Oppenheimer Reminds Me That Musk Is Not a Genius!

I watched Oppenheimer a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to see what the big deal was all about; I was left wanting. It was a good movie, but not great. (Saltburn was more captivating.) The Nolan movie did, however, spur me to start reading American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. It is a hefty biography, so I’m only 60-70 pages into it, but reading about his early life reminds me of the cohort of geniuses in the early 20th Century who revolutionized the field of physics by discovering and developing the field of quantum mechanics, thereby upending the validity of applying Newtonian physics at the atomic level. Einstein, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Bohr, Planck, and Lorentz are just a few true geniuses from this era who are also household names. If any of these names are unfamiliar, then you may be the exact opposite of a genius. Call me old fashioned, but I think geniuses can only prove themselves in the pure sciences, e.g., mathematics, physics, and chemistry (with chemistry just being an extension of physics). I might even be willing to throw computer science into the mix, in which case, I’ll add Turing to the list. If you want more recent examples of true geniuses, then allow me to suggest Hawkins and Higgs et al. — more household names.

Do you know what is not pure science? Creating and manufacturing iPods, iPhones, reusable space rockets, and electric cars. (Yes, Jobs was not a genius either.) To be sure, these things are marvelous inventions and technological advancements without which our lives would be very different, but they are merely the manifestations of the underlying science upon which they are built. In some cases, their success is no more than coopting existing technology coupled with fabulous salesmanship. This is where Musk comes in, for he is really no more than a high-intensity, high-pressure salesman. Musk may be a visionary, but I do not place him in the esteemed echelon of genius. And I think that’s where almost everyone confuses the two. A genius is almost certainly a visionary, but a visionary is not necessarily a genius. There is a difference between someone who can “see into the future” — or, more appropriately, understand what the future could look like — and someone who discovers the fundamental building blocks of nature and the universe. News flash: Wanting to “go to Mars” is not discovering a fundamental building block of the universe. It is an advertisement for space tourism. In the end, that’s all Musk is; he’s a carnival barker, a used car salesman, a clown. As for Tesla, he bought an existing and distressed business, used government funds to save the company, and scaled up manufacturing. He was a half-step ahead of the impending EV revolution. Big deal. He took a gamble, and it paid off — with help from the American taxpayer. He lined his pockets with profits and stock compensation. He’s hardly contributed to the advancement of scientific knowledge. As for SpaceX, he’s merely extending the progress and technology achieved by generations before him, except he builds rockets bigger and taller. Wow! What an achievement — not really. This is lipstick on a pig, given that all of his rockets have exploded in the end. While rocket science is inherently risky and never guaranteed, one would think that with the existing knowledge base, he could create a rocket that doesn’t explode first before supersizing it. All of Musk’s accomplishments have been built off the backs of others’ work. He’s merely getting the credit for tweaking existing ideas. And don’t get me started on Twitter. Yet, this sh*t-for-brains country reveres him as a “genius” when he is not. He’s a visionary who works hard at best and gets his way by being an asshole. This is how far our country of f***tards has come. Einstein was — and quite literally — America’s first genius celebrity. Now Americans think the likes of traitor trump and Musk are geniuses. Kill me now! Welcome to stupid America!