True, but you'd think that Musk, given his background and aspirations, would have greater appreciation for the JWST.
[and to be clear, my quoting of Sam Altman is not meant to be taken as an endorsement of Sam Altman, but I suspect he has decent insight into Elon]
This isn't shocking but rage inducing.... We spent forever building this thing and successfully getting it up and operational... I know people who have worked on this... Elon musk isn't even a real physicist, he is a business and hype man that is able to get young engineers with dreams of contributing to a great dream to work for him with a terrible work-life balance.
Elon and Trump might be evil. But I don’t really believe in evil. And I keep underestimating both of them. It’s no longer a matter of choice; but if there is a positive possibility, I like to imagine it and make it a plausible pathway. Tons of bad things can happen; is there a path where the current direction could be very very good?
Government will become vastly more efficient.
And for a left field example: I suspect that the next few years will see a rapid advancement in the science of solar radiation management, aka geoengineering. This was never going to happen with status quo leadership. But the fact is that we will not stop using fossil fuels in the next couple decades. So we clearly need to minimize the known risk of climate change, (even for the unknown risks of geoengineering). It costs about $10b to put enough calcium carbonate or sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to achieve heat balance and stop runaway climate change effects. Can’t have Florida flood, right?
Beyond that, there is a genuine likelihood that there will be a better economy and less war.
I’m not claiming this is the most likely outcome. But there is a reasonable chance that the next few years will work out really, really well.
This prediction is necessarily predicated on a reduction in budget with an expectation of similar performance, but the administration that is pursuing the budget cuts is also diligently working to remove accountability from the executive branch. I do not predict a more efficient government, but a less effective one.
As I said in another thread here, to solution to waste is not slashing budgets but better accountability. Without the latter there is no guarantee that any other attempted measures will have the expected results.