In the trailer, there's this line: "When Musk says that the future of humanity is to colonize Mars, he is selling us dreams. That's not happening."
That irritates me a lot. Everything extremely difficult (or thought to be impossible) is a dream until someone (or some company) works hard on it and invests in it for a long time. Those that would criticize Musk & SpaceX for chipping away at this seem to be effectively saying "do not try."
I get annoyed by this type of comment because Musk is obviously an over the top hype man, he sees this as his job. And he has a long history of crazy predictions that didn't come true. Any other CEO spouts some obvious marketing bs and people are appropriately cynical but Musk's defenders just really want to believe.
What are some of the most egregious examples from his long history of crazy predictions?
Most of the examples I've ever seen tend to be purposeful misunderstanding, his timing being off (clearly a flaw, but common to most ambitious projects), vibes, or just factually incorrect.
He clearly has flaws, but his critics always seem to be far more flawed.
18 mile hyperloop between downtown Chicago and O’Hare Airport
Humans on Mars by 2024
SpaceX would be flying private citizens around the Moon by 2018.
March 2020: "probably close to zero new cases" of covid-19 "by the end of April."
Summon an autonomous Tesla from New York to LA by 2018
Saying Tesla Autonomous by "next year" over and over for a decade <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbxvRo2rnY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbxvRo2rnY
jfoster · · focus · HN ↗
That irritates me a lot. Everything extremely difficult (or thought to be impossible) is a dream until someone (or some company) works hard on it and invests in it for a long time. Those that would criticize Musk & SpaceX for chipping away at this seem to be effectively saying "do not try."
guelo · · focus · HN ↗
jfoster · · focus · HN ↗
Most of the examples I've ever seen tend to be purposeful misunderstanding, his timing being off (clearly a flaw, but common to most ambitious projects), vibes, or just factually incorrect.
He clearly has flaws, but his critics always seem to be far more flawed.
guelo · · focus · HN ↗
18 mile hyperloop between downtown Chicago and O’Hare Airport
Humans on Mars by 2024
SpaceX would be flying private citizens around the Moon by 2018.
March 2020: "probably close to zero new cases" of covid-19 "by the end of April."
Summon an autonomous Tesla from New York to LA by 2018
Saying Tesla Autonomous by "next year" over and over for a decade <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbxvRo2rnY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbxvRo2rnY
A Tesla with 1,000-Kilometer range by 2017