Comment by pokemongoaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pokemongoaway | Hacker News Reader

A lot of his ideas are full of holes:

Hyperloop: See all of the problems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk

Boring company: summary of issues here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtL3qDvdZc

SpaceX: How will we fund the amount of rocket fuel required to get the stuff to Mars that can produce an atmosphere? If producing an atmosphere isn't required, then how will indoor atmosphere be maintained sustainably (financially)? Matt Damon's math didn't seem to work out in that movie...

Tesla: So far so good, but what about battery recycling? “We are at the very beginning in energy storage in general,” says Phil Hermann, chief energy engineer at Panasonic Eco Solutions. “Most of the projects currently going on are either demo projects or learning experiences for the utilities. There is very little direct commercial stuff going on. “Elon Musk is out there saying you can do things now that the rest of us are hearing and going, ‘really?’ We wish we could but it’s not really possible yet.” https://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/jun/10/tesla-ba...

SolarCity: Just look at the customer reviews so far: https://news.energysage.com/solarcity-complaints-what-homeow...

I would urge Mr Musk to focus on Batteries & long-term Tesla ownership. It would be a shame for that not to work out!

I hope this comment lasts for 5 years :)

Please don't link to Phil Mason / Thunderf00t. In addition to being a misogynist (top videos include "Feminism versus FACTS" and "Why feminism poisons everything"), he's also a food scientist posing as a rocket scientist.

Please don't assert that someone's beliefs or advocacy about a political movement make them wrong about facts. Classic ad hominem fallacy. Listening to people making sound arguments about X even though you disagree with them about Y is healthy, and the lack of this health is a major intellectual problem of this century in my humble opinion. Listen more, judge less. Post and watch more things from people with whom you disagree. And don't shut people down just because their views on unrelated topics are not palatable to you.

You're right, the fact that he's an asshole just means he doesn't deserve link and ad revenue. The fact that he's unqualified to make many of his engineering claims is why you shouldn't use his videos in arguments.

I've observed a dearth of videos going into technical detail about why the "busted" things will succeed. I'd like to see them.

Thunderf00t does have a great track record in predicting the failure of many pipe dream techs including solar roadways and fontus and waterseer and that thorium car. Who exactly is qualified to do so? Basically anybody with a cursory understanding of physical forces and skepticism, which he has.

I'm not sure why you set the bar so high for reasonable skepticism informed by very, very basic physics

> Thunderf00t does have a great track record in predicting the failure of many pipe dream techs including solar roadways and fontus and waterseer and that thorium car.

Got any references for these?

What are you looking for? Scientific journals?

Thunderf00t takes things, let's say Scio, and shows how, despite marketing videos and press attention and funding, they're complete nonsense. Then he shows what the state of the art is, or what the basic physics say. Then he does follow-up videos when they fail. The Waterseer series is absolute gold.

What references do you need? A chemistry or physics book and what the failed projects actually say when and as they fail.

There's a threshold to things like that. Would you honestly watch Alex Jones's video evaluating technical facts raised if it was posted? At some point you can discount people / publications as generally not caring about facts. It's fine to deny them the ad revenue.

Absolutely. When talking about matters of science and physics, Alex Jones has a very poor track record to say the least. He's demonstrated a strong history of inaccuracy and blatantly ignoring facts to fabricate sensational stories. The opposite of what we should appreciate about some of Thunderf00t's contributions, in fact.

As much as I disagree with Thunderf00t's political opinions and how much I hate his style, he has a pretty damn good track record on dismantling hypetrains of physical impracticality.

More clearly, if Alex Jones had a good track record of accuracy or predictions on anything, then his contributions would be valid and shouldn't be discredited because of his opinion on unrelated things.

Speaking against a particular brand of feminism does not make one a misogynist. From watching his videos, it's pretty clear that he isn't prejudiced against women. He just calls out bullshit claims by the likes of Anita Sarkeesian, who is on record stating that video games are a 'male sex fantasy' and whose only credential is being a perpetual victim. People like Phil Mason and Stephen Fry are a desperately needed public voice against bullshit disguised as feminism or social justice.

If Anita Sarkeesian went unchecked, games like GTA would be banned by now and reclassified as rape simulators.

This attitude of blindly dismissing people's arguments or entire credentials just because you bought into an agenda, this refusal to engage in civil debate and discuss matters on their merit. I think this is one of the factors destroying democracies around the world today. Everything must be polarizing, everyone expressing views you disagree with must be shunned. Any attempts to debate established status quo must be shouted down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian

> whose only credential is being a perpetual victim

The Wikipedia page you linked says she's a "media critic, blogger, and public speaker." It seems to me those are her credentials.

She is all of those things by virtue of playing public victim. She was a no name vlogger with a handful of subscribers. Her entire 'career', if you can call it that, began when the internet overwhelmed her kickstarter to fund a bunch of videos about how misogynistic video games are. She's the Kim Kardashian of feminism and an insult to 2nd and 3rd wave feminists who fought to improve society through intelligent discourse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJUxqkcnKA&list=PLBBDFEC9F5...

Watch this and tell me that you think she is making an intelligent argument about anything. And while you're at it, have a think about why the comments and votes might be disabled on those videos.

I'm aware of who Anita is, and I have no expectation of changing your mind about her.

That said, I think she was "all of those things" when people contributed over 100k to her Kickstarter, which was before the Gamergate harassment started. So she was earning her keep well before she was made the "public victim," as you say.

Of course the comments are disabled for her videos. Normal YouTube comments are toxic enough. She literally got bomb threats over scheduled appearances on conference panels – do you think comments on her videos are productive? If your Twitter was filled by anonymous users threatening to rape you, and kill your parents, etc., then you'd disable comments on your videos too.

> Speaking against a particular brand of feminism does not make one a misogynist. From watching his videos, it's pretty clear that he isn't prejudiced against women.

I have an issue with naming of those videos. It's great to call out people who misinterpret some labels and are harmful to others. But calling that "facts vs feminism" isn't helping. His other videos manage to call out specific things like solar highway, rather than being called "tech vs facts". Why imply that feminism is bad if you're going to talk about one specific person's idea? (that's not generally accepted)

He doesn't talk about just one person's idea though. Have you actually watched any of those videos? They're not ideally named and they're not his best content, but to pass that off as misogynistic is just beyond disingenuous.

I'm not saying they are or aren't misogynistic. Just that they're really badly named to be clickbaits and feed on the existing hostility against a bigger community. I've seen a few fragments and honestly they don't make me interested in analysing the whole thing. What they don't seem to do though is help any cause beyond getting more popular and setting up us-vs-them ideas.

> In addition to being a misogynist (top videos include "Feminism versus FACTS" and "Why feminism poisons everything")

Stop.

This type of public character assassination is completely unacceptable unless you are willing to properly justify it.

Properly justify it? Read his YouTube page and video list. I didn't even get into the racist shit. I'm going to let you guess what "Who's killing who, by race and gender, FBI statistics" and "Black Son of a MULTIMILLIONAIRE, STILL the SJW victim!" are about.

Before you say "ad hominem:" no, that doesn't apply here. He's not a credible source.

These videos are bullshit.

I watched the boring compny video and all he says is that his concept have been known before him.

Yes, duh. But he was the first to make them usable as commercial products by making them 10x cheaper.

Anyone can make a costly prototype of something, but the challenge is making it actually profitable and commercial.

Usable as commercial products? What product does the boring company have? They've asserted things will be cheaper, but haven't sold a ticket.

So far the boring company is a money pit. It remains to be seen if they can accomplish anything you suggest they have. For now they're still just a marketing engine.

It only started last year.

The ventures that he takes on take normal companies a decade(s) to become commercially viable.

If he doesn't instantly have full products out, he has failed? Why the heck would you expect that??

Wow, what?

I'm not saying he's failed. I'm saying he hasn't succeeded yet.

One of the main reasons they say they'll build tunnels cheaper and faster is because they plan to make their tunnels half the diameter of other tunnels. It's like someone saying they can make cheeseburgers faster and cheaper than anyone else, but when you order one they bring you a slider instead of a normal full size burger.

If I can get a smaller burger that is just as satisfying for considerably less money, I'll take it.

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