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Comment by delecti | Hacker News Reader

My understanding of the situation is that German permitting is pretty complicated, so normally companies wait before diving in so everything is cleared up first. You can imagine that kind of restraint isn't Tesla's style, so rather than clearing hurdles from the track ahead of time, they're just running into each one. I'm not familiar enough to know if there are more or worse hurdles in this specific instance, but it definitely makes for a juicier headline when Tesla slams into a hurdle than when another company deals with it before they've broken ground.

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That Tesla's way of operating has lots of potential to clash with German bureaucracy/culture is certainly true to some degree but in this case, an administrative process was changed with possibly not enough time in advance for everyone to notice or react. Since the office is unsure how the change would hold up in court, they are re-doing it out of an abundance of caution. (At least this is how I read the article.)

Maybe headlines like this are necessary to create change?

What good is it to have a legislative body, elections, and laws, if we then allow rich companies to ignore these laws at their discretion?

Technocrats love to imagine that their laws are infallible unfortunately laws must always be challenged regularly or else you will end up with too much regulation over time as political momentum encourages new laws to constantly be added while old laws are rarely reexamined. That's why you've got places where anal is still illegal.

I'm not sure what you'd want to change, honestly. The regulations are, presumably, there for a reason, and shouldn't have a "but if you're Elon Musk, that's okay" get-out clause.

No I'm actually pretty sure that I do. Get out of the way of progress.

If we wanted progress, we'd build rail tracks. This factory is for toys for rich people.

Musk has done more for the world than you ever will.

If I did nothing and twiddled my thumbs I'd have a more positive net impact on the world than the son of an Emerald miner in Apartheid South America exploiting workers, busting unions and polluting the world with make believe computer money and phallic objects shot into the sky for no particular reason

In real life SpaceX is a company that gets paid by other companies and organizations to launch rockets into space. They also have the first reusable rocket which is a clear and direct technological improvement for the human race. It is also likely to ensure we won't go extinct from one rock hitting our planet.

The fact that you can't get over yourself for two seconds to comprehend this kind of shows you have no clue what you're even talking about.

Change in the way Elon operates, i.e. actually follow laws? I doubt it.

Change in the way the German government operates? I hope not, but I also doubt it.

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