Elon Musk is known for many things: SpaceX, Tesla, humanity going to Mars, global warming, thinking in first principles, Twitter, shitposting… But he is also known for global fertility, human legacy, and having many children with many women: Elon Musk has nine children; five with Justine Wilson, two with musician Grimes, and two more with Shivon Zilis, an executive at one of Musk’s companies. Why so many children? With so many women?
Last night, I watched half of the movie version of early 1960s puppet show from the UK, "Thunderbirds Are Go!" on TCM: seeing the patriarch of the clan, the Ben Cartright-type guy, I thought "THAT is what Elon Musk is after!" He wants 5 strong sons to fly his rocket ships from his secluded Mediterranean Island fortress (with one of them launched from underneath the swimming pool that slides out of the way) and do big splashy rescues with his crazily awkward rockets/airplanes.
Father of soon 5 here. yep, 3 rather different mothers, thus at least one way to resemble Musk ;)
I agree with most of the post, but
1. I doubt that in Musk's case the IVF is mainly due to sperm-issues. He might be thinking from first principles and using IVF for embryo-selection. Sounds far-fetched? Hey, this guy wants "to die on Mars, but not on impact"! And is at times the 2nd richest man on earth ("after Putin").
2. Loving kids, esp. your own, is quite enough reason to have them. The rest is rationalization (though all the reasons you give, are valid). See also Bryan Caplan "Selfish reasons to have more kids" (tl;dr: The ONE selfish reason is that you love them. The main upside is: There is not nearly as much downside as all those silly people want to make you believe.)
If you put the population curve in the U.S. and the population curve in South Africa side to side, would they about balance each other out? Then open immigration from South Africa to the U.S. and your problem is solved, with a lot less effort than making a bunch more babies. ;-)
I know, immigration has its challenges-- just saying, in concert with Antoinette below, that on a global scale, the population is already excessive for the rapidly degrading environment-- and "underpopulation" is only an issue if you consider some people more worthy than others.
I have a beef with Elon's thinking, though, not the article. Engaging, thought-provoking article!
Tomas, you should check out the new book SUPERABUNDANCE by Tupy and Pooley. They show quite convincing evidence that increasied population drives more wealth, so much more that the wealth per person increases. Further, these wealthy people will now care about the environment.
Each person is a gift to the society and (in the aggregate at least) a benefit to the environment.
Sin duda es muy dificil acertar en el cuestionamineto,no olvidemos que hitler queria una raza superior ,la fecundacion in vitro tambien tiene sus ventajas como elegir las caracteristicas de cada uno de los bebes y asi suponer que no desea tener hijos con deficiencias.No olvidemos que Elon sufre de síndrome de Asperger ( sintoma de la perfeccion entre otras ),
Currently about 200 Million people are looking for another place to live. They are fleeing wars, famine, ecological disasters. Mr. Musk is free to adopt each and everyone of them.
Underpopulation is going to be one of the big challenges of the next century, without a doubt. But I can't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow when I see techbros, male economists, and the like try to tackle the so-called "fertility challenge". We know that fertility drops as women's political and economic power rises; that's a good trend for women's human rights and freedoms, their material wellbeing, and the economic development of the places in which they live. But it's not hard to see some twisted evo psych interpretation of the problem and its solution as being women's (un)willingness to participate in procreation; a technocrat incel analysis in which women are talked about as units, assets, resources, or chattel that must be more "effectively utilized" to create humans - regardless of their rights or interests as individual human beings. This article, even unintentionally, contributes to a discussion in which women, their agency, and their dignity are not valued as a factor or even as a perspective. That's exceptionally dangerous and not actually helpful to addressing underpopulation and its risks to growth. If we are to engage in the fertility discussion as honest brokers, the work needs to be led by the sex that does the reproductive labour - otherwise women are nothing but slaves.
Wow. All about Elon and the children, and NOT A WORD about the MOTHERS of his children!! not a word about the possibility that he has children with these partners because they wanted to have children and he wants to comply with their wishes! Being conceived by IVF does not mean that these children do not have mothers! Personally I think the man is a snake and I am not attributing "good" characteristics to him when I say that part of his "personality dynamics" might be to comply with his partners' wishes; and/or to try to forge a strong bond with them (that strategy generally doesn't work, but people keep trying!); haven't you seen all the pictures of Elon with his MOM? doesn't that tell you something about his relationships with women?
Hi Tomas, I love your articles but disagree that population needs to grow. I’d love your views on Dennis Meadows’ The Limits To Growth, whose 1972 thesis was that there is overconsumption of material resources and that without policies limiting the said consumption, we are headed to an abrupt halting of growth, a “prediction” that sadly came to pass recently with the disastrous effects of climate change. What do climate change and COVID 19 have in common? They both are the result of human pressure on a planet with finite resources. If you could press a button and make climate change disappear, another global issue would take its place, eg droughts. We can limit our material consumption so we can sustainably live on the same planet (by sacrificing our way of life) or we can maintain our way of life and live sustainably with a population of 1bn. I hope this makes you curious enough to dedicate some articles to the issue as I’d really, genuinely would love your views :)
A 5th reason: musk's followers are probably on average buying more teslas... If They reproduce more they will buy even more cars (likely also Teslas) both for their big families and for theie kids as soon as they are at the right age ;-) clearly a "longtermist" approach
One has to have some serious cognitive blind spots not to see the fact that more humans on earth means destruction of flora and fauna, ancient forests, extinction of species.
And does he popularize urban walkable car-free lifestyle built around mass transportation? No, his vision is built on American car-centric lifestyle which can't scale to a planet of 9 billion people if they all live American lifestyle of one person per one ton car!! And maybe 1-2 people living in a 2000-5000 sq ft mansion!
Does he popularize plant-based diet which can support more human population without destroying the planet? Do you want 9 billion folks to eat like Americans? Can the planet support it?
Also, folks seriously try taking a suburban train in Indian cities like Bombay or Calcutta before telling others to keep multiplying like rabbits. Even tourist spots ( where folks go to escape urban crowded human-infested life to see "nature" in some places) are heavily human-infested and hard to walk without bumping into people.
Venice is so over-crowded with all the tourists that the city is trying to impose quotas. London had to impose congestion pricing.
Last night, I watched half of the movie version of early 1960s puppet show from the UK, "Thunderbirds Are Go!" on TCM: seeing the patriarch of the clan, the Ben Cartright-type guy, I thought "THAT is what Elon Musk is after!" He wants 5 strong sons to fly his rocket ships from his secluded Mediterranean Island fortress (with one of them launched from underneath the swimming pool that slides out of the way) and do big splashy rescues with his crazily awkward rockets/airplanes.
Father of soon 5 here. yep, 3 rather different mothers, thus at least one way to resemble Musk ;)
I agree with most of the post, but
1. I doubt that in Musk's case the IVF is mainly due to sperm-issues. He might be thinking from first principles and using IVF for embryo-selection. Sounds far-fetched? Hey, this guy wants "to die on Mars, but not on impact"! And is at times the 2nd richest man on earth ("after Putin").
2. Loving kids, esp. your own, is quite enough reason to have them. The rest is rationalization (though all the reasons you give, are valid). See also Bryan Caplan "Selfish reasons to have more kids" (tl;dr: The ONE selfish reason is that you love them. The main upside is: There is not nearly as much downside as all those silly people want to make you believe.)
If you put the population curve in the U.S. and the population curve in South Africa side to side, would they about balance each other out? Then open immigration from South Africa to the U.S. and your problem is solved, with a lot less effort than making a bunch more babies. ;-)
I know, immigration has its challenges-- just saying, in concert with Antoinette below, that on a global scale, the population is already excessive for the rapidly degrading environment-- and "underpopulation" is only an issue if you consider some people more worthy than others.
I have a beef with Elon's thinking, though, not the article. Engaging, thought-provoking article!
Tomas, you should check out the new book SUPERABUNDANCE by Tupy and Pooley. They show quite convincing evidence that increasied population drives more wealth, so much more that the wealth per person increases. Further, these wealthy people will now care about the environment.
Each person is a gift to the society and (in the aggregate at least) a benefit to the environment.
Musk..such a genius but he hasn’t yet gone vegan nor convinced others to do so..and that’s definitely a good way to help the Earth…bah
Sin duda es muy dificil acertar en el cuestionamineto,no olvidemos que hitler queria una raza superior ,la fecundacion in vitro tambien tiene sus ventajas como elegir las caracteristicas de cada uno de los bebes y asi suponer que no desea tener hijos con deficiencias.No olvidemos que Elon sufre de síndrome de Asperger ( sintoma de la perfeccion entre otras ),
Como siempre excelente tu editorial.
Currently about 200 Million people are looking for another place to live. They are fleeing wars, famine, ecological disasters. Mr. Musk is free to adopt each and everyone of them.
Underpopulation is going to be one of the big challenges of the next century, without a doubt. But I can't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow when I see techbros, male economists, and the like try to tackle the so-called "fertility challenge". We know that fertility drops as women's political and economic power rises; that's a good trend for women's human rights and freedoms, their material wellbeing, and the economic development of the places in which they live. But it's not hard to see some twisted evo psych interpretation of the problem and its solution as being women's (un)willingness to participate in procreation; a technocrat incel analysis in which women are talked about as units, assets, resources, or chattel that must be more "effectively utilized" to create humans - regardless of their rights or interests as individual human beings. This article, even unintentionally, contributes to a discussion in which women, their agency, and their dignity are not valued as a factor or even as a perspective. That's exceptionally dangerous and not actually helpful to addressing underpopulation and its risks to growth. If we are to engage in the fertility discussion as honest brokers, the work needs to be led by the sex that does the reproductive labour - otherwise women are nothing but slaves.
Wow. All about Elon and the children, and NOT A WORD about the MOTHERS of his children!! not a word about the possibility that he has children with these partners because they wanted to have children and he wants to comply with their wishes! Being conceived by IVF does not mean that these children do not have mothers! Personally I think the man is a snake and I am not attributing "good" characteristics to him when I say that part of his "personality dynamics" might be to comply with his partners' wishes; and/or to try to forge a strong bond with them (that strategy generally doesn't work, but people keep trying!); haven't you seen all the pictures of Elon with his MOM? doesn't that tell you something about his relationships with women?
Hi Tomas, I love your articles but disagree that population needs to grow. I’d love your views on Dennis Meadows’ The Limits To Growth, whose 1972 thesis was that there is overconsumption of material resources and that without policies limiting the said consumption, we are headed to an abrupt halting of growth, a “prediction” that sadly came to pass recently with the disastrous effects of climate change. What do climate change and COVID 19 have in common? They both are the result of human pressure on a planet with finite resources. If you could press a button and make climate change disappear, another global issue would take its place, eg droughts. We can limit our material consumption so we can sustainably live on the same planet (by sacrificing our way of life) or we can maintain our way of life and live sustainably with a population of 1bn. I hope this makes you curious enough to dedicate some articles to the issue as I’d really, genuinely would love your views :)
A 5th reason: musk's followers are probably on average buying more teslas... If They reproduce more they will buy even more cars (likely also Teslas) both for their big families and for theie kids as soon as they are at the right age ;-) clearly a "longtermist" approach
One has to have some serious cognitive blind spots not to see the fact that more humans on earth means destruction of flora and fauna, ancient forests, extinction of species.
And does he popularize urban walkable car-free lifestyle built around mass transportation? No, his vision is built on American car-centric lifestyle which can't scale to a planet of 9 billion people if they all live American lifestyle of one person per one ton car!! And maybe 1-2 people living in a 2000-5000 sq ft mansion!
Does he popularize plant-based diet which can support more human population without destroying the planet? Do you want 9 billion folks to eat like Americans? Can the planet support it?
Also, folks seriously try taking a suburban train in Indian cities like Bombay or Calcutta before telling others to keep multiplying like rabbits. Even tourist spots ( where folks go to escape urban crowded human-infested life to see "nature" in some places) are heavily human-infested and hard to walk without bumping into people.
Venice is so over-crowded with all the tourists that the city is trying to impose quotas. London had to impose congestion pricing.
We need to die to change our mind? This is not always true…