[_ph_]

Perhaps then wait with critisizing the hyperloop on technical grounds until there is enough with substance instead of making up fake technical facts? Currently the Hyperloop is basically just a concept and a couple of startups which are not connected to Elon Musk in any sense. Of course, as with any new startups, there is a lot of marketing and little substance. And yes, as with any startup in a completely new technological domain, one should be highly sceptical about their success chance. These kind of tech startups do have a huge chance of failing indeed. If it were trivial to pick up a completely new technology and bring it to the market successfully, everyone would be doing it. Also, there is quite a bit of shady business going on. A lot of startup companies are run just to finance large salaries, while the investment money lasts and to vanish after investment money ends[1]. But all of this is not a valid technical criticism of the hyperloop. There are certainly valid points to be made against the feasibility of the concept, but then these points should be made and not artificial ones invented.

1: I could once watch this from close-up. As a grad student, I was involved in optical data storage. We were able to store a few gigabytes in a small crystal. This work was financed by a startup company created by a consulting company. This startup would collect money - largely from state research investments to match to the private money promised to be invested by the consulting company. This did finance our work for some years and paid a couple of salaried employees of the startup - related to the consulting company. When the public investments ran out and no third party investments had arrived, the startup would fade away. And with that the project in spite of what we had achieved so far.