systempatchnote

Some people wonder why Musk has entered politics in such a sudden and vehement way. But the answer is fairly clear. It's an illustration of something I have been trying, off and on, to convince @ID_AA_Carmack of for some time now. There are three essential functions of a man, three things which define masculinity. Men explore. Men build. And men fight. All the other things that are considered masculine... leadership, sports, weightlifting, eating carburetors for breakfast, knowing how to load your own damn shotgun... all of these are performed in the service of being able to explore, build, or fight. If they aren't, they are performative and not very masculine at all, kind of like being a very successful celebrity bodybuilder who won't defend his own civilization, and endorses those who would destroy it instead. What I have been trying to convince John Carmack of is that fighting is not optional. John is a guy who likes to build things. He builds wonderful things, and is justly famous and admired for it. But he doesn't like to fight. Not because he can't, but because he considers it wasteful. It gets in the way of building, and it's generally petty and lowbrow. I agree. And I sympathize when he finds my fiery political polemics tiresome and frustrating. But the thing about being a builder is that you make cool stuff. And the thing about being an explorer is that you find cool stuff. And sooner or later, if you build or find enough cool stuff, people who don't build or explore, people who are too lazy or untalented to build or explore, decide that it would be easier to just take stuff from you. Then you have to fight. This can be literal fighting, but more often, these days, it's an abstract form of fighting... politics. Because politics was devised as a way to settle disputes without violence, politics ends up being a proxy for violence. And so, just as there is no option to not be in a fight when someone else decides to involve you in one, there is no option to exclude yourself from politics. You are either an active participant, doing whatever you can to affect the balance of power, or you are a passive participant, with your life determined by the struggle you have left to others. Elon Musk just wanted to build stuff, and use that stuff to explore the solar system. But eventually, some people with political power came along and said to themselves, hey, that stuff is powerful. It should belong to us, and we should control it. So he was faced with a choice. He could either allow these people, who don't know how to build or manage anything, to control what he built, and tell him what to build and not build, and whether or not he had to molest a seal before he could build it... ... or he had to put on his armor and fight. People who want to be left alone eventually have to become political partizans. Why? If all the people who want to be left alone stay out of politics, then politics is left to the people who don't want to leave others alone. This election is a choice between those who want to be left alone, and leave others alone, and those who want everyone to serve them. In other words, it is a choice between good and evil. It's not a hard choice. It doesn't require great intelligence. Only moral courage.

This is what will matter 1000 years from now. Not your politics. Not your stupid tantrums about who platformed who on some website. Not your incomprehensible desire to send NASA's entire budget to the third world. This guy reignited the Space Age. He spent his own money, hired a bunch of dudes, and reignited the Space Age. And together, they underbid and outdid NASA and its pet dinosaur corporations on every conceivable level. This is history happening before you. If you are a puddlefish, if you think this is a wasteful showpiece or science project, then you don't understand physics, economics, astronomy, or in fact the basic layout of the universe you live in. We live in a tiny puddle at the bottom of a well. Out there is an entire universe, full not only of stuff to explore, but full of stuff to build things out of. Big things. Wonderful things. Things that are going to make all of the cool stuff you have today, all of human civilization to date look like early Assyrians writing stuff down on wet clay with a reed. Infinite resources. Infinite energy. Infinite space. Instead of fighting over little patches of land, we will have an infinite 3d volume. Enclose it in steel, pump it full of air, spin it, and it's a habitat. Instead of scratching tiny scraps of metal out of the crust of one planet, we will break down entire asteroids and smelt them. Instead of drilling for hydrocarbons and turning water wheels, we will harness entire suns, split the atom, and eventually draw our fuel from the substance that makes up 99% of the entire universe. None of your local, temporal Earth politics matter compared to this. This is more important than pride parades and abortions, more important than tribal conflicts in eastern Europe and southwest Asia, more important than tensions with Russia and China. More important, in the long run, than the United States of America. America's most important function, its one most vital purpose, is to serve as an incubator for this. Because this changes everything. All of our arguments about conditions on this planet become obsolete, because the whole planet becomes just one suburban neighborhood. All of our wars over resources and territory become obsolete, because no one has time to brawl when we're all sitting on top of a dragon horde with sacks and shovels. Everyone who was alive at the time remembers where they were when Kennedy died in Dallas. When the towers fell. When the Eagle landed. When the Wall came down. But this... this is the real moment, one of the first of many. They are what every child will know about a thousand years from now, even if they have four arms and are genetically engineered for zero-g, or are sentient blocks of code running on a sphere of computronium enclosing an entire star. You may not live to see that, depending on what we do or don't invent, and when. But it will happen, and you will live to see wonderful things. If the puddlefish don't get in the way. Don't be a puddlefish.

I'll tell you this one right now. Most companies are breathtakingly inefficient. Because no one gets fired for doing what "we have always done". Because boomer middle managers hate engineers, and most their interactions with them are for the purpose of micromanaging them or emphasizing their own status. Because three hour meetings including everyone they can think of allow nonproductive people to look busy. Because boomer c-suite executives couldn't inspire an autistic nine year old boy to talk about trains. This results in companies that are process-oriented, rather than result-oriented. The purpose of a process-oriented culture is to dilute responsibility so no one can be held accountable for failure. The only way such companies succeed is by eventually, mechanistically running out of mistakes to make, and grinding their way across the finish line. This means that it's actually pretty easy, in principle, to make most companies far more competent and efficient . But you have to be willing to break social rules and offend people. In other words, you have to be a sperg. What you do is simple. Create a culture of accountability. Every single act, every single component, every single product, every single decision, must be connected to a single name, who owns it and is accountable for it. Cripple meeting culture by allowing anyone to not show up, or to walk out at any time, if they deem their presence unnecessary. Most meetings serve no purpose other than to dilute responsibility by artificially adding consensus to what should be an individual decision. Eliminate any role which doesn't directly and obviously contribute. Focus on results, and remove anyone who plays it safe instead of pushing forward. But never punish failure, if the failure resulted from a reasonable decision that turned out to be wrong. Failure is inevitable. Learning from failure is what brings success. Don't allow HR to have any power in hiring decisions. Their job is to handle payroll, benefits, sick leave, and paperwork, and that's it. They shouldn't even be allowed to talk to candidates before they are hired. Hiring, like any other decision, cannot be by consensus. No dilution of responsibility can be permitted. Team leaders hire their teams. Power in the company must rest firmly in the hands of its core function. If you are an engineering company, designing and building new technology, power must rest with the engineers. Not sales, not marketing, not accounting. Engineers. Above all, know how to inspire your people. This must be done with real, meaningful action, not pretty speeches. Engineers are some of the smartest people on Earth, and have high levels of integrity, but boomer middle managers despise them because they speak without subtlety, and don't care about professional appearance games... so they tend to treat engineers as irresponsible children. In reality, middle managers are the ones playing games. To earn an engineer's loyalty, you need do only three things: - Shield him from having to play, or even know about, office politics, and from unnecessary busywork. An engineer's time should not be spent doing unproductive things he is not good at. - Treat him fairly in pay, benefits and job expectations. Engineers expect not to have to argue for what they get. They create value, and their share of that value should not be gated behind the exercise of a set of skills that are not necessary for job performance. - Give him something important to do, something that he can be proud of. An engineer's profession is an important part of his identity and sense of self, and he needs to feel as if he is dedicating that part of himself to something that matters. What does this look like? Watch the video with the sound on. Hear the cheering. Watch the people's reactions in the left half of the screen. Listen to the announcer. She's crying. When people believe like this, they will work harder than they ever have. They will pull together and resolve problems. They will treat each other like trusted members of their tribe. They will set team goals above their own. So what is Elon Musk's secret sauce? Asperger's Syndrome, that's what.