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So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

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Comments

  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Who'd have thought a white Afrikaner born and raised in apartheid South Africa could turn out to a vulgar racist who compares PoC to animals?

    /s



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 991 ✭✭✭erlichbachman


    Could Elon use this same legislation to prevent hate speech against him on boards, or would this legislation apply only to X?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Unfortunately many will defend including many here. We now see him and others who defend (including here) for what they are; white supremacists hell bent on inciting hatred and violence against people of colour and anyone who supports anti racism

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    It's understandable already. He is a white supremacist hellbent on unleashing violence against people of colour and the Irish nation.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,492 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Why would a "free speech champion" be taking legal action against an organisation who published a report on Twitter failings?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,297 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Is it racist dog whistling today? Or is today the day he labels someone new a "paedo", to use the phrase he is so fond of? Or will it just be blatant lies about politics?

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,657 ✭✭✭Doctor Jimbob




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 991 ✭✭✭erlichbachman




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    It's very clear what I am saying. At this stage Elon is an extremist and a threat to lives and democracy.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,297 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Well you know, if Elon proves us all wrong and offers us a place in spite of these criticisms I'll be magnanimous and accept :)

    I wouldn't hold your breath though!

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    The Mars colony is a fantasy. Do you think Musk's money wouldn't be better spent trying to make this world better - instead of flushing it into founding some privatised colony, on a planet where a single failed system could kill everyone?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,557 ✭✭✭eightieschewbaccy


    Elon's colony is a fantasy, now wanna deal with the fact he's promoting racist nonsense? A portion of posters seem to outright approve of the propaganda and tis a bit sad.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    The Mars colony is a fantasy

    And so was going to the Moon. It takes people like him though.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,537 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    you might have to. breathable air is probably extra.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,557 ✭✭✭eightieschewbaccy


    Given how his cyber truck is turning out, I'm inclined to say it ain't happening under Musk. Musk invariably makes high claims and fails to deliver, on top of that his main personal focus appears to center around making uninformed statements and social media.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    And how many people are living permanently on the moon, to the nearest zero if you have to guess like?

    Mars isn't just fantasy, it's lunacy and makes no practical sense outside of tech bros who have taken the "Torment Nexus" tweet to heart. While i'd merely invoke Dr. Ian Malcolm's most famous aside as a response.

    And AGAIN. Why not spend that incalculable wealth trying to fix our problems here on Earth? It wouldn't be anything to do with the fact him and his ilk are the predominant contributors to climate change, would it? Or just that it's hard and would take effort?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,368 ✭✭✭crusd




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    Going to the Moon made no practical sense, I mean other that the huge scientifical and technological advancements that space exploration brought. Same will apply for Mars. There is no need to go anywhere now and in the foreseeable future, but at some point we may have no choice. We need to keep the space exploration going, even when we don't see any immediate practical reasons.

    And if anything will drive us out from Earth it won't be climate change, we can adapt to that.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Setting up on the moon makes entirely more sense than Mars, given it could potentially fuel our future energy requirements, if the theory pans out and Helium-3 becomes of value.

    If the world becomes so uninhabitable that Mars becomes a preferable scenario, we truly fúcked up as a species. If anything made sense it'd be terraforming as the long term project, not huddling in a privatised, libertarian colony where the only other option is suffocation and death.

    And if anything will drive us out from Earth it won't be climate change, we can adapt to that.

    Except for ... ya know. The untold millions-to-billions in the Developing World incapable of adapting through lack of finance or infrastructure; they might disagree as they're pushing towards our borders, fleeing their own collapsing nations. Do at least try to see the problem from a broad global scope of potential catastrophe and not an "I'm All Right Jack" mentality (though recent flooding in Cork doesn't exactly bode either).

    Tangentially, I always find it amusing that anti-immigration types are such climate deniers, cos the latter is absolutely gonna make the former more pronounced. If anyone should be pro saving the world, it's the Tucker Carlsons and their ilk.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,657 ✭✭✭Doctor Jimbob


    The chances of Earth becoming uninhabitable and Mars being a viable alternative within my lifetime are slim.

    Even if it does happen, the chances of Musk being responsible for getting us to Mars are even slimmer.

    The chances of him inviting me, you, or any other pleb along for the ride are... well you get the idea.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,066 ✭✭✭Christy42


    There is a difference between colonising Mars in the near future and space exploration. Musk's followers think the former is happening, the 2nd is generally regarded as a good thing.


    A Mars colony is not required for space exploration as it stands and we don't have close to the tech required for it. To begin with the rockets to get there aren' t even the biggest blocker as it stands and that is the only one Musk has put effort into.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Musk's interest in rocketry is so he can launch satellites for money. At some point he will make the next generation of ICBMs for the USA, or he will provide rocket motors etc.

    Anyone who thinks he genuinely wants to colonize Mars is daft.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,130 ✭✭✭I.R.Y.E.D


    But but the true believers are special and will be chosen. Otherwise they just spent their time making fúcking idiots out of themselves for someone and others like him who wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    I never learn. Mars bad, Space Karen bad, with people like you we'll never go anywhere. No, I don't really think he wants to save humanity, I'm not daft, and neither is he. Space exploration is good money, it always was, but also it's a benefit to humanity, even when SS nazis like von Braun are leading.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,297 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    I guess it was wrong of the US then to not allow von Braun to spew out SS and Nazi rhetoric while he was working away on projects "for all mankind"? A terrible infringement on his free speech.

    But maybe you disagree with that.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,159 ✭✭✭✭pjohnson


    Musk seems to think hes a real life Tony Stark so him trying to recreate Iron Man plotlines really isn't surprising.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,657 ✭✭✭Doctor Jimbob


    It's not that people think scientific progress and colonisation of Mars is a bad thing, people just don't think Musk is going to contribute anything worthwhile towards those aims. Despite the relentless attempts from Musk and his fanbase to insist otherwise, the man is no genius - he's just a loudmouth with deep pockets.

    Unless I've missed something I don't quite see where accidentally buying twitter and somehow making it even worse fits into the grand plan to save humanity.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    people just don't think Musk is going to contribute anything worthwhile towards those aims

    Because people put their hate for him and their ignorance ahead or reality and reason. SpaceX already contributed reusable rockets, largest rocket ever launched, global fast low latency satellite internet. SpaceX is basically the US space program at the moment, how can anyone think they won't contribute anything worthwhile?



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    I don't care if it's Elon Musk or Tom Hanks, Martian colonies are a wasteful fantasy with a myriad of (fatal) flaws and problem, and maybe consider the pragmatism and points raised challenging the idae, instead of throwing a huff 'cos you think we have a collective hard on to diss Musk.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    We should be looking to build a Mars colony precisely because a Mars colony will be a huge and extremely difficult undertaking. But we will learn so much. We should also do Moon, no reason to not do both. I don't care who does it either, but it will be someone that is not a nice human being. Do you think that Apollo missions leaders were nice people? No, they were the kind of people who predicted there will be fatal accidents and whole crews lost but they did it anyway.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60,912 ✭✭✭✭Agent Coulson


    Musk in Isreal today getting a personal tour from the Israeli prime minister of the site of the terrorist attack.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 785 ✭✭✭scottser


    He's not a free speech champion though. He wants to indulge in hate speech and not be held accountable for what he says. He doesn't care about anything or anyone but himself.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,557 ✭✭✭eightieschewbaccy


    SpaceX also facing a lot of workplace safety issues that simply wouldn't be acceptable in the likes of NASA. Which once again raises the question, why should he be trusted with establishing an experimental colony in space when he can't maintain safety standards on earth?


    But as per usual, you're gonna just ignore all the problems around Musk... I don't believe we're gonna see a successful colony on Mars under his watch and that's based on how he operates.


    You can say the people Apollo missions were willing to take risks but they were calculated risks, Musk seems more likely to go for outright unsafe.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    What has niceness got to do with anything? You haven't given any quantifiable reason we should build colonies in the first place beyond some aspirational sense that "we should", and now Apollo people weren't possibly nice. How you think you know that I don't know. There's a thing called "calculated risks".

    Should we continue space exploration? Yes, we should because it brings us untold information at the cost of zero lives. What does a Martian colony bring us? At least the moon makes sense 'cos of the potential of Helium-3 - but Mars is barren and brings us nothing except a nonsense of the Plan B - that doesn't even track 'cos the planet is inimical to human life in the first place. With the added disadvantage that rescue or escape is itself a death sentence. I think you're grossly underestimating the logistical, astronomical and simple KM distance difference between the moon and Mars.

    Meanwhile, the idea of any colony should not be given to private industry whose focus and priority is not the betterment of human reach, and I daresay would be an analogous form of the old US Mining Towns of yore; if we are to colonise it has to be government led to at least guarantee some semblance of humanity in the construct.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,657 ✭✭✭Doctor Jimbob


    SpaceX as a whole will likely contribute a lot.

    Elon Musk specifically will likely contribute nothing beyond money - and I'd have a lot more respect for him if he'd just shut up and do that instead of trying to portray himself as something he isn't.

    Real geniuses don't tend to spend their time being racist and accusing people of being paedos on social media.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    What does a Martian colony bring us?

    The knowhow on how to build one. The reasons and opportunity for innovation. We can't even say now what we will invent while trying to build it. We can only hope it's going to be at least as fruitful as what has been invented so far:




  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,711 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    And again I ask: why Mars and not start with The Moon? It has potential, demonstrable mineral wealth, a spaceport would suddenly increase our opportunities for further exploration (no atmosphere & I think the infamous "Mars Window" would disappear, but open to correctio), and is close enough that if it all goes pear shaped we can pull the plug "relatively" easily. We already have a good idea too how a colony would work, with subterranean dwellings a good candidate to avoid the lethal solar radiation that'd also be a probem on Mars.

    The Mars stuff is just trying to run before we can walk, and Musk is adding nothing but money & unrealistic goals. If he scrapped this nonsense and said "LEt's build on the Moon", I'd listen. I'd listen more attentively if he deferred to governmental control - but that's another matter. But he's pursuing the idea, like the brain microchip, cos he's a nerd with no head on his shoulders.

    Post edited by pixelburp on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,566 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    And if anything will drive us out from Earth it won't be climate change, we can adapt to that.

    If it becomes serious enough we won't "adapt", we'll perish. The Earth will be fine. She can deal with wildly fluctuating temperatures and extreme conditions.

    We'll be fucked though.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,069 ✭✭✭hoodie6029


    Whatever he actually believes, he publicly says:

    We live in a simulation

    We need to escape to Mars

    Bought a microblogging site for billions to stop wokery.

    (given up seriously following him since then)

    Don’t listen to this clown and don’t listen to anyone how defends him.

    Don’t forget that he and his PayPal mate CZ (Binance) were behind the pump and dump of Dogecoin in 2021 that primarily young adults were left holding the bag while these billionaires had them thinking that they’d make them millionaires by buying ones and zeros. Despicable.

    This is water. Inspiring speech by David Foster Wallace https://youtu.be/DCbGM4mqEVw?si=GS5uDvegp6Er1EOG



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    @pixelburp

    why Mars and not start with The Moon?

    As a great man (coming from wealth and power just like Musk) once said, "We chose to go to Mars not because it is easy, but because it is hard".



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,557 ✭✭✭eightieschewbaccy


    Except they said that about the moon and there's pretty good reasons to use the moon as a starting point rather than jumping the gun entirely. On top of that, if he makes a complete mess of a mars mission due to his approach to safety, that could negatively impact space travel in general in the medium term.


    Also let's just remember that this entire discussion is just dodging the topic of how he's spent the last while engaging in racism on the social media platform that he's decimated.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,069 ✭✭✭hoodie6029


    ’Ask not what oppressing others can do for you, asking what you can do to oppress others’

    (A little off, I know…)

    This is water. Inspiring speech by David Foster Wallace https://youtu.be/DCbGM4mqEVw?si=GS5uDvegp6Er1EOG



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,066 ✭✭✭Christy42


    Coward talk. Colony on Neptune or nothing!


    Or you know an actual sensible aim and ongoing research. Again because a lot of people have done great work with scientific exploration from space travel does not mean every idea with regards to space is a good idea.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,186 ✭✭✭Cordell


    I don't care about his alleged racism, I never defended him as a person - because I don't care how he is as a person.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,568 ✭✭✭Flaneur OBrien


    The true terrible thing is the difference he could make here, on this planet with his wealth is utterly nuts.

    If he focussed on say, cleaning up the oceans or deforestation or anything that could improve the lives of millions of people instead of spunking his load into space.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,297 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    And the way to do that is blow $40 billion plus on a social media platform ... then run it into the ground such that it has lost at least half its value since then.

    This fits into the plan how and where???

    The levels of creative thinking being deployed here to try to excuse what Musk has done and is doing with Twitter beggars belief.

    You have set this up to somehow defend of Musk and it doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny.

    But hey, blowing all those billions is worth is just so you can share your mates racist tweets to a wider audience and call whoever you don't like a "paedo" - to use Musk's favourite insult.

    Really shows where Musk's priorities lie.

    This vision you try to present of Musk does not match reality and exists in your mind unconnected / not founded on the actual evidence and conduct.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,557 ✭✭✭eightieschewbaccy


    You're fawning over him at every turn. And how he publicly conducts himself negatively impacts his businesses. You haven't even bothered addressing the fact that there's known safety concerns around SpaceX, instead it's constantly jumping to him being a pioneering genius.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,500 ✭✭✭✭fullstop


    Would rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail than watch that kunt speak about anything 😘



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,841 ✭✭✭TomTomTim


    It's very easy for those who've generated little to tell people who've generated much what to do with their resources.

    “The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.”- ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,566 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    I love this laughable B movie attempt at logic that is us colonising Mars in anyone's lifetime or for the next 4 or 5 generations...at least. It's such a pipe dream at present as to be a Wellsian fantasy. We'll all be well dead before we could get a realistic colony operating even on the Moon, never mind Mars.

    Into the bargain, the only thing that Mars has over the moon is some gases in its atmosphere and a soil of a sort. Both of which are actually extremely harmful to us BTW. Perhaps one day we'll be able to neutralise the dangers within those elements, but for now and the foreseeable future that's just not possible. In any case, those two very dubious "advantages" that Mars has over the Moon are outweighed by all the other pressing issues facing us with regards to a colony on the red planet. 1.) It's a long way away. A very long way away. Currently it takes over 9 months to get there and that's unmanned flight which also requires a certain alignment between the planets that happens only every couple of years. That's a long time to be travelling in the conditions that are required and would have significant impact on our bodies and our mental state. It isn't impossible, as Valeri Polyakov showed on Mir. But it is an extremely difficult prospect for the majority of trained astronauts, never mind anyone else. 2.) It's a one way trip and will be for a very long time to come. And expecting anyone to be able to A. fly to Mars and B. start setting up a colony there when they land is pure fantasy at present and that's only considering the resources (or lack thereof) that would be required. 3.) Mars is a very hostile environment to us. Aside from an unbreathable atmosphere and a lethal soil, it experiences incredibly violent and unpredictable dust storms that can cover the size of Earth's continents. These also last for weeks or months in certain cases. Such a thing would wipe out any colony we would be capable of setting up in short order. It makes our current issues with Earth based climate change look like a walk in the park...and all that's before we get into the extremely cold average temperature on Mars 4.) Cancers are an extreme risk on the red planet as there is little to protect us from the effects of solar radiation and we have very little in the way of knowledge of shielding ourselves from it in a colony sized endeavour.

    Put short, absolutely none of us are going to Mars any time soon, certainly not to stay. And if by some miracle we do manage a manned trip, it would require at least a 21 month journey.



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