I studied material science in school specifically to try and address his concerns. Unfortunately they are all quite valid - the hard part isn't manufacturing, extruding, printing. Those are actually all quite reasonable (albeit not super space or weight efficient).
The hard part is refining and ore enrichment, and most techniques that could possibly work in microgravity are almost impossible to test on earth. You would certainly need vitamins for electronics components for a time. Even much older computer chip architectures (1990s level) still require the clean room and 20-30 stages of prep. I believe an orbital chip fab is not only possible but, kind of ideal? Keeping it clean would be within reach - and it's mostly if not entirely an autonomous process from silicon monocrystal to assembled part today.
We're along way from self replicating probes. But I would argue were quite capable of autonomous mining, manufacturing and material transport - assuming we can figure out how to refine effectively. If someone wants a cool PhD project and ship an experiment to the ISS, I would argue an ionic or plasma based refining technique designed for micro gravity could be very interesting and very useful
I actually think we should only be using labor force metrics for everything, if someone stops looking because their depressed and can live at home - suddenly that's ok? I don't think we should stop counting people like that
Also the US is essentially the only country with failed public transit, outside of Africa. If he thinks he can expand his robo taxi fleet to China or Europe or hell even Russia he's got screws loose
I might typically have 4-5 tabs open for serious work, and then 0 when not.. am I the weird one? I've never once found value with tab groups or multiple sessions
Actual access to reliable healthcare is a massive assumption to make, not everyone has incredible health insurance or lives in a country with sufficient doctors/med staff. Most places are in crisis for lack of resources, I'd rather ask chatgpt or Gemini for something urgent rather than wait 5+ hours in ER for the doctor to say "just take some aspirin and go to a walk-in tomorrow"
The problem is, if everyone knows it going to curry favour and you're the odd man out - are you in Violation of your fiduciary duty to your shareholders?
I've only ever worked remote professionally and I've got a track record, when I apply to a new role there's no question that I can adapt to working remotely at X company.
If I just finished my PhD in comp sci and have never worked professionally in my life let alone remotely, going day 1 remote is a huge risk
If I'm in a quiet place I can walk through the project, and understand where different things fit into place - even for very very complex systems, I can almost simulate algorithms and see where things go wrong without looking at my code. I realized this ability is not normal, and many people even software engineers struggle immensely with fully understanding large complex systems
I learned thinking too much about it makes it worse. Just have to do lists that are ephemeral that you'll rewrite and start over 5-10 pages from now. Just pencil and nice small notebooks that are portable is more important than my laptop or phone most of the time for work
We're along way from self replicating probes. But I would argue were quite capable of autonomous mining, manufacturing and material transport - assuming we can figure out how to refine effectively. If someone wants a cool PhD project and ship an experiment to the ISS, I would argue an ionic or plasma based refining technique designed for micro gravity could be very interesting and very useful