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Comment by uejfiweun | Hacker News Reader

People rooting against SpaceX are just rooting against Musk TBH. That's why all these launches have so much negativity these days. And these people are very online. But viewed through a neutral lens, it's a clear positive for humanity that these rockets are being developed. I wouldn't let the online discourse put a bad taste in your mouth.

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> through a neutral lens, it's a clear positive for humanity that these rockets are being developed

Musk's cuts at USAid have caused an ongoing humanitarian crisis and some 300,000 deaths, mostly children[0]. I think if you're coming from a neutral, utilitarian point of view then SpaceX's role in this atrocity outweighs any realistic estimate of benefit to humanity.

[0] https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=titl...

I guess by that line of thinking, everyone who has ever been involved with Musk has a "role in the atrocity". Everyone who ever bought a Tesla, everyone who ever used PayPal. Now that I think about it... SpaceX launches US government satellites... and the US is a democracy... that means every single person in the US is culpable. Thank you for opening my eyes, I hate everyone and everything now.

You’re deflecting. You can’t claim to be objective and negate the fact this man alone by his totally insane actions has been causing tremendous harms by preventing people from getting life saving drugs just .. for no reason than showing he could do it.

Ok, sure man. Musk bad. That's what you wanted me to say, right? Anyway, I'll continue rooting for SpaceX and Starship, because I've loved space and sci-fi ever since I was a kid and this is the only organization that seems to be moving us toward that future.

It's probably impossible to get a neutral take on Musk or any of his companies' operations anymore. The guy's a lightning rod for the extremes of both sides. There is too much breathless, gushing fandom (OP's comment), too much negative detraction and belittling, and very little actual neutral engineering talk that happens in any of these forums.

Agreed. And unfortunately it's Musk's own fault.

It's a shame to me because I don't really give a damn about the guy, I just like space and think rockets are cool, but we have a situation where a potentially revolutionary rocket is being overshadowed by the CEOs antics to the point that people are rooting for the rocket to fail. It's tragic, in a way.

I should also say that HN is much more positive on SpaceX than, e.g. ArsTechnica. There’s no point in reading the comments over there. At least here the criticism of SpaceX is interesting and well-thought-out (usually).

In general, the opinion on SpaceX among space enthusiasts seems to be overall very positive, and it is usually only people who are not very interested in space that comment negatively on SpaceX -- but only since Musk got involved with the Republicans. Or at least that's the case on Ars Technica, which tends to be pretty partisan.

It's a clear positive for SpaceX. How much humanity stands to gain has yet to be seen.

As with anything else, it depends on your point of view. Does Hubble benefit humanity or should we have spent the money helping the homeless instead?

There is no correct answer; only preferences. I happen to like SpaceX’s goals.

Ah, yes, of course. I wasn't trying to make quite the esoteric point. More specifically that currently, if starship succeeds, it will be good business for SpaceX and enable them to launch many more satellites around earth at a cheaper cost but greater scale. I don't think this will be much of a positive for humans in general (beyond the current state).

Now if the lofty goals of enabling Mars and Moon habitation come to fruition, I would take a different view. For now I consider achieving that goal to be science fiction, but hopefully that changes in my lifetime.

Agreed! That makes sense.

Agreed! And thank you for putting it in perspective.

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