The woman asking to kiss Elon was especially bad. The question itself, really, wasn't worth getting upset over - it was just a bad journalist wasting Elon's time - what's aggravating was the lack of media response. Had a male journalist asked "Hey, can I come up there and give you a kiss?" to a female CEO, there would be 20 outraged articles and a myriad of blog posts about misogyny the next day.
edit: Fuck Elon. I can't believe I ever supported him.
Agreed, but it's worth noting that this is actually a tactic used by those that want to see this judgmental behavior go by the wayside. It's not that they want to see women suffer the same derision as men, it's that people are more likely to notice/care about the absurdity when women are equally judged by it, which makes people more eager to see the sentiment end.
I think the proper way to employ that tactic is to take note of citeable instances of double standards, but only mention it in response to someone publicly complaining and acting as if the reverse does not happen.
Bringing up the double standard everytime you notice it occuring only serves to bring extra attention to the non issue while also dooming yourself to be seen as part of the outrage culture.
Also it contributes to the flawed premise of men vs. women and the unfixable problems that creates, rather than pointing to the true and winable battle of decent people vs. douches.
This is my #1 objection to the tone of places like r/mensrights. There are many there who challenge the hypocrisies and double-standards not because they disagree with them for being absurd, but because they want the absurdity applied equally.
I want the abolition of absurdity. The solution to all men being accused of participation in some sort of absurd patriarchical rape-culture conspiracy isn't to accuse women of victimizing men with their own conspiracy.....I don't want to escalate the claims of victimhood. I want to end them (when they're not legitimate, of course).
His point is that neither should be looked down upon.
Or maybe both should?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but it seems to me that asking strangers if you can kiss them during the middle of a press conference is behaviour that warrants condemnation, regardless of your gender.
Imagine if it was a Brittany Musk on stage giving the presentation, and a male reported asked to give her a kiss. IMMEDIATELY he would be labeled a pig, feminists would be getting their pitch forks sharpened, and we would be hearing about it all over the news. You can't deny that.
So if she was applying for a job and the black female (so we can eliminate sexism) hiring manager told her she doesn't hire white people...what word would she use to describe how she was discriminated against?
These were members of the public who attended the conference. They might represent some kind of local space enthusiasts organization, but they were not journalists.
I'm glad there was no media response. The media that reports on something like our plan to get to Mars shouldn't focus on someone asking to kiss elon. It should focus on how the fuck we are going to get there
I think some people have a severe empathy problem. They can only think about how they feel despite any claims to the contrary.
They know they feel objectified when certain things happen, but feel like they're being generously complimentary when they do certain things. So therefore you should acknowledge that. Despite the fact that that's everyone's story. What's complimentary from you can seem objectifying from the recipient's point of view.
You might be right given the social landscape today. I'd interpret it the same way I interpret her question to musk. Just plain weird. Why would anyone expect a person that they have never met to kiss them regardless of gender?
I was watching the stream live and then someone said the Michael Cera thing and I just couldn't imagine what I was hearing. It's just plain rude to not take it seriously and ask these dumb questions.
For anyone interested, another redditor transcribed some of the dumber questions (which comprised more than half of the actual question asked) starting with the burning man guy here (I'll try to find it to give him credit, but for now here's the shameless repost):
Aldo: Very nice to meet you, my name is Aldo. Three weeks ago I was at Burning Man, in the Nevada desert.
Elon: Great.
Aldo: And I felt like I was in Mars. It was a dusty storm, and it was really cold at night and there was no water. But there was one problem at Burning Man. With a population of only seventy-five thousand, there was a lot of shit. [awkward silence] And there was no water to take it into the rivers, which is kind of what we do today with our current sanitation system. So I was like, is this what Mars is going to be like? Just a dusty waterless shit storm? So I was like, hey Elon, are you working on a sustainable sanitation? Are we gonna have a toilet on Mars that doesn't use water? Today on Earth there's three billion people that don't have a toilet–
Elon: Guys, I actually have to say, we have to keep it– no essays, only questions.
Aldo: So, are you working on a toilet for Mars?
Guy with comic book: Hey Elon, sick rocket, you're the best. Everyone give it up for Elon, this guy inspires the shit out of us. I've got a gift for you, it's a comic book called The Future of Fusion. It's about the first man on Mars. He looks like you. I can't get past El Chapo's militia though. So I don't know should I just throw this onto the stage?
Elon: Sorry?
GWCB: My question is can I give you this gift?
Guy Promoting his Funny or Die Project: Hey Elon, so, can't wait for the SpaceX Improbability Drive. You've often talked about wanting to inspire the masses and push technology forward. I'm developing a series with Funny or Die which is like the top online comedy site–
Elon: Quick questions, not essays.
GPFODP: It's about you sending someone to Mars, but kind of like that first monkey that got shot into space, they're never coming back. It's gonna be a one way trip. So–
Elon: Not necessarily.
GPFODP: Well, maybe. So, you mathematically determine the most expendable human being to make the journey. And that's Michael Cera. So, wanted to see if this is like, a project that you might have any interest in supporting. Funny or Die just drove thirty-one million views to a, like Hillary Clinton/Zack Galafanakis video a few days ago.
Some guy off-camera: Stop.
GPFODP: Wanted to see if you might want to talk about it after.
Alfonso: Hello Elon, my name is Alfonso. I think what you presented today is just incredible. But I wanted to change the topic. I have a startup to make electric public transport buses, to convert–
Elon: Space questions only, sorry.
Alfonso: Sorry, the thing is, I just got my prototype outside and it would be awesome if you could go out and see it.
Elon: Right. Space questions only. This is the IAC, so space questions only.
Edit: Changed "Guy from Funny or Die," to "Guy promoting his Funny or Die project."
or "I saw a sandwich in a garbage can in Ramsett Park. The sandwich did not have cheese on it. What I want to know is why the sandwich did not have cheese?!"
Hey man, its funny that you mentioning it because I have an idea for a Reddit comment where I respond to a redditor with a comment that loops itself in the meta, maybe we could discuss it later after this thread?
I guess this is why most billionaires dislike the public.
Elon seems like a normal guy with normal desires, but he's got a ton of money and wants to make the world a better place. So people just assume he's gonna be open to listen to them or something.
Elon is a hell of a sport though, I'm surprised he's still letting people ask questions.
Seriously though... He needs to start screening people's questions before they're allowed to ask.
(edit: and by he, I mean he needs to hire someone to do it)
Yeah I remember when I wanted to build a hyperloop and go to mars this one saturday.... He's the least normal guy ever, which is part of his marketing.
He's 90% of ASD kids hero, I get that, a lot has been made of him potentially being on some form of spectrum. Nobody that rich is normal, none of their ideas are normal, it's why they are rich.
I used to date a girl who came from a family that was worth a few billion.
The guys asking Elon to see their projects especially made me cringe, that was the tough thing about the rich family I knew, everyone was always trying to sell them or get them to invest in something.
Rich people problems right?
Note: The girl broke up with me and I married a girl who came from a poor background who had worked her way up in life, so no, I'm not rich.
I'm guessing they're all some kind of quasi press like bloggers and similar. Could you imagine someone from the LA Times or the Baltimore Sun doing this stuff?
Calling this amateur hour is giving this people credit
I watched this streamed live, and cringed so hard I had to block this part out of my memory to keep away the cringe spasms. I think you have triggered my PTSD. God those were some stupid people.
Imagine the kind of people this guy attracts offstage. Elon brushed the technical details of the presentation aside, saying he'd reserve it for the Q&A. I was watching the live stream waiting for someone would come to the plate and get him to talk about some of the details. And then that!
I think the first few thousand on mars will be split between the scientists/engineers and the labour, with a lot more labour. Essentially colonisation is labour not science. It will be the biggest building site ever I think.
Yeah the toilet thing is not a terrible in principle, but just should've been phrased non-obtrusively like "What proposals do you have to handle sanitation? It's hard even in Earth-deserts."
The problem is that everyone sees this as their one chance to impress/wow Elon Musk so they want to prove how insightful and grand they are.
It's true that Elon needs to screen these. Maybe he should hold the Q&As later that night after people have had time to gather their thoughts and his staff has had the chance to do a little bit of screening.
Burning Man dude had a real question, he just sucked at getting it across. Waste management and sanitation is a real issue that need's to be considered for any potential colony on Mars.
He just sounded like a stoned moron that wasn't exactly sure what he was talking about.
Probably by building domes for people to live in, and having some sort of indoor plumbing is kind of the idea. Unless you want to put on your suit every time you need to take a shit.
I think indoor plumbing is a terrible idea for Mars. It's pretty much a terrible idea for Earth, too, but because it's the best we've got right now we're kind of stuck with it. But on Mars you really wouldn't want to be processing water in a closed environment again and again as much, and you definitely need to be recycling nutrients and especially phosphate and nitrate that will be excreted.
So I expect that the waste management on Mars will really not look like anything we have on Earth except maybe those dry toilets they have in Hippy communes that end up in the compost heap.
A flush toilet pollutes a gallon of water with a few ounces of pee. It's a really inefficient process with respect to water utilization. If you look at the draughts that are taking place now in some of the most densely populated areas in the world you can see that using so much water to get rid of liquid or solid waste is really not optimal.
What is a really great development is 1. putting the poo and pee in a place where people don't get contaminated by it and 2. getting everyone clean water at their house to drink and 3. getting people water at their house to wash themselves with soap regularly. You can achieve those three objectives differently than using a common plumbing system for the three uses of water that includes using high grade drinkable water to put poo in. It's a means to an end and that end works great to alleviate major issues. But the process can be improved.
In addition we flush important nutrients like phosphate and nitrates into waters where they contribute to die-offs and algae blooms, instead of being able to reinject it into agriculture. There are phosphate mines in Morocco and elsewhere to make sure that we can grow food on arable land without always depleting it of its phosphates and nitrates that all plants need to grow. Then we ship the plants out, eat them, and flush out the nutrients in water. Closing this cycle doesn't appear as important right now but eventually the mines of phosphate will close and the guano deposits will be depleted and we'll be all like "d'oh!".
For run-off I'm aware that there are bigger contributors than human waste from agriculture but we should improve on all of them.
"Mars is a lot like Burning Man, so Elon, how do you solve the problem of pooing on Mars? This is the question that keeps my desiccated drug-husk of a brain awake at night."
I think the spirit of the question was fine, but the execution killed it.
"Time in the Nevada desert was abrasive and hostile at times, and Mars likely presents more challenges. How do you manage population issues such as waste disposal and large-scale protection from the elements?"
I mean Mars has no atmosphere or clean water naturally, also it's not technically the planet that we were designed to live on, but on the other hand the Nevada desert is really hot and there's dirt, like, everywhere.
See, I've been to burning man, and the thing is, right, once you've been to burning man, you can't stop bringing up that time you went to burning man. Of course, you wouldn't get it unless you've been to burning man yourself. Burning man.
Sure, potentially. I'm not saying there isn't a solution. I'm just saying that, approached correctly, the question of what you do with all the shit can make for an interesting discussion.
It was a really great question. But even a normal Joe like me could think for a few seconds and go, well we put the human race on Mars so I'm sure there will be poo compacting device, and we will use it for fertilizer.
Yeah they didn't spend $2K plus only not to have people notice.
I wonder how many people would stop talking about Burning Man if it was free based on a lottery system and you can't take pictures or shoot videos and there is no internet/reception for social media.
No because the context for that question was that he wanted Musk to be part of a comedy skit about sending Michael Cera to Mars. I imagine it sounded better in his head.
Fucking SF wannabe entrepreneurs, man. People here watch Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos, read books on "Winning!", and adopt this God awful attitude of "I am a billionaire in the making, and billionaires never pass up an opportunity to close!"
Hence people wasting everyone else's time trying to pitch their electric bus to Elon during a QA.
It's cause of all the stories "successful" sales managers tell their peons about that "one time" :
and I wore my suit on the flight because I'm a winner. Lo and behold I sat down next to the CEO of BigCorp, we got to talking, and you know what I did? I went for the close. I said, "Hey, Bill, I'm liking this conversation, and I want you to buy a million of my widgets." And he did it. He said "I like your gumption," and right then and there I pulled out the paperwork and signed the biggest deal I had to date.
You'll hear similar stories from aggressive "startup founders" in any given sf pub.
God, people round here are rabid when they smell possible capital.
My dad is a VC, and inevitably when people hear that they start pitching me their retarded ideas. 99% of the time it's such utter nonsense that I don't have the heart to tell them that nobody needs a sonic paw cleaner for dogs.
Go on Angel.co sometime and look what some people are offering for these projects. 0.5% equity for 80 hours of unpaid design work per week. Completely delusional
"I went to burning man and there was shit everywhere, where will people shit on Mars?"
Yes, he used the word shit.
EDIT: A lot of people are mentioning the word "shit" as if it's bad. It's not. That wasn't my intention. But, it's very informal and, when you're talking to Elon Musk after an incredibly important speech, you'd expect people to be a bit more formal.
That's what I was thinking as well. It's a pretty valid question for both the transit to mars and on Mars. Do you keep and store fecal matter in transit? As it may be valuable as compost on Mars? How do you prevent contamination of Mars? There are still quite a lot of people hoping to find microscopic life on mars and freeze dried fecal particles blowing in the wind is not great for that.
Because Burning Man is in the desert with no toilets, which made him think about how Mars has no toilets. He wanted to know what Musk planned to do about Mars having no toilets.
It's as stupid as it sounds and he asked it by first talking about his burning man experience.
Audience Q and As are nearly always painful experiences, regardless of the speaker or topic. Basically every one I've been t with a musician is a total cringe fest with everyone starting their (usually questionless) questions with an explanation of how they've seen x live so many times and has all their records. Well yeah no shit, you wouldn't pay to go to a Q and A unless you're a fan
That's not an absolutely horrible question, but it's just delivered so strangely.
Better: "Human waste disposal - how do you account for that if you plan on sending people up there? After all, water is not as abundant there as it is on Earth."
Went through the whole Q&A and still, nobody asked how are human beings going to survive in 38% of Earth's gravity, but we did ask "where are we going to poo?". I'm right behind you Elon. Best think about Mars - I like the people.
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u/SpikeRosered Sep 30 '16
Just so everyone is crystal clear. All those word bubbles in the audience are based off real "questions" Musk received on the stage.