Yet another bit about Musk's delusions of grandeur
Yet another bit about Musk's delusions of grandeur
Project Mars: A Technical Tale - Wikipedia
so i stumbled upon a thing on reddit
the thing is that there's an obscure early scifi book by none other than wernher von braun, that is about mars colonization, where they find already existing civilization, leader of which is called elon. apparently this is why megaracist elon's father named him that:
Interest in this novel increased in 2021 when people connected the Martian leader, called the Elon, to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, suggesting that von Braun may have somehow foreseen Musk's space exploration ventures.[15] However, Errol Musk, Elon's father, asserted in 2022 that he was fully aware of the von Braun connection in naming his son.[16]
also in that book: tunnels used for high-speed travel; nation-states became obsolete because of some magic tech; highly technocratic planetary government as a result. that stimulant habit seems historically accurate then, even if it's cut with ketamine sometimes. some more red string on corkboard https://www.mind-war.com/p/the-elon-how-a-nazi-rocket-scientist this tracks as one of his grandparents moved from canada to south africa because canada in 40s wasn't racist enough for them, and with all the technocracy inc things.
so yeah, motherfucker might be believing - or even groomed into - that he's destined to be a planetary overlord, all based on nazi scifi, and he's playing it out irl with all the fuck you money he has
Wait wait wait, so you are telling me, not even his bad ideas are his?
you can see this all the time in these circles. yudkovsky's diamondoid bacteria are rehashed drexler's nanomachines
One thing you should realize about Musk is that he isnt that smart, and that he also doesnt have much ideas. i think the only real contributions he ever had were the retracting tesla handles that dont work when frozen and the shape of the cybertruck. Even his gamer handle is uninspired. cyb3rgam3r420. And stuff which gets attributed to him, like community notes on twitter, were actually created pre his takeover. The man is a puddle.
The fact that Iain M. Banks is name-dropped in the poster in the article is a travesty... I have no doubt "the Elon" thinks himself some badass Special Circumstances operative, and OpenAI/Grok/... as laying the foundations for Culture Minds. It's not. He's not. Goddamnit I wish Banks was still alive.
@smiletolerantly Listen, I knew Iain—went drinking with him semi-regularly—and he despised Musk. One of his best villains, Joliet Veppers in "Surface Detail", is based on Musk.
@smiletolerantly his favourite part of Excession was when Dave Excession shouted "Excession!" and jumped in his spaceship
Same :( Fuck cancer, that man deserved to live longer. I'd love to see Banks' take on society as it is now. I feel like it'd end up being a mix between The Player of Games and Surface Detail.