@phillmv and yet. serious, thoughtful, smart, competent, educated, virtuous. all of these attributes have taken a bit of a beating when people who seem like the very worst, not just ethically, but in terms of basic competence, beat the people we judge as capable.

it’s like elon is an idiot, obviously, and yet spacex has made progress on space travel at a pace unseen for decades. i have my cope stories (he was lucky with good hires), but at a fundamental level, i’m missing something