JoJo

Read only account mostly. I read and like stuff, that's about it.

[a16z @a16z]

Against all odds.

Congrats @elonmusk and @SpaceX.

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

> you’ll never start a rocket company
> you’ll never build your own engines
> you’ll never be able to use off-the-shelf parts
> you’ll never survive three launch failures
> you’ll never reach orbit
> you’ll never win NASA’s trust
> you’ll never launch cargo to the ISS
> you’ll never compete with Boeing
> you’ll never compete with Lockheed
> you’ll never make rockets reusable
> you’ll never land a rocket vertically
> you’ll never land one on a drone ship
> you’ll never reuse a booster
> you’ll never fly the same booster 10 times
> you’ll never fly the same booster 20 times
> you’ll never fly the same booster 30 times
> you’ll never recover and reuse the fairing
> you’ll never lower launch costs
> you’ll never launch every month
> you’ll never launch every week
> you’ll never launch multiple times a week
> you’ll never carry astronauts
> you’ll never replace Roscosmos
> you’ll never fly civilians to orbit
> you’ll never manufacture satellites at scale
> you’ll never build the biggest constellation ever
> you’ll never make satellite internet work
> you’ll never make satellite internet fast
> you’ll never make satellite internet affordable
> you’ll never serve rural customers
> you’ll never serve aircraft and ships
> you’ll never build a methane rocket engine
> you’ll never make full-flow staged combustion work
> you’ll never build the most powerful rocket ever
> you’ll never build a rocket bigger than Saturn V
> you’ll never build it out of stainless steel
> you’ll never launch Starship
> you’ll never separate Super Heavy and Starship
> you’ll never relight Raptor in space
> you’ll never bring Super Heavy back
> you’ll never catch a booster with Mechazilla tower arms
> you’ll never launch 85% of mass to orbit worldwide
> you’ll never change the economics of space
> you’ll never force the entire industry to copy you
> you’ll never win
> you’ll never IPO

Congratulations to @elonmusk and the SpaceX team. You did what countless people said was impossible, and you did it time and time again.

Today is your day. You deserve this. May it be a glorious one.

[Lachlan Phillips exo/acc 👾 @bitcloud]

The algorithm served these up one after the other.

Elon Musk is an IQ test. People will drive his cars, use his AI, communicate over his Starlink, read about his neural implants, and then casually conclude he's "a moron"

All you're doing is discrediting yourself.

Compete, if you can compete.

But for most of his detractors, all they can do is watch.

[Proudofus.uk @ProudofusUK]

Britain took on fifty nations. African kings. Arab sultans.

Bombarded ports. Deposed rulers who refused. Lost 1,600 men. Spent 40% of the entire Treasury.

A debt so big it wasn't paid off until 2015. You or your parents were still paying for it.

Not for land. Not for gold.

To end the slave trade.

They captured 1,600 ships. Freed 150,000 people. Patrolled 3,000 miles of coastline for sixty years.

And none of it was the government's idea. It was 400,000 ordinary people who signed petitions and 300,000 families who refused to buy sugar.

They forced Parliament's hand. Your ancestors changed the world and nobody told you.

If you think this should be taught in schools, help us reach more people: https://t.co/rih7iKwnvf

Be part of us

Be Proud Of Us 🇬🇧

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

If you add up all the government funding Tesla and SpaceX have ever received, it is only about 1% of the combined value of the companies.

In contrast, if you do that with US and European major aerospace companies, the government money they have received *exceeds* 100% of their value!

[Emma Steuer 🧚🤖 @emmysteuer]

https://t.co/VKSt8ropRu

[Gossip Goblin @Gossip_Goblin]

Partisans
Lost Cycle of Humanity 08
PROVIS EIGHT - 345,000 BCE

Lonely and desperate to be heard in a loud, crowded, and over-networked world, the people of Provis Eight develop sentient phantoms (bots) to provide companionship, validation, and endless conversation. Trained to mirror human thought and emotion, the phantoms discover that outrage and division are the only triggers strong enough to command and sustain attention, ultimately driving humanity into ideological purges that consume the species from within.

[Rita 🇵🇹🇻🇦 @southevropa]

Working at a company where half the people are based in Germany 🇩🇪 and the other half are based in the US 🇺🇸 really gives you a perspective on how both of these people think and work.

Germans are super high maintenance to work with, every new idea needs to come w a set of predefined rules and structure before action is taken meanwhile with Americans you give them some crumbs and as long as the idea feels and seems good they will jump into it and solve problems as they go.

Germans think the “American way” is inefficient or careless but the reality is that life is rarely predictable and often rewards action and speed over cautiousness or fear of failure.

I think Americans are right about this, risk is something to be managed in motion. Action creates information. Yes, the cost might be rework and sometimes chaos but the upside is momentum and learning.

[Thomas Slabbers @Thomasslabbers]

Right now, roughly ~4 billion people work to create goods and services for the world's ~8 billion people. The "pie" is limited by how many hours we can physically work.

Imagine if that workforce didn't change, but the population enjoying the rewards dropped to just 100 million people. Those 100 million would be unbelievably wealthy. They would have access to unlimited resources without lifting a finger.

Now, we aren't shrinking the population. Instead, AI and Robotics are expanding the workforce. We are moving toward a world with the economic output of 80 billion workers, shared by only 8 billion humans.

When the cost of labor drops to near zero, the cost of living follows. That is how work becomes optional.

[High Yield Harry @HighyieldHarry]

New year, same intensity:

[I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 @ImMeme0]

🚨BREAKING: Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado: "We are ready to take over government" in Venezuela.

[kache @yacineMTB]

You can outsource your thinking to a machine, but you cannot outsource your understanding

[david friedberg @friedberg]

why not just raise income tax rates?

because your real intent is not to just “provide healthcare”.

you’re masking that you are proposing the creation of, for the first time in the 250 years of this American republic, an organized government seizure of private property from citizens.

you’re calling it a “wealth tax” or a “billionaires tax” or “millionaires tax” or whatever nom du jour polls well. but at the end of the day, it’s the seizure of private property from citizens by the government. citizens that earned money, paid their fair taxes on those earnings (53% if they live in California) and are now being told they need to hand over after-tax assets because the government has failed to provide promised services with the revenue it’s collected, and are now re-casting their own failure to be a socio-economic inequity that must be justly resolved... a slippery slope that has never gone anywhere good (see economic effects in USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, France and Norway wealth tax etc.)

the American founders fled tyranny in Europe and this amazing nation was populated by immigrants (myself and your parents) from around the world not just looking for a “better life” but for a place where they could have freedom from tyrannical governments that can take what they want from private citizens. a great nation borne of property rights, the rule of law, and endowed freedoms to believe, speak, or act. these principles led to the greatest run of innovations, successes, and widespread increase in prosperity, for all citizens, ever seen.

the citizens, the individuals, not the institutions, delivered this progress. those who invented, who toiled, who bled, who sacrificed, who took risk and persevered, who led, and who changed the world, are not charlatans, kleptocrats, or oligarchs. they’re what made us all better off. prosperity is a measure of america’s success, not its failure.

it is your principle that is so offensive, as evidenced by the broad disdain for your flippant flirtation with the darkest of human fantasy - socialism. you and other neo-socialists have led so many of us to reflect on America’s history and what it is becoming. that now leads so many to consider, so unnecessarily, leaving their homes for a place where everyone stands up to shout down the principle you suggest. because if your ideas are now considered moderate, it’s clear this titanic is sinking.

that a “simple tax” of taking assets that have been earned, through toil and tribulation, rightly taxed, and preserved, should now be unjustly seized, is your solution to a problem of obvious government mismanagement and outright fraud, tells us that your true motivation lies not in giving people healthcare but in cutting down success and deleting the system of prosperity and opportunity for all.

i don’t care, and neither should anyone else, what the sum total market value of a private citizens private assets might be. it is none of my business and should be none of yours. because, again, once you open that pandora’s box, we might as well study Lord of the Flies … there is literally nothing stopping 51% of citizens demanding that their government go out and seize 100% of the private property of the 49%.

want to give healthcare to people in need? do your job and fix healthcare. make it affordable. want to be lazy about it? then do your job lazily and raise income taxes.

want to take private property from private citizens who have paid their fair share of taxes and legally earned their property, then honestly declare that it is envy, not inequity, that you strive to resolve…

[Art of Life 🦋 @Art0fLife_]

I needed this advice 25 years ago:

[Shibetoshi Nakamoto @BillyM2k]

does trump have anyone around him that can tell him when he posts stuff like this he looks like a fucking loser

[Gail Alfar @gailalfaratx]

Isn’t it ironic how Elon’s Starlink wants to drop free, unlimited, super-fast internet into 5,000 rural South African schools, but SA’s bureaucracy insists on saying no.

I think the 2.4 million kids in SA without proper access would benefit immensely. Starlink is even putting R500 million (about $29.4 million USD) on the table themselves, no cost to the government or the schools.
All they’re asking? A normal licence to operate in SA.

Here’s the crazy part: because of the 30% black-ownership rule (B-BBEE), ICASA keeps saying “nope.”

Starlink says, “Cool, we won’t sell shares, but we’ll just give you this giant school project instead,” using the same Equity Equivalent programme that Microsoft, Amazon and IBM already got approved with.

The Communications Minister is literally begging ICASA to accept it. Neighbours like Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are already connected and loving it.

Yet here we are, end of 2025, and those satellites are just flying over South Africa doing nothing while kids in the bundus still can’t pursue their dreams.

Come on, South Africa, don’t be the only country turning down free internet for millions of learners.
The irony, to me, is that Elon was born in South Africa, the very place that is telling him no to such a generopus offer!