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Comment by johanneskanybal | Hacker News Reader

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If fast, reliable, cheap internet worldwide is a "minor" gain what's a major gain? Fusion power? Teleportation? Dyson Spheres?

Devil? He’s a hero.

Why is he a “hero”?

No, no - you see, despite rapidly speeding up EV adoption, completely transforming how we get things into space, and enabling many people to finally get high speed internet…

He’s (gasp)…a republican!

You can do good things and still be a bad person. I’m glad the company he is CEO of is bringing Internet to rural or underserved communities. However I do think he’s a bad person. I prefer my company to be down to earth and act with humility, not to be smug “know it all” edgelords. I am aware many American men are also immature so I won’t pretend to not understand the worship.

He makes jokes and is humble but wouldn't know it from democrat reporters. In a way he was forced into being a republican just like most former democrats like him were. When you are trying to get things done, things like anti-meritocratic ideas like woke culture get in the way. Things like California eliminating advanced classes for students altogether because it was seen as diverting too many resources away from black and brown students. That's one example of hundreds where the democrat run states/cities/officials always seem to make things harder to accomplish anything.

I hope you can come up with more than he makes jokes and is humble. That's not proof that he's a good person.

I'm curious, how did 'woke culture' get in the way of Tesla or SpaceX? Seems like they are doing fine to me.

What's wild is that he could take his billions and retire to a private island for the rest of his life, but he seems to spend a great deal of time working on large difficult projects which further humanity's place as a species. I.e. shifting humanity to renewable power, engineering the first reusable rockets, worldwide internet and cellular phone communication, colonizing other bodies in the solar system as backup civilizations, and you've got to wonder why with the way he's vilified. Paints an interesting picture as to why other billionaires aren't interested in grand projects.

Edit: downvoting this comment just reinforces my impression.

What’s the point of rapidly speeding up EV adoption if you have elected “drill baby drill”?

Is that to save humanity ?

As a stop gap until infrastructure is updated to handle the electricity and generate it from renewable sources. Tesla is heavily in the battery and solar space as well, they just have focused on cars so much its practically been ignored. Solar in order to generate electricity, and battery to store it so you can use it when its night or cloudy. Once alternatives are truly available, you'll see you'll see a huge change, but as it is now, electrification itself enables you to later simply change your power plants rather than every vehicle on the road.

That's not going to happen when there is vested interest in propping up fossil fuels. I hope I'm wrong and you're right, I just don't think that's how the incoming administration sees things.

> That's not going to happen when there is vested interest in propping up fossil fuels.

Sure it will, because Solar PV is less expensive than any other option:

https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2013/4/2/1051953-136...

from: https://seekingalpha.com/article/1324411-trends-in-the-cost-...

You can ruin that by introducing tariffs on Chinese products for example and disincentivizing local solar production.

Hacker News has lost it's imagination IMO.

The "facts" you site are obvious, we could've solved climate change 50 years ago with nuclear, it's not about that. It's about fossil fuel money.

Seems like you're looking for reasons to complain.

"Total U.S. solar module manufacturing capacity grows by 71% in Q1 2024" https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/06/06/total-u-s-solar-modul...

"The U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2024 report says 11 GW of new solar module manufacturing capacity came online in the United States during Q1 2024, the largest quarter of solar manufacturing growth in American history."

"Renewable Energy Is Now The Cheapest Option - Even Without Subsidies" https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/renewa...

There you go. Economics will handle it. No stopping it.

> we could've solved climate change 50 years ago with nuclear

Next time you fire up that time machine, let me know. I've got a sports almanac packed and ready. On this timeline it never happened. Meanwhile, solar pv production capacity has doubled reliably every couple years for decades. And is only a few doublings away from providing all the power the world needs.

It doesn't matter about all of that if we're still burning fossil fuels, do you see what I mean ? You're saying it's cheaper, yet there is no storage solution possible for. that much renewables to keep everything running all the time, night time, winter etc.

I like renewbles, you seem to be getting aggressive as if I'm a climate denier, i'm the opposite, but I just don't think it's as easy as you think politically. To ignore politics is perilous.

We could've eradicated the use of fossil fuels 50 years ago with Nuclear, we didn't.

> there is no storage solution possible for. that much renewables to keep everything running all the time, night time, winter etc.

"U.S. Installed Battery Storage Capacity Increased More Than Tenfold Over the Last Decade: EIA": https://enerknol.com/u-s-installed-battery-storage-capacity-...

> you seem to be getting aggressive

Listen, if you don't like my time travel jokes, just say so. :)

> To ignore politics is perilous.

I'm not ignoring politics. I simply believe self-interest is a fundamentally more powerful force.

I also think doomerism is self-defeating and to be resisted. We fixed the ozone layer, we can tackle renewable energy.

There's no way you can convince republicans to buy electric cars if the electric car guy is a democrat.

On the other hand he’s isolated a LOT of his original customers and most of republicans still think EVs are stupid.

The stated goal of Tesla was acceleration of electric car production and adoption. It's fine if the people who believe in global warming buy a car from someone else. The republicans need an electric car that they can take to the gun range and not get laughed at though. Coastal elites ignoring flyover states is nothing new, Elon just figured out how to exploit it.

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