hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2508.txt

Episode: 2508
Title: HPR2508: False Prophets
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2508/hpr2508.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 04:23:09

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This in HPR episode 2,518 titled False Profits, it is hosted by Lost in Drunks and in about
9 minutes long and can remain an explicit flag.
The summary is Lost in Drunks' Considant Power Cult on Personality May Effect Space Exploration.
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Hello, this is Lost in Drunks.
Today I'd like to talk about something that I'm going to call Beware of False Profits.
I guess it's just my thoughts about the recent achievements of the company SpaceX owned by Elon Musk and a bunch of other people.
It's a four-crafted company with shares to sell, so it's not like it's his only.
But when we think of that, we think of him.
And of course, Elon Musk is the guy behind Tesla and a bunch of other ventures in the past.
Software ventures that were very, very profitable.
PayPal was his, I believe.
So let me start off by saying, I'm a really huge admirer of Elon Musk and the things he's done.
I really, really like his cars.
I would love to be able to afford one.
Maybe someday he'll make one that I can't afford.
That would be a great thing.
You know, I've often believed that Electric is definitely the future and it seems like the entire auto industry has seen the handwriting on the wall as well, finally.
And it's primarily due to this man and his dream and his drive and his tenacity and his intelligence because he's a very, very smart man.
Well, he also does SpaceX.
And SpaceX, as pretty much everybody knows, is a space company.
They build rockets to put things in outer space.
Most recently, they tested their Falcon Heavy rocket, which at that time, you know, in history, it was the most powerful rocket in the world.
If you're listening to this sometime in the future, you are doubtlessly aware of others that are more powerful, that are coming about.
SpaceX has one of their own.
In fact, they say they're not really going to be using the Falcon Heavy much at all.
It's a stepping stone to the next size up, which they want to use to put a lot of either satellites in orbit, space equipment in orbit, or as the first step for interplanetary exploration.
Because Musk has stated on many occasions that he believes we need to be going to Mars.
Well, this is another thing that I believe that I agree with and that I admire about the man.
I too believe that this species is doomed, so long as we're stuck on this rock.
It won't happen tomorrow, it won't happen the day after tomorrow, but at some point or other, history has shown us that extinction level events do occur.
And sometimes people try to see patterns in this, they try to guess, well, we're a long way away from one bubble.
But the fact is we could have a global killer asteroid or cometary object hit the earth at any time, and we would be done for.
So yeah, I agree. We need to be on Mars. We need to colonize Mars. We need to colonize the moon.
We need to put space stations in space that people live on. All of that ra ra space stuff from the 60s and 70s.
We really still need to do all that stuff.
So I really admire this guy. I admire his drive. I admire his message. I admire all of that.
What I don't admire about him, necessarily, or just in general, let's say just in general, is a cult of personality.
Right now, this drive primarily centers around one man.
Yes, there are others in the game. There are other organizations, other companies trying to get out of space and take advantage of all this.
Most of them are very far behind and have gotten nothing like the enthusiasm and mind share of that space X has gotten.
But all of that would go away if Elon Musk dropped dead of a heart attack tomorrow.
Literally, it would crumble, right? While space X would still be around, it would not have the same drive.
And you would see a quick erosion of its goals.
So right now, we have a strong man who's leading the charge because that's apparently what we need to have.
Right? Well, we had that once before with the space race and the strong man was called the moon.
And once we got there, once we beat the moon, that was it.
I don't like that. I don't like pinning our hopes all on either one mission or one man's vision.
This needs to be many people's visions. This needs to be a collective effort.
Well, it should be a collective effort of the human race, but certainly it should be a collective effort of quite a few organizations.
Some of them governmental, probably most of them private companies.
We need to take it as seriously as any endeavor in human history.
Otherwise, it's going to wither away and it might be another 40 years, 50 years until somebody comes along with a good song and dance and gets us off the ground.
I don't like that this man's a rock star of aerospace engineering and tech that people call him Tony Stark.
I don't like that because that makes it all a show.
And that means that if there's a problem with the showman, the show stops.
Right? Historically, that's always been a bad thing.
Now, he might have a nice, long, healthy life in which case he'll get an awful lot done.
And as things stand right now, I absolutely hope that that's the case.
I wish that man long life and great health and vigorous strength until his old age.
And that will allow him to do what he wants to do because what he wants to do is what I want to see done.
But man, oh man, I also hope that there's someone else who steps up, a woman, a man, or however they identify someone and then another someone.
And then a hundred someone's because if we rely on one person to save us, you know what?
Historically speaking, relying on saviors, that doesn't often get the average person very far.
I don't believe that it's a good idea to expect SpaceX to save us, to save the human race, right?
I mean, because when you're talking in terms of becoming a multi-planetary species in order to become immune to extinction level events,
because if we're on the moon, the moon's a little close, but that's pretty safe, right?
The moon's a little close though.
You know, if a very large asteroid hit the Earth, the moon could suffer, right?
But by and large, it's definitely doing okay.
The moon itself is actually not so safe to live on because it doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it.
All right, whatever. Mars isn't much better because its atmosphere is really, really thin.
But if we're spread around, it would take something like a nova or supernova to wipe out the entire solar system.
Or, of course, things like disease and war and all of the usual, they follow us around.
But I don't think that we can rely on any one person, any one company, to save the human race.
It seems like a recipe for disaster to me, sooner or later.
And if we look to one company for all the answers, it's going to be one answer that they think is the best, right?
And that's always been a bad idea for freedom, for expansion, for social evolution, technological evolution.
That all these things are bad.
So we need more companies.
We need more private citizens involved.
We need more governments to take it seriously.
Because putting all of our hopes and dreams into one man's pocket, even a man I greatly admire,
I think that's a bad idea.
Anyway, that was just some thoughts I had today.
And I thought I'd share them along.
If you have any opinions on this, please go ahead and leave them in the comments for this show.
Or better yet, do your own episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Give us your opinion on this subject or any subject.
Anything you happen to be interested in because I guarantee you someone else is.
You have opinions and we want to hear about it.
Thanks for listening.
Take care.
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