> In a television interview this week, Musk said: "I'm trying to do useful things." Then he outlined his plan to detonate nuclear weapons on Mars.
> These people are the face of our industry.
It's hard to take the rest of the article seriously when the author is purposely misquoting people to make them look bad. The comment in question was said on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, when asked what the fast way to heat up Mars would be, as he posited several methods to do it. He later indicated that nuclear bombs would not be the preferred method.
He makes the point that SF area technologists should prioritize fixing the city problems over space technology. You may disagree (I do), but it's not sufficient reason for dismissing the whole article (which is insightful IMO).
Musk is doing more for improving lives than most, with jumpstarting the transition to electric cars, and pushing solar power hard. And one of the complaints in the article is "you can't even get a decent internet connection" and guess what one of Musk's big projects with SpaceX is!
But he ignores all of that, and concentrates entirely on a single offhanded remark by the guy. That's incredibly dishonest.
And if he's that dishonest about Musk, what about the others he discusses? I don't know them well enough to say whether they're being fairly represented or not. But I do know that I can't trust the author to get it right.
The entire article is written to be humorous, but that's doesn't mean he doesn't have a point here. Namely, this mindless pursuit of space is hilariously culture-deaf because in the end, if all these miracles somehow come to pass, we'll just bring our stupid problems with us to our colonies. In a few generations we'll have homeless people on Mars and a tech bubble exploding there as well.
If we can't fix these problems locally, how do we expect to fix them remotely?
The article most definitly does not have a (valid) point here. Idlewords is painting Elon as a bored billionaire who wants to nuke Mars because he has nothing better to do. It's completely ignoring both the reasons (and context) of the quote, and the fact that said 'bored billionaire' makes good and impactful progress in three important big problems of humanity - namely, energy safety, transportation and access to space.
Even what you call "mindless pursuit of space" isn't so; SpaceX aims for space for known, well-thought and well-defined reasons. It's not just fueled by imagination.
SpaceX is COTS welfare for LEO launches to the soon to be retired ISS. It is not on track for Mars colonization. Its utility is vastly exaggerated by the types of people who read HN and reddit. While it is impressive, it is just cheaper launches for certain edge cases. Colonization and terraforming other worlds is pure fiction right now and going on TV and yelling about dropping nukes to make Mars human safe looks absolutely crazy to even educated people.
The article paints Musk fairly, as an out of touch dreamer with crazy ideas. He steps over homeless people to rush to television producers to spout off the same canned futurism we've been hearing for decades. His version is slightly more plausible, but it, of course, ignores all social issues; issues that will only follow us into space. The same way futurists predicted a moon landing but never imagine women would get to vote, for example.
Criticizing Musk for putting the cart before the horse is valid. Futurist talk is cheap and historically wrong. Men like Musk are the face of tech and its a little embarrassing to see stuff like this. Not to mention his hysterical tirades about how AI will enslave humanity.
Lastly, whats my incentive to migrate to a new colony if its just going to have the same problems we have here on Earth?
> SpaceX is COTS welfare for LEO launches to the soon to be retired ISS. It is not on track for Mars colonization.
That's a very cynical view based on... I don't even know exactly. NASA is not the only customer of SpaceX, LEO doesn't end with ISS, and the path towards Mars was laid more-less explicitly since day one. They're on track, even if behind the schedule.
> The article paints Musk fairly, as an out of touch dreamer with crazy ideas. He steps over homeless people to rush to television producers to spout off the same canned futurism we've been hearing for decades. His version is slightly more plausible, but it, of course, ignores all social issues; issues that will only follow us into space. The same way futurists predicted a moon landing but never imagine women would get to vote, for example.
That smells strongly of copenhagen interpretation of ethics[0]. So Musk is trying to solve a problem (or three problems) for humanity, and suddenly he has to be responsible for all the problems? Why aren't we criticizing Bill Gates here for helping Africans fight malaria instead of helping Americans fight homelesness at home? Also; SpaceX, Tesla and Solar City are creating jobs. Which counts for doing something towards the problem. What exactly are people criticizing Musk here doing themselves for the homeless?
> If we can't fix these problems locally, how do we expect to fix them remotely?
That seems at odds with centuries of human existence. Nations, cultures, and people have migrated, immigrated, expanded, and contracted for a very long time. A hyper-local focus is (probably) just as toxic as a hyper-global focus, no?
Although the parent to your response has been deleted, your response is one of the most idlewords-ish shutdowns of a heckler I could ever hope to see. Bugs Bunny couldn't've said it better!
> In a television interview this week, Musk said: "I'm trying to do useful things." Then he outlined his plan to detonate nuclear weapons on Mars.
> These people are the face of our industry.
It's hard to take the rest of the article seriously when the author is purposely misquoting people to make them look bad. The comment in question was said on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, when asked what the fast way to heat up Mars would be, as he posited several methods to do it. He later indicated that nuclear bombs would not be the preferred method.