so he will surely crack this trivial problem in no-time, which was part of the problem I was meaning to highlight.
Well, hold on. Waymo has a very different approach to Tesla. It's armed to the teeth with sensors - cameras, radar, lidar, audio... the works. I think they even do a high-definition scan of the cities they deploy in. Elon claimed he could crack it with cameras and AI alone. Using one as an example for why the other could work seems wrong. What's more, he was constantly promising that all the hardware for a better-than-human FSD is already inside each and every Tesla, and it's just a question of working out the kinks in the software. That soon (next year, next year, next year... no matter which year we were currently in), at the press of a button, every Tesla would become fully autonomous. Recently they said some of the older hardware might not be enough, and that they will need to upgrade it, and more recently still they gave up on even that idea. People paid a pretty steep price for a feature that never arrived.
Did they make some great leap recently that I'm not aware of? I think every other robotics company I've seen came up with something more impressive. It even looks like they're remotely controlled during their demos.
Well, but if it's not time for robots, why is he acting like this is the very thing that will take the entire company to an entirely new level? Transform human society, even. Shouldn't his car company focus on cars, and leave humanoid robots as a niche R&D project?
Maybe. Like I said your arguments for why it can work sound reasonable to me, but the problem is they sound similar to why FSD can work. I also saw what I think is a very similar next year / next year / next year dynamic with it. He used to do these semi-regular all-hands meeting at Starbase, where he'd talk about Starship (I think I linked to them in the old post I referred to in the previous comment), and from what I recall they started off with saying Starship V1 will be able to take 100t to orbit, a few years later that V1 could take (100 -X)t to orbit but V2 will be able to take 100t, and a few more years after that, that V1 could take (100 - X - Y)t to orbit, V2 (100 - X)t, but V3 will be able to take 100t.
Maybe they'll finally crack it, but it looks like "fake it 'till you make it" to me. I used to work for a guy like that, that would make insane promises to clients, and than expected me to deliver. If I have MDS, it might just be PTSD that Elon is triggering by reminding me of the experience.
About SpaceX being ahead of the competition: yes, but this used to also be the case for Tesla, and now BYD overtook it. There are other companies who are still in the nipping at the heels phase, but it's not obvious to me why it would stay this way given how difficult Staship development is proving to be, and how far they already got with their own rockets of similar class.
Optimus is great. Very good hands (some Chinese stole them), powerful, iterates quickly, and more importantly I can trust Elon to mass produce it, as he mass produces lots of things. Sure it's a bit quaint compared to the Chinese robotic supply chain and scaling potential of Unitree and UBTech and others. But regulatory barriers will all but ensure that Western markets heavily go to Elon.
The problem with Optimus and with Tesla taxis is the same: it's a bet on the exponential, and you don't know your exact location. Elon's theory of victory for FSD is that good enough AI will make do with human-level sensorium; arguments about lidars being expensive are of course nonsense, the costs of lidars can fall like costs of any other component. He's obviously correct on the substance; the question is what does it take for "good enough", how much more data, pretraining and onboard processing? He keeps discovering that the answer is "more than you have". But at some point, very likely it just works and Waymos become overengineered toys.
I can't muster the outrage. His corporate governance experiments have trivial explanations, and he'll have the cash to burn on it all.
I think you miss other variables changing.
The problem is they haven't gotten far. If rocket reliability requires exploiting Wright's law, Elon is very much ahead.
Well, at least as far as Starship is concerned, neither has SpaceX.
If. All the Falcons they produced didn't seem to help them get to a running start with Starship.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link