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Comment by imglorp | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about the continued negativity on this. Hasn't he pretty much accomplished everything he has said? Batteries, cars, solar, space, it's all working.

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IMO his greatest accomplishment by far is Space X, from an engineering perspective it's the one that seems the most impressive and hardest to achieve.

Tesla is impressive but it seems more like the success of a vision, making electric cars look cool and inspirational, not "like a real car but eco-friendly and boring". Technologically speaking are they really ahead of the competition?

Meanwhile the Boring company and especially Hyperloop fail to convince me. For the former it's mostly that I don't see what he's bringing to the table. If digging holes underneath large cities is so great why did we wait for him to do it? Why does it seem to be such a huge pain when everybody else does it but it would be cheap and easy for him? What's the secret sauce? Where's the innovation? It's not like we didn't know how to dig tunnels before Musk. They've been extending Paris Metro line 14 into the northern suburbs lately and it's a long, expensive and complicated process, both technically and administratively. What would Musk do better?

For the hyperloop it's almost the other way around: the innovation is obvious but what's unclear is if it can work in practice and actually be useful, so I think that would be a better situation to argue that "he's got Space X to work, why not Hyperloop?"

The tunnels are smaller, so they're allegedly significantly cheaper, and the narrow diameter is compensated for with automation.

Does anyone believe that the costs of tunneling are heavily diameter-dependent? I'd imagine safety, labor and capex costs are the major drivers.

>Technologically speaking are they really ahead of the competition?

Yes and have been since 2012 when they started producing the Model S. It's been 6 years and major manufacturers have still not caught up.

> For the former it's mostly that I don't see what he's bringing to the table.

He's trying to build mass transit using sewer tunnel boring machines and sewer tunnel cost structures. It's not "hard" innovation but innovation it is.

Now he's trying to find out if sewer tunnel sized mass transit requires the same level of environmental assessment as mass transit or as sewer tunnels...

Honestly, I cannot help but get frustrated even though I know I shouldn't. How are people rooting against this person? Do they not want space exploration/green technology/incredible cars/transportation innovation/globally accessible satellite internet/self driving cars/etc?

I don't even really understand where the hate comes from, because he missed a few deadlines, because he dreams big? I'm sure his critics have missed more than a few deadlines, and on things not nearly as important/world changing.

The issues is not that we don't want these things. People cheer for NASA and you hardly ever read anything negative about those missions.

Elon is why people complain. He rubs a lot of people the wrong way with this tweets and attitude. You can be diplomatic and move things forward or you can be abrasive like Elon and also move forward.

> You can be diplomatic and move things forward or you can be abrasive like Elon and also move forward.

Just curious, can you name some people who have been diplomatic and managed to move things as far forward? I honestly can't think of many actual achievers that have been diplomatic about things.

There’s some line to be drawn between acceptable abrasiveness and calling critics pedophiles.

What if said critic is a paedophile or he had a valid reason to believe it such as being told it by lots of locals? If someone is a paedophile, I think to call them it, should be perfectly acceptable.

History is built by people like this. Every mover and shaker in the world has had strong opinions and the ability to get people behind them. This pisses off the people that want to see the world stay the same or at least within their own parameters.

It takes a certain kind of person to do what Elon does, and the personality is non-negotiable, apparently.

The kind of people that want to see a brilliant person who is doing good work fail because he is not a nice guy irritate the hell out of me. I'm not totally sold that you have to be an asshole to progress things, but being wrapped up in pussy-footing around and not ruffling any feathers takes a helluva lot of energy out that could be directed towards real goals.

When you move things forward, you produce change, and this change inevitably bothers people who are comfortable in the existing order. These people will attack the source of the change, claiming that he's insensitive and undiplomatic or whatever merely because he doesn't let the minority that would be bothered by inconvenient change block that change.

Consequently, anyone who accomolishes something meaningful will be called a jerk. You can't do meaningful work while being universally well-liked. The world doesn't work that way.

No one here seems to be rooting against Elon. They're pointing out that digging tunnels under a city involves more than technological innovation.

If he keeps being so reckless, he risks messing up all of those great things.

In what way is anything he does reckless? His tweeting? Do you think that is going to "mess up all of those great things"?

He's been ousted as Tesla chairman and sued by the SEC for making an impulsive weed joke tweet. Does that count?

Yes, he got himself in hot water with his funding secured tweet and created a big mess at Tesla that undoubtedly diverted a lot of resources that could have been put to use elsewhere.

Most people are afraid of change and don't confront their internal fears rather externalize it.

I think they're rooting against him because he's been, frankly, extremely rude and petty in public to people that don't seem to deserve it. It's one thing for a celebrity to "feud" with another celebrity, it's another thing entirely when they do so to essentially anonymous people just trying to do their jobs (specifically, the well known investor call stuff, and also that cave diver).

While I agree that he should definitely delete his Twitter account, I believe the hate predates all stuff that by a lot.

Ever been rude in your life?

Would people think so if they were analyzing and over analyzing ever single thing you did while you held one of the most stressful positions in the world?

I for one am happy to cut the man some slack given all the good he has done and is trying to do for the world. He said himself he could've just bought an island after Paypal and never worked again, instead he chose to dedicate basically the entire rest of his life to good causes.

I think a lot of the frustration is that all this tunneling stuff seems like a huge distraction from what we KNOW works.

Mixed use development near transit supplemented by a network of bike lanes an 8 or 80 year old would feel safe cycling on.

Tunnels aren't magic. Does anyone here think they won't succumb to induced demand just like any other road? Even if they reduce congestion (and they won't - the 405 carpool lane made commutes a minute longer, not shorter) all that means is people who want more space move farther from the city, enabling more urban sprawl, and thereby trashing the planet even more.

Quick, cheap tunneling would be GREAT for building subways, though. Shame Elon hates public transport https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t...

The other thing about Elon is that one wonders how many clever people are toiling away on solving the world's problems but can't get attention/funding/support because Elon sucks it all up, AND he's dangerously close to going full Kanye on Twitter (cave rescuers are pedophiles? wtf?), which doesn't help anything.

>I think a lot of the frustration is that all this tunneling stuff seems like a huge distraction from what we KNOW works.

If we know it works how come no one has done it? Traffic and congestion is a major issue in basically ever major city in the US (and probably the world), why the hate for attempted innovation?

>The other thing about Elon is that one wonders how many clever people are toiling away on solving the world's problems but can't get attention/funding/support because Elon sucks it all up

Is this really your concern? If anything I'd say he's inspiring many more people to try and tackle hard problems on a major scale. I'm way more frustrated that all the clever people are being sucked up by Facebook and Co to make ads super good and make time-wasters more addictive.

To the best of my knowledge, you are correct that every US city is horrible in this regard. This was not by accident.

To your comment "If we know it works how come no one has done it? " -

1) We have done it. Amsterdam fought like hell for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o . Now they have one of the finest cities in the world in which to move about.

Copenhagen at rush hour handles loads of people well because they have built systems that move people efficiently and safely. And pleasantly. Even driving there is nice, paradoxically.

https://twitter.com/Pidge/status/1064443820245422080

2) People fight it because they believe they should be able to drive anywhere they like, for free, and without interruption - and then even store their car for free as well! The ideal situation is to be the only driver, but of course that only works if driving is very expensive (something I support).

In LA people are so furious at the idea of not being able to drive everywhere they shout down (almost) anything resembling progress. Things like Elon's tunnel are used as ammunition in these fights. After all, why should we build bike lanes when we're getting these kickass tunnels!?? This is part of why I left LA.

As for your latter point - yes, it is very much my concern. We have similar views regarding Facebook and Co. but given that Elon's tunnels are unlikely to actually make life better (note my earlier comment regarding induced demand) this is taking resources from actual solutions we could do right now, cheaply, and that we know work.

There are less people in all of Denmark than in LA. Not even half. Novel solutions will be needed. Much less area in Copenhagen than LA as well.

Also I really don't think this a resource drain. Before Elon there was basically no effort, and so if there was no Elon there would still be no effort. Also I would be shocked if there were more than like 150 people at Boring company.

Much less area than Copenhagen because LA is mostly car infrastructure. Lines on a map don't make a city.

The "hate" you speak of occurs on online comment sections only, and is likely a reaction to the sometimes cult-like devotion professed by his admirers.

This devotion is also fueled by Musk himself, who invests in positive PR (just look at any submission from Elektrek on this forum) and pretends to be a nerdy everyman on Twitter to appear to be "relatable".

Perhaps to his admirers, it seems like he's"just trying to help" when he proposes submarines for the Thai cave rescue. To outside observers, it looks like a cynical attempt to capitalize on the publicity around the rescue efforts for free. It's gauche when a normal person does it, and becomes in extremely poor taste when a billionaire with real resources does it.

Comments of the "He's trying to save the world, can't you see?" variety mix freely with the "this is a conspiracy against Tesla by big auto/big oil" comments that pop up anytime bad news is reported.

At the end of the day, neither Elon nor Tesla are hurting because of online comments.

I think the negativity is an inevitable reaction to the Elon Musk hype machine, which he himself plays into. Recall the Thai diving incident, when he proposed a submarine solution that was neither realistic not workable.

In this instance, it would have been obvious from the get-go that a project like this would run into environmental concerns. The whole thing has been a waste of time and sucked attention away from more realistic possibilities. This broadly applies to Hyperloop as well, which is cool tech that solves none of the problems holding back transportation in the US, which are almost all political.

Those other things don't typically require approval from local governments and neighborhoods. That is a fight entrepreneurs rarely win even successful, famous ones.

The hyperloop has proven to be absolute bullshit, just like knowledgeable engineers predicted at the time it was announced. Which is part of my dislike of him, all the dishonest hype, and the hordes of online defenders like yourself that just talk about the marketing vision but not about the engineering.

This tunnel is just a smaller, lower-capacity metro system. There is exactly zero groundbreaking technology here. They've even bought off-the-shelf commercial tunnel-boring machines.

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