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Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

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Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#541

Post by rbanffy »

thoroughburro wrote: post #143
martin-t wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's first and foremost a narcissist (strongly grandiose subtype, and all over the place on the communal/malignant axis). That condition should make him ineligible for any position of power. This is what a society gets when it elects someone mentally ill (in the harmful-to-others rather than the typical harmful-to-ill-person sense). I am continually astounded by how many people, even if you explain the symptoms to th…

Narcissists are over-represented as CEOs and such, as well. I think a fair number of Americans like narcissists.

Corporate politics doesn’t adequately punish the traits narcissists and sociopaths present. Quite the contrary, those traits can easily become assets in their careers.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#542

Post by agumonkey »

andrepd wrote: post #160
thinkindie wrote: post #148

At least Berlusconi didn't have access to nuclear warheads. Seriously, I visited the US few times between 2005 and 2010 and each time people were raising the topic of Berlusconi. How can you have a president like that, who voted for him, bunga bunga etc etc. Now you know how you can have such personality in power too. With even more power.

The Italians truly invent everything first, eh? Fascism, trumpism, etc

desktop programmable computers with style ? https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#543

Post by FergusArgyll »

bix6 wrote: post #251
FergusArgyll wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by the time Trump is through America will lie in ruins If you had to make that concrete, what would that look like? GDP growth under 2% annually for >3 years? Dollar losing >50% of its value against a basket of major currencies? Credit rating downgrade below AA- by major agencies? Loss of reserve currency status (measured by 30 days? Mass emigration of >2 million Americans annually? I'd happily take the other side…

I’d argue we’re already there with all the social fragmentation but I reckon we’ll see a measurable decline in scientific output / discovery.

Patents? Journal articles published?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#544

Post by rat87 »

ETH_start wrote: post #410
pessimist wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Democratic Governor of California denounced them publicly and stopped the effort. Despite Musk raising millions and campaigning viciously against the Democrats the administration kept all of SpaceX contracts and Tesla ev subsidies. In fact the IRA benefited Tesla disproportionately. Both sides are NOT the same. One is fascist and the other is not

The Democratic White House chose to not invite Tesla to their EV Summit. That was not political? The Democratic DoJ and Democrat DAGs prosecuted dozens of former Trump administration officials and Trump allies, and even Trump himself: Trump Administration Officials: Michael Flynn – Former National Security Advisor Stephen K. Bannon – Former White House Chief Strategist & Campaign Advisor Mark Meadows – Former White H…

Yes it was them following the law and being unbiased.

Many of the people involved in prosecuting them are Republicans. Trump is the most corrupt president we've ever had and many of his allies are similarly corrupt.

These days they know they just have to follow the maga line to get out of jail free. The Attorney General of Texas was so ridiculously corrupt he was about to be impeached by Texas Republicans but then he just claimed it was a witchhunt against maga got Trump on his side and suddenly impeachment was cancelled and he's polling a win in the next Senate primary.

Also Trump supported an attempted violent coup in addition to things like telling the Georgia Secretary of State to find him votes after the voting.

Trump has been described as a threat to democracy by many leading conservatives and Republicans. Many of them have had their careers ended and been slandered by former associates despite being conservative who had dedicated decades to the party while Trump doesn't care about ideology or party or outcomes only himself.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/22/politics/trump-fascist-john-k... Trump's former chief of Staff General John Kelly

> in a series of interviews published Tuesday, saying the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

> He also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment.

> Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” Kelly told The Atlantic he’d asked Trump. He added, “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#545

Post by curt15 »

motorest wrote: post #526
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #42

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

> It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. This is what a fascist dictatorship looks like. You have a leader who adheres to the persona of a strong man perpetually fighting against enemies who are both too weak and too strong, and at the drop of…

>Then of course rule of law doesn't apply anymore because the strong man in charge is the law,

Is it any accident that JD and Elon keep calling for "rule of the people" instead of "rule of law".

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#546

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tzs wrote: post #485
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Execs nor shareholders are required to have clearance and even the ones that have clearance aren't read in to top secret stuff without a need to know No clearance would absolutely compromise Musk’s ability to control SpaceX. (I think that’s a good thing.)

Aren't they using the same rockets for non-government missions that they use for government missions, so the classified parts of government missions would just concern the payload and where they fly it to? Musk shouldn't need access to that information to run the company.

> the classified parts of government missions would just concern the payload and where they fly it to?

Which in turn affects practically everything from launch timing to fuelling thresholds to whether the rocket can be used in reusable or expendable mode and thus whether that booster can be reüsed for the next launch. (Same for Starshield’s requirements impacting Starlink.)

Note that I’m not even touching ITAR, which Musk could be found subject to as a triple national.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#547

Post by jamil7 »

Gigachad wrote: post #175
andrepd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is no longer a serious place. Everybody is turbo-infantilised via social media. I don't know if that's indeed the root cause or if it's a combination of factors, but the fact remains that people don't even feel the need to _ pretend to care _ about honesty, character, seriousness, etc.

This kind of stuff would not fly in Australia. Not to say that there is no corruption, but that it isn’t absolutely blatant and ignored.

The corruption in state government, especially WA for example is pretty blatant but I get your point.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#548

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

pessimist wrote: post #153
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #42

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…

>It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing.

So how could one design a political system so this behavior doesn't emerge / is not incentivized?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#549

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

medler wrote: post #187
neilv wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting; is there an accessible 10-minute read on this US (edit: governance) de-politicized/re-politicized history, or does it have a name?

The notion that this kind of politicization started in the 90s is fanciful revisionism. It wasn’t really a thing in the US until about 2017. The word it’s known by is Trumpism.

You can see the rise of left-wing identity politics by looking at term usage in the NY Times:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/th...

It started before 2017. The right adopted identity politics as a response to the left doing so. Note that even NY Times word usage is a lagging indicator -- this is a case of prestige media picking up trends which originated on social media such as tumblr.

Vox even wrote a defense of the shift back in 2015, with an article called "All politics is identity politics":

https://www.vox.com/2015/1/29/7945119/all-politics-is-identi...

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#550

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

bgwalter wrote: post #45

There is so much theater and reality TV in the Trump administration that it's hard to conclude anything. Most of the theater is there to play to his MAGA base. First there was the (staged?) row with Zelensky. A couple of months later nothing has really changed. Now Musk left as planned (he couldn't stay longer than 130 days in that position). Time for another public row to show that Trump is tough on subsidies for el…

>First there was the (staged?) row with Zelensky. A couple of months later nothing has really changed.

I understand that the US stopped authorizing new shipments of gear to Ukraine like they were doing under Biden.

I don't believe it was staged. I think it was a long-shot attempt by Zelensky to make his case directly to the American people:

https://xcancel.com/RichardHanania/status/189556292259384155...

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