captaincranky
Posts: 19,396 +8,529
My point is that in spite of the tax breaks he has gotten, which just barely made him competitive, now that those are drying up, a lot of people are jumping on the "poor Elon bandwagon'. Thus had to be expected, as no government in it's right mind, is going to continue to do what amounts to supporting him with an unfair competitive advantage. Like I said, if he's going to "run with the big boys", then I expect he should pay taxes commensurate with being one of them. The tax breaks are drying up in Europe, and Musk is doing his "poor me, I'm the victim here", typical routine.
If I listened to, "some random people on the internet", then I suppose I'd have to believe that Musk can do no wrong, and he's the greatest thing which has happened to the world, ever. That simply isn't true, and a great many of his "magnificent breakthroughs", are really nothing more than publicity stunts. This is particularly true of the model S. "look how fast it is", a point which is becoming transparent and tedious. The man is better than most working magicians at creating diversions, to draw the public's attention away from the reality of his money losing businesses..
What fascinates me most about him, is how did he manage to become a billionaire, after selling only about a 1/2 million cars or so. For all the hoopla he creates, that's not really that many units. Well, he has an answer for that, and it's because the big car manufacturers are, "out to get him"., which is really getting to be ad irksome and tedious diversion.
So, perhaps the Model 3 will come to fruition. To me that doesn't matter. If I want a current car model built for me, I can expect to be able to walk into a dealership, tell them what I want, and have it maybe a few weeks later. Not so with any Musk product. The hype is, he announces a "new product", .then immediately explains he's gotten so many orders he won't be able to fill them for a considerable amount of time. In the case of the Model 3, he really is going to need to build another factory first, to deliver the vehicle in the quantities he would like us to believe are sold. This is typical, and this is SOP for Musk.
IMHO, the tech world never sees this man for who they'd like to imagine he is, unless they're wearing really thick rose colored glasses.
The "victim BS", started up again with the Space X rocket explosion. Musk was asking the public for video of the event, and again, putting the idea into their heads he can do no wrong, and once again he's the victim of some vague alleged conspiracy..
I spent a considerable portion of my youth watching the Air Force attempt to launch satellites with their "Redstone" boosters, and as often as not they blew up on the pad. On the strength of that, the conclusion could be drawn the despite this centuries technological advances notwithstanding, we haven't really gotten as far as Mr. Musk claims he has...
There are many people who certainly aren't as optimistic about that as you are. Myself being an old guy, I lived through the times when fission reactors were going to fulfill all our energy needs forever. Then came Three Mile Island, then came Chernobyl, which BTW, isn't cleaned up yet, and is getting worse.
While I realize that the materials involved with atomic fusion aren't as inherent deadly as those required for atomic fission. the explosive might is far in excess of what is available from atom splitting. I witnessed the H Bomb test on Bikini Island, which BTW, has been renamed to "Bikini Atoll" I suppose we'll see.
Some things you can make foolproof, possibly bordering on ***** proof, but we haven't come up with anything which is truly "human being proof". Time will tell...
