<i>David Karpf: There is a deeply baked ideology of the internet going back to the ’90s, a sort of West Coast ideal that engineers and entrepreneurs, particularly around Silicon Valley, are the modern heroes of society. They are innovating and building a better world. They’re the good guys. The bad guys are the old industries and the regulators who get in the way.</i><p><i>And these innovator-inventor heroes are the ones who are paving the way to a new and better world, because they’re such incredible geniuses. But the hero has to overcome resistance, and what we should do is cheer for him because of his genius and his brilliance. And 10 years ago, Elon Musk was the archetype of that story. He was really treated as the guy who is going to kind of save the world, between his electric cars and his rockets.</i><p><i>There’s a lot of problems with that story. But the most basic problem is that it’s utter horseshit.</i><p><a href="https://archive.vn/7vAdR" rel="nofollow">https://archive.vn/7vAdR</a><p>I wouldn't call it utter horseshit. Many groups of people who believe they are on a mission and have a cause tend to mythologize themselves. It's a way to feel motivated. And there is some truth in it because the engineers in Silicon Valley and the other high tech enclaves have changed the world and many are incredibly smart. I think it's more accurate to say that many smart people after a success or two tend to think they are good at everything and can solve most problems. It's a shock when they discover their own limitations as Elon Musk is demonstrating now.