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Dan Gardner
@dgardner
New York Times bestselling author and co-author of many books. My website: dangardner.ca. My newsletter: dgardner.substack.com.
487 Following 27K Followers 1.5K Posts
Latest posts 5
Possibly the funniest exchange related to history I've ever encountered on X. Well, "funny" in the sense of oh-God-I-despair-for-humanity funny.
Without Russia we would not have won WWll.View quoted post on X
I have no idea what the Ukraine did.
One thing Elon Musk is indisputably great at is getting superb engineers and giving them the means to work. SpaceX is the best example.
Ironically, because his fans treat their accomplishments as if they are Musk's own, that's the one thing he is seldom credited for.
Ironically, because his fans treat their accomplishments as if they are Musk's own, that's the one thing he is seldom credited for.
Apparently Elon Musk single-handedly ended the Great (technological) Stagnation. We know this because Musk’s engineers used compressed air thrusters — a technology pioneered in the 1950s — to make a car spin and land safely.
In recent years, Peter Thiel has repeatedly, and convincingly, advanced the argument that, contrary to popular belief, we live in a period of technological stagnation.View quoted post on X
Since the 1970s, he argues, innovation in almost all areas of human endeavor has ground to a halt. The fact that the world of bits was a notable exception had blinded us to just how little progress had been made in other domains.
The post-WWII generations dreamed of a future filled with flying cars and humanity colonizing other planets, visions immortalized in science fiction. These dreams never materialized, though, and at some point, it seemed they never would, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Until one man decided to commit his fortune and ambition to reviving those dreams and turning them into reality. And the rest is history.
How exhilarating it is to live through the end of the Great Stagnation, and how humbling it is for us all to stand on the shoulders of this giant as he blazes the trail toward a different kind of future.
e/acc, sir. 🫡
People do know there have been flying cars -- literal flying cars, not Elon's temporarily-airborne car -- off and on for most of the past century... right? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_car