“There are more people that die in Europe from heat deaths than people that die from gun deaths in America. Why aren’t you writing an article about air conditioning?” asked Musk.
“Well, we’ve done several on air conditioning, and we had on our cover last week a whole long piece about…” said Beddoes.
“Pro-air conditioning?” Musk asked sheepishly.
“Very pro-air conditioning,” she responded. “You should read us sometime.”
It’s kind of the perfect moment. Musk throws out some meaningless gotcha and then asks why the media isn’t talking about something that he’s become hyperfocused on. In his ignorance, he demonstrates they actually are writing about the thing he cares about. And he just looks like an idiot.
I especially liked this part. The video of this exchange is even better! He thinks he's sooooo smart with these middle school level retorts...
This got me thinking of what a wild experience that must be for a baby. And what a weird thing "peekaboo" is that we just do to babies and they love it and it's so fun for both parties
Is this something that humans have done with their babies forever? Is this a type of oral tradition humans have adopted that transcends cultures?
Babies forget we were there, but love that we came back, and we get a dopamine hit from the smile they give us. It’s probably an evolutionary ancient game.
I haven’t read the link above, but do any other animals play like this? I think wolf pups and dogs might do this too, not to mention apes, bears, any probably most other non prey animals. Or animals that raise their young for any significant amount of time.
I didn't think serious adults used follower numbers to justify anything. Especially when you're talking about followers on your own personal Nazi platform.
Why would he care about how many followers he's got on Xitter anyway? He's already hardcoded it to promote his posts to every single Xitter user, whether they've followed him or not.
He is easily one of the most hated people on this planet, especially after the murders he committed by cutting all those federal services that help people.
He's a selfish prick that ignores charity and flaunts fascism openly, complete with a televised salute attributed to one of the most evil men to ever walk the earth.
The superiority of homegrown tomatoes is like THE universally agreed upon gardening fact that everyone who's ever had a garden knows. People go their whole lives thinking they don't like tomatoes or that they taste bland and then they try a homegrown one and they're like "Wow, that's what this is supposed to taste like?"
“And also, if you look at the people that are employed at my companies. You know, we have senior executives of all races. I don’t think there’s any racism there.”
440 workers filed five lawsuits, with 54 to 98 plaintiffs in each, seeking damages over the alleged racism at the Fremont plant. As of July 24, the number had grown to 854 workers in 10 lawsuits with 54 to 106 plaintiffs each.
Musk insisted backyard tomatoes weren’t as good as those you can buy from the store, but people still do it anyway.
Spoken like a man who has never grown tomatoes at home.
I hated tomatoes until I ate a home grown Black Krim sandwich. Now there's the added benefit that I know it's not covered in salmonella or diarrhea parasites.
My neice apparently "hated" tomatos until she tried a cherry from my greenhouse. She ate six of them and every time she came over patted the outside of the greenhouse singing "mato mato mato please"
Most store sold tomatoes aren't allowed to ripen on their own and their flavours are totally messed up as a result
Most store sold tomatoes aren’t allowed to ripen on their own and their flavours are totally messed up as a result
This is what many people need to learn and it applies to many varieties of fruit. Most fruits can't ripen after being picked. They just soften and rot.
He's correct about The Culture being an amazing vision of how humanity's future could look like. He's absolutely off his rocker about how to get there
The Culture IS “fully automated luxury queer space communism”, that's just a straight-up summary of it. In The Culture:
it's communism. There's not even money.
everyone can “gland” drugs for pleasure, performance or to change their sex. How the fuck does that match Musk’s anti-trans shit?
diversity permeates everything; obviously internally, but also externally, as they try to get along with everyone who isn't a galactic imperialist threat. How the hell does that match Musk’s xenophobia?
It's weird how Musk seems to basically be a tankie: he wants to achieve communism by any means necessary …
Honestly it's batshit that anyone can read The Culture and NOT understand the entire point is that The Culture persists and succeeds where others fail because of it's values and diversity. Very much including those constant sex changes and anarcho-communism/socialism.
Hell, the Idiran war (for those not familiar, a horrible war that takes place in the first book and the rest of the books in various ways deal with the fallout and trauma from it) is entirely about fighting a jingoistic, imperialist force before they gather enough strength to inevitably destroy the culture.
This tells me that either Elon has never actually read them, or that he's a moron.
I guess i got to read them more. I only read Player of Games and Consider Phlebas and my take away was that they have what's almost a paradise but it's still fucked up.
A common mistake readers make is that they believe the Vavatch orbital is Culture. It's very definitely not, so all the unsavory stuff going on there isn't a reflection of the Culture. Not Damage, not the Eaters (they hate The Culture!), and so on.
Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, and to a lesser degree Player of Games are mostly outsider perspectives of The Culture, so that warps judgement a little too.
IDK if Iain Banks could have made it clearer that Vavatch is non-Culture. I guess us only knowing drones and orbitals from The Culture made some readers conflate the two societies despite their extreme moral differences.
The Culture doesn't believe in non-interference. But it's not “CIA shit” if they're actually doing it to influence a society to become better rather than just pretending that that's the goal in order to take their oil.
Can bet he doesn't even knows how the inside of a store looks like, neither how a stores tomato tates like. His personal chef must source them from an specialty farm or even grow them itself without Musk even knowing about.
Yeah, home grown actually have flavour. The shit you buy in supermarkets mostly just tastes of water because it's been harvested too early and shipped halfway round the world. I got some really yummy orange cherry plants going at the mo, can't remember the variety but I've finally learned to get blight resistant varieties.
I’ve never gotten anything of significance from my grows. A Handful of tomatoes, shrunken zucchini. I don’t know how people produce anything that makes a dent in their grocery bills without significant cost and time investment. Do you own land? Are you working like a farmer?
I live in a van on a disused carpark, so everything I grow has to be in pots. The key is regular feeding - I use an organic seaweed extract. Comfrey tea is good if you don't want to spend money, fuckin stinks tho.
Edit - eating some of my tomatoes right now, actually, with a bit of cheese. Yummy!
Yeah, I think the most classic rookie gardening mistake is thinking that plants only need water. They need nutrients just like the rest of us. By only giving plants water they basically starve to death when they have depleted their growing soil of nutrients.
I'm not good at it by any means, but it's a process and it gets easier. I am also not at the point where it could save me money after year 1, but Ive learned and I can see it. The most important steps for me... First step, wait for snow and buy a greenhouse when it's super cheap, you will want bigger than you think. Greenhouses can also get too hot, figure out a plan for that. Second step, buy seeds for plants farmers actually grow in your climate not just the ones in the store. There are more varieties of individual plants than expected and ones bred for your climate will grow drastically better.
How is that mediocre nazi cunt still getting media coverage when he should be treated like he's never existed?Men like that don't coil when they're hated. They melt when they're ignored.
Caring what one the richest people in the world wants/says is only partially celebrity culture.
He is directly responsible for significant portions of our country's space program and has personally altered our government's structure and spending, resulting in at least thousands of deaths, so far.
Pretending his thinking is as inconsequential and ignorable as any other moronic Nazi on Twitter is about as dumb as worshipping him.
A notable thing the article doesn't specify is that when the pasty pap smear and the journalist discussed his constant idiotic claims that "UK is inevitably headed for civil war", first he said it was a natural consequence of people having different points of view. Okay... she disagreed and he insisted she just didn't know because she lived a "cloistered life". Ah yes, obviously this trillionaire moron who has been rich all his life doesn't lead a cloistered life. He's a real man on the street.
“If you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi-infinite economy,” said Musk. “The future is going to be very, very different from the past. There’s no analogy or metaphor that I think illustrates the magnitude of change that we’re going to experience here.”
This is a classic argument from ignorance. "If I don't know about something, then it doesn't exist."
But one very stupid thing about his statement is that there is obviously an analogy. It's just like when people openly owned slaves. Slaves do all the work, and the master profits. Or, you could say it's just like the life Musk is living right now.
Fuck me, the word "robot" is even derived from an Old Slavic word meaning "slave." It's right there in the fucking name. But Elon doesn't know about it, so I guess it doesn't exist.....
Musk is like a slightly smarter version of Trump discovering the word 'dumb' has a 'd' in it. He delights in using words like 'quasi', because he thinks it makes him sound like some sort of ahemuber-intelligent god-man who he thinks everyone should worship.
There's also all the backend that he doesn't care about. The power and the materials required for those robots and digital intelligences comes from a place, it doesn't just materialize as parts for your stupid Optimus.
He suggested that everyone read Iain Banks for a vision of the future, and Beddoes pointed out that Banks was a socialist. Musk insisted he wasn’t.
Criticizing a thing as socialism when it's actually capitalism. Describing a socialist utopia and insisting it's not socialism. This isn't a thing unique to Musk. Why are people like this?
During the red scare, the boomers were programmed to be scared of anything remotely communist. The middle class was allowed to exist as 'muricas bling mostly to distract from the societal improvements theorized by socialist philosophers. In the 50s in America, they gave us just enough for people to shut up and try to be happy for 50 years while the underlying systems were being broken even worse than before. Some people are particularly susceptible to this and would trade their freedom for a tide pod, a stick of gum and a pocket constitution while rabidly denouncing socialists (even those who advocate for the benefit and fair treatment of non-socialists and socialists alike). Socialism is painted with the brush of it's biggest failures; capitalism is only painted from the angles that make it look good and hide it's collateral fallout.
Tl:Dr 50+ years of social conditioning and societal sculpting done to ensure scary communists from the 1940s and 50s don't call you comrade.
As someone who has read all the books in Culture series I would (and will if provoked) argue that, as most books about utopias, it's actually describing a dystopia. No idea if it's socialist or not, but in the society Banks is describing people are reduced to the role of pets, not equal partners of AI.
Not really, human agents are still highly valued, hence the combo of human+drone team. If what you said was correct then they're have just used avatars for everything. Djan Seriy Anaplian for example was a fucking badass.
Straight out in the first book Culture is shown as the bad guy, civilization that is not alive and has to be destroyed. It wins eventually but the point stands: Culture kind of like the Borg, absorbing humanoid species and growing without limits.
No other civilization relies on AI as much. In Hydrogen Sonata you have good description of other civilization that uses digital constructs that are still based on humans, not pure AI. There's clear distinction between AI controlled Culture and other civilizations. Why other civilizations don't use AI as much? Because they don't want be controlled by it.
It's clear AI likes to use people so it manipulates them to do what it wants. Player of Games is clear example of that. In State of the Art AI straight out assassinates a guy who doesn't want to follow its orders.
In State of the Art Culture is also shows as sterile and boring. Everyone behaves because they don't have a choice, their actions are meaningless, they don't really control or anything or advance the civilization.
People have more of a sentimental value for AI. It does recognize human as intelligent the same way we recognize that animals are alive. People are sure taken care of but everything is run by AI. People are just pets.
Straight out in the first book Culture is shown as the bad guy, civilization that is not alive and has to be destroyed. It wins eventually but the point stands: Culture kind of like the Borg, absorbing humanoid species and growing without limits.
No, not really. Very intentionally by Banks, we see the Culture through the eyes of Bora in the first book. Bora hates the Culture, for his own ideological reasons. He believes that the Culture makes people soft and complacent and lacking agency, but we're shown in the book how he's wrong.
Further, he allies with the Idirans - a strictly worse civilization: brutal, imperialist, religious zealots who squash the civilizations they capture below their feet, breeding and dumbing them down to serve them.
The Culture is absolutely nothing like the Borg. The Borg forcefully concquer unwilling participants and suppress their individuality to force them into essentially slave labor.
The Culture grows by the merit of people wanting to join it. No-one is forced to. Their ideals are just something resonating with people. Individuals' needs are fully taken care of, but in complete opposite of the Borg, it's to enable each member to fully flourish and live their life to their own aspirations, free from material desperations.
I'm sorry, but what you originally wrote is exactly something that would come out of Bora's mouth, and is just as wrong.
(Btw Banks has talked about how he wanted to first show the Culture through the lens of an enemy, and then dismantle that distorted view.)
No other civilization relies on AI as much. In Hydrogen Sonata you have good description of other civilization that uses digital constructs that are still based on humans, not pure AI. There’s clear distinction between AI controlled Culture and other civilizations. Why other civilizations don’t use AI as much? Because they don’t want be controlled by it.
True, but again, this is something that other civs say about the Culture, not literal reality. Humans, drones and Minds are not equally powerful, sure, not even close; but that there's no (systemic! Stories sometimes focus on rogue individuals, be they human or machine!) abuse of this, that the Culture is as equitable as can reasonably be imagined, is one of its strengths.
It’s clear AI likes to use people so it manipulates them to do what it wants. Player of Games is clear example of that. In State of the Art AI straight out assassinates a guy who doesn’t want to follow its orders.
Yes, somewhat. The stories intentionally focus on the fringes of the Culture. (Plus, Gurgeh actively decides that he WANTS to get into Contact/SC, knowing that this sort of thing happens, and then is used as a pawn). Regarding the killings: this is part of accepting machine and human equality. If you would bind these superhuman Minds via Three Laws of Robotics or the like, then suddenly we have a class of oppressed machine beings.
I think the main point here is: we focus on the interesting bits and outliers (as Banks himself said), and as I tried to describe above, this issue is not systemic. We see, what, 5 cases like this? In a galaxy of trillions.
In State of the Art Culture is also shows as sterile and boring. Everyone behaves because they don’t have a choice, their actions are meaningless, they don’t really control or anything or advance the civilization.
Somewhat true, but again: you're mixing what a character expresses about their perception with literal reality. A character, for that matter, who already was on the fringe of the fringens, being an SC agent. It's also heavily implied that he simply romanticizes earth. Earth is backwater, exciting, chaotic; but if he really just wanted "non-stagnant", he could have kept his relative safety and went into any of the non-Culture, but alien-acquainted civs.
And heavy, HEAVY disagree on the Culture being meaningless: this even is discussed in the books themselves! The Culture does, from time to time, debate its right to exist; why not sublime? And the answer is, because they're doing measurable good.
We also see the culture change pretty drastically between, say, Consider Phlebas and Player of Games.
People have more of a sentimental value for AI. It does recognize human as intelligent the same way we recognize that animals are alive. People are sure taken care of but everything is run by AI. People are just pets.
Once again, this is a sentiment expressed by some characters, not literal reality. However, I actually think it's somewhat close to true. At least in the following sense:
If Minds would stop caring about humanity tomorrow, then Culture citizens would be fucked, the same way your dog would be fucked if you stopped feeding it tomorrow.
However, where the analogy breaks down is that Minds don't cage, neuter, steal from the wild, or restrict humans and drones. They took over production, transport and so on not because they wanted to keep humans in check, but because to them it's literally no bother; so why not? Seems like a nice thing to do! I.e. its altruism, and without strings attached.
Note also that the "humans are just pets" argument is expressed multiple times by characters in a derisive way, but never shown to be the truth, and arguably the books show how and why it's wrong.
Banks and his characters do examine the Culture from various, critical perspectives, which is why I'm so confident to say: the Culture is a Utopia.
Some interesting points! Not sure why you're being downvoted for having an opinion, even if it's not the same as some others, but I appreciate you taking the time to discuss the series. Such a shame he didn't get to write more.
The Culture is described as a libertarian utopia (EDIT: libertarian socialist? I think I misremember. At least socialism as a word doesn't appear), except that the habitat minds are benevolent and you have practically socialism because nothing costs anything. Not even land really because they can build as many orbitals as they want. They have zero laws. You can also see it as an anarchist utopia. You have no market and no capitalism. Basically once you have AGI and full abundance, economic systems like capitalism/socialism don't mean anything any more.
Only ethics matter then, which Musk is incapable of because he's a malignant narcissist. And he has been actively trying to create a malignant (anti-woke) AI.
The Culture is some sort of quasi-anarchic non-capitalist thing, though it's hard to say for sure. It certainly is not capitalist, though, as the role of profitable production is not to increase the capital of those who already have it. Nothing is really socialized, though, and private property does seem to exist, so I don't know that I would consider the Culture socialist or even communist. Maybe some sort of anarchic post-communist utopia.
In any case, Musk is a fucking idiot. Just a genuinely foolish person. And, like, yeah, Banks himself was a socialist.
Right it would be called revisionist. The idea that socialism is one rigid set of prescriptive ideals is a misconception, at least to most political scientists. There are of course Orthodox Marxists, but nobody really takes them seriously outside of their little internet fiefdoms. For most other political philosophers, socialism is a range of beliefs and practices loosely tied together by the desire for, or belief in a post capitalist world. How you get there and what it exactly looks like is the topic of much debate, to the point where it usually feels counterproductive to even get tied up in labels. This "proper noun" philosophy is a good way to get oriented out of the gate, but the real work comes in how those labels get reduced to first principles more than the labels themselves.
Narrator: "But he did care. He cared a lot. In fact, he was desperate for people to love him, and proclaim him the best person in the history of humanity, in any field of endeavour. Desperate".
“On the one hand, we started this conversation, and you described to me this extraordinarily transformative, amazing civilizational changing stuff that’s happening in the next 10 years. And yet you’re also, you know, an ongoing participant in the worst kind of tribalism… cesspit of social media.”
Beddoes asked how he can believe in these “two very different views of the world.” Musk simply responded, “I don’t think they’re inconsistent,” without elaborating further.
Beddoes is absolutely right. If money isn't going to be a thing in 10 years, then why not just spend like crazy right now? It doesn't matter if poor people move to rich countries because it will all be moot in 10 years. You can just use deficit spending if that's really the case.
Or you know what? Musk could use all of his vast wealth to improve as many lives as he can for the next 10 years. He'd be up there with Andrew Carnegie among the highest echelon of rich assholes who will be remembered for a long time by doing nothing except giving their money away. If he only has to do this until this singularity where money becomes meaningless, there's no point to him saving money all the way until that moment.
I suspect Musk lost it when people stopped treating him like a genius enough and pointing out his scam bullshit. He's a narcissist. With so many people turning against him, psychologically he has to rationalize that they are all garbage people.
See I was thinking we just need a brave hair/makeup person with a hidden blade to use while getting him ready for camera before one of these interviews.
Now now, he doesn't have to resort to suicide. After all this stress maybe he should just relax. Have a drink and some Ketamine and relax in a nice deep bath.
Rumor has it that he tried to get a penis enlargement surgery, which failed, resulting in his need to 1) eternally prove his manhood to the world in other ways 2) artificially inseminate all the women that has birthed their 14 children.
Second one is verifiable, rest is more vague. Can't personally attest to the truthfulness of the botched penis surgery, but he sure acts like a dude with a astronomical inferiority complex.
Also, typing that thing about his 14 children made me do a double take. Bros trying to start a fucking dynasty. The musk clan shudder
Musk said he wanted a Star Trek version of the future
Oh cool! So like a place where we make a conscious effort to learn and understand people and cultures we don't know anything about? And we try to treat them all with respect and let them have a seat at the table? That's so awes... What? That's not what he meant?
Musk, in a post on X on Sunday, claimed those who say DOGE’s USAID cuts resulted in deaths “cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the ‘millions’ they falsely claim have died. Not a single name!” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who last year identified specific people he says died after USAID-backed services were disrupted, quickly responded with the names of four he said died because of the cuts, including an 8-year-old girl, and suggested the world’s richest person travel to Africa with him to “talk to these moms and dads, and you’ll see the dying children themselves.” In another post late on Monday, responding to a separate response from Kristof, Musk called Kristof “an utter piece of s— and a liar.”
A study published in March 2025 found the loss of aid funding for children facing malnutrition in low- and middle-income countries would cut off 1 million children from treatment, potentially resulting in 163,000 child deaths each year. Another study published in the Lancet in July 2025 found the funding cuts could cause the deaths of more than 4.5 million children and more than 14 million total deaths by 2030. Kristof, citing data from the Center for Global Development, found that more than 1.6 million people could die within a year without American foreign aid for HIV prevention and treatment. A tracker co-created by Boston University professor Brooke Nichols projected more than 780,000 deaths caused by the cuts, roughly 518,000 of which are children, after cuts to treatment for malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia, among others.
His ideas aren't contradictory, they make perfect sense. He's a Nazi, in the most literal sense of the word. He wants socialism for White people, endless abundance for the chosen few and endless suffering for anyone else.
He grew up in a society where this shit was the norm. His shitty Nazi family moved to South Africa from Canada so they could relish living in a white ethno-state.
Yup, if his world views are not contradictory it means the Utopia he talks about is not for everyone. He even may not properly be able to explain it, because he leaves out that crucial point that there's an underclass that will be exploited, managed, killed or whatever else is necessary to achieve his utopia for the few.
We should send him to the dark side of the moon where the Nazis belong to.
Good journalists do not lick rich assholes boots, well done. I am fed up of many letting rich assholes spread all the fud they want. This enterview was refreshing.
this effing moron still cant get self driving to work and many of his competitors have surpassed his self driving efforts by a wide margin. But he's going to change the world with ai and robots huh. right. He's a bullshitter who buys companies and cosplays as a visionary. Just like with tesla, just like with spaceX. He doesnt know how to do the work to get there though, or how to maintain it once he buys a real visionary out.
They're the main blurts of the thousands of praisebots he has on Twitter that respond to criticism of him. Sadly, there's an equal number of actual humans who worship him so, as well.
I know what you mean, but he wouldn't leave reality in thst sense, so to do that you would have to do some Hightech voodoo which we don't know how yet.
Its why I still clown on Maga nutjobs in comments every now and then. My favorite is when i get to Troll with Bubba commentary. We've got the most openly progressive president thanks to Epstein guys!
In principle, if you have robots which can do all the work then the amount of stuff available becomes decoupled from the number of people to provide it.
The whole concept of there not being enough of something to go around goes away, because if you don't have enough of something you tell the robots to build some more robots to make that thing.
This presumes much more capable robots than we're able to make, of course, and also that there's an unlimited amount of raw resource available. That could be the case if you're able to send to robots to mine the asteroid belt, but it certainly isn't the case now.
That isn't actually infinite, of course, but I don't think it's unreasonable to describe the economic equivalent of "all you can eat" as "quasi-infinite", if you're feeling grandiose.
It's also not going to happen in the immediate future, because the technology simply isn't there yet, but people who have drunk the AI kool-aid seriously believe it.
then the amount of stuff available becomes decoupled from the number of people to provide it.
That has nothing to do with AI, we already have autonomous manufacturing. So "stuff" is already decoupled from the amount of people available in many cases. And it still doesn't create infinite resources.
I think your parent comment was referring to what Space Karen was saying and not just the most utopian future vision.
First, you need robots and AI advanced, general purpose and reliable enough to a point where we are not even close to imagine. Contrary to what Space Karen suggests, which is always 3 years away.
Second, we still have the HUGE problem of raw materials and energy limitations, which is another huge problem we've been trying to solve for the whole history of humanity, a couple of meme generating LLMs will not help with that.
Third, you really need a 180 in economy global system in order to avoid any of the distopian alternatives: either the rich enslaving all the poor, the poor killing all the rich, or any combination. I don't believe for a fraction of a second that Space Karen is thinking on any utopian future in which he is not the most rich person, and his argument is that money doesn't mean anything with robotics.
So, lets first focus on the global transformation of people having their needs fulfilled first and then we can think on a future that is, at very best, decades away anyway (the jumps AI, robotics and energy production have to make in a fundamental level are crazy to think will happen in the next 10-20 years)
So, as a thought experiment? sure, but you and me will be dead before that can be achieved. as any argument to make any of the Space Karen companies seem valuable or worthy of any tax advantage? Fuck nope
We're really not that far. We could honestly just do more of what we've been doing to get there with robotics, 5 more years of this even with the worst version is probably enough to get chore robots done.
Second, we still have the HUGE problem of raw materials and energy limitations
Human need is finite, we have already mined up enough stuff for all humans, and humans don't reproduce at the replacement rate in fully developed nations. Robots that can manufacture solar panels fully autonomously is all it takes to fix energy limitations, and recyclings only problem is that it's more economical to mine new things.
Third, you really need a 180 in economy global system in order to avoid any of the distopian alternatives: either the rich enslaving all the poor, the poor killing all the rich, or any combination.
Why bother in a world of complete abundance? The only real example of completely senseless violence in humans is religious, outside of this it is all resource based.
Will I get added to the cool people list if I say I'm glad I got banned from reddit for calling Felon a Nazi? He's DONE SO many things with Doge alone that qualifies him for prison.
I can't even imagine the amount of work some people had to put in before to make this guy look less like a dumbass. How many takes of his appearance on Iron Man had to go the bin?
He's like a goddamn charisma vampire. Also, a Nazi.
It fit him perfectly. Trying to insert himself in places he doesn't belong, talking about shit he doesn't know anything about, while having the charisma of a basement dweller.
I am curious how Elon expects robots to create infinite abundance with limited resources.
Where those robots are going to be getting fresh water? Nuclear energy? Rare earth for GPUs? They are all limited.
There is also only a limited amount of CO2 you can pump into the atmosphere until you create uncontrollable spiraling of greenhouse effect. And since basically all consumption creates additional CO2, you can't have infinite consumption without causing infinite CO2
Theoretically with intelligent enough AI and robots the only limit is energy since you can perfectly recycle everything. Reverse entropy by using abundant solar or wind power. Imagine robots digging up and sifting through and sorting and "mining" all our landfills. Theoretically you could organize this so that it also emits very little CO2.
We just don't do it because it's cheaper to dig up new stuff and it would be a lot more work. So under capitalism it's practically impossible. We could today already drastically improve quality of life and use only 30% of energy and resources.
I'm writing this because I believe technology is not the issue, and no amount of growth or technological advancement will save us without improving our culture.
It reminds me of Kurt Vonneguts "Player Piano" where workers want to smash the machines for taking their jobs. It's not the machines, it's the people who they work for and benefit who are holding us all back from building Utopia.
If a factory replaces 100 workers with robots it doesn't necessarily make any less widgets. Just keep paying everyone and take turns monitoring, repairing, and rebooting the robot when it breaks.
In a world where technology can fully satisfy the needs of humanity, there is no need for human production of anything but art. We should share in this as equals, not as oligarchs and the unwanted extras on whose backs it was all built.
Yeah if we pulled most programmers off of producing competing and duplicate software or frivolous apps, we could put them to program robots and advanced CAM / computer aided manufacturing to manufacture or recycle appliances and materials. Not just robots building robots.
By the end, Musk was so agitated by facing real questions that he just resorted to whining about how awful the media can be. He seemed to think that his popularity on X, the platform he owns, was evidence that most people actually love him.
“A quarter billion people follow me,” Musk said, referring to his X followers, adding “I think a lot more people actually like me than don’t.” The billionaire then said that “a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize.”
Someone better tell phony stark that it’s possible for two things to be true at once - lots of people hate legacy media AND him.
Maybe? Some? That is one way to be delusional. People had to buy bumper stickers for their Teslas because of how much you are hated. Seems like he was completely annihilated in this interview, wish I was there to lick his tears
“If you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi-infinite economy,” No, what you have is no need for the NPCs or whatever you call people you don't like, which is how we get Terminator.
Just goes to show that billionaires have no taste. Whether it is home-grown versus store bought tomatoes or gluing gold spray-painted plastic to the walls, their lack of aesthetic is showing.
I really don’t notice a difference between home grown or store bought. But I really think it depends on the store and season you’re buying from. If it’s actually in season, supplies are more local and fresh. If you’re buying a tomato in February, of course it is going to be awful, it’s being shipped thousands of miles. And you can’t grow your own tomatoes in February unless it’s in your house or a green house (which is a luxury I’ve never even met someone I knew had. You own a whole other building, on property? You own property in which you can fit another building?!)
Apples are the worst offenders, if you’re buying apples in spring, you’re buying last year’s harvest.
I grow my own tomatoes. In my area the difference between the homegrown and storebought is night and day (with the homegrown ones being way better). I understand how it could be regional though.
Man, this screenshot sure makes it look like ole Elon hasn't touched grass in a long time. Dude looks like shit. Must be hiding inside, afraid to show his face to the masses.
189 Comments
LuckyDevil@piefed.social · 236 pts · 34d
I especially liked this part. The video of this exchange is even better! He thinks he's sooooo smart with these middle school level retorts...
KelvarCherry@piefed.blahaj.zone · 110 pts · 34d
"I didn't see it, so it must not exist" -- world's richest man; also infants under a year old who haven't yet developed object permanence.
socphoenix@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 34d
I dunno man, my 7 month old has at least an inkling of object permanence, so gotta bump that ager down to like 3-4 months old imo!
Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone · 14 pts · 34d
Mines coming up on 5 and still no idea i exist when we peekaboo
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk · 15 pts · 34d
The should definitely have object permanence by age 5
Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 34d
5 months my dude
fartographer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 33d
Celebrating 5 decades of peekaboo thrills
tpyo@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 33d
This got me thinking of what a wild experience that must be for a baby. And what a weird thing "peekaboo" is that we just do to babies and they love it and it's so fun for both parties
Is this something that humans have done with their babies forever? Is this a type of oral tradition humans have adopted that transcends cultures?
I went looking and found this:
https://uwaterloo.ca/childrens-communication-lab/sites/default/files/uploads/files/fernald.peekaboo_1993.pdf
It is a really fun read and it seems peekaboo is a game played worldwide with parents and infants
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 33d
Babies forget we were there, but love that we came back, and we get a dopamine hit from the smile they give us. It’s probably an evolutionary ancient game.
I haven’t read the link above, but do any other animals play like this? I think wolf pups and dogs might do this too, not to mention apes, bears, any probably most other non prey animals. Or animals that raise their young for any significant amount of time.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 48 pts · 34d
Whataboutism is central to conservative "discussion".
tpyo@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 33d
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-wild-response-to-huffpost-question_n_68f26217e4b0ee732e24eb66
someguy3@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 33d
Her career should have been over at that point. Unbelievable.
tpyo@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 33d
"He thinks he's sooooo smart with these middle school level retorts..."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-wild-response-to-huffpost-question_n_68f26217e4b0ee732e24eb66
mracton@piefed.social · 8 pts · 33d
The reporter fact checked that their mother in fact did not choose Budapest as the location. /lh(?)
bowroat@infosec.pub · 228 pts · 34d
trillion bucks, thirsty AF
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today · 197 pts · 34d
LOL didn't he start forcing himself to be followed by default on Twitter? That's even more pathetic.
Ariselas@piefed.ca · 121 pts · 34d
Guess he stole that idea too.
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today · 76 pts · 34d
Haha I was thinking about that too. Poor Tom was at least wholesome about it.
"Because everybody should have a friend." 🥹
I miss that era of the world wide web...
Cheems@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 34d
Tom also let you unfriend him at least. Musk shovels his shit down your throat.
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 34d
"Tom, you've been replaced."
gdog05@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 34d
Not to mention the bot farm he paid for.
einlander@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 34d
What's this, a rich man forcing himself on others?
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 64 pts · 34d
I didn't think serious adults used follower numbers to justify anything. Especially when you're talking about followers on your own personal Nazi platform.
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 34d
You’d be surprised how many such losers walk amongst us
Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online · 24 pts · 34d
Lmao what a nerd
Zachariah@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 34d
you misspelled
psychopathOwOarchist@pawb.social · 19 pts · 34d
Nah, I think they were trying to spell 'nazi'. Four letters, starting with n. Already pretty close.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 17 pts · 34d
Why would he care about how many followers he's got on Xitter anyway? He's already hardcoded it to promote his posts to every single Xitter user, whether they've followed him or not.
Chozo@fedia.io · 9 pts · 34d
Yeah Elon, and Tom was really friends with everybody on Myspace, too. Sure thing, bucko.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 33d
He is easily one of the most hated people on this planet, especially after the murders he committed by cutting all those federal services that help people.
He's a selfish prick that ignores charity and flaunts fascism openly, complete with a televised salute attributed to one of the most evil men to ever walk the earth.
treadful@lemmy.zip · 167 pts · 34d
I'm curious when the last time this man made his own meal was.
vividspecter@aussie.zone · 97 pts · 34d
What can one tomato cost Michael, ten dollars?
turdburglar@piefed.social · 40 pts · 34d
there’s always money in the afghanistan
Ledivin@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 34d
Plundering Afghanistan is so passé, it's all about Iran and Gaza now
turdburglar@piefed.social · 12 pts · 34d
yeah but that didn’t rhyme.
meco03211@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 34d
Iran rhymes but I still prefer Afghanistan. The cadence is the same as banana stand
bad1080@piefed.social · 2 pts · 34d
bananastan, the real banana republic!
bad1080@piefed.social · 2 pts · 34d
we already forgot venezuela even happened...
natecox@programming.dev · 75 pts · 34d
I came to make my own comment on this. In a vast amount of stupid shit he's said this might still be the dumbest thing.
Home grown tomatoes are like an entirely different fruit, they taste so, so, so much better than any store tomatoes I've ever had.
It's hard to even eat store bought now after growing our own.
This is so outrageous it completely undermines his entire point.
treadful@lemmy.zip · 22 pts · 34d
I enjoy how riled up you are over this topic.
wjrii@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 34d
Guy Clark knew what was what.
cenzorrll@piefed.ca · 25 pts · 34d
I don't think I've ever had a store tomato that's tasted as good as the worst home grown.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 34d
Some of the heirlooms can be pretty good, if pricey.
LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz · 17 pts · 34d
"Home grown tomatoes grow in the dirt. Do you want to eat things grown in dirt?" - Musk probably.
raspirate@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d
The superiority of homegrown tomatoes is like THE universally agreed upon gardening fact that everyone who's ever had a garden knows. People go their whole lives thinking they don't like tomatoes or that they taste bland and then they try a homegrown one and they're like "Wow, that's what this is supposed to taste like?"
EndOfLine@lemmy.world · 129 pts · 34d
“And also, if you look at the people that are employed at my companies. You know, we have senior executives of all races. I don’t think there’s any racism there.”
Tesla settles with three workers as Fremont factory racism cases by hundreds of workers continue
Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca · 20 pts · 34d
This word... I do not think it means what you think it means
john_lemmy@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 34d
He said senior executives, not workers!
plateee@piefed.social · 123 pts · 34d
Spoken like a man who has never grown tomatoes at home.
I hated tomatoes until I ate a home grown Black Krim sandwich. Now there's the added benefit that I know it's not covered in salmonella or diarrhea parasites.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 48 pts · 34d
My neice apparently "hated" tomatos until she tried a cherry from my greenhouse. She ate six of them and every time she came over patted the outside of the greenhouse singing "mato mato mato please"
Most store sold tomatoes aren't allowed to ripen on their own and their flavours are totally messed up as a result
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 33d
This is what many people need to learn and it applies to many varieties of fruit. Most fruits can't ripen after being picked. They just soften and rot.
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 34d
Because everything he says, no matter how trivial, is wrong. The man is incapable of being correct about anything.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml · 26 pts · 33d
He's correct about The Culture being an amazing vision of how humanity's future could look like. He's absolutely off his rocker about how to get there
The Culture IS “fully automated luxury queer space communism”, that's just a straight-up summary of it. In The Culture:
It's weird how Musk seems to basically be a tankie: he wants to achieve communism by any means necessary …
kata1yst@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 33d
Honestly it's batshit that anyone can read The Culture and NOT understand the entire point is that The Culture persists and succeeds where others fail because of it's values and diversity. Very much including those constant sex changes and anarcho-communism/socialism.
Hell, the Idiran war (for those not familiar, a horrible war that takes place in the first book and the rest of the books in various ways deal with the fallout and trauma from it) is entirely about fighting a jingoistic, imperialist force before they gather enough strength to inevitably destroy the culture.
This tells me that either Elon has never actually read them, or that he's a moron.
Probably both.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 33d
I guess i got to read them more. I only read Player of Games and Consider Phlebas and my take away was that they have what's almost a paradise but it's still fucked up.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 33d
A common mistake readers make is that they believe the Vavatch orbital is Culture. It's very definitely not, so all the unsavory stuff going on there isn't a reflection of the Culture. Not Damage, not the Eaters (they hate The Culture!), and so on.
Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, and to a lesser degree Player of Games are mostly outsider perspectives of The Culture, so that warps judgement a little too.
IDK if Iain Banks could have made it clearer that Vavatch is non-Culture. I guess us only knowing drones and orbitals from The Culture made some readers conflate the two societies despite their extreme moral differences.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 32d
I also only 'read' as an audio book so i might missed a few details. I was not even referring to Vavtch. But the cia shit they pull in PoG.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 32d
The Culture doesn't believe in non-interference. But it's not “CIA shit” if they're actually doing it to influence a society to become better rather than just pretending that that's the goal in order to take their oil.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 31d
But that is just their idea of better.
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br · 14 pts · 33d
Can bet he doesn't even knows how the inside of a store looks like, neither how a stores tomato tates like. His personal chef must source them from an specialty farm or even grow them itself without Musk even knowing about.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 33d
both of his foods are cocaine and ketamine. and some dom perrignon.
smeenz@lemmy.nz · 8 pts · 33d
I could never get my sandwiches to flower
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 34d
Yeah, home grown actually have flavour. The shit you buy in supermarkets mostly just tastes of water because it's been harvested too early and shipped halfway round the world. I got some really yummy orange cherry plants going at the mo, can't remember the variety but I've finally learned to get blight resistant varieties.
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 33d
Seriously. Vine ripe tomatoes are literally the best candy in the whole god damn world.
He's such a fucking fraud
shiroininja@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 34d
I’ve never gotten anything of significance from my grows. A Handful of tomatoes, shrunken zucchini. I don’t know how people produce anything that makes a dent in their grocery bills without significant cost and time investment. Do you own land? Are you working like a farmer?
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 34d
I live in a van on a disused carpark, so everything I grow has to be in pots. The key is regular feeding - I use an organic seaweed extract. Comfrey tea is good if you don't want to spend money, fuckin stinks tho.
Edit - eating some of my tomatoes right now, actually, with a bit of cheese. Yummy!
uienia@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d
Yeah, I think the most classic rookie gardening mistake is thinking that plants only need water. They need nutrients just like the rest of us. By only giving plants water they basically starve to death when they have depleted their growing soil of nutrients.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 33d
Gardening is a skill like any other
A skill that can be learned and practiced to get better at.
plateee@piefed.social · 3 pts · 33d
I use 15 gallon fabric planters successfully. Get a good indeterminate variety going and it'll take off.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 34d
I'm not good at it by any means, but it's a process and it gets easier. I am also not at the point where it could save me money after year 1, but Ive learned and I can see it. The most important steps for me... First step, wait for snow and buy a greenhouse when it's super cheap, you will want bigger than you think. Greenhouses can also get too hot, figure out a plan for that. Second step, buy seeds for plants farmers actually grow in your climate not just the ones in the store. There are more varieties of individual plants than expected and ones bred for your climate will grow drastically better.
stringere@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 33d
Try something like these for venting.
https://www.farmstandapp.com/364268/best-solar-vent-openers/
This was a quick search to give an idea of what is out there. I think the ones I got were <$40.
BaraCoded@literature.cafe · 101 pts · 34d
How is that mediocre nazi cunt still getting media coverage when he should be treated like he's never existed?Men like that don't coil when they're hated. They melt when they're ignored.
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 19 pts · 34d
New America is your answer.
Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 34d
Thats just celebrity culture. Thats global. We all pay too much attention to ppl who ultimately dont matter/dont deserve it
turmacar@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 33d
Caring what one the richest people in the world wants/says is only partially celebrity culture.
He is directly responsible for significant portions of our country's space program and has personally altered our government's structure and spending, resulting in at least thousands of deaths, so far.
Pretending his thinking is as inconsequential and ignorable as any other moronic Nazi on Twitter is about as dumb as worshipping him.
jpreston2005@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 33d
600-750,000 Deaths alone are due to his dismantling of USAid.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 33d
Hundreds of thousands through the destruction of usaid alone
Eh_I@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 33d
What kind of weak shit is this. We're talking about Nazis and eugenics and you come up with 'boys will be boys it's our fault for not looking away'
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d
But it kind of does matter because of the influence he has. I would love to ignore him, but fact is he has a lot of control on our lives.
architect@thelemmy.club · 6 pts · 34d
You get it. Too bad most don’t.
updn@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 33d
I tried looking it up but I still don’t understand
plyth@feddit.org · 4 pts · 33d
Maybe you don't understand what the media is.
zeppo@lemmy.world · 84 pts · 34d
A notable thing the article doesn't specify is that when the pasty pap smear and the journalist discussed his constant idiotic claims that "UK is inevitably headed for civil war", first he said it was a natural consequence of people having different points of view. Okay... she disagreed and he insisted she just didn't know because she lived a "cloistered life". Ah yes, obviously this trillionaire moron who has been rich all his life doesn't lead a cloistered life. He's a real man on the street.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 74 pts · 34d
This is a classic argument from ignorance. "If I don't know about something, then it doesn't exist."
But one very stupid thing about his statement is that there is obviously an analogy. It's just like when people openly owned slaves. Slaves do all the work, and the master profits. Or, you could say it's just like the life Musk is living right now.
Fuck me, the word "robot" is even derived from an Old Slavic word meaning "slave." It's right there in the fucking name. But Elon doesn't know about it, so I guess it doesn't exist.....
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 34d
Musk is like a slightly smarter version of Trump discovering the word 'dumb' has a 'd' in it. He delights in using words like 'quasi', because he thinks it makes him sound like some sort of ahem uber-intelligent god-man who he thinks everyone should worship.
Basically, he's a needy little bitch.
Mirshe@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 34d
There's also all the backend that he doesn't care about. The power and the materials required for those robots and digital intelligences comes from a place, it doesn't just materialize as parts for your stupid Optimus.
Jyrdano@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 34d
corbindallas@fedinsfw.app · 56 pts · 34d
this bitchass can just lie, or say anything he wants, nothing happens. no repercussions, nothing. why does he even struggle?
just say whatever is expedient for you. we hate you. and wosh you a slow death by cancer regardless of what u say
eugenic loving nazi queen
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 33d
We're only about halfway through Act 2. We're still in the middle of the story, and there is a lot yet to be written.
nullspace@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 34d
Criticizing a thing as socialism when it's actually capitalism. Describing a socialist utopia and insisting it's not socialism. This isn't a thing unique to Musk. Why are people like this?
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 34d
People like Musk are so high from huffing their own farts, they can't even conceive of the possibility that they might be wrong.
njordomir@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 34d
A simplified and opinionated explanation:
During the red scare, the boomers were programmed to be scared of anything remotely communist. The middle class was allowed to exist as 'muricas bling mostly to distract from the societal improvements theorized by socialist philosophers. In the 50s in America, they gave us just enough for people to shut up and try to be happy for 50 years while the underlying systems were being broken even worse than before. Some people are particularly susceptible to this and would trade their freedom for a tide pod, a stick of gum and a pocket constitution while rabidly denouncing socialists (even those who advocate for the benefit and fair treatment of non-socialists and socialists alike). Socialism is painted with the brush of it's biggest failures; capitalism is only painted from the angles that make it look good and hide it's collateral fallout.
Tl:Dr 50+ years of social conditioning and societal sculpting done to ensure scary communists from the 1940s and 50s don't call you comrade.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 6 pts · 34d
As someone who has read all the books in Culture series I would (and will if provoked) argue that, as most books about utopias, it's actually describing a dystopia. No idea if it's socialist or not, but in the society Banks is describing people are reduced to the role of pets, not equal partners of AI.
PrimeErective@startrek.website · 4 pts · 34d
That's the "fully automated" part of "fully automated luxury gay space communism"
stom@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d
Not really, human agents are still highly valued, hence the combo of human+drone team. If what you said was correct then they're have just used avatars for everything. Djan Seriy Anaplian for example was a fucking badass.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · -1 pts · 33d
Yes really.
Straight out in the first book Culture is shown as the bad guy, civilization that is not alive and has to be destroyed. It wins eventually but the point stands: Culture kind of like the Borg, absorbing humanoid species and growing without limits.
No other civilization relies on AI as much. In Hydrogen Sonata you have good description of other civilization that uses digital constructs that are still based on humans, not pure AI. There's clear distinction between AI controlled Culture and other civilizations. Why other civilizations don't use AI as much? Because they don't want be controlled by it.
It's clear AI likes to use people so it manipulates them to do what it wants. Player of Games is clear example of that. In State of the Art AI straight out assassinates a guy who doesn't want to follow its orders.
In State of the Art Culture is also shows as sterile and boring. Everyone behaves because they don't have a choice, their actions are meaningless, they don't really control or anything or advance the civilization.
People have more of a sentimental value for AI. It does recognize human as intelligent the same way we recognize that animals are alive. People are sure taken care of but everything is run by AI. People are just pets.
smiletolerantly@awful.systems · 6 pts · 33d
No, not really. Very intentionally by Banks, we see the Culture through the eyes of Bora in the first book. Bora hates the Culture, for his own ideological reasons. He believes that the Culture makes people soft and complacent and lacking agency, but we're shown in the book how he's wrong.
Further, he allies with the Idirans - a strictly worse civilization: brutal, imperialist, religious zealots who squash the civilizations they capture below their feet, breeding and dumbing them down to serve them.
The Culture is absolutely nothing like the Borg. The Borg forcefully concquer unwilling participants and suppress their individuality to force them into essentially slave labor.
The Culture grows by the merit of people wanting to join it. No-one is forced to. Their ideals are just something resonating with people. Individuals' needs are fully taken care of, but in complete opposite of the Borg, it's to enable each member to fully flourish and live their life to their own aspirations, free from material desperations.
I'm sorry, but what you originally wrote is exactly something that would come out of Bora's mouth, and is just as wrong.
(Btw Banks has talked about how he wanted to first show the Culture through the lens of an enemy, and then dismantle that distorted view.)
True, but again, this is something that other civs say about the Culture, not literal reality. Humans, drones and Minds are not equally powerful, sure, not even close; but that there's no (systemic! Stories sometimes focus on rogue individuals, be they human or machine!) abuse of this, that the Culture is as equitable as can reasonably be imagined, is one of its strengths.
Yes, somewhat. The stories intentionally focus on the fringes of the Culture. (Plus, Gurgeh actively decides that he WANTS to get into Contact/SC, knowing that this sort of thing happens, and then is used as a pawn). Regarding the killings: this is part of accepting machine and human equality. If you would bind these superhuman Minds via Three Laws of Robotics or the like, then suddenly we have a class of oppressed machine beings.
I think the main point here is: we focus on the interesting bits and outliers (as Banks himself said), and as I tried to describe above, this issue is not systemic. We see, what, 5 cases like this? In a galaxy of trillions.
Somewhat true, but again: you're mixing what a character expresses about their perception with literal reality. A character, for that matter, who already was on the fringe of the fringens, being an SC agent. It's also heavily implied that he simply romanticizes earth. Earth is backwater, exciting, chaotic; but if he really just wanted "non-stagnant", he could have kept his relative safety and went into any of the non-Culture, but alien-acquainted civs.
And heavy, HEAVY disagree on the Culture being meaningless: this even is discussed in the books themselves! The Culture does, from time to time, debate its right to exist; why not sublime? And the answer is, because they're doing measurable good.
We also see the culture change pretty drastically between, say, Consider Phlebas and Player of Games.
Once again, this is a sentiment expressed by some characters, not literal reality. However, I actually think it's somewhat close to true. At least in the following sense:
If Minds would stop caring about humanity tomorrow, then Culture citizens would be fucked, the same way your dog would be fucked if you stopped feeding it tomorrow.
However, where the analogy breaks down is that Minds don't cage, neuter, steal from the wild, or restrict humans and drones. They took over production, transport and so on not because they wanted to keep humans in check, but because to them it's literally no bother; so why not? Seems like a nice thing to do! I.e. its altruism, and without strings attached.
Note also that the "humans are just pets" argument is expressed multiple times by characters in a derisive way, but never shown to be the truth, and arguably the books show how and why it's wrong.
Banks and his characters do examine the Culture from various, critical perspectives, which is why I'm so confident to say: the Culture is a Utopia.
(One we'll never reach.)
stom@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15d
Great points on both sides, and I'm just happy to see people discussing his works :)
stom@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15d
Some interesting points! Not sure why you're being downvoted for having an opinion, even if it's not the same as some others, but I appreciate you taking the time to discuss the series. Such a shame he didn't get to write more.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 34d
The Culture is described as a libertarian utopia (EDIT: libertarian socialist? I think I misremember. At least socialism as a word doesn't appear), except that the habitat minds are benevolent and you have practically socialism because nothing costs anything. Not even land really because they can build as many orbitals as they want. They have zero laws. You can also see it as an anarchist utopia. You have no market and no capitalism. Basically once you have AGI and full abundance, economic systems like capitalism/socialism don't mean anything any more.
Only ethics matter then, which Musk is incapable of because he's a malignant narcissist. And he has been actively trying to create a malignant (anti-woke) AI.
FatCrab@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 34d
The Culture is some sort of quasi-anarchic non-capitalist thing, though it's hard to say for sure. It certainly is not capitalist, though, as the role of profitable production is not to increase the capital of those who already have it. Nothing is really socialized, though, and private property does seem to exist, so I don't know that I would consider the Culture socialist or even communist. Maybe some sort of anarchic post-communist utopia.
In any case, Musk is a fucking idiot. Just a genuinely foolish person. And, like, yeah, Banks himself was a socialist.
socsa@piefed.social · 3 pts · 33d
Right it would be called revisionist. The idea that socialism is one rigid set of prescriptive ideals is a misconception, at least to most political scientists. There are of course Orthodox Marxists, but nobody really takes them seriously outside of their little internet fiefdoms. For most other political philosophers, socialism is a range of beliefs and practices loosely tied together by the desire for, or belief in a post capitalist world. How you get there and what it exactly looks like is the topic of much debate, to the point where it usually feels counterproductive to even get tied up in labels. This "proper noun" philosophy is a good way to get oriented out of the gate, but the real work comes in how those labels get reduced to first principles more than the labels themselves.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 34d
Narrator: "But he did care. He cared a lot. In fact, he was desperate for people to love him, and proclaim him the best person in the history of humanity, in any field of endeavour. Desperate".
BillyClark@piefed.social · 40 pts · 34d
Beddoes is absolutely right. If money isn't going to be a thing in 10 years, then why not just spend like crazy right now? It doesn't matter if poor people move to rich countries because it will all be moot in 10 years. You can just use deficit spending if that's really the case.
Or you know what? Musk could use all of his vast wealth to improve as many lives as he can for the next 10 years. He'd be up there with Andrew Carnegie among the highest echelon of rich assholes who will be remembered for a long time by doing nothing except giving their money away. If he only has to do this until this singularity where money becomes meaningless, there's no point to him saving money all the way until that moment.
late_pessimistic@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 34d
I guess as always: people lie with their mouth, and tell the truth with their wallet.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 34d
Yes, but he doesn't care about people, except for how useful they are to incessantly prop up his ego. He doesn't care about anyone but himself.
bandanawearingbanana@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 34d
When he was asked about Muslims he said "If people are coming to a country with anitethical views, I am against that."
Lol, like him supporting far-right European parties? Their views surely are anitethical to democracy and not spying for foreign entities.
Also, I can't find the whole interview only larger snippets on Youtube.
jpreston2005@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 33d
remember when trump personally intervened to get the tate brothers off the hook, only for them to be arrested later for rape?
Kinda like how he personally pardoned a bunch of violent insurrectionists that later were found out to be pedophile rapists?
Crazy how much of a soft spot trump has for violent pedophile rapists.
ctrl_alt_esc@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 34d
Here you go, don't blame me for having to listen to that idiot's brain diarrhea for an hour:
https://youtu.be/8TjK-s0468w
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 33d
as he was illegal immigrant along with KIMBALL to the US.
amos@slrpnk.net · 36 pts · 34d
I think we should collectively, the whole society, bully this guy to suicide.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 27 pts · 34d
I suspect Musk lost it when people stopped treating him like a genius enough and pointing out his scam bullshit. He's a narcissist. With so many people turning against him, psychologically he has to rationalize that they are all garbage people.
NessaSola@eviltoast.org · 2 pts · 34d
Love to see people knowing what a narcissist is, beyond "self aggrandizing"
horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 33d
It's kind of sad how he's having such a public breakdown.
Cherries@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 33d
Really wish he'd stop affecting other people with his mental health issues and just pop pills in private.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 33d
Don't pity Nazis
phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 30d
He could end it at any time.
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 34d
We were so close to doing that when he locked himself in his office because people booed him at the Dave Chappelle concert: https://pagesix.com/2023/11/08/celebrity-news/elon-musk-spiraled-after-being-booed-locked-himself-in-office/
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 34d
See I was thinking we just need a brave hair/makeup person with a hidden blade to use while getting him ready for camera before one of these interviews.
Carve a swastika deep into his fucking throat.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 34d
Now now, he doesn't have to resort to suicide. After all this stress maybe he should just relax. Have a drink and some Ketamine and relax in a nice deep bath.
updn@lemmy.ca · 35 pts · 33d
Holy shit he has no idea what real life even is
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 33d
his 14+children all come from IVF, of course he is out of touch. granted he was out of touch when he mangled his penis by doing a enlargement surgery.
BrowseMan@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 33d
Wait what? XD
tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 32d
Rumor has it that he tried to get a penis enlargement surgery, which failed, resulting in his need to 1) eternally prove his manhood to the world in other ways 2) artificially inseminate all the women that has birthed their 14 children.
Second one is verifiable, rest is more vague. Can't personally attest to the truthfulness of the botched penis surgery, but he sure acts like a dude with a astronomical inferiority complex.
Also, typing that thing about his 14 children made me do a double take. Bros trying to start a fucking dynasty. The musk clan shudder
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 32d
he said he wants the populated with his "children" only. hes basically a eugenics fetish,
TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id · 2 pts · 32d
I wouldn't be a eugenics fetishist with that face.
BruisedMoose@piefed.social · 31 pts · 34d
Musk said he wanted a Star Trek version of the future
Oh cool! So like a place where we make a conscious effort to learn and understand people and cultures we don't know anything about? And we try to treat them all with respect and let them have a seat at the table? That's so awes... What? That's not what he meant?
Eh_I@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 34d
He didn't say which planet. Bastard Cardies
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org · 31 pts · 34d
Just to bring some facts in here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/07/01/musk-escalates-unproven-usaid-claims-in-fiery-posts-as-studies-link-doge-cuts-to-child-deaths/
So he knows the names of some people he is responsible for their death. And studies show that his action will kill several hundred thousand people.
jpreston2005@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 33d
Surprised he didn't jump straight to calling him a pedo. Everything is projection with them.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 33d
doesnt want to draw epstein files attention to himself, or pedo donnie.
Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 34d
He can't go through the stages of grief when he's stuck in denial
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 33d
easy, he uses ketamine/cocaine to go through all the stages.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 29 pts · 34d
Lying piece of shit. This guy is just pure evil.
sculptor0725@sh.itjust.works · 28 pts · 34d
His ideas aren't contradictory, they make perfect sense. He's a Nazi, in the most literal sense of the word. He wants socialism for White people, endless abundance for the chosen few and endless suffering for anyone else.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 34d
He grew up in a society where this shit was the norm. His shitty Nazi family moved to South Africa from Canada so they could relish living in a white ethno-state.
benjirenji@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 33d
Yup, if his world views are not contradictory it means the Utopia he talks about is not for everyone. He even may not properly be able to explain it, because he leaves out that crucial point that there's an underclass that will be exploited, managed, killed or whatever else is necessary to achieve his utopia for the few.
We should send him to the dark side of the moon where the Nazis belong to.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 30d
Socialism isn't a slave society. He wants Sparta, before the helots finally killed the parasitic ruling class.
liking625@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 34d
Good journalists do not lick rich assholes boots, well done. I am fed up of many letting rich assholes spread all the fud they want. This enterview was refreshing.
kreskin@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 34d
this effing moron still cant get self driving to work and many of his competitors have surpassed his self driving efforts by a wide margin. But he's going to change the world with ai and robots huh. right. He's a bullshitter who buys companies and cosplays as a visionary. Just like with tesla, just like with spaceX. He doesnt know how to do the work to get there though, or how to maintain it once he buys a real visionary out.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 34d
"oH, yEaH?! hOw MaNy RoCkEtS hAvE yOu BuiLt?"
"yOu'Re JuSt JeAlOuS!"
They're the main blurts of the thousands of praisebots he has on Twitter that respond to criticism of him. Sadly, there's an equal number of actual humans who worship him so, as well.
LazyBaby@lemmy.zip · 22 pts · 33d
"I don't care [if people loathe me]" who do you think you're foolin' lol
Strider@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 34d
Poor guy has left reality.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 34d
Poor everyone else because he hasn’t.
Strider@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d
I know what you mean, but he wouldn't leave reality in thst sense, so to do that you would have to do some Hightech voodoo which we don't know how yet.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 34d
That's absolutely insane, and has no basis even in the hypothetical reality he proposes.
Very obviously Robots + intelligence <> infinite resources.
He has lost it completely.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 34d
He’s been saying stuff like this for decades and people chewed it up and ate it and called him genius.
TotalCourage007@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d
Its why I still clown on Maga nutjobs in comments every now and then. My favorite is when i get to Troll with Bubba commentary. We've got the most openly progressive president thanks to Epstein guys!
MartianSands@sh.itjust.works · -4 pts · 34d
I don't think that's nonsense.
In principle, if you have robots which can do all the work then the amount of stuff available becomes decoupled from the number of people to provide it.
The whole concept of there not being enough of something to go around goes away, because if you don't have enough of something you tell the robots to build some more robots to make that thing.
This presumes much more capable robots than we're able to make, of course, and also that there's an unlimited amount of raw resource available. That could be the case if you're able to send to robots to mine the asteroid belt, but it certainly isn't the case now.
That isn't actually infinite, of course, but I don't think it's unreasonable to describe the economic equivalent of "all you can eat" as "quasi-infinite", if you're feeling grandiose.
It's also not going to happen in the immediate future, because the technology simply isn't there yet, but people who have drunk the AI kool-aid seriously believe it.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 33d
That has nothing to do with AI, we already have autonomous manufacturing. So "stuff" is already decoupled from the amount of people available in many cases. And it still doesn't create infinite resources.
topperharlie@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 34d
I think your parent comment was referring to what Space Karen was saying and not just the most utopian future vision.
First, you need robots and AI advanced, general purpose and reliable enough to a point where we are not even close to imagine. Contrary to what Space Karen suggests, which is always 3 years away.
Second, we still have the HUGE problem of raw materials and energy limitations, which is another huge problem we've been trying to solve for the whole history of humanity, a couple of meme generating LLMs will not help with that.
Third, you really need a 180 in economy global system in order to avoid any of the distopian alternatives: either the rich enslaving all the poor, the poor killing all the rich, or any combination. I don't believe for a fraction of a second that Space Karen is thinking on any utopian future in which he is not the most rich person, and his argument is that money doesn't mean anything with robotics.
So, lets first focus on the global transformation of people having their needs fulfilled first and then we can think on a future that is, at very best, decades away anyway (the jumps AI, robotics and energy production have to make in a fundamental level are crazy to think will happen in the next 10-20 years)
So, as a thought experiment? sure, but you and me will be dead before that can be achieved. as any argument to make any of the Space Karen companies seem valuable or worthy of any tax advantage? Fuck nope
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz · -3 pts · 34d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S67z2aekBrI
We're really not that far. We could honestly just do more of what we've been doing to get there with robotics, 5 more years of this even with the worst version is probably enough to get chore robots done.
Human need is finite, we have already mined up enough stuff for all humans, and humans don't reproduce at the replacement rate in fully developed nations. Robots that can manufacture solar panels fully autonomously is all it takes to fix energy limitations, and recyclings only problem is that it's more economical to mine new things.
Why bother in a world of complete abundance? The only real example of completely senseless violence in humans is religious, outside of this it is all resource based.
MoonManKipper@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 34d
+1 to the Economist for actually doing some intelligent interviewing
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 19 pts · 33d
hes not a normal person, so dont ask normal questions. especially one thats on ketamine/cocaine, and been buddies with ghislaine.
Doug@piefed.social · 18 pts · 33d
“Credit where it’s due,” shut the fuck up you fucking fascist piece of shit. Goddamn I hate this man. This man can kick rocks and push daisies.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 33d
TotalCourage007@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 33d
Will I get added to the cool people list if I say I'm glad I got banned from reddit for calling Felon a Nazi? He's DONE SO many things with Doge alone that qualifies him for prison.
john_lemmy@slrpnk.net · 15 pts · 34d
I can't even imagine the amount of work some people had to put in before to make this guy look less like a dumbass. How many takes of his appearance on Iron Man had to go the bin?
He's like a goddamn charisma vampire. Also, a Nazi.
Vlyn@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 34d
I recently rewatched all 3 Iron Man movies. Elon's appearance was utterly cringe.
MBech@feddit.dk · 9 pts · 34d
It fit him perfectly. Trying to insert himself in places he doesn't belong, talking about shit he doesn't know anything about, while having the charisma of a basement dweller.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 34d
Like a certain person with the World Cup team..
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 32d
There a quarter billion morons out there following Leon Hitler. If you own a Tesla, you're supporting a fucking neo-Nazi.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 34d
greed is a disease of madness
late_pessimistic@slrpnk.net · 12 pts · 34d
I am curious how Elon expects robots to create infinite abundance with limited resources.
Where those robots are going to be getting fresh water? Nuclear energy? Rare earth for GPUs? They are all limited.
There is also only a limited amount of CO2 you can pump into the atmosphere until you create uncontrollable spiraling of greenhouse effect. And since basically all consumption creates additional CO2, you can't have infinite consumption without causing infinite CO2
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 34d
Theoretically with intelligent enough AI and robots the only limit is energy since you can perfectly recycle everything. Reverse entropy by using abundant solar or wind power. Imagine robots digging up and sifting through and sorting and "mining" all our landfills. Theoretically you could organize this so that it also emits very little CO2.
We just don't do it because it's cheaper to dig up new stuff and it would be a lot more work. So under capitalism it's practically impossible. We could today already drastically improve quality of life and use only 30% of energy and resources.
I'm writing this because I believe technology is not the issue, and no amount of growth or technological advancement will save us without improving our culture.
njordomir@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 34d
It reminds me of Kurt Vonneguts "Player Piano" where workers want to smash the machines for taking their jobs. It's not the machines, it's the people who they work for and benefit who are holding us all back from building Utopia.
If a factory replaces 100 workers with robots it doesn't necessarily make any less widgets. Just keep paying everyone and take turns monitoring, repairing, and rebooting the robot when it breaks.
In a world where technology can fully satisfy the needs of humanity, there is no need for human production of anything but art. We should share in this as equals, not as oligarchs and the unwanted extras on whose backs it was all built.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 34d
Manna is a short story describing the dystopia or (unlikely) utopia we're headed towards very well.
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 34d
You don't even need AI to do this, although it would help. A von Neumann machine and an excess of energy would go a long way to making that happen.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 34d
Yeah if we pulled most programmers off of producing competing and duplicate software or frivolous apps, we could put them to program robots and advanced CAM / computer aided manufacturing to manufacture or recycle appliances and materials. Not just robots building robots.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 34d
He doesn't think that. It's that simple. He's a fucking liar.
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz · 1 pts · 34d
Human need is more limited than the robot labor required to meet it in such a scenario.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 33d
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 34d
Someone better tell phony stark that it’s possible for two things to be true at once - lots of people hate legacy media AND him.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 34d
Didn't he force twitter accounts to follow his? Could have sworn I read that was a thing.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 34d
Yeah I remember that too
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 34d
I wonder how many of his followers are actual people?
Avicenna@programming.dev · 11 pts · 32d
"Maybe some people do loathe me."
Maybe? Some? That is one way to be delusional. People had to buy bumper stickers for their Teslas because of how much you are hated. Seems like he was completely annihilated in this interview, wish I was there to lick his tears
Folstar@lemmus.org · 10 pts · 33d
“If you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi-infinite economy,” No, what you have is no need for the NPCs or whatever you call people you don't like, which is how we get Terminator.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 34d
Just goes to show that billionaires have no taste. Whether it is home-grown versus store bought tomatoes or gluing gold spray-painted plastic to the walls, their lack of aesthetic is showing.
shiroininja@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 34d
I really don’t notice a difference between home grown or store bought. But I really think it depends on the store and season you’re buying from. If it’s actually in season, supplies are more local and fresh. If you’re buying a tomato in February, of course it is going to be awful, it’s being shipped thousands of miles. And you can’t grow your own tomatoes in February unless it’s in your house or a green house (which is a luxury I’ve never even met someone I knew had. You own a whole other building, on property? You own property in which you can fit another building?!)
Apples are the worst offenders, if you’re buying apples in spring, you’re buying last year’s harvest.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 34d
I grow my own tomatoes. In my area the difference between the homegrown and storebought is night and day (with the homegrown ones being way better). I understand how it could be regional though.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 3 pts · 33d
yeah I can't believe someone has eaten a tomato fresh from the garden and is not like. WOW!
Raiderkev@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 34d
Man, this screenshot sure makes it look like ole Elon hasn't touched grass in a long time. Dude looks like shit. Must be hiding inside, afraid to show his face to the masses.
whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 34d
or tomatoes apparently. What a moron
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 33d
fascists sweat.
libre_warrior@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 34d
We have enough already, but everything gets sucked up by the machine and the billionaires.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 34d
When told people didn't like him, Elon Musk melted down worse than lemmy did over the tesseract guy not like them LOL.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 32d
When the disgustingly privileged leave their personal sycophancy bubble...
content_educator_94@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 29d
This man is an idiot who needs to be hung drawn and quartered
Have him torn apart by horses he is tied to his his arms and legs that are told to run in opposite directions
Rip him apart and let the birds eat his entrails
halfapage@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 34d