Add a Comment   Up to OJB's Blog List

Celebrating Brilliance

Entry 2390, on 2025-03-20 at 11:57:47 (Rating 4, Comments)

Maybe the most annoying thing about the woke mob today is how they celebrate mediocrity and weakness and condemn brilliance. To be fair, there are plenty of other annoying things about them too, and I have probably started sentences with that same phrase then listed something else, like they don't care about facts, are incredibly hateful towards alternative opinions, rely on catchphrases instead of actual points, etc, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's just go with the condemnation of brilliance!

Now, I fully understand that brilliance can be seen as at least partly subjective, but there are some cases where it shows total unawareness to deny it. For example, Isaac Newton was utterly brilliant in the areas of science and maths, and anyone who denies that is purely ignorant. Magnus Carlsen is a brilliant chess player. Lionel Messi is one of the most brilliant football players ever. I could go on, but you get the idea by now.

You might have guessed where this is going, based on other recent posts I have made. Yes, it is my hero, Elon Musk, who I would nominate for the "brilliant" label today. I fully agree that this is a controversial opinion, given his current political activities in the Trump presidency, but in some ways that just adds to my admiration for him. And yes, I support Trump, in case you hadn't noticed, and that doesn't mean I agree with everything he says or does, but I think he is what the world needs at this point in history.

I have listed Musk's businesses and other activities before, but let's just go over them again now: Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, the Boring Company, PayPal, X (Twitter), Solar City, OpenAI, xAI, Zip2, and DOGE. Have I missed any? He's involved with so much stuff it's hard to tell!

Obviously, some of those are more important than others, but the big successes are very impressive. For example, the Tesla Model Y was the biggest selling car in the world last year, so Tesla is significant. OpenAI (which he helped setup, but is now not so involved with) created the world's leading AI: ChatGPT. And SpaceX is likely to launch 90% of all the payload for the entire world into orbit this year. How insane is that: his company will launch almost ten times as much as every other company and organisation in every other country put together!

Have you heard that a SpaceX rocket and crew capsule was recently used to rescue the crew of the International Space Station, because the opposition at Boeing is such a failure? Didn't hear that much about it? I wonder why. Maybe for the same reason that we don't hear much about how Joe Biden previously refused to allow Musk to rescue those people because it would be politically inconvenient (allegedly, at least).

But even if Boeing (and related to that, NASA) hadn't failed so badly, SpaceX is still the best option, because they can launch into space ten times faster and at half the cost of NASA missions. Considering Boeing is a hugely established company and SpaceX is relatively new, it is an impressive feat.

Any of these achievements are worth celebrating in themselves, but together they are truly extraordinary. And the best is yet to come, because maybe Musk's greatest wish is to get to Mars, and he has built the biggest and most advanced rocket ever to achieve this. It is called Starship, and it is a technological masterpiece, and the largest flying machine ever created, at 123 meters tall.

He expects to get a robot to Mars this year, and humans there by 2029, although that is an optimistic target and I have to concede that Musk often fails to meet targets on time. But it's the fact that he would even try that really matters. He seems to be one of the few people who has the commitment and the ability to make great things happen.

Finally, there is Musk's humility and dedication. When Tesla was in danger of failing he slept on the factory floor so he could be there as much as possible, and he is doing the same thing now with DOGE (the department of government efficiency, which he runs for no pay). He lives in a tiny house and donates massive amounts to charity. Remember, he is the richest man in the world.

Now you might expect that someone achieving such great things and demonstrating such devotion and authenticity might be celebrated, especially in a country where success has always been admired, but apparently not.

When a recent Starship flight failed, his opponents mocked him and celebrated. Spaceflight is hard, and every company has failures, so this wasn't unexpected. In fact, Musk uses the "fail fast" philosophy where small improvements are tested and problems fixed within a rapid timeframe. Obviously it would be better if stuff didn't blow up, but it isn't necessarily as bad as it seems.

And in line with some of my recent posts, here is some Maori BS (I've noticed that recently when I type the word Maori it is usually followed with "BS"; I wonder why that would be) I have heard here in New Zealand. A Maori "astronomer" complained that Musk's Starlink satellites were interfering with some superstitious nonsense, like this: "Elon Musk's Starlink satellites have already interfered with a tuku wairua ceremony during Matariki, when whanau who have died are released to the stars; while satellite proliferation threatens traditional waka hourua navigation."

Well, you know, in an ideal world that wouldn't happen, but in the greater scheme of things I've got to ask, what sensible person would care about that nonsense when we have a high speed global communications network which has proved itself in situations like the Ukraine war and in recovering from natural disasters (usually using donated hardware and free service), as well as providing excellent general purpose internet connectivity, especially in remote locations?

A similar lack of vision is seen in the opinions of many others. A common question is why is Musk putting this much effort and money into getting into space when we have so many problems here on Earth? Well, he has made a massive contribution to that as well, because Tesla really marked the start of electric cars being accepted as a viable alternative to ICE cars, which should be helpful to those suffering from "climate hysteria" (note again that I think climate change is real, I just disagree with the political response).

Finally, there is the recent, sometimes violent, reaction in the US and elsewhere, where "activists" are vandalising and destroying Teslas, including setting some on fire (a dangerous thing to do with any device which has a high power battery). The people, who actually fit within the definition of "terrorist", are often the same ones demanding more electric cars to combat climate change, and yet they are destroying those cars because of some ill-defined political point of difference with the owner of the company. Wow, just wow. Can these people get any more stupid and corrupt?

It's the same old story: the left have gone (in many cases, literally) insane. They are completely irrational, violent, and intolerant. It's time to get back to celebrating brilliance rather than mediocrity.

There are no comments for this entry.

You can leave comments about this entry using this form.

Enter your name (optional):
Enter your email address (optional):
Enter the number shown here:
Enter the comment:

To add a comment: enter a name and email (optional), type the number shown, enter a comment, click Add.
Note that you can leave the name blank if you want to remain anonymous.
Enter your email address to receive notifications of replies and updates to this entry.
The comment should appear immediately because the authorisation system is currently inactive.