What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The cold war may be over, but alas, the same can’t be said of the danger posed by icy B.M.s

+1 yugo girl!

This is a shitty reboot of The Gods Must Be Crazy.

So say we all

Like +++

I laughed out loud.

<high pitched nerd voice>No fusion crust or regmaglypts, rough surface and doesn’t stick to a magnet, obviously not a meteorite! That’s poop, my friend!</high pitched nerd voice>

I read about this and thought it was a joke article, but it’s true it seems. The flame doesn’t travel more than 10 feet, so it’s sort of like a giant Bic lighter.

I don’t know why Musk is doing this. It’s so irresponsible and I think hurts his image. Maybe it’s just a money grab.

I really hope he put the World Headquarters here (but I bet he didn’t):

Meanwhile - here is the, uh, marketing blurb about the flamethrower:
Guaranteed to liven up any party!
World’s safest flamethrower!

-Fire extinguisher sold separately (for exorbitant amounts of money)
-Taxes and shipping will be added at checkout
-Additional customs fees may apply for international orders because of laws
-International customers can receive a full refund if not happy with said fees
-Before shipping, aspiring flamethrower aficionados will be sent a terms and conditions rhyme for review and acceptance
-Starts shipping in spring
-May not be used on Boring Company decorative lacquered hay bales or Boring Company dockside munitions warehouses

That’s why i laugh at everyone fetishizing these irresponsible, “heroic” entrepreneur technologist as having anything but their own autocratic goals as the end point.

They’re like modern day version of Renaissance royalty, with often more money than sense. That they play with their money so irreverently really shows by how much more we need to tax them into space.

These are the same kind of guys who, for all their faults, also drove the industrial revolution and made the modern world.

Well, that didn’t take long.

No doubt that a lot of the innovation and energy that went into the industrial revolution came from a wellspring of self-aggrandizement. Hell, Smith’s whole market system was designed to harness that economic narcissism for the greater good.

The problem comes when “the greater good” gets left behind, and without a strong civic authority, that is, government, it inevitably does get booted to the curb. So, it’s not contradictory at all to say that at certain stages of economic and technological development, it’s good to encourage these entrepreneurs, even if they sometimes go off the rails, but ultimately, they do have to be reined in, especially when their self indulgence starts to lose most of its “greater good” qualities. After all, it’s not like they’re ever going to run out of money even if you stopped them cold with Endigm’s “tax them into space” right now.

Whether Musk fits into that category yet or is still in the “we need this sort of madness despite the sometimes unpalatable consequences” is I suppose up in the air.

This isn’t an argument.

This whole thing is just a media stunt, right? There’s no end-game here and tweets like that obviously aren’t going to magic these things through customs.

Well, the videos sure make it seem like the, “flame,” shoots maybe a foot, tops. Regardless of customs, what’s the use of anything like that, at all? To light your campfire?

Burning wasp nests on your (wooden) deck?