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Comment by deyiao | Hacker News Reader

I really admire their mindset of striving for the betterment of humanity. There was a time when OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Musk used to talk with that same lofty vision. But now, they've all shifted to competing for national interests instead, which is honestly quite disappointing.

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Well, it’s a highly effective PR tactic that works well for the small fish. You say your competition is too selfish and you just want to help people and it creates a bunch of goodwill you can use to grow. Once you grow, your view on things changes, and you’re able to be more selfish. It’s not guaranteed things will go that way, but it’s certainly true that this is a good PR tactic for new entrants in to a crowded field. It can also be genuine. When you’re new you don’t have much to lose and it’s easier to be truly altruistic.

From what I know, DeepSeek is a small company that made a lot of money from other businesses, which makes their lack of focus on commercial interests feel more genuine. Plus, even back when they were relatively unknown, they had a habit of donating over $100 million annually to charitable causes. That makes their claim of striving for humanity a lot more believable.

> DeepSeek is a small company that made a lot of money from other businesses, which makes their lack of focus on commercial interests feel more genuine.

Google also made a lot of money from other businesses that aren't AI models, until they started selling AI models, just as DeepSeek now does.

The reality is that DeepSeek is a full company, that was funded as a spin-off from the original business (a hedge fund that used its large GPU stockpile to pick stocks via ML). The company DeepSeek is owned by the hedge fund CEO not the hedge fund. It exists as a business aiming to make money, not as a pet project for another business.

But the fact that they were donating huge sums every year even when they were still unknown really says something. If they were purely profit-driven, there’s no way the shareholders would have allowed that.

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still way better than ClosedAI

I will call it as it is from now on as well

I actually call it Anti-Humanity AI. Without releasing the tech details of such AI, we all live in the danger that if something goes really wrong, we won't even have the chance to understand the disaster and fix it.

Basically they pocketed all profits with other people footing all the risks.

I have a more practical view: there's nothing wrong in making profit, the important thing is that they are also doing some good.

> As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practicing your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!

Friedrich Engels: The Condition of the Working-class in England

I have no idea about this but am curious to know if the wealthy Engels family who 'owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford, England' showed the way for your other 'mighty benefactors'? What belongs to who is a mighty question as Obama reminded us with his lead pencil example. No easy answer though.

this doesn't argue whether existence of profits necessarily implies exploitation of workers but asserts it and then proceeds to argue against philanthropy funded by profits. This line of reasoning only makes sense if one already accepts the initial assumption, whereas the original poster questions that very assumption, so it's a bit irrelevant quote.

I read the parent’s comment as arguing that the existence of profits implies exploitation of workers in the quoted instance (p perhaps broadly in England at the time) and that there is some similarity with DeepSeek. No hard-line assertions, just suggested similarities.

It feels really odd seeing Engels' quotes used like this.

The focus of Engels' criticism when he made these statements was on *capitalist production relations*, where capitalists control the means of production and obtain profits by exploiting the surplus labor time of workers. This is precisely what DeepSeek and open-source initiatives are challenging. They are turning the means of production from the private property of capitalists into public property.

I hope you did not intentionally misquote this passage.

Free Software is not the same as expropriation. It's perhaps more the social-democratic smoke mirror kind of thing than lifting the dependency.

Regardless of free software, capitalists control the means of production and obtain profits by exploiting the surplus labor time of workers.

Free software may make it more obvious though, at least for some.

I'm not familiar with Engel's view, but my gut feeling here is that he was complaining about the way profit was made ("sucking out their very life-blood") and not about profit itself. But, even if he somehow saw profit as something bad regardless of how it is made, I would still disagree. It is definitely possible to make profit without exploiting people.

It’s an interesting reformulation of Catholic “original sin”.

> the fact that they were donating huge sums every year even when they were still unknown really says something

You don't need to be known by the general public to take advantage of tax schemes involving "donating" money

> The reality is that DeepSeek is a full company, that was funded as a spin-off from the original business (a hedge fund that used its large GPU stockpile to pick stocks via ML). The company DeepSeek is owned by the hedge fund CEO not the hedge fund. It exists as a business aiming to make money, not as a pet project for another business.

Of course they want money, lots of money, tons of money is required for hiring engineers and paying for its hardware. However, your claim that DeepSeek's exists is to make money is just your guess back by nothing else but your wild guess.

DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng himself is an engineer, he is the co-author/developer of the DeepSeek model, he helped but not listed as a core contributor. Obviously that is not a smart strategy to spend your CEO hours to maximize your $ return. His interview a few months ago actually gave answers to all these, he is seeking for AGI. That is the motivation, that is why DeepSeek exists.

Zuckerberg, who is also a developer, and countless other CEOs are listed on many patents from their companies. Doesn’t mean they actually had a strong input in the invention.

No business exists not to make money because that is a charity. It’s not a charity, because a charity is not a business, and DeepSeek is a business. I don’t care to quibble about how interesting they are in being a lucrative business, but simply that they’re a business.

My point wasn’t to question their motives about profit vs AGI (why would these be mutually exclusive btw), but to challenge the notion that it’s some side project from a random business. It’s a company with dedicated resources and staff.

my intuition suggests that because they are not the leaders, they will not stay in news for long. This way you stay on mouth of people for longer period and by publishing code you hurt established giants by allowing much smaller players to compete.

They are already the absolute leader in China, which is arguably the largest market for future AI. Liang doesn't have any media exposure because he is an engineer and doesn't want that, if he wants or needs to "stay in news", he can get tons anytime anywhere.

My intuition suggests they will very shortly have state-level resources thrown at them to mean they become a consistent leader. This and Qwen have been huge for China’s prestige and whatever the Chinese for Juche is. Those is unambiguously the next space race, and there’s absolutely no reason China can’t pull ahead of the US here.

why you have thought like this? it's not how it works in China

The Chinese government only supports companies that are in line with industrial policies and are facing difficulties that require assistance. This is because such companies struggle to obtain financing from the society. The aim is to support the entire industry, not a specific company. If a company holds a leading position, it does not need to receive any "resources" from the government; it can acquire sufficient resources from the society.

China 10y bond yield is at <2%, this is a very low financing cost.

> The Chinese government only supports companies that are in line with industrial policies and are facing difficulties that require assistance

So, like, for example, AI companies who are very upfront about not being able to get their hands on as many chips as they'd like?

in this case, it's domestic chip manufacturers are getting support from government

government is not good at smuggling chips without getting attention, better try to contact some dealers in singapore or malaysia

I think you significantly underestimate what a helping hand from a government can do, from subsidising the extra expense of grey market chips, to making shipping containers disappear into the ether, to exerting pressure beyond simply commercial on people in and outside their borders.

hail hydra

literally how openai attracted talent with deepmind as the boogeyman. its a playbook that works

Why not for now just applaud them for their actions rather than focus on some potential 3rd order plan?

Who knows what any of then might do in the future? For now I'm cheering for Deepseek, Meta and anyone publishing open models as I strongly believe that the potential "danger" of AI in the hands of everyone is far outstripped by the concrete dangers of AI dictated by a select small group of corps/gov symbionts.

I agree with your sentiment, but there’s no harm in being aware that the rhetoric is just PR spin for the strategy the execs think will be the most profitable.

At least they are not founded as non-profit with some "greater good" mission or "safety" BS.

Yeah, that would be too blatant. :)

Can't fool me twice. Not yet, wait a couple of years.

I wouldn’t go so far as to try to presume the state of mind of the execs. Maybe they really believe what they’re saying. But it’s also true that it benefits them to say it and my argument is simply that we should be mindful of that.

Because we have seen this play out exactly as described so many times that that kind of naivety is not justifiable.

The answer lies in the question I responded to. The commenter lauded the positive effects of Deepseek’s actions and lamented the loss of such positivity from OpenAI. But it’s important to understand that this didn’t happen by chance. These things happen because underdogs benefit more from goodwill than secrecy and selfishness, while established players benefit from dominance and control.

If we ignore that, we will let PR teams play us every time they claim altruism while serving themselves. It doesn’t mean Deepseek can’t also have good motives, but we must be clear that undercutting OpenAI while simultaneously building community goodwill is a smart move on their part to shift the market in their favor.

Is media literacy for tech marketing.

I wish it was easier to learn about media literacy

True, in the end you are not sure if companies like meta / deepseek are promoting opensource because they genuinely care or it is just a differentiated marketing strategy to win over the developers.

Some companies will play on opensource, some will play on pricing, some on quality.

Almost all of the open source companies which do good eventually start an enterprise / paid division as well.

There is no PR tactic, the only company that will stay on top will be the one that open source its models and it is free of use. There are other ways to monetize. People around the globe are not going to use on daily basis, anything that is paid.

LLM's are not that different than programming languages. Imagine Guido van Rossum charging $200 so you can use Python...

Even for those that will pay, many light users will prefer a subscription over dropping $10k on rapidly depreciating hardware to run a half decent model.

Yes, it is PR. While individuals can be altruistic visionaries, shareholders will protest any action that is not in the company's interest.

For a smaller player, open-sourcing might be a strategic move. It would likely go unnoticed if a small Chinese company released a model "almost as good as" ones from the top US players. But releasing it as open source is a game-changer.

However, open source isn't just for small players. Microsoft develops Visual Studio Code and Meta develops PyTorch - to name a few examples out of hundreds. In these cases, it's also PR - they can afford it, and it doesn't compete with their core business.

There's a story about someone asking the Dalai Lama whether all altruism is actually a form of egoism, since we do good things to feel better. He responded that if that's the case, we need more of this type of egoism. (I can't find the exact source, but it aligns with his quote "Being wisely selfish means taking a broader view and recognizing that our own long-term individual interest lies in the welfare of everyone.")

So yes, I want to see more of this kind of PR.

Well said + Thanks!

I think DeepSeek is trying to push the idea that LLMs are not marketable products themselves, but are a part of the 'digital commons', as in a hard to develop and maintain software which in of itself does not produce value, but can be the foundation of a product that does. This is very similar to what Facebook is doing with Llama, or what is going on with big open source projects, like databases or the Linux kernel.

I also think that the companies that are doing that have a different idea on how to make money. Facebook's competitive edge lies in all the people using their social media, and for the Chinese, I think their edge lies in manufacturing physical products, so they try to commodify the software component.

Which is in stark contrast to the US, who have a world-beating software and silicon industry, but are merely competent in other areas, so it makes sense for them to want to avoid that.

Rather than a foundation for their products, I think they're just trying to make it impossible for new competitors to enter that market because if when all the biggest models are open-sourced, a new player can't convince investors to bring billions on the table as there's nothing to monetize – the alternative is free.

Why enter the market now when AI is already commoditized? DeepSeek is making US investors regrets investing so much to get a tiny lead over them, but they're also making future, large investments much harder to justify when you can rely on existing open-sourced models

that's a good thing, no?

Foundation Models aren't defensible. It'll force VCs to allocate on other stuff (the new buzz is "the application layer")

Open-source does very little good if no one actually contribute to the code except the company who controls it and no one else has the means to participate (other than taking the code as-it-is).

The giant players are more than happy to keep their models open if no one even tries to compete.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." ~~ Goethe

It also is similar what Saudi Arabia and OPED did with fracking. When American fracking companies were full of debt, OPED got down the price of oil and a log of enterprises had to default.

I get the urge to be cynical all the time, but this isn't that time. "Once you grow", they have already grown and competing with the SoTA models and still giving it all back to the community.

I just wish this smear campaign against them stops sometime soon.

Power does terrible things to people, we really need to stop letting that happen.

"Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." - Frank Herbert

I don't think there's a lot of historical precedent for the kind of power that is possible today, logistics used to be a limiting factor. Maybe you can be god king of the universe as your day job and enjoy a bit of sanity on your time off--but then again maybe not. We're in uncharted waters.

Rich nations see risk, rising giants see leverage.

They just stopped pretending.

Striving for the betterment of humanity, or striving for their peer technology competitor to have their intellectual property moat atom-bombed? I don't think altruism has any real role in this.

Really it just shows the beauty of market competition.

How will their mindset not be exploited (even, given time and power, by the exact same now-honest idealists) in the same way as the other people and companies you mention? It's a hard pill to swallow but especially after I read "The Power Broker" it's very true that some of the most inspiring idealists really do turn into amoral pragmatists.

It’s greed not national interests unless you know something I don’t about greedy people.

OpenAI is the biggest irony, it's not even bothered with national interests, it's on a pure profit maximising goal without regard to anything else.

It's just an Nvidia short, so they can get the yuuge amount of graphic cards they need for further training even cheaper (joke).

Don’t forget Google who typically make their best AI products available only to large customers. For “safety” of course.

To me it's notable that Chinese government didn't care (or know) about this going open source.

I suspect the Chinese government fears being locked into US SaaS much more than the loss of control from open source. After all censorship can still be enforced at the level of App Stores / DNS for most consumers even with open source models.

We are making the world a better place more than our competitors

you forgot to add "/sarcasm"

And before you get carried away, let's wait and see. A chinese company making claims of just open source is hard to buy, specially in era of making fake promises in the beginning.

The CPC seem to be encouraging open source, gitee (Chinese github) is run by the government.

More of a reason to stay away from that, think about it why does Gov run open source website, answer : so they can control what software is made and what it can do on the free web.

Isn't Musk still on the open side? Isn't that what the whole Musk - Altman conflict is about?

Maybe. We’ll see if he open sources grok 2 or if he just want others to open source their models and weights.

I don't think it's justified to say that, he can do Grok anyway he wants, he never promised -or make it his mission- to open it up. It's a different story for "Open"AI.

Saying that Musk "doesn't have the mindset" for betterment of humanity is just ignorant in a very short-sighted way. Sure, he currently has a side project of fixing the US government and ensuring US doesn't stray too far outside of its core interests, but SpaceX and Tesla are still his bread and butter he has spent most of his time on beside this scenic route.

I've followed him closely since ~2016 so I can say this with some conviction. He's exactly the same guy he was back then. He even talks of the exact same things with the same excitement. Sure, "American boots on MARS!" instead of just "boots on Mars" like he did after the inauguration, but it's quite clear he has seen US falling apart as a existential risk for the more lofty goals especially SpaceX has for Humanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wubITdJ_MCw

There was a time when I was this naive, but it's surely a very long time ago

Congratulations you're just naive to things that are easier to believe for a weak mind now.

> I've followed him closely since ~2016 so I can say this with some conviction.

Its sad that you fell for it then. Read Phillip Long's post on him, not someone who follows him but someone who has worked with him for years. It should be eye opening in the kind of man he is.

There will be no Mars terraforming, his goal is being the worlds first trillionaire. The emperor has no clothes, the companies run despite him not because of him and the cult of personality only appeals to people who somehow still fall for it.

Thanks, I think I know him pretty much as there is to know. People will try to shoot him down and project their own demons on him. He's an actual maverick who provably has lead his technological companies to success as a Technological lead.

Here's a take by people who have had actual direct contact with him. https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...

The arguments against his capability to lead cross-field technical operations should be disproven by his successes that he has proven several times in sequence. The argument of him being a fraud is basically hinging on him rolling d20 several times in a row, and only acceptable to those not knowing his personality and attributing his actions to malice (through self-projection of the viewer). Philip's arguments tell as much.

He's done plenty enemies while at it! Wouldn't really expect anything else being as disruptive as raw autism in fixing the species might be. They'll fade.

> I know him pretty much as there is to know.

Reading puff pieces online is not the way to know a man. He spends money on his PR and you are swallowing it.

> Here's a take by people who have had actual direct contact with him. https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...

The first guy has no concrete examples of Elon choices being against his engineering team recommendations and the last quote about "getting his hands dirty with epoxy" is rehased "and he was there clearing the roadblocks" that train and oil barons would say when something went wrong in their mines.

Like how is the same advertising tactics that worked in 1900 when the US had a literacy rate of below 12% working on you now?

> The arguments against his capability to lead cross-field technical operations should be disproven by his successes that he has proven several times in sequence.

Most of those companies have been bailed out by goverment contacts. That is not an ability to lead a team but an ability to win goverment contracts. This is proven by the fact he literally bought the US election in front of the entire world.

His venturesoutside of already fully financed goverment programs liek space, and EV tech remain huge failures. Boring company, neuralink and Twitter are all abject failures if you look at them from a prespective that isnt "Elon will somehow make it work".

> Philip's arguments tell as much.

Phillip has not only worked side by side with him for years, but invested millions in his ventures. He has more at stake than anyone in those interviews which some are over a decade old and all have interests that align with Elon (either work for him, or are writting a book and need access)

> Wouldn't really expect anything else being as disruptive as raw autism in fixing the species might be.

Fixing the species? The dude has a weird breeding hyperfixation, is autistic, is positively demonstrably short sighted (cutting Lidar out of tesla, saying mars boots before 2020, pushing the fda tests for neuralink).

His best bet to improve the species would be removing himself from the pool, and yet he keeps paying for tube babies with crazy women to polute it further.

What you just wrote reads like bad LLM output. I read very little "puff pieces". Instead I've followed him and directly what he says for about the last 8 years. And I've seen how the media has turned against him, and him doing mostly the same things he did before is now somehow bad.

Nah. He's the same man. And every common argument against him is so easily shot down. But you don't seem to care and act like a flat earther, given my first link shoots your "counter-argument" down given it's about people you as a HN reader should know saying that the praise said about him is just quite simply true.

>Most of those companies have been bailed out by goverment contacts. To be devil'ls (yours) advocate, NASA did save SpaceX. But. NASA is one of the very few agencies that could hire SpaceX, especially due to things like ITAR. But it is obvious to anyone that SpaceX has always more than deserved those contracts, delivering value that is about 20x as high when compared to NASA's own efforts in cost to orbit, a figure that is bound to go 100x with Starship which is progressing not unlike Falcon 9 which is by far the most successful and most used launch system in the US, and the world.

Tesla benefits from selling some carbon credits yes. Which is by design. Remember that they were THE guys who managed to turn EV's from compromises to cars that can surpass ICE's. Actual good cars instead of inferior hippie mobiles like the G-whiz. Tesla operates in a system that anyone would call very capitalistic and succeeds well, doing its own technology, great products that don't even need advertising to sell, and being one of the most looked after employers by high achievers.

>Boring company, neuralink and Twitter are all abject failures You saying Neuralink is a failure is not just a failure in your humanity but proves your abject ignorance, given it has basically saved a person, giving him his agency back. And you shouting about "puff news pieces" LOL. Kiddo you're losing any sense of believability left. Boring company is being succesfully boring in all aspects. Slow work, but succeeding. Twitter is dead yes, X is the successor who manages to be better with 20% the employees. Use it everyday while Twitter was a censorious hellhole. On X you can say what you want without being systematically censored, something that I not just heard from, but saw personally before.

>breeding hyperfixation

That is not what I was talking about but proves you don't understand the slightest about biology. Not making enough kids makes humanity die, that is just math. Fixing the species means getting humanity back on track to what we were crudely approximately doing till ~2010 after which the western society started getting very self destructive while authoritarian governments rise in power with technology. I think there absolutely is a way to win this without losing ourselves.

>removing himself from the pool

How about you start with yourself given you've contributed absolutely nothing but hate, misinformation and overall sense of envy.

For people that actually care (unlike arkhaine here): https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-is-n...

> Instead I've followed him and directly what he says for about the last 8 years.

and you are comparing that to the first hadn experience of some of his closest associates. The dude pays 3 different PR companies full time salaries, you haven't followed him, you have followed his propaganda.

> him doing mostly the same things he did before

When he said that he was proud Tesla got 100% on the lgbtq score 4 years in a row, and that homophobes should nt buy his cars in 2017 has that not changed?

> And every common argument against him is so easily shot down

if "you sound like chatgpt" is your idea of shooting somethign down, then yeah everything is easily shot down.

> Tesla benefits from selling some carbon credits yes.

thats not what I said though. I said the company was saved from bankruptcy due to goverment contracts. For Tesla the credits where only part of the equation. First of all they got a 480 million loan, on almost no interest in 2010. The EV credits of around 7,500 per car totalled a goverment investment of over 3 billion of free money. Despite this Elon said the company was around 1 month away from bankruptcy in 2017 when making the Model 3.

He took 480 million almost for free, and 3.4 billion for free and still was weeks away from insolvency. That company is literally unviable without goverment funding.

> Tesla operates in a system that anyone would call very capitalistic

Goverment funded sports car for tech bros is not a system anyone would call capitalistic. Luxury goods (Veblen) are notoriously unaffected by market laws, thus terrible vehicles, no pun intended, for capitalism to thrive in.

> You saying Neuralink is a failure is not just a failure in your humanity but proves your abject ignorance, given it has basically saved a person, giving him his agency back.

You really need to stop believing everything you read dude. Nolan Arbaugh lost 85% of the neural link connections less than a month after the surgery. He cannot do 90% of the things they showed off in his presentation. Neural link said they could try and help him with software updates, without a timeline.

BCI's are notoriously hard to do, many companies make better products that neural link, without killing thousands of monkeys and using human suffering for presentations to impress dimwits online.

> Boring company is being succesfully boring in all aspects.

Over half its projects have been cancelled. the ones remaining do not give enough funding to pay the employees they have. And multiple sources have corroborated the company only existed to push California to cancel the high speed train project so the dependency on cars and tesla remained. The company was a ruse to enable car dependency over better alternatives. And it will be cleared for parts by some investment fund in the next 5 years.

> X is the successor who manages to be better with 20% the employees.

X has more bots than before, worse reliability, it has no content moderation so gore, pdf, porn, and scams are all up, and it has a way diminished userbase and advertiser base on a platform that was barely breaking even. "better" is certianly a word, but not one that describes twitter nowadays

> Use it everyday while Twitter was a censorious hellhole. On X you can say what you want without being systematically censored

the word cis is banned lmao. You cant even talk about organic chemistry nowadays. But at least you can say the n word while you attempt to do a rug pull on a bunch of porn bots.

Also you know when the platform hid likes? It was the day Elon got caught liking degrading porn about having a small penis. That is a weird day to hide public likes which had been a feature since forever.

> Not making enough kids makes humanity die

Most of the planet is well above replacement rate. Humanity will peak at around 10-12 billion people, we are at 8. We are nowhere near an extinction event level problem.

> ~2010 after which the western society started getting very self destructive while authoritarian governments rise in power

the dude took 20 billion from the Saudi monarchy to buy twitter, he cosied up to Trump a dude who openly denounces democracy, and has praised absolute shitbags like Erdogan who think his illiterate cousin could make a good economic minister (they had the highest inflation on the planet the next year).

The dude is the poster child for venerating authoritarian goverments, he would never speak badly of china because he has a massive factory there. Despite the govermetn openly hating him and giving way more money to local chinese car manufactures. They spit on his face and he says "thank you Xi"

> you've contributed absolutely nothing but hate, misinformation

"misinformation" is quoting his close associates, the economic reports of his own companies and his public statements? Damn, his words are lies?

> For people that actually care (unlike arkhaine here): https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-is-n...

You took 13 days, came here with a weirdo blog of no relevance but let me just highlight what i think is the cherry on top of this shit sundae.

"Here John repeats a popular talking point (“Elon hates Jews”), but the “great replacement theory” is a ludicrous far-right conspiracy actively promulgated by Trump and his surrogates, and while Elon’s reply managed to get him in the middle of a simmering controversy between certain factions of the American Jewish community and other progressives, it didn’t read to me as antisemitic. "

Elon Musk funder of a dude who promotes antisemetic tropes, who has said things that makes those people think he is one of them well I random indian guy who writes blogs "didnt read it as antisemetic". Also lets ignore the seig heil twice on stage for some reason.

This is the level of unfounded self assurance that describes elon musk fanbois. "I know better than the entire jewish community because I dont think he is racist". Doesnt matter that they have dealt with this for 2 millenia, or that they are keenly aware of dog whistles, or that he has done overtly hate symbols in public, because I KNOW BETTER. You know better than Elon Musk friends because you read a fluff piece 6 years ago.

Dunning Kruger wants your address, they need to make a part 2 of their syndrome and name it after you.

I think you've been drinking the koolaid too much. He's only in it to enrich himself and his cronies. There's a reason he's on course to become a trillionaire and it ain't because of altruism.

Yeah starting a rocket company is the best way to become rich. As so many before him managed doing that xd

get a grip. Research how financially mad / "irresponsible" that was.

I'm well aware of SpaceX's history. I've read Eric Berger's book and have been a hopper watcher. None of what you said detracts from the fact there's a reason he's on target to becoem a trillionare and it's not altruism. I see you've drunk too much of the koolaid too.

He is not fixing anything, he is just a human, the kind with flaws, that thinks he isn't.

The argument here is that Elon thinks he is perfect while he isn't, and that makes everything good he does bad. This can so easily debunked it's not really worth a thought.

"Fixing" the US government

If removing bloat isn't fixing, idk what is on your standard.

Do you really think the people he's getting rid of are material to the mission of the agencies themselves, given even those missions are as relevant as they were when they were founded?

X sure is doing well with 20% of the crew regadless of the doomsayers screaming how it would crash at the time xD

Look past what he says and into what is actually happening.

He is actively helping take health care from poor people. He is firing thousands of people with families, mortgages and medical bills without cause. He is closing our national parks. All so he can personally have a tax cut.

His ex-wife is frantically posting for him to help with the healthcare of their own son in his replies. He can't even manage his family I don't think he has the betterment of humanity on his mind.

I believe it's quite easy to look at any humans actions and cherry pick a narrative of malfeasance or malice if that's what you're looking for.

Musk does a lot of things at a very high level publicly so I think it's an even easier task. I'm sure you'll disagree but I believe it's this false narrative and who's creating it that you should be doubting.

Many people don't have a problem with a lot of what Musk has done. He's not perfect and does make mistakes which he openly admits like any sane rational person should. I do believe his good intent is there and he generally tries to right wrongs.

I'm watching closely what he does and sometimes I have my doubts. If I ever see him actually cross a line I'll change my mind. For now, most of the narrative has been pretty typical fake news and timeless partisan disagreement on methods of governance.

This is just denialism.

So ... Because people who could bear families, but could not earn a living are being "left on dire straits", and Elon is against upkeeping such an unearned situation, Elon's the bad guy?

The vision that sees this as bad is obviously tainted by corruption, and is so not worth of care especially as the people leaving their jobs will have a damn good golden parachute.

At least try to argue on the same level.

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