site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'd be careful picking SpaceX or anything Elon does as a positive example of 'move fast and break things', the whole thing might very well end up like OceanGate.

Seems pretty unlikely at this point. They already have (arguably) the most reliable rocket in the world.

The rocket is ok, but I'm not sure I try their accounting. There was a leaked email from Elon about how they have to get Starship to orbit if they're to make any money, and I don't see that happening. Generally with Elon, there's a whole lot of hype, and not a whole lot of substance, so if the investor money dries up, his entire empire might come crashing down.

But I hope I'm wrong!

I don't know why you're so skeptical of Starship? They've clearly been making tons of progress on it. Hell, they even launched a failed test.

I can see why you might call Elon a bit of a hype machine, but really, he has delivered on quite a lot of his hype.

Electric cars? Yep

Electric trucks? Yeah

Self driving? Eh, no

Charging network? Yeah

Tons of battery manufacturing? Yeah

Orbital Rocket? Yeah

Reusable Orbital Rocket? Yeah

Reusable Heavy Orbital Rocket? Yeah

LEO satellite internet? Yeah.

Tunnels under every city? No.

I don't know why you're so skeptical of Starship? They've clearly been making tons of progress on it. Hell, they even launched a failed test.

Why am I supposed to get so excited about a failed test? Give me a fraction of the money Musk got, and I'll do a failed test too. As a bonus, I'll do none of the damage to the infrastructure, and environment that Musk did!

Electric cars? Yep

I'll stick to my Volkswagen, thanks.

Electric trucks? Yeah

Complete garbage that will never operate on anything close to the economy of a normal diesel truck.

Charging network? Yeah

Tons of battery manufacturing? Yeah

What's supposed to be so fancy about either of those, and where does Solar City fit into these?

Orbital Rocket? Yeah

Like I said, it's a decent rocket, but hardly mindblowing.

Reusable Orbital Rocket? Yeah

Reusable Heavy Orbital Rocket? Yeah

Reusability is way overblown, and I haven't seen much evidence it brings all that much (any?) savings.

LEO satellite internet? Yeah.

That's the thing he was crying about in the leaked email that is unprofitable, and why he needs Starship to make money.

Tunnels under every city? No.

Tunnels are an ancient technology, and his aren't any better. Also while we're here, let us meditate on how insane the idea of "hyperloop" is, and how it didn't go anywhere despite all the hype.

Like I said, it's a decent rocket, but hardly mindblowing.

Reusability is way overblown, and I haven't seen much evidence it brings all that much (any?) savings.

SpaceX resulted in massive price reduction of getting to orbit

But what you were saying is he doesn't deliver on things... not that you don't like the things.

I was saying that there's way more hype than substance in them.

I can tell you right now that Starlink is fucking awesome -- it's probably not a moneymaker yet because they haven't got the inter-satellite communication worked out, but even if that fails for some reason I think it can be worked into a stable business model.

If not it's a huge service to humanity, so I'm not going to complain about billionaire philanthropy.

According to Elon, it's not a money maker because they cannot launch them with Falcon in a very cost effective way, and he was counting on Starship to make money with it.

More comments