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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

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Yet another bit about Musk's delusions of grandeur (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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so i stumbled upon a thing on reddit

the thing is that there's an obscure early scifi book by none other than wernher von braun, that is about mars colonization, where they find already existing civilization, leader of which is called elon. apparently this is why megaracist elon's father named him that:

Interest in this novel increased in 2021 when people connected the Martian leader, called the Elon, to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, suggesting that von Braun may have somehow foreseen Musk's space exploration ventures.[15] However, Errol Musk, Elon's father, asserted in 2022 that he was fully aware of the von Braun connection in naming his son.[16]

also in that book: tunnels used for high-speed travel; nation-states became obsolete because of some magic tech; highly technocratic planetary government as a result. that stimulant habit seems historically accurate then, even if it's cut with ketamine sometimes. some more red string on corkboard https://www.mind-war.com/p/the-elon-how-a-nazi-rocket-scientist this tracks as one of his grandparents moved from canada to south africa because canada in 40s wasn't racist enough for them, and with all the technocracy inc things.

so yeah, motherfucker might be believing - or even groomed into - that he's destined to be a planetary overlord, all based on nazi scifi, and he's playing it out irl with all the fuck you money he has

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (31 children)

The fact that Iain M. Banks is name-dropped in the poster in the article is a travesty... I have no doubt "the Elon" thinks himself some badass Special Circumstances operative, and OpenAI/Grok/... as laying the foundations for Culture Minds. It's not. He's not. Goddamnit I wish Banks was still alive.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (13 children)

@smiletolerantly Listen, I knew Iain—went drinking with him semi-regularly—and he despised Musk. One of his best villains, Joliet Veppers in "Surface Detail", is based on Musk.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (7 children)

"Veppers... is based on Musk"

If this is true, then it's a remarkable bit of SF foresight, because in 2010, Musk was nowhere near what he is now. He wasn't even in the top 100 richest. He was rich, but not even a billionaire. It was such a different time that even Jeff Bezos was just #43 in the world (this is from Forbes 2010). We didn't yet have our current technofeudalism centered on Internet tycoons; the tech tycoons in the top 10 were Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.

Regarding the main topic of this thread, I too had wondered if the name is a clue that Elon was the golden child of some secret cult of upper-class Space Nazis, their anointed one destined to realize the Iron Dream. But if one is to entertain such thoughts, you should be aware that it was also the middle name of a maternal great-grandfather, John Elon Haldeman, who was apparently a Minnesota school teacher who emigrated to Canada with his chiropractor wife.