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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

#671

Post by jrflowers »

sega_sai wrote: post #407
handoflixue wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of threads about all of those issues here on Hacker News - why do you think the people reacting to SpaceX didn't also react to the rest?

Some people do react to all, but the parent comment that I commented on just mentioned the spacex situation, like it's something new, while this is just the continuation of what's be going on for months. And I've certainly seen people on HN trying to defend grant cancellations, Harvard attacks, NSF firings etc. I obviously can't be sure what those people's opinions are on the spacex threats, but I conjecture , that m…

> I conjecture, that many of them don't like them, while they were ok with the attacks on universities, science agencies.

This is a good point. If you imagine something in your head in a particular way, it is not the same as if you imagine it differently in your head. For example, if I imagine that all dogs are boys and all cats are girls, it paints a different picture of the world than if I imagine that there are both male and females of both animals.

It is a curious phenomenon

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#672

Post by j_w »

iamleppert wrote: post #611

What do we even need to be sending people into space for? It seems like a lot of savings could be had if we just completely shut down the entire manned space program. Unless there is some direct business case for it, why do it at all? Don't tell me some vague definition of "science". This isn't some new frontier that needs exploring, its well understood at this point. There needs to be a direct benefit to the america…

You can't have this argument in good faith at the present moment because the institution is under attack not because of a pragmatic reason as you describe but because the joke of a president is mad at a private citizen for their speech. Ignoring all previous Musk love or hate that somebody may have, look at the action that may take place here - the government taking adverse action against a private citizen for their speech.

We can have the pragmatic discussion AFTER the fascism is over.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#673

Post by scotty79 »

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…

That's no more (or less) corruption than him saying I like Elon so I'm awarding him all this government contracts

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#674

Post by scotty79 »

credit_guy wrote: post #664
moralestapia wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't he? Unless you mean president !== primer minister, but that would be such a futile remark in this context.

That's exactly what I meant. A lot of people in the US don't follow politics in Europe, but those who do are unlikely to think Berlusconi was a president when he was actually a prime minister.

Prime ministers in Europe have functions of US Presidents. Equivalent of European presidents I think is missing in the US.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#675

Post by lotsofpulp »

cedws wrote: post #525
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…

Trump is good at revealing the cracks in US democratic process, or lack thereof.

In 2016, that would have been the case due to popular vote and electoral college vote not matching. However, 2024’s popular and electoral college match show the cracks are in the racist and sexist and apathetic voter base.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#676

Post by acdha »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #675
cedws wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is good at revealing the cracks in US democratic process, or lack thereof.

In 2016, that would have been the case due to popular vote and electoral college vote not matching. However, 2024’s popular and electoral college match show the cracks are in the racist and sexist and apathetic voter base.

It’s not just the democratic process itself, but the institutions around it. The main reason Trump isn’t in jail is because the Republican Supreme Court repeatedly protected him, even to the point of inventing new ahistorical doctrines. Once one of the major parties is no longer committed to of law we’re in uncharted territory.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#677

Post by lotsofpulp »

acdha wrote: post #676
lotsofpulp wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2016, that would have been the case due to popular vote and electoral college vote not matching. However, 2024’s popular and electoral college match show the cracks are in the racist and sexist and apathetic voter base.

It’s not just the democratic process itself, but the institutions around it. The main reason Trump isn’t in jail is because the Republican Supreme Court repeatedly protected him, even to the point of inventing new ahistorical doctrines. Once one of the major parties is no longer committed to of law we’re in uncharted territory.

My point is Trump also won the popular vote, which means the people don’t want the traitor in jail either. Institutions are only as good as the people that compose them, in this case the institution is the country as a whole.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#678

Post by burnte »

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 is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my adopted land.

Agreed, and I was born here. I was taught we expressly want to reject those things, and now it's all the fashion. It feels like a temper tantrum from a third of the electorate, a rejection of adulthood and reason.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#679

Post by SonOfKyuss »

WalterBright wrote: post #424
stevenwoo wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That figure does not include outside supporters spending campaigns. It's disingenuous to not include dark money spending. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/final-price-t... It's closer to 1.8 billion for Harris supporters versus 1.4 billion for Trump supporters in 2024. That also does not include various media outlets bought in the past decades, including One America News/Fox/Sinclair sandbagging for Tru…

FOX is indeed all in for Trump. But on the other side of the ledger, there is the media that was all in for Biden - NPR, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, NYT, etc., during the same time period.

I invite you to spend an hour watching Fox News and then an hour listening to NPR and still claim those are just two sides of the same coin. The level of bias, propaganda, and active misinformation is so much greater on Fox News and it’s not even close. They’re not even pretending to factually report the news anymore. Every single piece is straight propaganda for the Republican Party. The best example of this difference is how mainstream media responded to Biden’s disastrous debate performance. The New York Times and CNN were covering it pretty blisteringly from the get go. There was no sugar coating it. Compare that to how Fox News spins the daily depravity of the Trump administration, and it speaks for itself

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#680

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

sirtaj wrote: post #555
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Are you tracking actual identity politics or the term "identity politics"? Because the meaning of the term applies just as much to ending slavery, womens' suffrage and civil rights movements. Otherwise, you might as well argue that fake news only existed from 2016 onwards, because that's when Google Trends says it did.

>Are you tracking actual identity politics or the term "identity politics"?

The term "identity politics" is not being tracked. Rather, terminology used by modern left-wing idpol ideology is being tracked. See here: https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/new-york-times-word-usage...

>the meaning of the term applies just as much to ending slavery, womens' suffrage and civil rights movements.

I'm not sure that's true. E.g. Martin Luther King Jr spoke of the "magnificent words" in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Modern activists would say: "Written by dead pale male slaveholders. We need more diversity! Where are the voices of women and POC?" For King, ideas took precedence over identities. For modern activists, it's the opposite.

The American Anti-Slavery Society was predominantly white. That's puzzling for a movement driven by identity politics. It does make sense for a movement driven by universal humanitarian ideals.

In any case, if you still think I'm wrong, and identity politics is an essential force behind trends such as the civil rights movement -- then I suppose you'll be happy that it's being adopted by the political right in the United States? Since it's got such a great historical track record, surely results will be good? ;-)

>Otherwise, you might as well argue that fake news only existed from 2016 onwards, because that's when Google Trends says it did.

This is a bad analogy, because fake news itself doesn't use the term "fake news". If "fake news" was an ideology which was characterized by particular terminology, we could graph the use of that terminology to document the rise of the ideology. That's what's being done here.

In any case, I do believe that "fake news" (in the narrow sense of websites which write completely bogus news, with no effort at reporting, to drive clicks) is a phenomenon which has, in fact, become more widespread relatively recently (due to the ease of internet publishing etc.) So that's another way in which your analogy is invalid. Fake news did increase in popularity when Trump was the GOP candidate, relative to when Romney was the GOP candidate. And Google Trends helps illuminate that!

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