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non_radical_centrist  1yr ago (astralcodexten.com)   2417 thread views

Book Review: Elon Musk[Scott Alexander]

astralcodexten.com

Scott Alexander’s review of a 2015 biography of Elon Musk. Elon Musk, to me, is one of the world’s most confusing people. He’s simultaneously both one of the smartest people in the world, creating billions of dollars of value in companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and one of the dumbest, in burning billions on Twitter. Scott’s review I think is a good explanation of what’s up with Musk.

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So, you are saying the West does not have any manufacturing capacity to produce something what doesn't even require any modern technology? This is a very sharp contradiction with everything I can observe, where the West is producing a lot of things right now.

Yes, the West does have high tech cutting edge technology, but the lower tech WWI/WWII style mass production lines required to churn out mountains of dumb stuff are lacking, being outsourced to third world long ago, and nothing at all is being done to restore this capacity.

If you are reduced to bribing and begging Pakistan for such basic things as artillery shells, it is rather clear sign.

I think you misunderstand what happened with Pakistan. It's an opposite of bribing - instead of giving Ukrainians American weapons, Americans made Pakistanis send them theirs. Also, if US workers can be busy producing Teslas but Pakistanis can deal with weapons for Ukraine, I don't see why it's such a bad deal for Americans. If it was cheaper to produce those things in Pakistan before the war, why it's not cheaper now? I mean, sure, the Tesla factory probably can produce them too, but they'd rather produce Teslas, I think?

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