That is a classic false dichotomy. You never, ever need to choose between those two things. You can have some semblance of both in nearly ALL cases.

I was thinking of a generalization. Choosing between working on something important in the future for many people vs. spending time in the now with a few people you value.

I.e. if you don't single out the event "birth of a child" but look at the more generalized category "spending time with family and friends" then the response may be more understandable.

If Elon truly convinced himself that he's basically trying to do his own contribution to saving the world (climate change and such) then in his mind he may be working to save countless future lives at the expense of some personal time of his own and his employees. And thus "birth of a child" and "going bowling with friends" don't seem all that different.

It's basically a side-effect of convincing himself absolutely of his own mission.

Also note that scolding is not necessarily the same thing as punishment. It's just a harsh way of stating a preference. I.e. that he would prefer if they'd spend more time on saving the world.

That's just a rationalization. I really doubt Elon cares about anything but his own driving ambition. People who can't prioritize their own loved ones over their jobs, surely don't care for "humanity". They are the very definition of selfish. They simply do what they want first and then rationalize it afterwards.

On top of that, these selfish people expect/demand that their employees work infinitely harder than they do on a ROI basis. Example: A start up founder may worked twice as many hours as the founding engineer but the founder stands to make a lot more than twice as much when the company has it's liquidation event.

" I should prioritize my own over the rest of the world"

It feels like you're suggesting that a job such as SpaceX is automatically beneficial to the rest of the world.

I suggest that you are assuming too much. Could SpaceX usher in a golden age of transport and colonisation? Sure. It might also fail.

I suggest that you are also assuming too much by suggesting that parenting your children is selfish and (implicitly) doesn't benefit the world. It's possibly that SpaceX takes us all to Mars and none of the kids/descendants of its employees were ever going to achieve world changing things without their mum/dad being around more. It's also possible that some of those kids would have achieved greatness if only they had a more present mum/dad in their life.

You can't bail the future down, it's made of unrealised possibilities that we make real with our choices. Those choices are either implicit or explicit and we have no way of knowing what will actually happen.

Then someone else could take over his position for a few hours while he attended the birth of his child.

With a market cap of 26 billion dollars, Tesla can afford to hire enough employees.

He's probably better motivated and does better work if you give him time away from work to be with his spouse and child.

Possibly so, but I was merely trying to dismantle the fairly blunt assertion that it's unconditionally making the world of the family worse.

> it's unconditionally making the world of the family worse

It obviously is.

The 48 hours or whatever curing cancer can and will continue another time. Child birth won't.

And if you can't even afford to prioritize your family at such little cost to your work, then I think it's also pretty easy to assert that the world of the family will continually be worse off. Unless you actually cure cancer next year, collect your $1billion and quit your job to focus on your family from then on.

It's much more likely you're going to continually prioritize trivial work events (or in this scenario, non-events) over important family ones.

> Unless you actually cure cancer next year, collect your $1billion and quit your job to focus on your family from then on.

Why is a hard cut-off date required?

If you take into account that your family extends into the future indefinitely (not just your children) and that there are gradual benefits (not just black-white) then spending time now to gradually improve the world for future generations (including those of your family) then you can come to the conclusion that a little hardship now could have tremendous payoffs in the future.

Maybe a slightly better example than the cancer case:

- spend a lot time with family now - miss climate change goals by the end of the century, making life significantly worse for everyone.

- spend less time with family now - meet goals, life continues to be good for hundreds of years to come

I know that this example is fairly reductionist, ignores diminishing returns and has various other problems, but it's merely there to illustrate that it gets a lot more difficult to appreciate the value of a little personal time in the present if you have an unusual utility-function in your moral code that applies a lot more weight to the future than most people do.

> it's merely there to illustrate that it gets a lot more difficult to appreciate the value of a little personal time in the present if you have an unusual utility-function in your moral code that applies a lot more weight to the future than most people do.

That actually comes off very egotistical.

The damage you do to your family today by putting a simple job before them is likely to do damage far into the future.

Because you aren't that important. The cure will almost happen (or not) with or without you. The best you can likely hope for is to accelerate it. Everyone is replaceable in a job. Everyone. Parents aren't.

A decade ago I'd have been much more willing to agree with you. But today it feels like a superficial rationalization of ego. One man does not get to Mars.

Seems like this should be one of those named Internet Laws. i.e.: Any mention of "...more than most people" is self-flattery and an indication that the user lacks the empathy to understand that most people have actually considered the same thing at one point or another in their lives. As a corollary, the position professed generally only holds any truth in as much as most people have already considered and rejected it's premise and matured beyond it.

> Because you aren't that important. The cure will almost happen (or not) with or without you. The best you can likely hope for is to accelerate it. Everyone is replaceable in a job. Everyone. Parents aren't.

By this standard I'd say that children are also replaceable, and therefore so are the parents. From the society's point of view, children are a commodity.

> That actually comes off very egotistical.

I strongly disagree. I find the opposite belief, that you should prioritize yourself and a small circle around you above all other people, to be much more self-centered. And it's part of the reason the world needs fixing in the first place - because most of the people tend to focus on themselves and their families at the expense of everyone else.