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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

#61

Post by pm90 »

exelius wrote: post #10
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…

I'm not saying I agree with them, but a common theme I hear from the alt-right is "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture). Now, nevermind that these guys are setting up as many gatekeeping functions as they tear down; they simply justify it as "protecting real hard-working Americans" through xenophobia. It's all built on the false nationalism of a flagging superpower, and if any of t…

I actually highly doubt that. Most of the "research" done by these people, or those that they rely on, are papers published by think tanks and institutions funded with money from conservative billionaires (e.g. Koch brothers). They essentially live in a different system, one where the person who commits to certain principles most feverishly is considered better. This is not unlike what we have seen in other ultra-religious groups throughout history (e.g. Spanish Inquisition: "You're not Christian enough, so we're gonna kill you").

There was an op-ed published by Krugman yesterday which argued that tax cuts wouldn't really benefit the wealthy all that much since they have already so much, but cutting benefits really impact society's most vulnerable. But Republicans continue to push for tax cuts. Why? Because they live in that alternate universe.

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

#62

Post by laretluval »

Not a single link to Breitbart in a piece about Breitbart. Are they so afraid of the site that they feel they can't link to it?

The result is I can't evaluate what they're talking about. What Breitbart articles do they have in mind? I found a bunch of neutral articles about SpaceX there, and this negative op-ed: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/18/elon-musk...

Is that what they're talking about?

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

#63

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Elon Musk picked up the mantle of Steve Jobs tech showman. His high visibility makes him a target. There is no public face that I'm aware of for ULA and while Jeff Bezos is certainly hated in that crowd for his ownership of the Washington Post, Blue Origin gets very little criticism. Some of that might be due to differences in what entanglements each has with the government but Bezos also avoids the type of spotlight Musk goes to great effort to stand in, at least when it comes to rocketry. If Tom Hanks somehow became the face and chief string puller at ULA, he'd probably get the same hatred that Musk receives.

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

#64

Post by fetbaffe »

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…

US has a bit weird definition of conservative (similar to the term liberal), European definition of conservative is not always pro free market nor always pro free trade.

simplified European definitions on space travel:

socialist: all government run ("planned economy")

social liberal/social democrat: political co-operations (unions) partly funded by government, private corporations funded by government and government corporations, all government regulated ("corporativism")

liberal: privately funded, government regulated ("free market")

neoliberal: privately funded, privately regulated ("capitalism")

liberatarian: what have space done to us?

conservative: national effort to travel to space ("corporativism")

US term of conservative is a mix of liberal/neoliberal economics with conservative traditions.

Breitbart/Bannon conservatism is more like European conservatism on economics.

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

#66

Post by linkregister »

eighthnate wrote: post #36
tclancy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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. Okay. But why is arstechnica even defending musk. Is arstechnica musk's PR firm? Isn't that strange in and of itself? Lots of bad things get said about everyone and yet…

I always find it fascinating when people assume that "their side" is composed only of true believers, when the "other side" is only paid shills. "Russian bot" and "Soros shill" accusations are thrown around way too much.

For the most part, HN avoids making this worthless distinction. Sometimes a commenter makes this mistake and is down voted to hell.

You should probably continue to complain about down votes, that will make us see our folly! Or better yet, take it back to Reddit.

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

#67

Post by SEJeff »

Symmetry wrote: post #24
SEJeff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reliability standard they've set is indeed impressive, but they're simply milking the fat cow (USG) for cash. They were a perfect Rockefeller style monopoly with an utter lock on the military launch market until SpaceX sued the USAF to make it a normal bidding process.

Shaking that up a bit is a very good thing for overall use of tax dollars. I'll relent and agree entirely with you that there is a place for their extreme reliability. Then again, SpaceX is going to get there and they want to do 1 launch per week (40-50 launches total in 2018). If they don't develop the Vulcan engine and some sort of story for reliability, they're going to go the way of the dinosaurs. SpaceX is fighting for better (and cheaper) access to Space for everyone whereas ULA will soon be fighting to exist if they don't make serious changes soon.

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

#68

Post by hackerguy99 »

mikeash wrote: post #30
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 car…

>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.

So you are accusing Breitbart of attacking Tesla (even though this is about SpaceX) because they won't "carefully draw lines", without a hint of irony that you can't be bothered to draw careful lines between the companies, and have dragged Tesla into the conversation?

Not every criticism about SpaceX or Tesla is about disliking Musk. If only it were that simple.

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

#69

Post by [deleted] »

tim333 wrote: post #58

Not that I agree with it but the conservative argument against SpaceX seems to be largely: >Despite the numerous public statements by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk decrying crony capitalism, SpaceX would not exist without government contracts and subsidies. According to The Wall Street Journal, government contracts account for about 70 percent of SpaceX’s contracts. U.S. taxpayers have provided SpaceX more than $5.5 billion i…

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by Cuuugi »

tim333 wrote: post #58

Not that I agree with it but the conservative argument against SpaceX seems to be largely: >Despite the numerous public statements by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk decrying crony capitalism, SpaceX would not exist without government contracts and subsidies. According to The Wall Street Journal, government contracts account for about 70 percent of SpaceX’s contracts. U.S. taxpayers have provided SpaceX more than $5.5 billion i…

Thank you for not falling into the "Conservatives hate science" trap.

I can't speak for other people, but my personal issue with Musk's ventures are how much money he funnels from the government.

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