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Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

jalopnik.com

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Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#11

Post by Jamesbeam »

marchingkazoo wrote: post #10
Jamesbeam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would he? The president is pardoning people that attacked police officers and sat in jail for that. What makes you think he will spend a single day in jail even if everything he did was illegal? The majority of Americans voted for this. Now they need to deal with the consequences of that action. Good luck.

>The majority of Americans voted for this. Not true. Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote [1]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election...

48.3% of votes Harris 49.8% of votes Trump

The majority of American (voters) choose Trump. The statement is still true.

You understood what I meant tho, as you instantly provided stats relating to the vote and not in the context of all Americans which would also include the people who are not eglible to vote but can still be Americans.

I have no idea what the will of all Americans is, but I can confidently and truthfully state the Americans that voted chose Trump by majority.

Not good at math but pretty sure 49.8% is more than 48.3%.

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#12

Post by marchingkazoo »

Jamesbeam wrote: post #11
marchingkazoo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The majority of Americans voted for this. Not true. Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote [1]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election...

48.3% of votes Harris 49.8% of votes Trump The majority of American (voters) choose Trump. The statement is still true. You understood what I meant tho, as you instantly provided stats relating to the vote and not in the context of all Americans which would also include the people who are not eglible to vote but can still be Americans. I have no idea what the will of all Americans is, but I can confidently and truthf…

>Not good at math...

Clearly. From Robert's Rules of order [1]: The word “majority” in this context means, simply, more than half.

[1] https://robertsrules.com/frequently-asked-questions/

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#14

Post by Jamesbeam »

marchingkazoo wrote: post #12
Jamesbeam wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

48.3% of votes Harris 49.8% of votes Trump The majority of American (voters) choose Trump. The statement is still true. You understood what I meant tho, as you instantly provided stats relating to the vote and not in the context of all Americans which would also include the people who are not eglible to vote but can still be Americans. I have no idea what the will of all Americans is, but I can confidently and truthf…

>Not good at math... Clearly. From Robert's Rules of order [1]: The word “majority” in this context means, simply, more than half. [1] https://robertsrules.com/frequently-asked-questions/

First of all, thanks for the interesting read.

Secondly, your conclusion is a bit fast. Because it seems to be a cultural/language problem here.

Majority = Mehrheit in German.

In my mother tongue it means something completely different and I wasn't aware of that.

According to our German rules of interpreting language

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duden

Majority is simply the most.

https://www.duden.de/node/95359/revision/1328484

Example: The most votes cast went to Trump so the majority voted for him.

Super interesting that English and German speaking populations have such a different interpretation on such an important topic of our democracies, that this caused an argument between us, when it really shouldn't because I need to respect your interpretation because it's true and vice versa.

Had worse starts into my Friday. Thanks for taking time out of your day for this exchange.

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#15

Post by marchingkazoo »

Jamesbeam wrote: post #14
marchingkazoo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not good at math... Clearly. From Robert's Rules of order [1]: The word “majority” in this context means, simply, more than half. [1] https://robertsrules.com/frequently-asked-questions/

First of all, thanks for the interesting read. Secondly, your conclusion is a bit fast. Because it seems to be a cultural/language problem here. Majority = Mehrheit in German. In my mother tongue it means something completely different and I wasn't aware of that. According to our German rules of interpreting language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duden Majority is simply the most. https://www.duden.de/node/95359/re…

I agree that it's an odd difference. Thanks for setting me straight on the cultural difference. I've also had worse starts to my Friday. Thanks again.

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#16

Post by Zigurd »

Jamesbeam wrote: post #11
marchingkazoo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The majority of Americans voted for this. Not true. Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote [1]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election...

48.3% of votes Harris 49.8% of votes Trump The majority of American (voters) choose Trump. The statement is still true. You understood what I meant tho, as you instantly provided stats relating to the vote and not in the context of all Americans which would also include the people who are not eglible to vote but can still be Americans. I have no idea what the will of all Americans is, but I can confidently and truthf…

It's not the math that's the problem. It's the words.

The one you're looking for is plurality.

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#17

Post by drawkward »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #13

Warning: source is jalopnik which is absolute garbage when it is anything related to tesla or musk.

They are biased against Musk (IMO, there is reason to be; Musk is biased against our democratic norms), but did Jalopnik make this up?

Facts don't care about your feelings.

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#18

Post by tombert »

figassis wrote: post #6
scarab92 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does deserve scrutiny, but historically speaking swapping from legacy vendors to SpaceX or Starlink tends to result in cost savings for taxpayers. I would bet that is also the case in this instance, and the media’s outage needs to be tempered until they do the leg work to actual understand the cost effectiveness of this change, and how the decision was made.

I think the point here is not savings it’s the appearance of (or actual) corruption/capture. It might be cheaper now, because he’s aware of scrutiny, but will it be cheaper when this cools down? Also, isn’t the point of govt bidding that we end up with the cheapest anyway, so that he would win anyway? So why does he need a shortcut?

Even if it was cheaper, permanently, I just don't think that the CEO of the company doing the contract should be in charge of the decision to choose that company.

Since governments are positions of power and demand trust, the appearance of not being corrupt is almost as important as the actual act of not being corrupt.

Personally I don't know that I think that any acting CEO should be in charge of government decisions, but even if I was more amenable to that, I think we shouldn't have one who will directly financially benefit from these decisions. It just gives an appearance of impropriety, and it erodes trust in our institutions, which I think are important. I would be similarly against the Verizon CEO being in charge of this decision.

Suppose they hired a disinterested third party, someone with experience with communications infrastructure, who doesn't stand to directly benefit from this [1], and then that person determined that Starlink was actually the best product for the money for this; that would be fine. I'm not opposed to everything that the Diablo cheater has ever breathed on, and if Starlink is the best tool for the job then it's totally fine to use it.

[1] I know everyone has an S&P500 fund or something, so most professionals in the US could indirectly benefit.

Re: Musk Takes $2.4B Contract from Verizon to Give It to Starlink

#20

Post by inemesitaffia »

drawkward wrote: post #17
dzhiurgis wrote: post #13

Warning: source is jalopnik which is absolute garbage when it is anything related to tesla or musk.

They are biased against Musk (IMO, there is reason to be; Musk is biased against our democratic norms), but did Jalopnik make this up? Facts don't care about your feelings.

Jalopnik is relying on incorrect information. The primary source is wrong and you can tell
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