Musk's world has given me a triple-whammy. But probably a much-needed one.
I was raised on much of the same "good old fashioned future" Sci Fi Musk was so from time to time self-driving electric cars, satellite enabled instantaneous global comms, neural-machine interfaces, Tom Swiftian Tunnel Boring Machines, and Rocket Ships to Mars all tickled my fancy. For the most part my inner old-man-luddite has rejected those as actually particularly good (or necessary? ideas). Half or more here may still think they are GoodIdeas(tm). Then when I look at the hamfisted way he's gone about pursuing those technoUtopian dreams... standing on the shoulders of giants (while trampling their faces?) and taking credit for things which are either drawn from the commons or were actually done by the same minions he likely derides daily and even fires. Then when he jumped into MAGA World with both feet (but only getting a few inches of air under his feet (and at his beltline) in the process) and now with his DOGE license to kill, I went from mild fascination to little use, to absolute abhorrence.
I kept one share of TSLA just to remind me everytime I check the trading boards that I deserve what I get (missed riches by divesting whilst having pawned a little piece of my soul for a while for minor-riches?). Now how to divest both my investments and consumer activity from supporting the *other* tech BrOligarchs which followed him into the MAGA camp so blithely. Did I see that Eric Schmidt was in Trump's Superbowl Box?
On 2/11/25 8:57 AM, glen wrote:
Yeah. What most irritates me about Tesla, SpaceX, and NeuraLink (maybe even StarLink) is that there are really good people behind the actual work. It feels like a typical trade show to me. Sure, maybe there are knowledgeable people at some of the booths, but most of them are mid-level bureaucrats who talk more about the marketing bullets than the actual content of the thing they're hawking. It's a developed skill to avoid the booth person who *tries* to approach you and start yapping marketing bullet points and stay just out of range until an actual dork arrives that you have to approach.This trend away from fundamentals and toward memes is really frustrating. But maybe it's recency bias. Maybe it's always been this way and I don't understand it because I'm just a dork.On 2/11/25 7:40 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:Apparently, Tesla only managed to show profitability last quarter due to unrealized earnings on Bitcoin. Stock is way overvalued.-----Original Message----- From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2025 7:36 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] OpenAI and the fight between Elon and SamWhat do the Twitter purchase and the OpenAI bid have in common with the dismantling of USAID and the DEI purge?Control the narrative. He's not defending open-source. And he's not trying to crush the competition. He's trying and succeeding at controlling the narrative.In many ways, Musk has learned from Trump. Or maybe they both came up with the similar tactics separately. Firehose insane bullsh¡t every minute of every day so as to confuse and exhaust all those authentic people out there trying to decode your bullsh¡t. It's a form of security through obscurity (or steganography if you're generous). But Musk is different from Trump in that he has real fvck you money. It literally doesn't matter if he lost $40B in Twitter or if he loses $97B in OpenAI. What matters is whether he controls the narrative.On 2/10/25 11:31 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:Elon and Sam co-founded OpenAI (along with others) as a non-profit, aiming to make AI open-source for the good of humanity.Then things got messy. Elon walked away, saying he didn’t want a conflict of interest since Tesla was also diving into AI.Later, Sam flipped the script. He created a for-profit version of OpenAI and planned to quietly absorb the non-profit into it. Elon was furious, calling it a betrayal of OpenAI’s original mission.Now, Elon is back with a bold move. He and a group of investors have slammed $97 billion on the table to buy the non-profit OpenAI. Their mission? Keep it non-profit, make it open-source again, and stop OpenAI from becoming just another corporate cash machine.The OpenAI board is expected to reject the offer, but here’s the twist—it puts a clear price tag on the non-profit OpenAI. That makes it much harder for the for-profit side to just absorb it for free. Game on.Of course, maybe Elon’s move isn’t just about saving AI for humanity. Could he also be trying to crush the competition? Maybe feeling a little left out of Trump’s $500 billion Stargate project that includes Sam but excludes him?
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