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Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Not that I know of. It is remarkable how much of Goldstein he has turned into among the online set.

To be fair, the Elon fanboys are just as bad (in the opposite direction). But I do agree it's ridiculous. Elon is neither a hero come to save us all, nor is he a mustache-twirling villain straight out of a morality play. He's just a guy. He does things that are stupid, smart, good, and bad. I see no real reason to believe that he is particularly skewed on any of those axes.

Don't think "skew", think "high variance". The most consistent thing you can say about Musk is that he really tries to live up to his engineering protocol, under which it's a bad sign if you're not doing stupid things often enough because that means you're not trying radical enough changes or you're not testing them fast enough.

This is a very good thing in unmanned rocket development, where even a prototype that blows up teaches you something invaluable about how to replace it with a better one.

This is not such a good thing in social media development, where a user base exodus may be irreplaceable if bad decisions blow up in your face.

I agree on Elon having the tendency to make people deranged in any direction, not just against him, but saying he is "just a guy" seems similarly wrong. He's certainly quite unusual, probably very smart in at least some way, also clearly socially awkward & extremely petty (which codes as "bad" for large parts of current society, whatever your opinion might be), and with the achievements he has already accomplished he will probably be considered at least a notable celebrity for decades.

Among all people currently alive he also seems to be among the ~top 10 most likely or so to actually have a considerable influence on the course of history I guess? Hard to make a judgement call on that, but with all the weird things he has done and plans to do it seems likely that something is going to stick that would not have happened if it wasn't for him.

When I said he's just a guy I didn't mean that his achievements are pedestrian. No doubt the dude has done some impressive things. I meant that in the sense of how one should feel disposed towards him. I don't think of him as some kind of hero or business genius who can't lose due to his successes, nor as a villain.