Tesla backing Bitcoin is a carbon tragedy (energy use is HUGE/transaction)

[nwdiver]

The thing about being single minded is that it excuses all sorts of bad behaviors.

Is it 'bad behavior'? It's pretty universal that the selfish idolatry that Trump displays is bad. It's 100% self-serving. But Elon isn't self-serving. His objective isn't Elon it's sustainable energy and space travel. Was Grant a 'worse' general than McClellan because lost more soldiers?

What risk are we willing to take to accelerate kicking our pathetic addiction to fools fuel? If you acknowledge that the addiction itself carries a risk wouldn't that alter your view of the acceptable risk to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy? Elon left CA because their risk tolerance was ~zero. Having a higher risk tolerance isn't 'bad behavior'.... it's just having a higher risk tolerance. If

If Elon had endangered Franz von Holzhausen to the fury of an angry mob because he wanted to be CEO of Tesla for a few more years.... that would be one thing... He just wanted the factory to stay online with a few COVID precautions and CA wanted it shutdown. The move from CA had almost nothing to do with taxes.

 

[David_Cary]

Bad behavior - treating employees like trash?
Encouraging carbon intensive Bitcoin?
Pretty sure his personal relationships aren't ideal....
And moving to Texas personally is a bit different than moving a factory. Personally is about taxes, factory is about lower costs.

What does he do with his riches? Vaccines? Working to reduce inequality? Saving rainforests?

Isn't the obscene collection of wealth immoral on some level? Waste hurts someone. How many houses does he own? While people aroudn him sit homeless.

How many flights does he take?

Does making space travel cheaper really help us reduce reliance on fossil fuels? Sounds like it encourages more waste although I fully admit I haven't analyzed it at all. Maybe the recyclability helps overall but by reducing costs, you encourage the practice.

I am pretty sure his behavior is pretty crappy on many levels and we don't know the 1/2 of it.

 

[nwdiver]

Bad behavior - treating employees like trash?
Encouraging carbon intensive Bitcoin?
Pretty sure his personal relationships aren't ideal....
And moving to Texas personally is a bit different than moving a factory. Personally is about taxes, factory is about lower costs.

What does he do with his riches? Vaccines? Working to reduce inequality? Saving rainforests?

Isn't the obscene collection of wealth immoral on some level? Waste hurts someone. How many houses does he own? While people aroudn him sit homeless.

How many flights does he take?

Does making space travel cheaper really help us reduce reliance on fossil fuels? Sounds like it encourages more waste although I fully admit I haven't analyzed it at all. Maybe the recyclability helps overall but by reducing costs, you encourage the practice.

I am pretty sure his behavior is pretty crappy on many levels and we don't know the 1/2 of it.

How does Elon 'treat his employees like trash'? It's a high stress environment and there are risks... is that 'treating them like trash'? I agree that Elon prioritizes Teslas mission over the individual welfare of an employee but I don't think that's 'treating them like trash'. In a similar way a mission of often more critical than any single soldier.

So the bar is that every single conceivable problem needs to be addressed simultaneously? What exactly is your point?

My point is simple. I'm rejecting the idiotic notion that Tesla and Elon are motivated primarily by profit. Profit is necessary to achieve the goal but it's NOT the goal. The goal is to kick our pathetic addiction to fools fuel. That's it. Not profits, not vaccines, not reducing inequality and not saving the rainforests. Plenty of other organizations specialized in addressing those issues.

 

[David_Cary]

Agree to disagree for sure. Having them work during Covid shutdown was a willful disregard to their safety. I believe you said it yourself that moving to Texas was partly so he could abuse his workers more. That is was I meant by "trash" - hyperbole for sure.

Tesla is a publicly traded corporation. That means it has one primary goal - return equity to shareholders. This is a basic tenet of capitalism and is not idiotic. You may not agree which is fine.

My point is that the richest man in the world does very little (perhaps nothing?) for charity. For any other cause. (You made the argument that he isn't motivated by money and my point was that he does seem to hold onto it for someone who doesn't really care.) I don't go around analyzing his life and I don't really care all that much. I just get annoyed when people think that he is somehow above basic human failings. From what I can see, he is kind of a jerk. His Covid crap was just more icing on that cake. SEC stupidity. Smoking pot while being videoed. His ego risks the mission.

His behavior makes me less likely to purchase a new Tesla.

Do you ever think for one second that he uses this idea of sustainable transportation and climate change just for profit? I mean probably not but the guy is a snake oil salesman a lot of the time. He gets giddy when talking about acceleration when that does absolutely nothing to help the environment. He makes ridiculous claims about FSD and basically flat out lies. Total snake oil and lots of people eat it up.

 

[nwdiver]

Agree to disagree for sure. Having them work during Covid shutdown was a willful disregard to their safety. I believe you said it yourself that moving to Texas was partly so he could abuse his workers more. That is was I meant by "trash" - hyperbole for sure.

So did Grant abuse his soldiers because he was willing to risk more to win battles? Should Lincoln have not fired McClellan to save lives at the risk of possibly losing the war? Is climate change a 'crisis'? yes? Then what risks should we be willing to take to solve it? It sucks that the previous generation failed to act on climate and forced us to take more risks at a higher cost to solve it faster... but it is what it is....

My point is that the richest man in the world does very little (perhaps nothing?) for charity.

Elon is likely a sociopath with a myopic focus on sustainable energy and making humanity multi-planetary. How does a charity further either of those goals? Just because he isn't motivated my money doesn't mean he doesn't understand its value in achieving those goals. At least he didn't start a fake foundation and a fake university to fund an lavish lifestyle...

Sociopaths likely exist in society for a reason. That reason is not to be charitable. It's to get sh*t done. I don't sleep on a hammer, I don't carry a pillow on my tool-belt and I don't expect sociopaths to donate to charity.

He gets giddy when talking about acceleration when that does absolutely nothing to help the environment. He makes ridiculous claims about FSD and basically flat out lies. Total snake oil and lots of people eat it up.

??? Sure it does. It gets more people excited about EVs. That was what made Tesla standout initially and got the EV train rolling. EVs can't be boring. Most people are too selfish to make even tiny sacrifices to solve climate. FSD is based on AI. AI develops at the pace it develops. It's like predicting when you can breed a Chihuahua out of a wolf. Would making such a claim be 'ridiculous'. If you got a border collie instead of a Chihuahua is that really 'snake oil'?

Do you ever think for one second that he uses this idea of sustainable transportation and climate change just for profit?

No. Not even for a nanosecond. And neither does anyone else that knows the history of Tesla.

 

[SageBrush]

Elon is likely a sociopath

Not even close. Beware using psychiatric diagnoses loosely

 

[David_Cary]

You lost me on the border collie....

 

[bhzmark]

Ignorant speculation on sociopath diagnoses is pollution in a thread supposed to be on the merits and demerits of bitcoin wrt energy usage.

Would like to see more intelligent info shared on thread topic. Sorry I don’t have anything to offer on the topic except I can see that it seems a legitimate concern, and especially the points made by https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus (too bad she couldn’t contribute her intelligent points here . . . smh)

 

[Mattski30]

Tesla sales and stock price has typically reflected a green premium. Now that Tesla's market cap has dropped over $200 billion, does anyone still think the bitcoin investment was a good move for shareholders? @David_Cary

Tesla’s Bitcoin Folies – Smart Solutions

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Tesla sales and stock price has typically reflected a green premium. Now that Tesla's market cap has dropped over $200 billion, does anyone still think the bitcoin investment was a good move for shareholders? @David_Cary

Tesla’s Bitcoin Folies – Smart Solutions

Yes.
The reduction in value has nothing to do with Bitcoin.
The reduction in cap is due to having no significant good news.
Affected by the global supply problems, no FSD, removing radar before being ready, no fat cells, no Austin, no Berlin and no improvement in customer service all while there is increased competition from other manufacturers.

 

[Big Dog]

Tesla sales and stock price has typically reflected a green premium. Now that Tesla's market cap has dropped over $200 billion, does anyone still think the bitcoin investment was a good move for shareholders? @David_Cary

Tesla’s Bitcoin Folies – Smart Solutions

Really too early to answer that question. As crypto is considered an intangible asset for accounting purposes, TSLA only has to report gains/losses when it is sold, so only then can we see what $1.5m investment in bitcoin contributes to the bottom line. (Note, the company has already sold $272m worth at a profit...)