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Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

87 points by seek 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jedberg 12y ago
It would be cool if Tesla Motors decided to make the museum part of their corporate function to fund the construction and ongoing operations of the museum.
- ryanburk 12y ago
  and investing (more) in the state might do a little help their case in new jersey.[1] [1] http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/people-new-jersey http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/people-new-jersey
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is impossible without absolutely hating Edison, which is bizarre. That's like being unable to appreciate Mercedes without hating Porsche. There's this terrible whitewashing of history with Tesla. His advocates clean up his image and purposely turn the narrative away from him toward Edison when presented with any criticisms. I'd like this museum to show us the historical Tesla, not the fanboy generated meme that appears in web comics. I took my wife to a Tesla presentation at a science musueum in Milwaukee a couple years ago and it was the most shrill and factually questionable presentation I've ever seen. It was more or less an hour of Edison bashing with hints toward things like time travel, death rays, and free energy. I want Tesla to get his due, but not the whitewashed grandfatherly Tesla of meme legend, but the real very flawed guy. A bright engineer who failed in business for valid reasons. I guess everyone likes an underdog story, but this one is beyond reasonable. Eugenics quote: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1010618-the-year-2100-will-see-eugenics-universally-established-in-past http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1010618-the-year-2100-will-s...
- kevando 12y ago
  Beginning to resemble American politics. A backlash from our reaction to the original backlash.
- cbeach 12y ago
  I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work in sterilizing drug addicts (voluntary sterilization in exchange for cash) to prevent children being born into misery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prevention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prevention We need to stop reeling off Godwin's law straw-man arguments against Eugenics and consider why a number of national heroes (including Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg) were proponents.
  - jerf 12y ago
    The "real" problem of Eugenics is that, much like Communism inevitably mutates in an ugly direction, no matter what Eugenics starts as, it virtually always turns into something really, really ugly where some group of people, no matter what pretty words they may use to draw a veil of obfuscation over their actions, are just killing off some group they don't like.
  - stevesearer 12y ago
    Eugenics generally gets lumped into the activities of the Nazis leading up to and during WW2. Because of this, most people probably don't know that the United States and its citizenry were fairly fond of it and put it into practice regularly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
  - spxdcz 12y ago
    Tesla: "prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization" Who decides who is "unfit"? In the not too distant past, and possibly even today, that might include the non-white, non-straight, non-wealthy, etc. I find it incredibly scary that you could so easily agree that others should decide who gets to enact their human instincts. Let's face it, it would almost certainly be old, white, wealthy men that would make those decisions.
VLM 12y ago
A somewhat better URL, a primary source http://jalopnik.com/5935362/elon-musk-pledges-to-support-nikola-tesla-museum-project?utm_campaign=socialflow_jalopnik_twitter&utm_source=jalopnik_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow http://jalopnik.com/5935362/elon-musk-pledges-to-support-nik... (note Inman's "pledge drive" letter is classic Inman and amusing to read as usual)
- 3JPLW 12y ago
  That's from 2012. This was a new plea for another $8MM USD.
- crb 12y ago
  That URL refers to Inman's first pledge drive, for $800k, to save the site. Musk donated $2500 and Inman raised almost $1.4m. Inman is now asking Musk directly for $8m, to build a museum. The only primary source is this tweet - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/466518346574626817 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/466518346574626817 - which simply says "I would be happy to help."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mikestew 12y ago
I've wondered how well being The Oatmeal has financially treated Mr. Inman. Even with the popularity, does he still barely pay the mortgage? Olympic-size pool in the backyard full of $100 bills? If he's driving around in a top-shelf Model S, I guess he's not starving. Regardless, very cool that Musk ponied up. Makes me want to go buy a Tesla even more now.
- shankysingh 12y ago
  From his wikipedia page "In 2012, its annual revenue was around $500,000, 75% from merchandising and the rest from advertising"- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal
- InclinedPlane 12y ago
  He does extremely well. He has a very high page view site and is excellent at monetizing.
aashaykumar92 12y ago
Super admirable that Mr. Musk is willing to help given his extremely busy schedule. Shows that he understands the importance of the public being more knowledgeable about the origins of what our present-day technology relies on.
tptacek 12y ago
Why is this story not right for HN when it's hosted on a random site, but suddenly becomes good when it's hosted on Techcrunch? If anything, my impression is that Techcrunch degrades the quality of a story. Dan's thoughts on the first Tesla Museum story were interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741883

87 points by seek 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

It would be cool if Tesla Motors decided to make the museum part of their corporate function to fund the construction and ongoing operations of the museum.

ryanburk 12y ago
and investing (more) in the state might do a little help their case in new jersey.[1] [1] http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/people-new-jersey http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/people-new-jersey

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is impossible without absolutely hating Edison, which is bizarre. That's like being unable to appreciate Mercedes without hating Porsche. There's this terrible whitewashing of history with Tesla. His advocates clean up his image and purposely turn the narrative away from him toward Edison when presented with any criticisms. I'd like this museum to show us the historical Tesla, not the fanboy generated meme that appears in web comics. I took my wife to a Tesla presentation at a science musueum in Milwaukee a couple years ago and it was the most shrill and factually questionable presentation I've ever seen. It was more or less an hour of Edison bashing with hints toward things like time travel, death rays, and free energy. I want Tesla to get his due, but not the whitewashed grandfatherly Tesla of meme legend, but the real very flawed guy. A bright engineer who failed in business for valid reasons. I guess everyone likes an underdog story, but this one is beyond reasonable. Eugenics quote: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1010618-the-year-2100-will-see-eugenics-universally-established-in-past http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1010618-the-year-2100-will-s...

kevando 12y ago
Beginning to resemble American politics. A backlash from our reaction to the original backlash.
cbeach 12y ago
I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work in sterilizing drug addicts (voluntary sterilization in exchange for cash) to prevent children being born into misery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prevention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prevention We need to stop reeling off Godwin's law straw-man arguments against Eugenics and consider why a number of national heroes (including Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg) were proponents.
- jerf 12y ago
  The "real" problem of Eugenics is that, much like Communism inevitably mutates in an ugly direction, no matter what Eugenics starts as, it virtually always turns into something really, really ugly where some group of people, no matter what pretty words they may use to draw a veil of obfuscation over their actions, are just killing off some group they don't like.
- stevesearer 12y ago
  Eugenics generally gets lumped into the activities of the Nazis leading up to and during WW2. Because of this, most people probably don't know that the United States and its citizenry were fairly fond of it and put it into practice regularly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
- spxdcz 12y ago
  Tesla: "prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization" Who decides who is "unfit"? In the not too distant past, and possibly even today, that might include the non-white, non-straight, non-wealthy, etc. I find it incredibly scary that you could so easily agree that others should decide who gets to enact their human instincts. Let's face it, it would almost certainly be old, white, wealthy men that would make those decisions.

VLM 12y ago

A somewhat better URL, a primary source http://jalopnik.com/5935362/elon-musk-pledges-to-support-nikola-tesla-museum-project?utm_campaign=socialflow_jalopnik_twitter&utm_source=jalopnik_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow http://jalopnik.com/5935362/elon-musk-pledges-to-support-nik... (note Inman's "pledge drive" letter is classic Inman and amusing to read as usual)

3JPLW 12y ago
That's from 2012. This was a new plea for another $8MM USD.
crb 12y ago
That URL refers to Inman's first pledge drive, for $800k, to save the site. Musk donated $2500 and Inman raised almost $1.4m. Inman is now asking Musk directly for $8m, to build a museum. The only primary source is this tweet - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/466518346574626817 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/466518346574626817 - which simply says "I would be happy to help."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

mikestew 12y ago

I've wondered how well being The Oatmeal has financially treated Mr. Inman. Even with the popularity, does he still barely pay the mortgage? Olympic-size pool in the backyard full of $100 bills? If he's driving around in a top-shelf Model S, I guess he's not starving. Regardless, very cool that Musk ponied up. Makes me want to go buy a Tesla even more now.

shankysingh 12y ago
From his wikipedia page "In 2012, its annual revenue was around $500,000, 75% from merchandising and the rest from advertising"- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal
InclinedPlane 12y ago
He does extremely well. He has a very high page view site and is excellent at monetizing.

aashaykumar92 12y ago

Super admirable that Mr. Musk is willing to help given his extremely busy schedule. Shows that he understands the importance of the public being more knowledgeable about the origins of what our present-day technology relies on.

tptacek 12y ago

Why is this story not right for HN when it's hosted on a random site, but suddenly becomes good when it's hosted on Techcrunch? If anything, my impression is that Techcrunch degrades the quality of a story. Dan's thoughts on the first Tesla Museum story were interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741883