| HN Mirror

Railroads were a legitimate innovation that reshaped industry and society, there was no doubt about that - but it required massive capital expenditures, even buy in from regular people. As a result, there was speculative bubble, massive over investment, bubble bursts.

And yet all of the track laid was ultimately put to good use, and it was transformative.

Elon's 'magic' is attracting legions of retail investors - Dentists, Lawyers, others who keep those valuations high.

Some of them believe, on some level, that he's going to put 1 million people on the moon. After all - why would he strike a deal with the board for a bonus on that target?

Because it's a fake deal, intended to give legitimacy to a scammy proclamation.

Altman's 'magic' is the nauseating narrative around 'the singularity' and 'AGI'

Tesla, Space X, AI - are all very real, they're doing materially good things, but that's actually what makes it dangerous.

'NFTs' are narrative nonsense based on nonsense.

AI and Space are narrative nonsense based on something legitimate ... which gives the backers an inch of ground to stand on, which ironically imbues some of them ridiculous cognitive impairment.

And a lot of populist fools all around, carving out niches on ideological or populist territory (aka 'Elon Bad', 'Elon God', 'AI fake', 'AI will do everything') etc.

The truth is extra hard to discern because the future does actually depend on 'the herd' - and how much they can be convinced, and in a sustainable way etc..

Some degree of 'narrative' might bode well for everyone, too much is fraud.

Railroads were a perfect opportunity for overstatement.

Our system of capitalism is partly at fault: builders have no choice but to 'play the game' to some extent, they have to balance that with reality, and hopefully morality.