Starship
Article
Starship is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 6 times across 6 issues between April 05, 2021 and March 05, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Starship reaches orbit”; “Compare the JWST to the most recent “Starship” launch for illustration”; “Predict Starship will eventually work”. It most often appears alongside Bitcoin, Biden, COVID.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 6
- Issue count: 6
- First seen: April 05, 2021
- Last seen: March 05, 2024
Appears In
- 2020 Predictions: Calibration Results
- Mantic Monday: Predictions For 2021
- Grading My 2021 Predictions
- Predictions For 2022
- Highlights From The Comments On Elon Musk
- Who Predicted 2023?
Related Pages
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- Bitcoin (5 shared issues)
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- Biden (4 shared issues)
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- COVID (4 shared issues)
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- Dow (4 shared issues)
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- PredictIt (4 shared issues)
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- US (4 shared issues)
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- China (3 shared issues)
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- Ethereum (3 shared issues)
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- Google (3 shared issues)
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- NYT (3 shared issues)
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- Russia (3 shared issues)
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- Trump (3 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
ECON AND TECH: 37. Dow is above 25,000: 70% 38. …above 30,000: 20% 39. Bitcoin is above $5,000: 70% 40. …above $10,000: 20% 41. I have bought a Surface Book 3 laptop: 60% 42. Crew Dragon reaches orbit: 80% 43. Starship reaches orbit: 40%
Inline links: 41. I have bought a Surface Book 3 laptop: 60%
ECON/TECH 14. Gamestop stock price still above $100: 50% 15. Bitcoin above 100K: 40% 16. Ethereum above 5K: 50% 17. Ethereum above 0.05 BTC: 70% 18. Dow above 35K: 90% 19. ...above 37.5K: 70% 20. Unemployment above 5%: 40% 21. Google widely allows remote work, no questions asked: 20% 22. Starship reaches orbit: 60%
ECON/TECH 14. Gamestop stock price still above $100: 50% 15. Bitcoin above 100K: 40% 16. Ethereum above 5K: 50% 17. Ethereum above 0.05 BTC: 70% 18. Dow above 35K: 90% 19. ...above 37.5K: 70% 20. Unemployment above 5%: 40% 21. Google widely allows remote work, no questions asked: 20% 22. Starship reaches orbit: 60%
ECON/TECH 11. Gamestop stock price still above $100: 30% 12. Bitcoin above 100K: 20% 13. Ethereum above 5K: 20% 14. Ethereum above 0.05 BTC: 90% 15. Bored Ape floor price here below current price of $203K: 40% 16. Dow above 35K: 90% 17. ...above 37.5K: 40% 18. Inflation for the year below five percent: 90% 19. Unemployment below five percent: 50% 20. Google widely allows remote work, no questions asked: 50% 21. Starship reaches orbit: 90%
Inline links: here
I understand the frustration... but my impression is that space exploration is one of the fields where very thorough, very systematic planning with very conservative change cycles is the most promising approach to get something that works at the first attempt - even if it takes longer and costs more than planned. Compare the JWST to the most recent "Starship" launch for illustration.
This would sound plausible, except that Musk has succeeded by doing the opposite. I think this is why so many people are in love with Musk: he’s proven that valuing good ideas, moving fast, and not having bureaucracy can work, sort of, in a weird little bubble of his own creation. Yeah, the first Starship exploded, but most people predict Starship will eventually work, and when it does it will be a much more impressive feat of engineering than JWST or anything else created the “proper” way.
Coming at the same issue from the bottom-up direction, technical ICs often don't have the context of the full strategic vision, and non-technical leaders often struggle to communicate it downwards in ways that are meaningful to the technical implementors. This is another thing Musk is better than almost anyone at; taking a lofty objective and chaining it down to an individual's role. I heard a SpaceX employee giving an answer in an interview like "Our mission is to become an inter-planetary species. To do that we must first colonize Mars. To do that we need to build a heavy lift rocket (Starship). To do that we need to build a more powerful engine. To build our new engine we need this valve assembly to work; my mission is to optimize this valve to X performance requirement".
Other resolutions that book people by surprise: that Starship didn't reach orbit, that inflation dropped so fast, and that Joe Biden's approval rating stayed as low as it did.