[Florin_Andrei]

You kinda lost me a little at Kurzweil's diets (which are okay, regardless of whether or not they confer "immortality"), but you irrevocably lost me at Elon Musk. You might have strong opinions, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

[confluence]

Perhaps. That is always a distinct possibility. I cannot preclude the possibility that I have no idea what I'm talking about and as per the Dunning-Kruger effect, I might not be aware of how little I know.

However, it should be known - I'm long TSLA and have been since the IPO - so don't think I don't know anything. I also know Musk's background inside and out (due diligence and all).

But why do you know who Elon Musk is? Because he succeeded. Let's say he didn't. Now do you think what you do now?

What if the GFC had continued into a depression - who'd buy a an unproven, $5K reserve priced Model S (a veblen good) during a recession, with falling gas prices? He'd be out of capital within the year without cap-ex funds from Panasonic, Toyota, Daimler and the public markets to lever up and be set to produce 20K cars next year (~$1 billion in revenue).

What if the 4th Falcon launch failed and Musk ran out of cash (COTS pays only after hitting each milestone)?

What then huh? You must always look at the probabilistic alternatives, because confirmation bias and the survival bias will fuck your thinking up.

By the way - I do have strong opinions. But I hold them weakly.

I am liable to change them at any moment based upon empirical evidence.

[ansible]

Let's talk about SpaceX for a moment.

Of all the launcher designs I've seen over the years, the Falcon / Dragon program is one of the most sensible ever. Every aspect of the design that I've seen fulfills the twin goals of reliability and low operational cost. They didn't try to create an awesome/cool system with unproven concepts (space plane, scramjet, rotors for re-entry, etc.). Instead, they took the best exisiting and well proven concepts, wrapped them in a nice package, tested it well, and made it work.

The existing large players like LockMart optimize for performance and their own profit; the small players all seem to be trying unproven (and in most cases rather dubious) concepts. Compared to how the orbital launch industry normally works, SpaceX is a refreshing dose of sanity. I salute their hard work and engineering prowess, and I wish them much success and profits.

[kwekly]

You're reinforcing this point by with even "stronger opinions" but you're avoiding the fundamental issue:

"There's a difference between a person having an unconventional idea, e.g. for a business, and an unconventional theory, which they claim has a sound scientific basis."

Unlike a business proposal, no degree of bizarre circumstance or incredible luck can transform the underlying operation of the brain.

Ironically, you're using a human bias (pushing an analogy outside it's original domain) to argue about human bias. I'm pretty sure 99% of folks involved in this debate are well aware behavioural psychology and the like, so you can spare the "fuck you up" histrionics.

[gstar]

GFC, I believe, is a term used in the Australian to mean "Global Financial Crisis".

[jacquesm]

Being slightly crazy didn't stop Howard Hughes from multiplying his parents' fortune.