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Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

arstechnica.com

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Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#21

Post by api »

marksellers wrote: post #2

This new flavor of conservatism is so strange in light of how bound to free market ideals most flavors of conservatism are. In general, I really quite dislike Conservative/Liberal labels as political stances are not two-dimensional, but rather multidimensional. Parties are loose alliances of disparate groups. And somehow there's this rising contingent of neocons, who also happen to dislike SpaceX. Does anyone underst…

Musk rebuked the God Emperor by leaving Trump's tech council after Trump appointed a bunch of climate change deniers.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#22

Post by tclancy »

Helmet wrote: post #15

EDIT: The article does break down the purpose of Section 1615, and shed light on its context - I did not see that the article continued beyond the massive picture below the blurb that I quoted.

It's very strange you would read that bit entirely but miss the multiple paragraphs directly below it saying it is equivocally untrue.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#23

Post by eighthnate »

barrystaes wrote: post #17
eighthnate wrote: post #8

As much as I despise all "news" organizations, I say good. Considering that most of the media has been fawning over musk and spacex and everything musk does, perhaps some criticism of musk is required in a free and democratic system. I just don't like how so much of media are pretty much colluding with each other to spread the same narrative. On almost all topics, it seems like most of the media is pushing a particul…

In the US are only two political parties. Yet North Korea and Russia only have one, so its not that bad. And diversity does exists.

> In the US are only two political parties.

No. We have more than two political parties. It's just that two are dominant and they both work for the same people.

> Yet North Korea and Russia only have one, so its not that bad.

What? We are comparing ourselves to russia and nk? Is that how low we have sunk as a nation?

> And diversity does exists.

What? 2 isn't diversity. And as I pointed out, it doesn't exist in news media.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#24

Post by Symmetry »

SEJeff wrote: post #12
fabian2k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only consistency with Breitbart seems to be that they never let any of those annoying facts get in the way of the narrative. I can't see any ideological justification here, SpaceX getting money from the US government isn't fundamentally different than ULA getting money from the US government. The article does imply at the end that there is likely someone behind these articles that has a specific interest in this…

It actually is different. ULA gets $880 million to $1 billion per year just to keep the factory lights on[1] for the EELV Launch Capability Contract. This isn't money for a service such as launches or new rockets, it is just to keep the lights on. SpaceX doesn't get any of that. If anyone is subsidized by the USG, it is overwhelmingly ULA. SpaceX could have simply charged 1/2 of ULA's $422 million per launch and inst…

Lets not be too harsh on the ULA. They offer services like vertical integration that only the government cares about and they've gone over 100 launches without a payload loss. So if I was sending up a $10 billion space telescope they're the obvious choice for that.

I doubt they're going to get any more business for $200 commsats though now that SpaceX is getting on tempo.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#25

Post by creaghpatr »

So is their argument “the bad guys are against it so it must be right?”

They made a point to drop that terrifying B-bomb in the title, sending shivers up the spine of many a HN reader.

I see the ULA vs Space X competition as productive in producing innovation, regulatory fairness aside. Regulatory problems are much less of a drag if resulting innovation is a net positive for both private and public sectors

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#26

Post by travmatt »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #3
marksellers wrote: post #2

This new flavor of conservatism is so strange in light of how bound to free market ideals most flavors of conservatism are. In general, I really quite dislike Conservative/Liberal labels as political stances are not two-dimensional, but rather multidimensional. Parties are loose alliances of disparate groups. And somehow there's this rising contingent of neocons, who also happen to dislike SpaceX. Does anyone underst…

"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. Even I find this particular turn against SpaceX somewhat weird. My internal model of the alt-right has largely been that they have one wing who are basically Nazi fanfiction, another who idolize the "throne and altar conservatism" of pre-Revolutio…

Conservative politics is much like French Revolution - built on successive purges of insufficiently ideologically committed members. The NeoCon / Old Bull wing of the Party was largely broken by the Tea Party’s rise and the deposition of longtime statesmen in the ‘10 elections, and has been increasingly replaced by ethnic and religious nationalist purity tests - the 2000’s era Republican Party competed for Spanish and Muslim votes, but those days have long since passed. Crucially, these populous factions are opposed to science, government, media, and academia.

Looking through this lens, Peter Thiel found the same fate as Elon Musk, Gary Cohn, Reince Priebus, and innumerable smaller republican operatives - all thought they would ride the wave and found themselves labeled as just another RINO for being insufficiently ideologically committed.

Thiel was never a major backer of this ethnonationalism, he was just someone who recognized it early and hoped to play that advantage. The Mercer’s, Koch’s and Bannon are the drivers, and everyone else is expendable.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#27

Post by tclancy »

eighthnate wrote: post #8

As much as I despise all "news" organizations, I say good. Considering that most of the media has been fawning over musk and spacex and everything musk does, perhaps some criticism of musk is required in a free and democratic system. I just don't like how so much of media are pretty much colluding with each other to spread the same narrative. On almost all topics, it seems like most of the media is pushing a particul…

> But I wonder if musk has pr firms working the social media scene?

I would say the downvotes are more due to the fact you're commenting on an article that says a certain section of what we are still calling "The Right" has incorrectly demonized Musk in this case and you decided to piggyback on the criticism of him. In addition, your extended ad hominem in response to an article you didn't read is disappointing.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#28

Post by apendleton »

Helmet wrote: post #15

EDIT: The article does break down the purpose of Section 1615, and shed light on its context - I did not see that the article continued beyond the massive picture below the blurb that I quoted.

Other people have pointed out that this specific thing didn't happen. More generally: I worked in policy around money in politics for five years. It's every campaign finance reporter or researcher's dream to find this kind of direct campaign contribution quid pro quo. We never do, because this basically doesn't ever happen. Campaign contribution limits are too low for any single donor to really make the difference either way, and to the extent that rich people contribute, they tend overwhelmingly to contribute to candidates already sympathetic to their issues in the hopes that they'll win, rather than to candidates not sympathetic to their issues in the hopes that they'll change sides. The avenue that actually moves policy is lobbying, which attracts about ten times as much spending per year at the federal level. Almost nobody writes about it though, because the disclosure requirements are so lax that it's usually impossible to piece together a story about it.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#29

Post by eli_gottlieb »

s_kilk wrote: post #9
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. Even I find this particular turn against SpaceX somewhat weird. My internal model of the alt-right has largely been that they have one wing who are basically Nazi fanfiction, another who idolize the "throne and altar conservatism" of pre-Revolutio…

> where's Peter Thiel in all this? The evidence seems to suggest Thiel has gotten in with the "throne and altar" crowd, the Neo-Reactionaries and self-described "Dark Enlightenment". https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein How that intersects with his techy leanings, I don't really know, it's very possible that he's being thrown overboard as you describe.

Bloody hell, I swear we're living in the pulpiest political-thriller novel I've ever fucking heard of.

Re: Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

#30

Post by mikeash »

marksellers wrote: post #2

This new flavor of conservatism is so strange in light of how bound to free market ideals most flavors of conservatism are. In general, I really quite dislike Conservative/Liberal labels as political stances are not two-dimensional, but rather multidimensional. Parties are loose alliances of disparate groups. And somehow there's this rising contingent of neocons, who also happen to dislike SpaceX. Does anyone underst…

I imagine it's because Elon Musk leans liberal (or at least non-Republican), and in particular is a highly visible crusader for action to combat climate change. The American right wing has decided that denying climate change is a core value, and trying to get people to take action against it is a mortal sin. SpaceX is not directly involved in that, but Tesla is, and I doubt places like Breitbart are interested in carefully drawing lines between the man's different companies.
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