Merged: SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explodes After Launch/Starship hop

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

And Starlink!

They have to be making enough money to cover those launches... all 121 of them so far. If they were losing money on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, there is no ******* way they could pump money into Starlink and Starship.

Nah, its just all hater rhetoric to deny the success SpaceX are having (because Musk = douchebag....or something).

Douche

Quote:

A douche is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself. Douche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity. A douche bag is a piece of equipment for douching—a bag for holding the fluid used in douching.

Given the obvious misogynistic sexual connotations, I cringe whenever seeing this word. It seems to be an American thing, which doesn't make it any better. Perhaps a more neutral word like 'prick' or 'wanker' might be better. Oh wait...

The main reason these people hate on Musk isn't that he's a <insert expletive here>, but because he has successfully achieved some radical goals and been recognized for it. IOW 'tall poppy' syndrome. Another reason is that he promoted EVs. A lot of people hate EVs because they imply we are all guilty of having polluting lifestyles and this must stop (which we are, and it must - but I digress...).

The super-ironical part is that by this measure Musk should be a raging liberal and darling of 'the left', but his personal views have gone the other way. So now both the right and the left hate him.

The core motivation though is - as always - hate. People like to think that they are unbiased and rational, when in reality their minds are bundles of knee-jerk emotion with the conscious part only serving to rationalize their feelings. It's so much easier to hate than be dispassionately pragmatic. Who cares about the baby, that bath water's filthy!

BTW have you heard the latest? Einstein wasn't a genius - he stole all his ideas from others while he was a patent clerk. Another poppy cut down to size!

[Gulliver Foyle]

Originally Posted by GlennB

Just an aside, but you seriously over-use that word. It's a cheap and nasty way of dismissing/demeaning those who disagree with you. 'fanboy' is in the same category.

Except for fanboy being an active descriptor in this argument. Space X supporters are excusing faults and failures that they would be castigating NASA or any other privet companies that were committing them.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Why do you believe proven reusable first stages, and significantly lowered launch costs, are scams?

Since Gulliver Foyle is back, maybe he'll respond to this now.

[The Great Zaganza]

Is there such a thing as a " 'tall poppy' syndrome", or is it rather that very successful people tend to go to great lengths to weasel out of basic commitments such as paying their share of taxes ?
I would argue that successful people are generally not criticized for their success, but rather what they are doing with it, as well as their tendency to deny to what amount luck and privilege made their success possible.

Musk's success is an extreme case of one person succeeding because they never had to risk anything, no matter what they did, due to extreme privilege and massive government support for his projects.
And Musk and his fanclub never acknowledge that.

[steenkh]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

And Musk and his fanclub never acknowledge that.

This is a pretty small fanclub around here. I see nobody who has height thoughts about Musk, even if they think that SpaceX is very skilled at what they do.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Is there such a thing as a " 'tall poppy' syndrome"

Yes.

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

or is it rather that very successful people tend to go to great lengths to weasel out of basic commitments such as paying their share of taxes ?

No.

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

I would argue that successful people are generally not criticized for their success, but rather what they are doing with it, as well as their tendency to deny to what amount luck and privilege made their success possible.

This link is about women who are belittled and attacked by haters for their success, but there are plenty of men who cop it too.

https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-are...yndrome/374079

"'Ambitious, high-performing women' cut down because of achievements or success "

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Musk's success is an extreme case of one person succeeding because they never had to risk anything no matter what they did,

He risked his wealth (and still does). What else would you like him to have risked? His life perhaps?

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

due to extreme privilege

Rubbish!

Musk grew up in a middle-class household in South Africa. His father was an electrical and mechanical engineering consultant and his mother worked as a dietitian and model. He did not inherit his money, he put his skill in IT to work to make his fortune, which was entirely self-made.

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

...and massive government support for his projects.

More rubbish!

Musk had ZERO direct government support when he started SpaceX. In fact, he stated publicly after the first three failed Falcon 1 rockets suffered launch failures in 2006, 2007 and 2008, that if the fourth launch also failed, that was it. He didn't have enough money for a fifth. He risked everything on that fourth launch.

Now sure, like any other like commercial organization, SpaceX got government contracts, but those three failed launches all had government payloads - two for DARPA, one for NASA and one for USDOD... and guess what? If the payload you contract to deliver to orbit, doesn't get delivered to orbit... you don't get paid!

As for the government contracts thing, SpaceX is not alone in this. Other private aerospace companies get government contracts - Aerojet Rockedyne, Kistler Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, RTX Space, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Rockwell Collins Aerospace, Honeywell and Raytheon. And more recently, Axiom Space, Astra, Blue Origin, Rocketlab and Bigelow Space

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

And Musk and his fanclub never acknowledge that.

Don't they? I see no evidence of that in the subreddits I inhabit. Those guys are always talking about the latest launch contracts.


Now none of what I have posted above means that I like the guy. I think he's a prick, and all around scumbag. But that doesn't means I need to attack him for the success he's had in building what is arguably the most prolific and successful launch provider in the US.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by steenkh

This is a pretty small fanclub around here. I see nobody who has height thoughts about Musk, even if they think that SpaceX is very skilled at what they do.

Exactly.

Grown ups can appreciate and praise the achievements, and still think the achiever is an **********.

Haters on the other hand, are too immature to separate the two. They bring nothing to the table because they have nothing to contribute. They blinded by their hate, and handicapped by their total ignorance of the subject of the debate they bring the invective to.

Someone sent me a missive about Bill Gates in a Farcebook message the other day, but something like it could easily be applied to others such as Bezos and Musk...

Imagine being Bill Gates right now.

You spend 30 years of your life and $50 billion of your own dollars supporting humanitarian causes. You directly save hundreds of thousands of lives in South East Asia by providing anti malaria netting to half of a continent. You drop infant mortality rates throughout the entire developing world by funding vaccine programs including vaccinating 40,000,000 children for polio, and, amongst a plethora of philanthropic endeavors, you fund free educational platforms like the Khan Academy so people can have free access to high quality education. Then after donating half of your wealth to charity and pledging 90% of the remainder to charity in your will, arguably doing more to better life on earth for humanity than any other human being to ever live, you hop onto the internet only to find a million scientifically illiterate ******* imbeciles that are using the very computers you pretty much invented in the first place to call you a child murdering arch villain antichrist because they watched a YouTube video made by some other dumb-**** yokel with the comprehension of a ******* potato.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by steenkh

This is a pretty small fanclub around here. I see nobody who has height thoughts about Musk, even if they think that SpaceX is very skilled at what they do.

Exactly.

Grown ups can appreciate and praise the achievements, and still think the achiever is an asshat.

Haters on the other hand, are too immature to separate the two. They bring nothing to the table because they have nothing to contribute. They blinded by their hate, and handicapped by their total ignorance of the subject of the debate they bring their invective to.

Someone sent me a missive about Bill Gates in a Farcebook message the other day, but something like it could easily be applied to others such as Bezos and Musk...

Imagine being Bill Gates right now.

You spend 30 years of your life and $50 billion of your own dollars supporting humanitarian causes. You directly save hundreds of thousands of lives in South East Asia by providing anti malaria netting to half of a continent. You drop infant mortality rates throughout the entire developing world by funding vaccine programs including vaccinating 40,000,000 children for polio, and, amongst a plethora of philanthropic endeavors, you fund free educational platforms like the Khan Academy so people can have free access to high quality education. Then after donating half of your wealth to charity and pledging 90% of the remainder to charity in your will, arguably doing more to better life on earth for humanity than any other human being to ever live, you hop onto the internet only to find a million scientifically illiterate ******* imbeciles that are using the very computers you pretty much invented in the first place to call you a child murdering arch villain antichrist because they watched a YouTube video made by some other dumb-**** yokel with the comprehension of a ******* potato.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Roger Ramjets;14212757[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douche"

Douche[/url]

Given the obvious misogynistic sexual connotations, I cringe whenever seeing this word...

Nope! Not having it. I will call Elon Musk a douche, and I also applaud Hans for calling him a tinkerbellend.

This has nothing to do with "tall poppy syndrome". I have celebrated the achievements of Tesla and SpaceX, right here in this thread, in the same post that I called him a douche. Here...

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Before I start reading the commentary on this, my own hot take is that it looks like a success!

...

Well done to all the SpaceX engineers, and yes, to you too Elon Musk. You may be a douchebag, but I can't knock your achievements here!

I reserve the right to have a nuanced view of Musk in which I can say what I think he does well, and have no support for his idiotic statements and behaviour.

If you want to defend Elon Musk on non-SpaceX related business and accuse anyone who dislikes his behaviour of bad faith, then you should take it to another thread, because otherwise you are just begging for this one to be derailed.

So, sling your hook!

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Nope! Not having it. I will call Elon Musk a douche, and I also applaud Hans for calling him a tinkerbellend.

I think you missed the point.

I read what Roboramma posted as him objecting to the use of the word at all, in any context.

Originally Posted by angrysoba

This has nothing to do with "tall poppy syndrome". I have celebrated the achievements of Tesla and SpaceX, right here in this thread, in the same post that I called him a douche. Here
I reserve the right to have a nuanced view of Musk in which I can say what I think he does well, and have no support for his idiotic statements and behaviour.

I disagree

YOU may have a nuanced view (as do I) but others don't. There are many (and a few on this forum) who don't appear to give a rats arse about his political views, they just hate him because he's a billionaire.

Originally Posted by angrysoba

[hilite]If you want to defend Elon Musk on non-SpaceX related business and accuse anyone who dislikes his behaviour of bad faith, then you should take it to another thread, because otherwise you are just begging for this one to be derailed.

I'm not seeing him do that.. at all.

[Checkmite]

Originally Posted by gabeygoat

Musk's name comes up, because, well, SpaceX

Well, you're not allowed to mention the owner of SpaceX's name in the SpaceX thread because that indicates potential negative bias.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Checkmite

Well, you're not allowed to mention the owner of SpaceX's name in the SpaceX thread because that indicates potential negative bias.

It's the ad hom that indicates the negative bias.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

I think you missed the point.

I read what Roboramma posted as him objecting to the use of the word at all, in any context.

It was Roger Ramjets, not Roboramma. And I'm not buying the idea that "douchebag" is some unacceptably misogynistic term.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

It was Roger Ramjets, not Roboramma. And I'm not buying the idea that "douchebag" is some unacceptably misogynistic term.

Use the wrong pronouns and it's literally violence. Use a feminine hygiene product as a pejorative, who cares how it makes people feel. Just say "scumbag" instead. Costs nothing, avoids unnecessary ill will.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Use the wrong pronouns and it's literally violence.

I don't buy that idea either.

Originally Posted by theprestige

Use a feminine hygiene product as a pejorative, who cares how it makes people feel. Just say "scumbag" instead. Costs nothing, avoids unnecessary ill will.

Isn't that another word for condom?

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

I don't buy that idea either.

Eh - it depends on who you ask. By some definitions, yeah, it's violence. By others, not so much. At the very least, it is rude.

And yeah, "douchebag" is considered misogynistic by some. Heck, the Australian habit of calling people "mate" is considered misogynistic by some. And they have some real arguments to back them up, too.

I find that it's better to avoid confrontation by using other words when it is clear that some words can be problematic, even if I don't personally consider them to be so. It really doesn't matter whether the word is or is not offensive, the point is that to some people it is, and it's worth avoiding on that basis alone if open and friendly communication is the goal.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Musk's success is an extreme case of one person succeeding because they never had to risk anything

That's really not true at all. Musk risked a lot of money with SpaceX, and could easily have lost that money. There was a very high risk of failure early on.

Quote:

massive government support for his projects.

The US government's investment in SpaceX is a success story. There are a whole lot of examples of corporate welfare out there, including the electric vehicle subsidies that Tesla benefits from, or even cases where government money is spent with nothing to show for it (remember Solyndra?). But SpaceX? Nope, that was good value for the money.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Eh - it depends on who you ask. By some definitions, yeah, it's violence. By others, not so much. At the very least, it is rude.

And yeah, "douchebag" is considered misogynistic by some. Heck, the Australian habit of calling people "mate" is considered misogynistic by some. And they have some real arguments to back them up, too.

I find that it's better to avoid confrontation by using other words when it is clear that some words can be problematic, even if I don't personally consider them to be so. It really doesn't matter whether the word is or is not offensive, the point is that to some people it is, and it's worth avoiding on that basis alone if open and friendly communication is the goal.

Not going to pander to fringe weirdos who claim the word “mate” is misogynistic. That’s insane, and the kind of thing that only gives succor to the weirdos on the other side. But that’s not a subject for this thread. If someone wants to open a thread about how douchebag and mate are misogynistic then maybe we could discuss it there. This is not the thread.

[The Great Zaganza]

Musk never risk anything, because no matter what he would always be rich.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Musk never risk anything, because no matter what he would always be rich.

That's... not what "risk" means.

[The Great Zaganza]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

That's... not what "risk" means.

Yes it does.
If it's not an existential threat, it's just various levels of inconvenience.
Musk could loose 99.9% of his wealth with no effect on his standard of living - so there is no risk to him whatever, no matter what he does.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Musk never risk anything, because no matter what he would always be rich.

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Yes it does.
If it's not an existential threat, it's just various levels of inconvenience.
Musk could loose 99.9% of his wealth with no effect on his standard of living - so there is no risk to him whatever, no matter what he does.

Come on. Let's stop being silly.

Should we launch the rocket during a storm?
I think that would be risky!
No, there is no such thing as risk because...

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Yes it does.
If it's not an existential threat, it's just various levels of inconvenience.
Musk could loose 99.9% of his wealth with no effect on his standard of living - so there is no risk to him whatever, no matter what he does.

There's an argument to made that wealth isn't linear in value. Someone who has a billion dollars losing a million probably loses less subjective value than someone who has a hundred thousand losing 50 grand.

But that's an argument for a non-linear function on the value of money, not some cut-off where it goes to zero.

If someone with a billion dollars risks 10% of his wealth, I'll happily accept that he's risking less than the rest of us even when we risk 10% of our wealth, even though he's risking more in absolute terms (which is an even more extreme statement than just that it's non-linear). And there are ways that that can and probably should impact policy, for instance it's part of an argument for progressive taxation.

But given that the value doesn't go to zero, it's just obviously wrong to say that risking wealth above some threshold isn't risk. That view isn't even coherent.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Yes it does.
If it's not an existential threat, it's just various levels of inconvenience.

No. There's a reason "existential threat" is a distinct term. Most risks and threats are not existential. Not being an existential threat doesn't make something not a risk. I don't generally like having to appeal to dictionary definitions, but the sheer idiocy of your post has forced my hand.

risk:
noun
exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous chance

risk:

1: possibility of loss or injury : peril
2: someone or something that creates or suggests a hazard
3 a: the chance of loss or the perils to the subject matter of an insurance contract
also : the degree of probability of such loss
b: a person or thing that is a specified hazard to an insurer
c: an insurance hazard from a specified cause or source
4: the chance that an investment (such as a stock or commodity) will lose value

Musk risked a lot of money on SpaceX. There was a significant probability that he would lose it. That's a risk, plain and simple.

Quote:

Musk could loose 99.9% of his wealth with no effect on his standard of living - so there is no risk to him whatever, no matter what he does.

You're assuming that his "standard of living" (in your narrow definition) is the only thing he cares about. That's not the case. Plus, when SpaceX started, Musk was rich but not THAT rich. If SpaceX had failed, he wouldn't have been poverty stricken, but it would have materially impacted his lifestyle.