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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

#591

Post by the_af »

yubblegum wrote: post #534
the_af wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know these details about Musk's family. It doesn't surprise me at all that a guy so gross in his personal life comes from a gross family. Everything about Musk is deranged. Do you remember the (not so distant era) when Musk was the nerd's and hacker's darling? SpaceX, his genius, his vision! This was before we knew much about his personal life and opinions. It seems so long ago now... Before he took to Twitter…

> Everything about Musk is deranged. He's a symptom. It is our society, globally, that has become deranged. Almost all public figures are a shade of scumbag these days. Maybe they always were and there is no longer any reason to hide it.

Regrettably, I must agree with you.

I can speak for Argentina, where the situation (the sharp deterioration of public discourse, the "rule by Twitter posts", flamewars between government officials, incredibly aggressive public discourse, obvious fraud that doesn't get prosecuted if it's done by some political factions, etc) mirrors the US in many ways. I would say in Argentina we repeat tragedy in the form of farce, except what's going on in the States is also a farce.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#592

Post by BeFlatXIII »

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.

In history textbooks, it's known as the spoils system.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#593

Post by wat10000 »

_heimdall wrote: post #568
wat10000 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was. Where do you see me saying otherwise?

> Biden was elected legitimately. I must have misread you last comment. I read this as a comparison implying that Biden wasn't legitimately elected but you just meant it to set up the point.

Right, that’s a response to issues with the Democratic primary, not a contrast with Trump’s election.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#594

Post by wat10000 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #473
_heimdall wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're getting to the distinction between power and authority. Congress may have the authority to decide procurement (I'm not 100% sure on this, going with the discussion), but functionally the president may have the power to force their will through the system.

Congress has been too deferential to executive power for decades.

And nobody listened to the people saying that this concentration of power would be a disaster if the office was ever held by a craven jerkwad. And guess what happened!

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#595

Post by JCattheATM »

inglor_cz wrote: post #464
JCattheATM wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~40% of the country sees that as strength. Democracies only really work with an educated and altruistic population, and the US is only getting further away from that.

This sounds like an utopian take or a case of "the grass is greener on the other side". Americans believe that Denmark or Switzerland has an educated and altruistic population. But if you talk to a Dane or a Swiss person about politics, they will laugh and tell you that their country is full of evil and stupid idiots, too. I am inclined to agree with Acemoglu that good institutions are more important than virtues of…

> But if you talk to a Dane or a Swiss person about politics, they will laugh and tell you that their country is full of evil and stupid idiots, too.

They're right, but it's a significantly smaller percentage than the US, small enough to not do nearly as much damage as the US counter-part population does.

That Dane or Swiss person will also readily agree how shocking the average education level of the average American is.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#596

Post by ETH_start »

sethammons wrote: post #569
ETH_start wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hundreds of thousands of regulations carrying criminal penalties. If a political party is determined to imprison an opponent, it will find a law they’ve technically violated. In Trump’s case, they used an obscure accounting rule — one so trivial that even prominent Democratic supporters acknowledged it was an inappropriate basis for prosecution. Hillary Clinton used a private email server while serving as S…

Wait. What do you think about Hegseth's signal and atlantic reporter issue? That is wildly worse and where is the court case that absolutely should be happening?

That's nothing. Compare that to deleting 30,000 emails to avoid them being scrutinized in an investigation.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#597

Post by lotsofpulp »

petre wrote: post #411
pessimist wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see it as a continuation of the American Civil War in politics. There was always this attitude but now people are more redicalized, so it's more obvious.

It seemed more subdued during the 1990s/2000s, until a black guy became President, and a good one at that.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#598

Post by ETH_start »

rat87 wrote: post #538
ETH_start wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To base the decision on what companies to invite to an EV summit on whether they support the Democrats' favorite constituents is pure politics. The only policy difference here is one which helps the Democrats win elections.

It's not Democrats believe that unions help keep wages high and are good for the economy. If Musk wasn't anti union he probably would have been invited. I say probably because of Teslas issues with racial discrimination

It doesn’t matter what Democrats think about unions. This wasn’t a union summit or a summit on party values—it was about EVs. Tesla is the world leader in EVs and the top American EV manufacturer. Excluding them because they don’t support unionization — an issue tied to massive political support for Democrats through campaign contributions and institutional backing—is indefensible. It undermines the purpose of the summit through rank politicization and partisanship.

As for the claim that Tesla has racial discrimination issues—that’s a distortion. Nearly every major company gets hit with discrimination lawsuits because civil rights law has been weaponized to make that outcome nearly inevitable:

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/wokeness-as-saddam-statues-...

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#599

Post by myvoiceismypass »

wefinh wrote: post #283
the_af wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He supposedly learned it after the fact. When exactly? He was friends with Trump and working in his administration until a few weeks ago (they hugged in his going away ceremony), and he broke up for reasons explicitly not about any pedophile rings. So to lob this accusation now doesn't seem like it's because he just learned of it. I don't know what Musk really believes. The guy behaves like a mentally unstable pers…

Trump is very interesting critter to observe. >>>What is true is that accusing the president of the US of being linked to a pedophile ring is not the same as accusing some random scuba diver of being a pedophile. I think you might have bigger issues here. Trump has links to mafia - and that is a fact. I'm more interested on what he was doing in regards to Ukraine, as post Soviet mafia(Georgian-Soviet Jewish mix in NY…

wtf did i just read?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#600

Post by tpm »

jajko wrote: post #481
rchaud wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. The end of the Soviet Union as a political and geographic entity was not its ruin. What ruined it and opened the door for a strongman ruler was: a) an inexperienced President (Yeltsin) who lacked a unifying vision for the newly formed republic and wasn't respected by its business elite or by foreign leaders b) the 'free market liberalization' reform…

You are completely missing Gorbachev, the fall began with him. He was a good guy, but a bit naive within soviet situation. Everybody , and I mean EVERYBODY hated russians. That's where brutal oppression came from for rest of soviet republics, that's where eastern Europe satellites were invaded and controlled from via strong firm hand (and many military bases). I know this damn well as I was raised thre and saw first…

The fall didn't begin with Gorbachev, it began with the communist party being clueless at adapting to new situations, essentially what China managed to do after Mao, the Soviets didn't after Stalin and the rest. The regime ossified and fell apart, at first slowly and then rapidly. Gorbachev just refused to spill even more blood.
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