What's the full story behind Elon Musk's involvement with the Thai cave rescue? | Hacker News Reader

What's the full story behind Elon Musk's involvement with the Thai cave rescue?

quora.com

41 pointscurtis15 comments

Elon Musk is not Tony Stark, nor is he Hari Seldon, nor is he Professor Moriarty. He's an actual person: a talented engineer and businessman, a utopian sci-fi nerd who genuinely wants to bring the world closer to being a sci-fi utopia, a shitty person to be in a working or romantic relationship with, someone who expects unrealistic things from himself and others, a megalomaniac with a persecution complex, and an indomitable visionary who actually does great things and is legitimately persecuted, though not as often or as unfairly as he thinks.

Can't we just let all those things be true? Are our minds so small and our comprehension so feeble that we have to take this whole person and turn him into a cartoonish hero or villain? I mean, if he can do it, can't you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9GKeYb_vkQ

As to this particular thing, it seems relatively simple to me: Elon genuinely wanted to help. He and the other engineers were undoubtedly motivated by ego - not the "we're going to save the day and everyone will love us" kind but the "we are good engineers and we can find a good solution" kind. This is why Elon was not upset when his solution wasn't used, because it was still a good solution, and this is why he was so upset when people trashed his solution as "never going to work" without evidence. I find that grievance understandable; by all accounts he went to a lot of effort to ensure his solution was good, and I would bet that when he inevitably tries it to soothe his bruised engineer ego, it will, in fact, work.

But that will not help because he called someone a pedophile on Twitter for insulting him, which is unbelievably moronic, puerile and cruel. Apologists like this Quora commenter can excuse it as "provoked but disproportionate", and "coming from somewhere", but if you're honest about it you have to admit there's no excuse. You don't call people rapists for saying mean things about your project if you want to hold any claim to being a decent person.

That said, I really like the work he's doing and I hope he succeeds. I also hope that he can pull out of what appears to be a deteriorating spiral of erratic lashing out. Dude's under the kind of pressure that snaps people in half, and has been for half a decade. Maybe that's all he knows. Maybe it's the only way he can succeed. If so, I pity him and I'm humbled by the value that his suffering creates. But also, fuck you, Elon. The last thing we need is more powerful small-man narcissists shitting all over what's left of public discourse.

I dunno. It's complicated.

For whatever reason, it seems Musk has completely forgotten that he lost the ability to be treated like a normal person when he took on the over-ego'd persona of a billionaire mad-scientist.

When it works well, that's great, but he forgot to plan for when it doesn't work or more specifically, when he fucks it up and badly.

And to be fair, some of the reaction, in general, to him is driven in part by jealousy and politics. I'd love to be a billionaire mad-scientist type (Frankly, I'd settle for being a thousand-aire crank-in-garage, which would be step up for me) but you have to expect outsized reactions.

I don't understand the hate for Elon (though the response to Unsworth was disproportionate). His offer to help seemed to stem mainly from a curiosity in solving the problem and having the ability to potentially help. Great PR wasn't guaranteed from it (ex. if they used the sub and a kid died in it). Then came critiques from people on Twitter who have never built anything. Maybe it's a mix of envy + his willingness to fight back against inaccuracies.

the guys personality grates on me personally.

I cant stand the "guy", but I love his goals and (most of) his actions.

I see this recent debacle as a moment of weakness while being trolled by another arse-hat. Its super disappointing to see Elon fail at basic twitterquette

How do you not understand the hate? He's perfect for it, and getting better every day. He's cocky, quick to respond, and occasionally an asshole. He's a pseudo celebrity - everyone knows about him so discussing him appeals to a wide audience. He dates and associates with other famous people - big gossip mills can run solely on that. There's already dedicated crowds of people who like and dislike him fanatically - lefties love to hate him because he's rich, white, and male, and righties love to because he sucks up government money and uses it on ''bogus'' clean energy initiatives. It doesn't even matter what your angle is, I know an engineer who simply thinks combustion engines are superior and that Musk is an idiot for ever trying to make electric cars 'premium'. That has nothing to do with politics or image but I have seen it start Musk-hating trains.

The mix of controversy, zeitgeist, everything. He's literally the perfect person to rag on for Internet points. If he had a social IQ greater than 0 and actually cared about improving his public image he would restrict his tweeting severely and try to appear more aloof.

I use to really like Elon, not just his work but also his personality. He used to come off as quiet, even a little strange. His recent personal and professional failings have become so public, and he is handling them so poorly - it's tarnishing him.

I think the whole narrative with Elon Musk and the cave rescue shows not only of his flaws, but also the others who reacted with vitriol on the Internet. It seems like there is a widespread view about the futility of technology, that technology will no longer save us and will inevitably lead to our downfall. (This pessimistic view is reinforced by the recent uprising about Cambridge Analytica, Russia and Facebook Ads, etc.) For those with an extreme version of this view, Elon Musk is regarded as the ultimate villain, the maniac who thinks that technology will automatically solve all of our problems, an impostor trying to pretend saving people with technology but in the inside only a greedy billionaire trying to maximize his profits.

But the world is obviously more complicated than that; when used wisely, technology can figure out some of our problems, when used wisely and depending on the situation. Although Elon Musk’s submarine isn’t a perfect example of a good use of technology, I think some people have reacted without thinking more about it. (Personally I am torn, because if lives are at stake, it might not be a good idea to use a 1-week old engineering design, but then if the “old” method wasn’t successful and resulted in more deaths things might have been different)

What I'd like to know is whether the custom submarine was used in any capacity during the rescue, and whether the pedophile accusations towards the British diver have any merit. What are the facts in this story ?

Why should we care if it was used, the guy was trying to help. If they moved faster and didn't end up using it then so what?

It speaks to whether it was useful in any capacity. There's also a point to be made about advertising having a solution to a problem without actually having solved any instance of it in practice.

It does seem that they put in a lot of effort to construct their device so I'm less inclined to call the engineering part of it a PR stunt.

The person you’re responding to didn’t tell you to care. They asked a question. The brand of knee-jerk hostility in your comment isn’t welcome on this site.

There was also teams using ground-penetrating radar to see if they could find alternative routes or a location suitable for drilling (Chilean-miner style). That approach didn't pay off either, but I haven't heard of anyone complaining.

Multiple approaches isn't a bad thing. They didn't put all their eggs in one basket. Musk just tried to provide another.

If he was a little better at knowing when to run his mouth and when to keep it closed, the whole thing would be a non-issue.

(for your facts: no the 'sub' wasn't used. And local police have said they've never had a single complaint about the caver. While it's impossible to prove a negative, we can safely say there's nothing publicly known about him to back up the slander.)

Unsurprisingly, only a fraction of the comments here, compared to the hate pieces last days.

I guess being a small Republican donor is truly the Mark of the Beast.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com