Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> In the politically charged atmosphere of a new stand-off with Russia, however, it isn't the technology that matters so much as Musk's ability to present himself as a patriot, rushing in to save his country from malevolent Russians.

This sounds like a biased piece, with an agenda. I posit Bershidsky is not quite an impartial observer on this case. I can see how both ULA and the Russian would be chomping at the bit to make sure every news source has articles criticizing Musk.

We'll probably be seeing pieces about Musk's personal life. Maybe he smoked pot in college, and somehow, someone would remember and then make sure to write a memoir, that will make its way into the public media. With titles like "Oh, no, our great American Patriot is a pot head"

The dangerous game Musk is playing is that, besides sticking sticks in the spokes of ULA's business directly, he is painting them as unpatriotic. One thing Lockheed and Boeing don't want is to seem that. They make billions from US govt contracts. This is going to enrage them. And they might start doing shadier things than usual.

He's not "painting them as unpatriotic" he's responding to their points about national security.

Their (ULA) argument in a nutshell is #1 it's costly because of national security and #2 because of national security (read: important) you should stick with us as we've been successful.

Elon's argument is based around cost first, and he through in the national security part as a response to the two ULA arguments.

So basically, they started it would explain why national security or patriotism as you put it, is the topic being discussed.

Also, we're talking about launching military satellites. I don't know how national security/patriotism can't play a major part.

Isn't it patriotic to save taxpayer's money in the USA? Especially for defense spending, so that money can be used to buy more important stuff like DARPA research?

US-American "moguls" don't get killed as often as their Russian counterparts. And even Russia is careful about being too obvious, lest the totalitarian nature of the state becomes common knowledge outside (or beware even inside) Russia...

Is the US a semi-oligarchy wrapped up in the trappings of a republic?

"Republic" and "Oligarchy" aren't actually opposed concepts. Its possible to be both at once, without "semi" and "trappings".

Now, if you mean "representative democracy" when you said "republic", you'd have a more appropriate question.

I think it is dangerous to start such a discussion with the diagnosis of "semi-oligarchy". The first thing you should look at is that, "integrated" over all citizens (and even residents and "illegal aliens"), you won't find a country that offers much more freedom and more opportunity. You can argue if some European countries beat the US in some of these categories, but none of them are as much better than the US, than the US is better compared to Russia or China.

The US political system is designed to be rigid against change. Which is mostly a good thing, until, of course, it isn't. But this rigidity is a big strength, and accounts for much of the trust of the world economy in the US government(s).

How to choose leaders and administrators is a tough problem, and I don't have a lot of trust in people who don't actually participate in politics but believe they have a way of choosing leaders and policies that is superior to all the proven ways.

you won't find a country that offers much more freedom and more opportunity

Quite true. I'm not saying the US is bad. I'm just pointing out that it's not some kind of anointed perfection.

Re Russia and democracy -- isn't it enough to just note that Putin will never lose an election...?

Equally damning is the media control.

I think you misunderstood that section. I read it as an opinion of what he should do, not as a statement of fact. Every US Government contractor should always try to be/look as patriotic as possible. My mom did a ton of print work for McDonnald Douglas in the 90s to help look good during the DC -X/Venturestar cook off.

That is an excerpt from the article, the flavor of the article is not objective. It tries on the surface to support Musk. Talk about "An overweight, spiteful, nationalist Russian politician named Dmitri Rogozin". However it also on a deeper level criticizes him (and the Russians for re-acting!).

So if you read it carefully it is written to support ULA. How so? Here are few points:

* "On its merits, the injunction should not stand." and basically talks about how most space and military related Russian enterprises are state controlled so this injunction should be lifted as unrealistic.

* It is criticizing the Russians, saying they just angrily react to Musk's provocation. So it tries to shame them based on their rash decisions.

* It talks about how Musk's rockets had one failure. And they did, but how ULA has many many more successful flights.

Now some those things are not lies or fabrications. One of Musk's rockets did blow up. And Lockheed and friends did have many more successful launches. It is just the style it was written and ideas it presents seem biased to me. And on this topic, we probably won't be seeing any objective or unbiased articles. On a higher level, this makes for an interesting study in PR relations.

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