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September 30, 2021 - 11:00am
You probably don’t have a spare hour to listen to Keir Starmer’s conference speech in full. But just in case to you do, let me urge to listen to Elon Musk instead.
Appearing at the Code conference this week, his interview with Kara Swisher is a much better use of your time. Given the choice between listening to a talker or a doer, choose the doer every time — especially if the latter is willing to say what he or she really thinks instead of hiding behind bland PR statements.
Musk is unfiltered. Indeed he appears to relish provocation. Answering questions on his space race rivalry with Jeff Bezos, Musk comments on Bezos’s rocket. “It could be a different shape, potentially…” Asked to explain its current shape from a technological point view, Musk is happy to oblige: “if you are only doing sub-orbital then your rocket can be sort of… shorter.”
On tougher issues, like his tax affairs, Musk is also outspoken (or at least gives that impression). He’ll be paying over 50% tax on his stock options (when they expire), he says. As for the stratospheric increase in the value of those shares he said: “I’ve literally gone on record and said I think my stock price is too high… and this did nothing to stop the rise in the stock price. So what am I suppose to do?”
He gives pithy answers to other questions. What should governments do about the rise of cryptocurrency? “Nothing.” How about the use of psychedelic drugs to improve humanity? “People should be open to the use of psychedelics.” Are we living in a computer simulation? “My heart says no and my brain says yes.”
Perhaps we’re all living in Elon’s simulation — an environment in which he cleverly fuels the hype surrounding his various ventures. Except it’s not just hype. What he’s done to push forward the frontiers of technology is real. Tesla has lead the way on electrical vehicles. Space X on commercial space flight. His work on self-driving technology may hasten the end of human-driven cars (or “two-ton death machines” as he calls them).
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Subscribe“Possibly the greatest threat to human civilisation is the rapidly diminishing birth rate.
“It was the most important thing he said in the entire interview. The approaching demographic crunch is terrifying.”
Not sure about that. This week Unherd posted an article about the possibility of China forcing its citizens to have more children to avoid the demographic crunch. One commenter astutely noted that, if technology really does replace most jobs over the next several decades, the smart move for every country is to have fewer children. There will be limited employment opportunities for people in the future. And, as a side benefit, with fewer people comes less pressure on the climate and natural resources.
And what of the need for ‘degrowth’ to lessen planetary ill health aka human ill health ?
The people who would sign up to be space colonists are presumably aware that it’s going to be a miserable struggle. Just like colonists anywhere. (Or, y’know, do you think the Pilgrims or ancient Polynesians said “Oh, I guess we’ll just check this place out, hold off on the babies for ten or twenty years, maybe wait until we all get a raise or something…”)
Love Elon, but not too keen on billions more humans.
I’m going to have to disagree with Mr Franklin on several of his points. Elon Musk is demonstrably a snake oil salesman, for the following reasons:
People who love Elon are people who have never taken the time to investigate his claims and who buy into the notion that there is some modern day “iron man” who will solve the world’s problems.
If he gets his way with Starlink, as one example, he may well make global satellite communications for the foreseeable future of civilisation, impossible. If you don’t believe me, read about the very real Kessler problem, and how Elon’s poorly thought out, government subsidized madness, would potentially bring the Kessler problem to a hopeless critical mass.
Watch the “debunking Elon Musk”-type videos on YouTube. He’s a sociopathic scam artist.
Watch his rockets land instead. Much better videos.
Some scam, considering his achievements.