[wesleywt]

Politicians and empire-builders (Elon) is currently standing in the way of human progress and history.

[WalterBright]

So creating cheap, reusable giant rockets is standing in the way of human progress? Being able to use neural links to restore sight to the blind is standing in the way?

[Mordisquitos]

I'm pretty sure that GP commenter was referring to the other stuff.

[lukan]

There was another group of people famous for building innovative rockets, but are otherwise not associated with human progress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb

So it is about the big picture. (And about small pictures like that of Elon making a salut like the other group).

So yes, currently his rockets do not transport explosives. But that can change anytime and I expect it will very soon.

[BoredPositron]

Haven't seen anything of your talking points make any reasonable impact in societal problems.

[i_cannot_hack]

Elon Musk is promoting progress only when he has something to gain from it (in economical terms or in terms of his image), but has no qualms wrecking progress, butchering indiscriminately and hurting prople when it comes to his personal grievances. This is further aggravated by his mercurial and egomaniacal personality, and the false reality build on conspiracies he surrounds himself in.

Hapazardly and chaotically dismantling the US public sector on some ideological crusade was not advancing human progress. Netiher was turning Twitter into some farcical shell of its former self, owned by Saudi Arabia. Neither was sabotaging projects such as high-speed rail systems purely out of spite.

> Musk told me that the idea originated out of his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system. … At the time, it seemed that Musk had dished out the Hyperloop proposal just to make the public and legislators rethink the high-speed train. He didn’t actually intend to build the thing. … With any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled. Musk said as much to me during a series of e-mails and phone calls leading up to the announcement.

Any good he has produced along the way (that mitigates the damage he is causing) is only a means to an end for him, and he would have no hesitations burning it all to the ground the moment it suites him. If everyone acted like him humanity would be doomed, not quickly progressing toward some technological utopia.

Or, as his acquaintance Sam Altman put it: "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it."

[michaelsshaw]

I must have forgotten that Elon actually is the original founder of Tesla and not a phony. At best he's their money guy.

Do you think Elon knows a single thing about rockets? Do you actually think he has literally anything to do with them? He isn't even capable of forming a sentence without stuttering, much less actually doing literally anything at all. Keep defending your pedophiles, bro. I'm sure in 10 years you'll be glad we have a written record of your stance.

[flawn]

It's not what his businesses are doing, it is what he says and what he spreads to a tech bro disciple that spreads this shit far away, working with technologies like AI at the forefront, ending up setting us back in our progress & history.

Same applies to Thiel, Zuckerberg and whoever not. Read up on Thiel & Trump, then come back.