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Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

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

#101

Post by Cuuugi »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #87
Cuuugi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But isn't that a good thing for the "small government" side of politics? You know, government having businesses doing things, instead of spending taxpayer's money on space exploration instead of defending the nation. okay so they still spend it on space stuff, but at least not directly. Would they complain if the government sent money to a privatized firefighting business instead of having firefighting be part of the…

>>"Would they complain if the government sent money to a privatized firefighting business instead of having firefighting be part of the government?"

I believe they would (probably not as bitterly) but the second half of this, is that there is a face to this business (Musk).

Elon Musks's businesses all tend to get quite a fair bit of subsidies, which is why i think Ron Paul talks about "Cronie Capitalism"

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

#102

Post by PeachPlum »

pault wrote: post #84
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bloody hell, I swear we're living in the pulpiest political-thriller novel I've ever fucking heard of.

I don't want to go too far off topic, but every time I turn on the news lately I feel like I'm stuck in a dystopian cyberpunk thriller. Funny how we never got the flying cars and jetpacks from our 20th century utopian sci-fi, but the Phillip K Dicks and William Gibsons seem to be right on the money.

The news, on TV. Where did you find that?

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

#103

Post by thebluehawk »

Cuuugi wrote: post #70
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.

Can you help me understand how Musk's ventures funnel more money from the government than his competitors? Tesla received less in federal loans than several other auto companies and paid them back early with full interest (a net gain for tax payers). SpaceX has lowered the cost of launch and again, saved money for the government/taxpayers.

The EV tax credit is not specific to Tesla, it's available to purchasers of EV's or partial EV's from all manufacturers.

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

#104

Post by Cuuugi »

baldfat wrote: post #98
Cuuugi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So they cry "Free Market PRIVATIZE" and now that we have a privatized space program we get this? LOL the hypocrisy is to much.

Privatization is not really privatization, when we (gov't) still pay for it.

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

#105

Post by api »

jbooth wrote: post #74
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…

If you want to get conspiratorial about it, SpaceX is a huge threat to both the Russian space launch industry and to Boeing/Lockheed. More seriously, in the 2017 conservative pathology, the Russian government are 'good guys' and American businessmen who quit Trump's economic council are 'bad guys'.

Putin is a neo-fascist and an admirer of Julius Evola.

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

#106

Post by thinkcontext »

Cuuugi wrote: post #70
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.

In the case of SpaceX he took very significant risk. After failing 3 launches they made the 4th, averting bankruptcy for both SpaceX, Tesla and Musk himself.

SpaceX has saved the US $millions by unseating a fat incumbent in ULA. The savings could stretch into $billions soon and will grow larger if reusable rockets get certified for national security launches.

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

#107

Post by soundwave106 »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #34
fabian2k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only consistency with Breitbart seems to be that they never let any of those annoying facts get in the way of the narrative. I can't see any ideological justification here, SpaceX getting money from the US government isn't fundamentally different than ULA getting money from the US government. The article does imply at the end that there is likely someone behind these articles that has a specific interest in this…

And they get more bang for their buck saving taxpayer dollars. The alternative is dependency on Chinese or Russian technology which also seems to be against their isolationiat views. It makes no sense to me. It just seems like they don’t like anyone who is liberal.

I scanned the comment section of a few SpaceX stories on Breitbart (examples here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/18/elon-musk... and here: https://www.teslarati.com/breitbarts-nod-elon-musk-scary/ ). Even found another one on Zero Hedge of all places ( http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-18/elon-musk-sycophant... ).

I'll be honest, based on the comment section, these articles are not working very well. There's some who agree, but an equally vocal section accusing Ron Paul of being a shill for "old school aerospace" ala ULA, or even accusing that these articles are "pro-Russia".

I must say that instinctively, favoring the aerospace "status quo" marketplace over SpaceX certainly doesn't seem like a terribly conservative viewpoint. I'm sure whatever monied interest is pushing these articles (quite likely either old school aerospace, Russia, etc.) kind of wanted to use Musk's "liberal" views on climate, and general anti-government sentiment against "handouts" and "subsidies", to try to justify their attack pieces. But as far as I can tell, a heck of a lot of people are seeing through the ruse this time.

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

#108

Post by Nokinside »

Cuuugi wrote: post #70
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.

He funnels less money than his competitors. That's how he wins the contracts.

If you don't want private enterprise to get money from the government, you need to argue one of the following:

* Government should develop it's own aerospace and military industry without private sector.

* Government should stop space research and military should stop launching spy satellites.

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

#109

Post by PeachPlum »

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…

Climate change is not denied.

The human contribution and the potential consequences are considered still unproven hyperbole. The cost/benefit of doing something else is an ongoing discussion.

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

#110

Post by flexie »

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…

Name one company that would exist without the government. Breitbart itself wouldn’t.

It’s an Internet media and several technologies used on the web were developed with government money.

And without government financed primary education fewer would be able to read and Breitbart would lose huge swaths of its reader-base.

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