Wrong. Google recently invested $900 million in SpaceX specifically to develop a satellite based Internet backbone. All these articles saying Google abandoned satellite constellations are by people that don't know what they are talking about. SpaceX intends to use less expensive, shorter lived satellites. Yes their orbits will naturally decay. That is a feature, not a bug, for SpaceX. They will constantly replenish with newer, cheaper, better satellites. Google decided that it made more sense to support SpaceX's efforts rather than develop it on their own. They believe is economically viable and have placed a substantial bet on SpaceX succeeding.

There is nothing cloak and dagger going on and no strong arming. Iridium is in the satellite handset business. SpaceX is building a satellite based Internet backbone. Google and Fidelity have invested a billion dollars in SpaceX specifically to develop the LEO constellation and SpaceX has opened an office in Seattle and is hiring people to develop the satellites. Google gets access to a satellite based Internet backbone that will help expand access to the developing world, without having to develop it themselves. SpaceX gets a recurring income source to fund it's R&D. Iridium is irrelevant to the deal.

P.S. Iridium would not delay launches as a threat to SpaceX. Delayed deployment is delayed income. SpaceX doesn't "need" to strong arm Iridium, they have a backlog of over 50 launches.

Google didn't abandon the idea, they invested $900 million in SpaceX instead of trying to do it themselves. And SpaceX isn't going to try to communicate directly to the handset, they are creating a worldwide, LEO based, Internet backbone. It's a completely different business model that will leverage lower cost launches and lots of existing real-estate and infrastructure (Tesla super charger stations and probably some SolarCity projects as well) to bootstrap in the US and much of the developed world. Profits from the project will then likely be used to expand into the developing world. And with almost a billion dollars backing the project it does not have to be profitable from day one.

(Statistically speaking,) I can't win the lottery either. It sucks.

I think you need to learn the difference between Tesla and journalists that quote "Industry consultants" making crappy predictions (that will benefit their industry) and use Tesla's name for clickbait.

Rote teaching of CS to students not interested in CS will just turn people off to it. Teach children critical thinking, teach them about all the cognitive biases that we suffer from. Teach them to think and how to figure shit out. Use puzzles and games to promote exercising these abilities.
Or continue to crank out students that know how to take a test. Which is a surprisingly useless skill once you're out of school.

Because it's all unsubstantiated hearsay that contradicts itself and fails to map to observable reality in any meaningful way. All the while threatening infinite punishment for being unconvinced and calling it "love."

Many "modern" Christians believe that it's OK to lie if your goal is to convert the people to Christianity. After all, there is only one "Truth."

That's not what he's trying to do. He's trying to improve his own children's education and he's stating his opinion on the matter. But given your reading comprehension, you may have a point.

Your post juxtaposed with your signature has pegged my irony meter at 11.

He's using the money generated by creating a luxury product (Tesla Model S) to fund the development of a middle class product and the required infrastructure (Superchargers, Gigafactory, and Tesla factory expansion) to support the middle class product (Model 3). That bastard, using a sustainable business model to achieve an important goal. He should have started with some piece of shit electric golf cart that no one wants and gone out of business. Right?

The dude created a private school for his kids and for some people that agreed that they don't like the current US educational system. He's not taking control of anything. He's running an experiment in educating his own children. He's an interesting guy and it's an interesting experiment. No public funds were used, no public policy was changed, no agenda was forced down anyone's throat.

Bad assumption, though in general Elon Musk does try to shake things up in a way that will ultimately benefit society in general. He didn't like how his children were being taught so he created a school for them and the children of some other SpaceX employees that agreed with his philosophy. Musk tends to be very results oriented so it's awesome that he's doing this. Why? Because if it works, he'll expand upon it and we'll all learn something about education. If it doesn't work, he'll kill it (after trying to tweak it, of course. He's pragmatic, not a quitter.) And we'll all learn something about education.

A billionaire throwing some money at inner city schools would have a very time limitted benefit, if any. He's probably spent less than $200,000 on his kids "school" so far. [1] So one inner city school could have one year of band. I hope we can spend more money on inner city schools, but I also hope we can learn better ways to educate children in general and I don't expect any one person to focus on all of societies problems, nor on the problems that I consider most important.

[1] I invented that number, but it's probably in the ballpark. He hired one teacher so it's basically one teacher's salary and whatever real-estate overhead is required, which may be just some space in a property SpaceX already owns

Sadly this is not true. Extremely intelligent people can be and are religious. Assuming otherwise is hubris and ignorance on your own part. The 9/11 hijackers were by and large well educated and successful.

I agree that religion can be a vector of incredibly bad ideas. Unfortunately intelligence does not inoculate people against bad ideas. It's worse than that, intelligent people are better at constructing complex justifications to support their bad ideas. The sooner that secular people (myself included) admit this and stop talking down to the religious, the better.

The Bible is very vague on whether you should still hate gays, have slaves, stone people, etc... Pretending that

obviously means the old law can be ignored is moderate apologetics. All the Abrahamic religions have plenty of fire and brimstone, and killing in the name of God. Ignoring that is just as much an act of cherry-picking as is ignoring the more love and tolerance passages. The fact that it takes a "bible/koran scholar" to make a plausible argument other than "just ignore the old stuff" is problematic at best. Hell, the Bible ends with Revelations, which is seriously lacking in "turn the other cheek" and "love thy neighbor."

I could be totally wrong, but I'm pretty confident in this. The Bible is easy to use to justify misogyny, hating gays, having slaves, etc... My understanding is that the Koran is more so. Maybe the people doing that are "reading it wrong," but the fact that these "holy books" are so easily misinterpreted makes it hard to say that Christian/Muslim fundamentalists are not following the religion. They are doing what the books say to do.

Dear God, next time you inspire a holy book please leave out "allegories" that seem to promote killing, enslaving, stoning, beheading and burning people at the stake for victimless crimes. Someone might think you meant it. Actually, please stop being a lazy bastard that outsources all killing, enslaving, stoning, beheading and burning people at the stake do do it yourself.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels

Yes, I know that this is what both sides think. Now as far as the discussions of conspiracies by rich environmentalists go, please go to wikipedia and look up the wealthiest 100 companies. Then go and look at all the money being pumped into politics and explain to me how 90% of all the money and (and therefore power) is opposed to AGW and yet the conspiracy is supposedly about all the money being made by scientists and the potential green industries. Seriously, if you're going to claim a fucking financially motivated conspiracy, please explain the fact that all the real money in this game is in the anti-AGW camp. Conservative governments are passing laws opposing research and passing gag-rules on scientists. And the most likely conspiracy is a cabal of middle-class scientists sworn to unite the world under a UN world government? Un-fucking-believable.