Musk had no business being involved. Really, 'inventing' a MVP prototype of a submarine which he 'tested' in a swimming pool and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working?
This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.
The only part I think was weird was him brainstorming on twitter.
I know there is a huge anti-Musk sentiment lately. Whatever you think of the guy, I think it's commendable that he used what resources he had to attempt to help.
People can blast him all they want for his 'egoism', but sitting behind the keyboard mocking him is even less helpful than what you accuse him of doing.
People blast McDonalds for putting phrases about tragic situations on their signs. People criticize them for being opportunistic and capitalizing on a tragedy. So, how is this different? Because he happens to be able to build a "submersible" for kids, he should get a pass? Why can't McDonalds say, "Our thoughts are with you" and get a pass?[0] This was pure PR. Everyone claims he's so smart and all this, but he ignored the domain when he designed this! Those SEAL divers aren't trained to work with a kid size submersible. Human bodies flex and can move around the narrow areas of the cave, this metal tube can't do that. If they had used this they would not have had training to fall back on when everything went south.
Musk injected himself into this situation as only a narcissist can and decided to PR the hell out of it.
Yeah, there's just a bit of anti-Musk sentiment lately, but he brings it on himself.
[0] I don't think they should. I think businesses should stay out of it. Even the ones helping would do themselves a favor and play down their involvement. It's the respectful thing to do.
>>So, how is this different? Because he happens to be able to build a "submersible" for kids, he should get a pass?
Because this wasn't Tesla or SpaceX taking out an ad and saying 'look at all the good we can do!' this was a human using resources in his means to help a situation. In the end it was futile, but it's pretty amazing that they were able to prototype something in days and offer support in the way they know.
Sure, you can argue he's a narcissist, but the public made him that way. His entire legacy and fortune was built on PR, which we gave him on a silver platter. Now all of a sudden it's become bad taste to support him, and everyone flips and expects him to slink away into the shadows.
There was literally 0 net negative from his move. Sure he got his name thrown around headlines, but it didn't take away from the hundreds of people who contributed.
Why is being critical of someone so much more important than acknowledging an act of kindness?
I thought the sentiment was fine, in particular sending engineers given that his latest subterranean endeavours. On the one hand there's a whiff of publicity off it, but the initiative is to be commended. I wouldn't go talking up the part he played beyond that though.
One of the things about these kinds of emergency situations is that the major media attention can cause harm by making people be too helpful. In most emergency situations, there's already a surplus of unskilled people on the scene who can help; the lack is in people with particular skillsets and materiel.
Granted, Musk probably is thinking he's providing relevant skills, but the concept has several potentially problematic things (most notably, the fact that you're basically doing an underground canoe portage and the fact that spending extended periods of time in a claustrophobic space is likely to be panic-inducing for the children). It doesn't sound like he fielded the advice of anyone who had actually had experience doing cave diving or caving rescue to figure out what problems are likely to come up. Indeed, from the response of the Thai coordinators, it sounds like the general sentiment on their end was a politely-worded "go away, you're not helping."
So while the sentiment of trying to help can be positive, this attempt does feel like it crossed a tad too far into counterproductive territory.
The office of Thailand’s prime minister has thanked the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk for his offers of help. Officials praised his mini-submarine but said it was not needed. Musk praised the "outstanding rescue team" but questioned the expertise of the official who turned down his submarine.
He inserts himself into the event (but contributed nothing), requiring the Prime Minister to kiss his ass (again, when he contributed nothing), then criticizes the people who saved the kids for not using his idea.
I know talking about voting is generally forbidden, but there is no reason for the parent to be flagged. It's not my favorite post ever on HN, but criticizing Musk isn't a violation of HN rules. Several other posts that criticizes him are also flagged (though some of them are pretty useless comments).
One of the biggest philosophical questions is whether helping people because you see it benefiting yourself is still a good deed... Ask yourself, does it really matter what his motivations for helping were? At the end of the day he was prepared to help. If someone volunteers at the soup kitchen not because they want to help people but because they need community service hours, are you really going to complain about that or call them a bad person?
If the volunteer was telling other people constantly in all kinds of situations that he was helping the poor, many people would turn the other way, somewhat embarrassed.
>and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working?
It was a good alternative to telling them to hold their breath and dragging them through dark and claustrophobic submerged spaces...
They tested it to make sure it was water-tight and easy to maneuver. Worst case you throw an oxygen tank in it and put a full-face regulator on each kid in the event it would have filled with water (which I'm imagining they did in the water anyway). Much easier to control a panicking child in a tube where he can't get at your hoses or slam his head into a rock.
The closest alternative would probably have been to immobilise the children by strapping them to a spinal board stretcher, and putting a full face SCUBA mask on them [and it seems that the other alternative of letting them swim/walk themselves actually worked].
I don't really understand how the more claustrophobic "submarine" capsule would be an improvement on this.
I don't understand the submarine idea, that is an untested device for cave diving, also human breath from a very localized part of their body, so their is no point to pressurize everything, and you keep the flexibility of the body to not have a full metal cylinder around you. If you need to control someone, some anti anxiety pills and a harness are some tested tools for that.
> Much easier to control a panicking child in a tube where he can't get at your hoses or slam his head into a rock.
Also much easier to get said child into a state of panic by sticking them in a claustrophobia-inducing tube. Also, whatever manoeuvrability characteristics the sub might have had, it was still a rigid tube bigger than the child inside. They were navigating caves, where some of the tunnels were hard to navigate by a single (flexible) adult. I _really_ wouldn't want to even chance getting the sub stuck on a tunnel.
They'd already rescued multiple children before Musk even got there, no sense changing what is working. They didn't seem to mind him leaving it behind for future rescues though. shrugs
> It was a good alternative to telling them to hold their breath and dragging them through dark and claustrophobic submerged spaces...
You can't say that?! Those SEALs train ALL the time so they have training to fall back on when things happen. You can't introduce something like this and expect them to use it. They would have no training to fall back on.
I’m no going to dispute that Musk might’ve been on a narcissistic trip, he admitted as much himself. However in his defense, the sub was made of falcon 9 liquid oxygen transfer tubes and the water in the cave was no deeper than a swimming pool it was just in a cave. Plus the whole rescue operation was very much let’s figure out a plan and try it on live kids as there weren’t really any other options. AFAIK no one has ever tried to do a multiple km rescue dive in a cave, with fatigued and terrified pre-teens who can’t swim let alone do basic scuba.
when Musk got involved things werent looking as happy as now. the thai navy hero had just died and the 'more people will probably die' sentiment was in the air.
Im glad he did it and I hope this will set an example to other billionaires who has enormous resources available for them to help out people in need instead of sipping decades old whiskey on the golf course, like literally every other billionaire did except Musk
I wonder how many on HN are thinking more about Elon Musk's now-not-needed rescue plan than the delight those mothers of those boys must be feeling!
There is also a tragedy going on in Japan right now with a lot of people actually with us no more. But a few million people with flooded homes is a 'statistic' whereas a few boys in a cave is a 'tragedy' to paraphrase Stalin.
I think that there is a time for offering assistance in a big public way, there is also the 'George Michael' approach. He was willing to help many desperate people that happened to get into the news, however he helped out anonymously or in a way where it was clear that publicity was not sought. When he passed away a lot of people then learned how many people he had extended his hand of friendship to.
If he truly wanted to help he would have done so quietly, in contact with the local authorities. But he didn't. He proclaimed in full voice he had found a solution, on twitter. So he doesn't care. He just cares about appearing in front of the cameras.
His idea was stupid and useless anyway. It just came off as if he wanted to play the hero and build a Batsub in his mansion to deploy it and rescue the stranded children.
I don't know what went down but I think he should have asked the people on location what they need. Maybe he did... If he didn't it's just pretty arrogant to spend a little time on a problem you know nothing about and then publicly exclaiming you know a solution.
A good idea now would be to send money to the family of the driver who died. That would be helpful.
It's odd that you admit you don't know what went down but are still passing judgement.
Even if he did, he didn't interfere or impede rescue efforts and gave them a tool they could possible use in the future. It's cool and a nice thing to do, and doesn't really seem like a big deal.
He did impede rescue efforts if the people on location had to spend even one second on thinking about some half baked solution instead of the task at hand. Why did he do all his stuff in public attracting a lot of attention away from the people risking their lives instead of working on it quietly?
Checked his Twitter feed, he talked with a few persons about their gear and how to help with pumps, power etc. So the sub wasn't the only thing he did.
And yeah, he probably doesn't have all the domain knowledge needed, but I reckon he had some help. Example; the 6 or so people seen on the video when they tested the tube.
I really can't see why people are bashing him. Yes, he was public about it, but he also created something that seems to work, and if it's a prototype, that prototype can be used for further development. It feels like nothing speeds up R&D like a crisis.
This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.