Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
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 understand this?
Edit: I want to clarify that the alternative to private enterprise competing for government contracts (usually military, again usually a conservative delight) is direct government sponsorship, i.e. NASA.
SpaceX is one of those cases where the free market actually has been more effective. So why not seize on it?
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-Revolutionary France, and another who think they should build Warhammer 40K's Imperium of Man as a real-life society (they're very pop-culture influenced). Turning against a private space company seems to indicate that some factions (Nazis plus... someone else?) are throwing the "far-right futurism" faction overboard.
(Again, these guys are really weird, but hey, it's all there on their blogs.)
My big question is: where's Peter Thiel in all this? Just last year, he was the one trying to assure everyone that, oh don't worry, this was all about tearing down overbearing regulations and political correctness in favor of unbound innovation, that the Right weren't anti-science religious people anymore, etc. Turning against SpaceX isn't just throwing a faction of bloggers overboard, it's thrown Thiel overboard, and he was a major billionaire backer for all of this.
Looking through this lens, Peter Thiel found the same fate as Elon Musk, Gary Cohn, Reince Priebus, and innumerable smaller republican operatives - all thought they would ride the wave and found themselves labeled as just another RINO for being insufficiently ideologically committed.
Thiel was never a major backer of this ethnonationalism, he was just someone who recognized it early and hoped to play that advantage. The Mercer’s, Koch’s and Bannon are the drivers, and everyone else is expendable.
It's all built on the false nationalism of a flagging superpower, and if any of these people traveled in the least they would see that other countries are actually doing a lot of things better than we do here. We got arrogant, our politicians got greedy, and our voter base got complacent. It's only going to get worse too.
There was an op-ed published by Krugman yesterday which argued that tax cuts wouldn't really benefit the wealthy all that much since they have already so much, but cutting benefits really impact society's most vulnerable. But Republicans continue to push for tax cuts. Why? Because they live in that alternate universe.
that's not a game of thrones reference as far as I can tell. It's an old anarchist and socialist slogan. It'd be an odd fit for that part of the right. "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes in those parts.
Which in turn uses Ayn Rand's philosophy (Objectivism) as the basis of the fictional (failed) society in Bioshock.
(Compare with this quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first-man-was-ens... )
Ayn Rand and her philosophy are quite popular in right-wing circles (and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles).
Not surprising. A tenured professor getting government grants for research is a villain by Randian standards.
I remember thinking at the time that the hero was being really reckless and that advanced composites often fail in new and unexpected ways and that building an entire rail line out of the stuff before you understand how it fails is beyond risky. Of course because it was a book the metal is perfect in every way and never has a problem, but the real world is rarely so forgiving.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/16/new-paper-det...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9010409...
The evidence seems to suggest Thiel has gotten in with the "throne and altar" crowd, the Neo-Reactionaries and self-described "Dark Enlightenment".
https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein
How that intersects with his techy leanings, I don't really know, it's very possible that he's being thrown overboard as you describe.
Do you have any idea how much an actual god costs?! This is the best we could manage. Be grateful this low-budget universe is still here.
The tendency of the signals to reach a resonant frequency is another matter...
Basically, follow Thiel, he wasn't wrong throwing down with Trump ... another way of saying it ... I don't think it was because of what he believes in.
Hardly. Most nationalists (probably the LCD of dissident right movements) hate foreign entangelements. Trump saying Iraq was a waste of money is hardly an affirmation of the neocon platform of invasion.
And it's an over-simplification to identify the 'anti corporate welfare' view with 'anti-spaceX'. They're anti-spaceX to the extent that spaceX is dependent on the government. I can't imagine these people are any more thrilled by Lockheed Martin or Boeing.
I believe the original poster was trying to distinguish between the two groups, not state that they used to call themselves neocons but now call themselves the alt-right. Though both claim to be conservative each of them take political stances that are anathema to the other.
Except that's us, right here in the US. It does not matter who wins office in that sense, both parties and mainstream media cheerlead the MIC, Wall St, etc, at the expense of human dignity: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...
No they don't. Most of "these guys", meaning the new right, distance themselves from that term because of its association with white nationalism.
> They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes.
No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other. This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right. It's a smear campaign.
Your statement is a perfect example. In your eyes, anyone on the right not engaging in Nazi fantasies is really just "hiding it". You're "unthinging" the views of the vast majority of them to pretend that they are uniform in ideology.
Also interesting was the NYT Magazine piece that reported on the Harvard analysis of the network of links of the media. They talk about your issue head-on. Its conclusion was that Breitbart was not itself an extremist site a la Daily Stormer but that extremist sites link to Breitbart for legitimization. Breitbart had a section called "Black Crime" and it contained story after story after story of true(ish) content that Daily Stormer folks would link to say "Look what the n-words are up to now".
Its worth reading the quote:
The last thing Yochai Benkler noted before I left his office at Harvard was that his team had performed a textual analysis of all the stories in their database, and they found a surprising result. ‘‘One thing that came out very clearly from our study is that Breitbart is not talking about these issues in the same way you would find on the extreme right,’’ he said. ‘‘They don’t use the same language you find on sites like VDARE and The Daily Stormer’’ — two sites connected to the white-nationalist alt-right movement. He paused for a moment, then added: ‘‘Breitbart is not the alt-right.’’ Yet precisely because articles on the site were often less extreme than their own worst headlines, Breitbart functioned as a legitimizing tether for the most abhorrent currents of the right wing. Benkler referred to this as a ‘‘bridge’’ phenomenon, in which extremist websites linked to Breitbart for validation and those same fanatics could then gather in Breitbart’s comment section to hurl invectives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/magazine/breitbart-alt-ri...
No, Steve Bannon said in an interview that he led Breitbart in giving a spearhead to the alt-right in large media.
>This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right.
There are really three problems here.
* The "center" and "center-left" are already, by historic standards, quite right-wing on economic policy. This really skews the claim that we're talking about a spectrum between a "center-left" and a "right", insofar as we're really just talking about different degrees of permissiveness or authoritarianism on social issues, plus the "center-left" maintaining the barest rudiments of a vestigial welfare-state.
* Within the Right, the factions that we could have called "center-right" got tossed out as RINOs long ago. Ronald Reagan advocated employee ownership of firms as the way of the future; today Republicans would treat that as socialist heresy. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is now unheard-of, as are Republican appeals to conservative people of color or immigrants. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell really are far-right, in the sense that Ayn Rand is far to the libertarian right.
* The alt-right has deliberately worked to blur the boundaries between the libertarian right and the authoritarian-nationalist right, usually by invoking anti-democratic, nationalistic libertarian thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe. You know, the guy who wrote that, "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … [violators] will have to be physically removed from society."[1]
When your party has come to have a political spectrum stretching from Ayn Rand on its left to Augusto Pinochet on its right, yes, you are "these guys". Stop now, turn around, purge the alt-right, purge the Tea Party, and reestablish some common-sense and humanity, or else history will remember you as the bumbling enablers of American fascism.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or "physical removal" by death squads: which side are you on?
As a ex Ron Paul supporter with a distaste for the GOP and Neo-Cons, I proudly called myself alt-right.
I joined a few alt-right forums and found similar-minded people. Libertarians, conservatives, nationalists (in the positive sense). Generally smart people. Not Nazis. Not white supremacists.
The term alt-right never seemed to me anything other than right-wing but not Republican.
Then I saw a few New York Times and CNN articles using it differently. Mixed freely with Nazis.
And I heard that white surpremecists were using it to make their views look more mainstream.
Then people started calling me a Nazi.
It’s a beautiful strategy to see a word redefined right in front of your eyes for political gain, but sad too.
If Bannon said Breitbart supported the alt-right, I’ll assume he’s referring to the definition I first understood from the article on his site, and not the one co-opted by the left-sided media and far-right groups.
Is it that he's nowhere near as racist/misogynist as he's made out to be by left-side media? Is it that he's, in hindsight, a bad bet (which I sometimes feel is what Bannon might conclude)?
If you're not in favor of Trump's presidency, but supportive of Bannon, could you elaborate on how Trump failed?
And, finally, if you're not "pro-Bannon" but nonetheless alt-right by your definition, could you elaborate on the nuance between how the alt-right is presented in (quite possibly left-wing) media, and the alt-right that you are proud of?
If you're not comfortable doing this here, I'd love to discuss it over email or something like that. I truly am asking out of interest.
I’ll never forget when Ron Paul was called a racist by the media in 2012, and how he was screwed by the Republicans. It still makes me angry today. I don't trust our government, media, or major parties, and all are bad stewards of our Republic. From that perspective, Trump is doing great. This chaos is good in the same way that a controlled fire from time to time is healthy for a forest ecosystem.
I don’t believe he’s a racist or a mysogynist though and I feel pretty confident I could argue against every example people give. However, the only thing it would convince them of is that I am making excuses for a terrible person. It’s not worth it. I’ll just say I think he’s a generally good person operating in a tough environment, and came to that conclusion by going directly to source material.
As for Bannon, I generally like him but I'm happy he's back running Breitbart instead of in the White House. Too controversal. He gave a good interview on 60 minutes last week that I mostly agreed with. And Breitbart - it can be inflammatory, but I find it a good counterbalance to everything else.
But bickering over what the word mean or what Bannon meant is not really the point. Give the Buzzfeed Breitbart leak story a read. In it you'll see Bannon encourage Milo to engage with white supremacists but try to dress them up publicly. They are in fact trying to hide it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart...
I’ve always liked Milo. But even if you don't, the article is still important if you want to understand the history of "alt-right" as it was understood by many people.
> Richard Spencer, noted white supremacist, originated the term years before that article was written
Maybe, but Breitbart brought it into the mainstream for me and many others. I also doubt 99% of Americans knew Richard Spencer’s name until last year.
> Its inconceivable Bannon was unaware of this when he made that statement.
Bannon made that statement a few months after Milo’s article. "Alt-right" didn't have those connotations at the time. I read now that Bannon rejects the "alt-right", presumably because its meaning has changed.
> Give the Buzzfeed Breitbart leak story a read. In it you'll see Bannon encourage Milo to engage with white supremacists but try to dress them up publicly.
It just sounds like journalism. Milo reached out to Devin Saucier (the white supremacist) while researching the article I linked that summarized all the parts of the alt-right movement. Vice did the same thing. Or did you mean something else?
Rather than quibble over terminology, it's better if you just state your positive political program, and then we can see what you're into.
This both true and irrelevant to my point. Quick history lesson of the term:
It was originally coined by white nationalists. Later, when the new right came about, they billed themselves as an alternative to the neocons. Some of them began referring to themselves as alt-right in that sense, as did some outsiders. When made clear that the term originally referred to white nationalism, most of the new "alt-right" distanced themselves from the term, because they were not white nationalists. Some do still use the term in the sense of "alternative to the mainstream right". But, as said before, the vast majority have distanced themselves from it.
Bannon himself denounced the ethno-nationalists using the term "alt-right" multiple times. Furthermore, Bannon and Breitbart are not the new right. Many of us don't read or particularly like Breitbard. What one media outlet decides to call itself has nothing to do with a movement as a whole. Nobody that I know personally, as an active member of the new right, refers to themself as alt-right.
> There are really three problems here.
I'll address those one by one:
> The "center" and "center-left" are already, by historic standards, quite right-wing on economic policy. This really skews the claim that we're talking about a spectrum between a "center-left" and a "right", insofar as we're really just talking about different degrees of permissiveness or authoritarianism on social issues, plus the "center-left" maintaining the barest rudiments of a vestigial welfare-state.
You're muddying the waters here. Given that ardent National Socialists, while economically liberal, are considered far-right, we're obviously not talking about economics. Given that authoritarian communist regimes are considered far-left, we're obviously not talking about authoritarianism and libertarianism.
The new right is, for the most part, ardently anti-authoritarian.
And, in the sense of social conservatism, the current center is extreme left historically.
> * Within the Right, the factions that we could have called "center-right" got tossed out as RINOs long ago. Ronald Reagan advocated employee ownership of firms as the way of the future; today Republicans would treat that as socialist heresy.
Many, sure. And yet there are many of us who are being lumped into the "alt-right" for our social views, myself included, who would not react that way.
> Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is now unheard-of, as are Republican appeals to conservative people of color or immigrants.
Simply false. We have no issue with people of color or immigrants. We simply disagree with poisonous Cultural Marxist policies on such issues becoming law.
> * The alt-right has deliberately worked to blur the boundaries between the libertarian right and the authoritarian-nationalist right, usually by invoking anti-democratic, nationalistic libertarian thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe. You know, the guy who wrote that, "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … [violators] will have to be physically removed from society."[1]
This is not a view shared by most of the new right, only certain more authoritariam elements. It certainly isn't any more extreme than the leftist craze for punching "Nazis".
> When your party has come to have a political spectrum stretching from Ayn Rand on its left to Augusto Pinochet on its right, yes, you are "these guys". Stop now, turn around, purge the alt-right, purge the Tea Party, and reestablish some common-sense and humanity, or else history will remember you as the bumbling enablers of American fascism.
> Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or "physical removal" by death squads: which side are you on?
This actually made me laugh.
"Cultural Marxist" means "Jewish" -- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
>This is not a view shared by most of the new right, only certain more authoritariam elements. It certainly isn't any more extreme than the leftist craze for punching "Nazis".
As a matter of fact, mass purges are more extreme than individual crimes.
Goodbye.
Association fallacy -- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Association_fallacy
As your page admits, it has another, original meaning. One which is conveniently downplayed. This is another example of "unthinging". Don't complain about the rampant Cultural Marxism, or you're just a dirty antisemite!
> As a matter of fact, mass purges are more extreme than individual crimes.
One large segment of the population singling out another for physical harm based on political ideology is a mass purge.
Current mainstream leftist memes, with a focus on issues like "white privilege", and the systematic inversion of this supposed privilege, cannot be described as anything but Cultural Marxism.
Somewhat related, and highly recommended, is the article Gramscian Damage by ESR (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260).
And if anyone like eli_gottlieb wants to smear you as an antisemite for speaking out against Marxism, this is why: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=125
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'.
So you are accusing Breitbart of attacking Tesla (even though this is about SpaceX) because they won't "carefully draw lines", without a hint of irony that you can't be bothered to draw careful lines between the companies, and have dragged Tesla into the conversation?
Not every criticism about SpaceX or Tesla is about disliking Musk. If only it were that simple.
I dragged Tesla into the conversation because I think it’s relevant. So do they.
I have no idea what this notion is based upon; it's not really something that has interested me.
I find it hard to properly argue this, because it's based on mostly a feeling I get from following /r/the_donald and various other alt-right(-ish) sources.
But the best way I can explain it is how I feel when I watch Fight Club, in particular the scene where Jared Leto gets beaten to a bloody pulp, and the main character says that he just 'wanted to destroy something beautiful'. I remember that the first time I watched the movie as an angsty teenager, this scene gave me a (thankfully) fleeting feeling of power, anger, mixed with disgust and self-loathing.
Interestingly enough, a game like Bioshock had a similar effect. The message is clearly that the 'Randian' approach leads to all sorts of horror, but for some reason there's also something appealing about the situation, at least to the person that I am (and I can easily see a version of myself in a parallel universe being part of the alt-right).
Anyways, my point is that anything that has a whiff of naiveté, grand hopes, and the kind of 'moonshot' idea that could possibly lead to utter failure, all of that is antithetical to the general alt-right perspective.
At the risk of shoe-horning an author I like into this, I nonetheless feel that David Foster Wallace somehow is able to capture some of this.
> “So far it seems as if people think it really is sort of a book about drug addiction and recovery and, you know, intentional fallacies notwithstanding, what was really going on in my head was something more general like what you were talking about before, that there is a kind — that some of the sadness that it seems to me kind of infuses the culture right now has to do with this loss of purpose or organizing principles, something you’re willing to give yourself away to, basically. And that the addictive impulse, which is very much kind of in the cultural air right now, is interesting and powerful only because it’s a kind of obvious distortion of kind of a religious impulse or an impulse to be part of something bigger. And, you know, the stuff at the academy is kind of weird because, yeah, it’s very high-tech and it’s very “become technically better so you can achieve x, y, and z,” but also the guy who essentially runs the academy now is a fascist, and, whether it comes out or not, he’s really the only one there who to me is saying anything that’s even remotely non-horrifying, except it is horrifying because he’s a fascist. And part of the whole — part of the stuff that was rattling around in my head when I was doing this is that it seems to me that one of the scary things about sort of the nihilism of contemporary culture is that we’re really setting ourselves up for fascism. Because as we empty more and more kind of values, motivating principles, spiritual principles, almost, out of the culture, we’re creating a hunger that eventually is going to drive us to the sort of state where we may accept fascism just because — you know, the nice thing about fascists is they’ll tell you what to think, they’ll tell you what to do–they’ll tell you what’s important.”
My apologies if this doesn't really add up to anything. The topic just hits a nerve and I'm trying to find a way to properly put it into words.
EDIT: found the full quote
The human contribution and the potential consequences are considered still unproven hyperbole. The cost/benefit of doing something else is an ongoing discussion.
Items that have been debunked many times are obviously not high quality or credible.
P.S. I wouldn't normally be so harsh... It's just a bit crazy how many times these claims keep coming up, when the evidence and the science is so crystal clear.
I think the key to understanding the so-called neo-consrvatism is that it is not 'for' anything; rather, it is against a long list of things, and virulently so. They are conservative in that conservatives have generally defined themselves by opposition to whatever has been changing in the societies of their generation.
Its other feature is the belief that its ends justifies the means, including the incitement of irrational anger and even hatred, which they regard as a virtue. This trait is latent at all political extremes, but only gains traction when a significant number of the generally more moderate or uninterested members of the populace believe they are being cheated out of something they are entitled to.
Or is it all just chaotic feedback?
There have been many historical precedents, but perhaps none more so than the French revolution, which went through several cycles of this. The Terror only ended when the surviving politicians all realized that they were more likely to be executed than hold on to executive power, if they carried on this way.
The article does imply at the end that there is likely someone behind these articles that has a specific interest in this narrative.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance#Controv...
[2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget-rev...
I doubt they're going to get any more business for $200 commsats though now that SpaceX is getting on tempo.
Shaking that up a bit is a very good thing for overall use of tax dollars. I'll relent and agree entirely with you that there is a place for their extreme reliability. Then again, SpaceX is going to get there and they want to do 1 launch per week (40-50 launches total in 2018). If they don't develop the Vulcan engine and some sort of story for reliability, they're going to go the way of the dinosaurs. SpaceX is fighting for better (and cheaper) access to Space for everyone whereas ULA will soon be fighting to exist if they don't make serious changes soon.
The launch capacity/cost to propose such thinking just didn't exist.
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.
1) McCain and Rogers's policy views are close to those of neocons (aka, cold-war liberals), best known for their hawkish foreign policy and efficient, smart gov't. They both are supporters of SpaceX and are behind the new legislation that supposedly favors SpaceX. That said, neither McCain or Rogers identify themselves as neocons -- they are just very hawkish when it comes to foreign policy.
2) Ron Paul and those critical of SpaceX (in this particular context) are paleo/libertarian conservatives. They are the polar opposite of neocons in that they are fervently against hawkish foreign policy and crony capitalism which they view as inevitable products of a big gov't.
Now, SpaceX is something neocons would love and SpaceX has cuddled with those two politicians to spice things up. SpaceX's political, campaign donation and McCain and Roger's support of SpaceX/the new legislation which seems to favor Space-X is a big no-no in Paul's book.
Very few conservatives in power are bound to this as an abstract principle; most are bound to markets as they benefit specific incumbents. In this case SpaceX is threatening the incumbents Boeing and Lockheed, who are responding with a lobbying campaign, including the generation of favourable press coverage.
A good parallel would be boycotts of Hobby Lobby due to ideological differences with its ownership. The fundamentals of the business are at worst benign. (I am not making a statement in support of the viewpoints espoused by the Hobby Lobby ownership).
SpaceX is a public good since it saves hundreds of millions of tax dollars, so this is unfortunate.
Calling what Breitbart promotes "conservatism" is very kind. I wouldn't be that generous.
It's not entirely clear how Brietbart is being influenced... possibly the author is getting direct money or promises of future business.
Or they were simply taken out for a few drinks and convinced that SpaceX is the worst thing ever.
Here's my theory:
Social media has created a new environment (in the ecological sense of the word) and we are witnessing people figuring out all the little niches that exist in this new environment which they can profitably occupy. So, in an example like this, what's really happening is that there are a handful of people who stand to gain tremendously by finding a new target for the mob's outrage, because outrage is what drives traffic and traffic is what allows these people to be full-time "social media personalities".
But the thing is that, for these people, the outrage of the mob is what truly motivates them, not ideology. There is a certain personality type that makes it's way in the world by maneuvering to the front of the mob. Being ideologically consistent is an after thought, if it matters at all. All you need is for your target to kinda sorta look enough like your ideological opponents that you can sell it to the mob. That is the litmus test for choosing a target and what I mean when I said, above, that ideology is in the backseat.
This phenomenon is driven by the opportunities that social media presents and certain actors capitalizing on these opportunities. Which means that this phenomenon is not relegated to right. As a great example, a conservative commentator, Ben Shapiro, recently spoke at UC Berkeley. Some of the protest signage was claiming to be against white supremacy, but, as you may have guessed by his name, Ben Shapiro is Jewish. So, you know, not a white supremacist. And he is not even a Trump supporter.
But a reasonable and nuanced take on things is the antidote to outrage, so of course reason and nuance will be absent among the people on the right and the left who benefit from the outrage of the mob.
simplified European definitions on space travel:
socialist: all government run ("planned economy")
social liberal/social democrat: political co-operations (unions) partly funded by government, private corporations funded by government and government corporations, all government regulated ("corporativism")
liberal: privately funded, government regulated ("free market")
neoliberal: privately funded, privately regulated ("capitalism")
liberatarian: what have space done to us?
conservative: national effort to travel to space ("corporativism")
US term of conservative is a mix of liberal/neoliberal economics with conservative traditions.
Breitbart/Bannon conservatism is more like European conservatism on economics.
I don't quite grasp the details of the story, but the "four kinds of money"[1][2] theme may help understand the point of view.
Why exactly would Musk spend money in a way that disturbs conservatives more than how say ULA does it, is probably complicated, but I assume they have their reasons.
PS. Also, quite illuminating is Ron Paul's original opinion piece on foxnews [3].
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MQp-5lZToE
2. http://lpmaryland.org/liberty-quotation-milton-friedman-four...
3. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-def...
"Specifically, Section 1615 of this year’s NDAA expressly forbids the Air Force from developing new launch vehicles by restricting expenditures to the development of new engines or the modification of existing systems. This prohibition is supposedly designed to address the “Russian threat” -- a threat manufactured by those seeking a new Cold War. In addition to flaming anti-Russian hysteria, this provision makes the company SpaceX the only affordable option for launch services. "
Also, shouldn't we be glad that space exploration is an international effort? Why should the USA design and build itself its entire launch systems?
>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 in the form of Air Force and NASA contracts.
from "Ron Paul: Crony defense budget hands SpaceX a monopoly - why?" op ed in Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-def...
I think he also annoys Breitbart types by talking about global warming.
In any case, they’re getting money in exchange for services or goods rendered to the government. SpaceX can at least claim to have provided a very valuable service, for a very good price.
Compare with programs like the F-35, among many other crimes against the American tax payer.
The military contractors (“defense contractor” is doublespeak like DoD) are actually bribing generals and congressmen while SpaceX competes on technology and price. They’re bringing the price down on space launches which is a major strategic goal of the US military. They’ve got some cool shit to put up there but a lot of it is not yet economically feasible even with their budgets.
Literally the only angle I can see on this is an "all government spending is bad" angle, and that's way off in tinfoil hat territory.
I can't speak for other people, but my personal issue with Musk's ventures are how much money he funnels from the government.
For its launch capability, the US government should:
- buy on the open market at the lowest available price. Currently this turns out to be Russia.
- buy on the US market at the lowest available price. This may be SpaceX although other contenders are mentioned in the article
- build its own rocket systems from scratch inside government agencies
- just pay Boeing/Lockheed like they've always done
- just give up on space
(basically, if you think Musk funnels a lot of money from the US government, you should check out the rest of the aerospace industry...)
So given that government money spent towards space should be spent fairly and in support of a policy that maintains multiple competitors, these criticisms are a mix of 1) A warranted and necessary critical thought process, 2) likely influenced and supported by some good-old-boy network/industry support for ULA, and 3) opportunistic politics cashing in on a shallow opportunity to get back at a couple of Trump's adversaries like McCain and Musk.
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 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"
So all those Military Industry is still paid for by the TAX PAYER?! Makes no logical sense.
So since the Government is paying it must be a Government Agency that runs it? Your talking double talk aka hypocrisy. Privatization is 100% taking work monopolized by the Government and putting them out to a private identity that can do it cheaper through the free market system.
I don't know why you are so angry or arrogant, but this is the first semi-lucid response you have given.
Wrong, but semi lucid.
This seems to be what we are arguing about here, and well there's no two sides to this debate. You are wrong.
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.
The EV tax credit is not specific to Tesla, it's available to purchasers of EV's or partial EV's from all manufacturers.
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.
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.
Both sides have seen ideological purges, and the "blue dog democrats" and "Rockefeller republicans" were purged over the last twenty years. The last real moderate was probably Boehner, and the combination of the Tea Party, and aborted "great compromises" by Obama did him in. The former Senate Majority leader claimed to be a pro-life (personally) Democrat from Vegas, but increasingly abandoned this as his party lurched to the left, and was replaced by a corporatist Democrat with deep deep links to investment banks (Schumer). Biden is still out there as a moderate Democrat, but was completely marginalized in party politics when his great compromise efforts with Boehner were torpedo'd by more activist portions of Obama's cabinet. (No one has ever taken credit for actually convincing Obama to ask for additional trillions in tax-raises last minute both times). I think Biden is just about the only candidate who could have won against Trump in the last election.
The so-called "Neo-cons" (their original name was "Vulcans") were not neocons because they were reformed conservatives, but rather former Wilsonians who turned more Jacksonian over time.
As for Musk, Shelby and Ryan, more then anything else, they are opportunists.
There is a very similar fracturing and disintegration on the left right now, with the AntiFa, the move on crowd and so called progressives all purging those who disagree with them. Then you have much much more radical elements in the colleges and universities.
The French Revolution comparisons are not without merit.
My point is about use of the term. In particular, the way it's fuzzy, and attributing ethnonationalism to people who are civic nationalists.
The thing I disagree with is being too fuzzy about where you draw lines when it comes to particular stances. In a way it's their own damn fault for flirting with the alt-right earlier on, but the alt-light are not ethno-nationalists. I think that is important because people dismiss them for the wrong reasons. (Not to mention people like Ben Shapiro who were wise enough never to flirt with them, but who get pulled into the alt-right label anyway. All the while ironically getting harassed by the alt-right online.)
Instead of debating labels or levels of political congruence among the various people who have brought up this issue, perhaps it would be more productive to discuss the possible ramifications of this legislation passing. Also worth considering is the topic of private influence over government (especially in defense, where it's largely just "the way things are done"), and whether or not business practices that benefit from such arrangements actually qualify as capitalism.
The result is I can't evaluate what they're talking about. What Breitbart articles do they have in mind? I found a bunch of neutral articles about SpaceX there, and this negative op-ed: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/18/elon-musk...
Is that what they're talking about?
The central canard of these attacks is that John McCain did not, in fact, add "Section 1615" to the defense authorization act, which is now being finalized by a conference between the House and Senate. This clause does not exist at all in the Senate language. Rather, it was inserted into the House legislation by U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama.
"The central canard of these attacks is that John McCain did not, in fact, add "Section 1615" to the defense authorization act, which is now being finalized by a conference between the House and Senate. This clause does not exist at all in the Senate language. Rather, it was inserted into the House legislation by U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama."
1615 doesn't restrict the military from investing in new launch systems. What it says is that we already have launch infrastructure, so if you're going to spend money on more, it either needs to be compatible/in-line with the existing infrastructure, or you need to have a good reason (which are quite extensive). That's all it says.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2810...
As much as I love Musk, this is fucked up. Just a normal day in the American democracy I guess
> The central canard of these attacks is that John McCain did not, in fact, add "Section 1615" to the Defense Authorization Act, which is now being finalized by a conference between the House and Senate. This clause does not exist at all in the Senate language. Rather, it was inserted into the House legislation by US Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama.
> Two sources familiar with the legislation told Ars that Rogers added Section 1615 specifically to benefit Aerojet and its AR1 rocket engine.
> "The purpose of the provision is simple," one Washington DC source said. "Instead of the Department of Defense continuing their open-ended, market-friendly risk reduction investment across several providers to enable Russian-engine-free launch capabilities, Rogers wants DOD to fund Aerojet to build AR1 to be inserted into Atlas V." In other words, the language benefits Aerojet by favoring its "drop in" engine solution over building a completely new Vulcan rocket.
The article is illustrating a much deeper level of fucked up - the fact that Brietbart and other media outlets are singling out SpaceX here and misrepresenting the facts to demonize them, while turning a blind eye to the real pork - deeply entrenched interests like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who've been siphoning billions out of government on space tech for decades. If anything, SpaceX has been disrupting the status quo there, opening the door to real market competition, in the long run reducing costs to taxpayers. The entrenched interests under threat are almost certainly behind these strangely framed (and outright dishonest) hit pieces.
Still, I have to disagree with your point. Lots of people did bad things on Hitler's orders. Lots more looked the other way. The "thousands of people" argument falls apart when looking at historic examples.
How do we know Dow Chemical isn't going to make a huge poison bomb and hold the country hostage? What about Lockheed Martin creating their own private army to take over the US and sabotaging all of the equipment they sell to the government? Maybe Boeing will threaten to crash brand new 777s into buildings all across the US unless we pay a ransom? SpaceX doesn't even have to capture an asteroid, they build something that easily has the capabilities of an ICBM already!
Supervillian schemes rarely make any sense in the real world. You get a lot more money by just commercializing the tech and selling it normally. Plus you don't have the army knocking at your door and pesky superheroes ruining your day.
They made a point to drop that terrifying B-bomb in the title, sending shivers up the spine of many a HN reader.
I see the ULA vs Space X competition as productive in producing innovation, regulatory fairness aside. Regulatory problems are much less of a drag if resulting innovation is a net positive for both private and public sectors
I chuckled at this.
I think your analysis of their rhetoric is apt.
That said, the lede of the article is the media campaign pushing the pay-to-play narrative, not the righteousness of SpaceX (which is expected to be taken as a given).
Overall, the article was informative because I wouldn't have known that there was a counter argument to Sen. Paul's narrative.
Considering that most of the media has been fawning over musk and spacex and everything musk does, perhaps some criticism of musk is required in a free and democratic system.
I just don't like how so much of media are pretty much colluding with each other to spread the same narrative. On almost all topics, it seems like most of the media is pushing a particular narrative.
I wish we had a media environment where about a third is pro-musk, a third is anti-musk and a third is neutral.
The same with trump/obama/clinton, politics, technology, business, globalization, economics, international relations, etc.
All we seem to get is cheerleading by the media for one particular agenda.
I'm a believer in diversity and I think we need diversity in the media.
And I don't believe in saints. Musk has done a lot of good things, but he isn't a saint. He has done plenty of things that can be criticized. How most of his business lives off government subsidies. How much in bed he is with wall street. How he really hasn't invented or created anything new. Most of his proclamations and "inventions" are decades old technologies. None of his grandiose proposals have born fruit yet.
If all the media seems to do is praise or criticize, then I know something is wrong.
Edit: Wow, that was a swift and quick number of downvotes. I know that pay to play is a big thing in news ( both arstechnica and brietbart and everyone else does ). But I wonder if musk has pr firms working the social media scene?
I would say the downvotes are more due to the fact you're commenting on an article that says a certain section of what we are still calling "The Right" has incorrectly demonized Musk in this case and you decided to piggyback on the criticism of him. In addition, your extended ad hominem in response to an article you didn't read is disappointing.
Okay. But why is arstechnica even defending musk. Is arstechnica musk's PR firm? Isn't that strange in and of itself? Lots of bad things get said about everyone and yet arstechnica decided to jump in on musk's defense.
That seems pretty odd to me.
> you decided to piggyback on the criticism of him.
I've criticized musk. And I've also praised him too. But the problem is that I get attacked for criticizing musk.
I just find it odd how any criticism of musk gets a swarmed response. That isn't an ad hominem. That's just wondering how strange things are.
I would be interested if arstechnica or their employees have any direct or indirect financial stake in musk's enterprises. I also would be interested if breitbart/et al have any financial stake in having musk's companies fail ( ie short positions or interests in musk's competitors ).
Ron Paul criticized Space X for getting John McCain to put a provision into the Senate Bill that favored Space X.
1) This provision is not IN the Senate bill. 2) The provision doesn't hurt Space X, but it doesn't directly do anything for them either. 3) The provision is in a House bill, and was put there by a congressman from Alabama, not John McCain.
People don't like blatant factual errors. You can criticize Musk all you want, but it must be for things that are actually happening in reality.
Because of the factual errors in the criticism of Space X, and the fact that they appear to be coordinated, if there are any PR firms influencing this debate nefariously, its likely on the other side.
My view is that Musk has a big problem. If the main customer of his businesses is the tax payer, and the majority or very close to the majority of our tax payers are conservative, he can't be a political actor. This breeds a natural resentment that he is dealing with now.
You're right that conservatives generally don't like Musk. His main attraction is his advocacy of the potential of technology to create a better future. Conservatives are generally more skeptical of the advantages of progress, and that's an important role to play in society. We need both believers who have the drive to try new things and skeptics to keep them from making stupid mistakes in their enthusiasm.
Tesla's autopilot and SpaceX's rockets offer cutting-edge technology for bargain prices, but they sacrifice the adherence to almost perfect reliability that has held the terrestrial and space transportation industries back. Skepticism about reliability might be partially motivated by dislike of his cult-like following, but it's often also rational and necessary. I think his companies will accomplish great things, and if he has to be a little more careful to please the conservative part of his funding and customer base, it will probably make him a better manager.
For the most part, HN avoids making this worthless distinction. Sometimes a commenter makes this mistake and is down voted to hell.
You should probably continue to complain about down votes, that will make us see our folly! Or better yet, take it back to Reddit.
Nope. Why is it strange? I expect there is a large intersection between people who like Musk and the things he is working on and people who read Ars. In fact there is likely a large intersection between people who like Musk and his companies and people working in tech.
But hey, if global media conspiracies are your thing then sure, it's that.
Why? I'm legitimately curious. Why must all issues be represented with equal coverage? Does this apply to all issues?
Should moon-conspiracy theorists get one-third positive coverage?
This is an odd baseline. I'm pretty sure most media criticize animal abuse and praise people who help others. If something is (mostly) objectively good or bad for most of the world, I'm not surprised that media will agree on that. There's no need to always have a devil's advocate, especially not a third of the media.
And diversity does exists.
Burn, karma, burn!
No. We have more than two political parties. It's just that two are dominant and they both work for the same people.
> Yet North Korea and Russia only have one, so its not that bad.
What? We are comparing ourselves to russia and nk? Is that how low we have sunk as a nation?
> And diversity does exists.
What? 2 isn't diversity. And as I pointed out, it doesn't exist in news media.