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In a Wide-Ranging Interview, Elon Musk Talks About Visiting Mars, Battle To Keep Tesla Afloat, and Neuralink (medium.com)
Elon Musk reckons there's a 70 percent chance he'll go to Mars, even as he knows there's a good chance he won't survive there. "I'm talking about moving there," the SpaceX and Tesla CEO said in a wide-ranging, but brief interview with Axios on HBO. "We've recently made a number of breakthroughs that I'm just really fired up about."
In the interview, he also spoke about Neuralink, the company he launched last year to build brain-enhancing implants. "The long-term aspiration of Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," he said. "If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."
Musk also revealed that Tesla had been "single-digit weeks" away from death with the company "bleeding" cash as it ramped up Model 3 production. He said he was worried about imploding and that the stress of working seven days a week and sleeping at the Tesla factory was very painful."It hurts my brain and my heart," said Musk, who recently publicly urged people to explore electric cars, even if they come from companies Tesla competes with.
In the interview, he also spoke about Neuralink, the company he launched last year to build brain-enhancing implants. "The long-term aspiration of Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," he said. "If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."
Musk also revealed that Tesla had been "single-digit weeks" away from death with the company "bleeding" cash as it ramped up Model 3 production. He said he was worried about imploding and that the stress of working seven days a week and sleeping at the Tesla factory was very painful."It hurts my brain and my heart," said Musk, who recently publicly urged people to explore electric cars, even if they come from companies Tesla competes with.
the good thing is, Tesla is on the right track now....
aaaaaaa
Many people have enjoyed exploring Antarctica, even when it's mostly just sitting around in ugly research bases through the winter and occasionally looking at a bleak white landscape. It's not for me, but I'm sure there are people who will enjoy Mars.
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IMHO, there are people that zap mosquitoes with lasers, then shy away from delivering an actual useful product at the end. And there are people who deliver a mosquito laser zapping box, but along the way, blind a few early adopters while they get the real world kinks out.
I put Musk in the later category. The world needs more Musks, I just don't want to be an early adopter of his products.
You almost had a point until the needless racism.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I don't think any explorer, ever, just came to a new land for the first time and lived an immediate life of comfort.
The point is, somebody has to be first to attempt to colonize a new land (or world in the case of Mars), and that's a task certain people find a VERY rewarding challenge
And yes - a few people enjoy spending time in places with very harsh conditions, where there aren't many other human beings around. My dad was friends with a teacher who took a sabbatical leave to visit Antarctica and live in one of those research facilities for a year or so. He came back with some amazing photos and stories, and didn't regret it a bit. (Not saying he'd be eager to do it again or to move there permanently ... but it's something not many people have experienced, so I can see the attraction.)
This guy makes shit up faster than Trump, but people actually believe him
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
"If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."
I am afraid most of us would become immensely powerfully idiotic. Most humans are probably born as smart as your good scientist or good writer. Like most people are born with a body with the potential to be an athlete.
It is just most people have not desire for excellence. They are not educated that way. Our problem is not that much a lack of brain processing power. We already have intelligence magnifying tools. Take writing for example. Wonderful things have indeed been written and that is not over. But most people won't bother with books and plenty of magazines with stories about celebrities are sold. Internet is used to watch porn and hurl insults to each other, etc...
Tools and system are fine and all. But you need the right people to do nice things with them. We are not there yet.
Which is good, there aren't that many options on the market with comparable range (around 400km), price and specs. You have the Hyundai Kona and the Kia e-Niro, and not much else.
The Chevy Bolt EV has range that is comparable to the standard and mid-range Model 3. Honestly except for long distance trips on the highway, anything north of 350km range is more than adequate. I have a Bolt EV and I've never had to use a third party charging station yet in nearly 10,000 miles of driving in the last 6 months. The only real range issue I see with it for local driving is that at highway speeds the range goes to shit because it only has the one gear. I think a highway gear would help a lot though definitely not a deal breaker since the battery pack is more than big enough to deal with any reasonable trip in our metro area. I have exceeded the range of a Nissan Leaf but
After living with an EV for most of the last year, I'm convinced the majority of range and fast charging issues are important but also overblown. I have a gas powered truck for the occasional longer trip or could easily rent one if I didn't have it. Unless your daily drive is something stupidly long with a LOT of highway miles, the range on any of the vehicles mentioned above is more than adequate provided you have some means of doing Level 2 charging at your primary residence and/or place of work. I don't think I've gotten to less than 50 miles of range yet and I've been doing the opposite of hyper-miling much of the time. (EVs are fun to drive)
Huyndai expects to make 30.000 EVs a year... less than Tesla makes in a month.
That's because they still aren't taking EVs seriously. Just like almost every other car company. I own a Chevy Bolt EV and it's a good car and good value but it is obvious how much of it is borrowed from other Chevy vehicles. Hell it goes down the same assembly line as the Chevy Sonic which should give you some idea how similar those cars are. Like them or hate them, Tesla is really the only significant company selling no compromise EVs as of this writing. Even dedicated EVs like the Nissan Leaf are just chock full of compromises and ugly/bad design. It's not clear to me why they think every EV owner wants an ugly hatchback compliance car. (seriously, SO many EVs are just hideous to look at) I think my Bolt EV is decent looking but I certainly don't think it's a pretty vehicle and I'm not convinced GM has gone all-in on EVs. I think they made the Bolt and are resting on their laurels rather than pushing hard to scale up EV production and sales.
I choose to make myself dumber every day. That is what makes me so happy.
It's a different kind of skill to persuade others to go first.
Really? For most of military history they simply shot the people who disobeyed.
High possibility of being shot by the enemy vs. 100% possibility of being shot by your own people. What do you choose?
No sig today...
Antarctica has a summer population of around 1,000 and winter population of around 200. On a purely scientific basis, I can imagine getting similar numbers on Mars -- 1000 temporary residents, 200 permanent.
But humans are not purely scientific. They love to do apparently incredibly stupid things like climb Mt Everest without oxygen or free-climb El Capitan. Like those, Mars captures the imagination of many people who love to suffer and tempt fate. If Musk makes the economics of it possible for the wealthy, then those type of people will build a Mars colony not because it is easy but because it is hard.
And compared to sea voyages in the age of discovery where 90% of the crew could expect to die before getting home and they were cramped onto a small ship surrounded by the ocean developing scurvy from their poor supplies, it'll be practically a pleasure jaunt.
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Not sure about that. Manufacturers are starting to build vehicles that have been designed as EVs from the ground up.
Not really. Not seriously anyway. If they were serious about it they would be investing heavily in battery companies and securing supplies. The only company I've seen working on making an EV that doesn't look idiotic recently is Porsche. The new Leaf looks better than the old one but that's not saying much - the old one was terrible looking. The Kona is just another boring and fairly ugly hatchback. I own a Bolt and while I like the styling for a hatchback, it isn't exactly sexy either.
The big automakers are just dipping their toes in the water and waiting. They don't want to take the risk and possibly be wrong.
This is not just a shakeup in car design, but in their production lines and logistics as well, and such things take some time and effort (as Tesla found out).
Of course but I work in the industry and they aren't really putting in the effort or money. They're all claiming they are going to introduce electrified cars but none of the big autos are really pushing their chips onto the table and those promises haven't materialized into real products for the most part.
My understanding is that a couple of these companies are simply having a real hard time sourcing the batteries.
They're having a hard time of it because it's a critical technology they wouldn't be outsourcing if they were serious about it. Tesla seems to be the only ones that grok the fact that they need to vertically integrate to get the economies of scale and a competitive advantage. Unless Tesla's competitors have a lead on some mysterious battery tech that will supplant Li-Ion in the near future and are willing to dump tons of money on it then they are playing a dangerous game.
If you want to know more, and not the sanitized tidbits that a mainstream outlet thinks you should know and nothing else, Rogan's interview with Musk provides a good insight into the man and his views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...