“Taiwan is just like Hawaii. It’s separation from China is arbitrary.”
What is this guy on?
https://twitter.com/michaelsobolik/status/1701926222962266341?t=k8ZQ3GTmBsbddc8sR72oEg&s=19
He’s on that “China is a huge marketplace where a lot of my stuff gets made” kick. Yglesias has been on this of a while. Musk isn’t some out of the box figure pushing back against the powers that be. He’s an arch capitalist which means he will bend to whatever political forces makes him the most amount of money. He’s parrot the Chinese line if he thinks it’ll give him more money. He’ll parrot the Russian line if he open up a marketplace to him. The only reason he presents himself as a contrarian thinker is because Western liberal democracies allow people to pose as contrarian out of the box thinkers and still make money.
The guy’s never said a bad word about China long as he wants to sell things to China, and he never will.
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Bari Weiss is like if the police captain in Casablana was genuinely shocked to hear that gambling was going on at Rick’s club.
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Anti satellite missiles probably aren’t practical against Starlink.
There are ~5,000 now. Plan is for 8x that number. Far easier to go after Musk.
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I thought though if you blew up one, it starts a chain reaction that takes out a bunch more. At least that is what I learned from Gravity.
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And it’s probably against various treaties and UN resolutions and such regarding the weaponization of space. Russia is already down to its great allies, Belarus, North Korea, and various African coup states.
If there is something that characterizes our time, particularly the last last decade, it’s losers not willing to take the L. It’s a solid strategy if you only ever think one step ahead. Three steps ahead and it’s like maybe you should have let off the gas for the bend in the road.
Spreading around a lot of extra garbage up there would piss off everybody with a space program. Maybe even the North Koreans.
Haven’t watched, but I understand there’s at least one instance of bad physics in it.
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I don’t think it would be a goal for the Russians to completely disable StarLink, but to temporarily interrupt it in a specific place and send to a message to stop supporting Russia’s enemy in battle or the company will continue to lose assets.
Regarding treaties, I don’t know. Once the satellites are actively used in a military conflict I think they’re probably fair game, and I really doubt this would be enough to draw the west into direct conflict
The only unrealistic part was the debris field somehow lapping Sandra Bullock and hitting her over and over. And the ISS being in the same orbit as spy satellites. Space debris being a huge problem is accurate tho.
I’ve been looking at Elon biographies. Not going to plunk down $17 for Isaacson’s book, especially if he’s going to contradict himself whenever Elon complains. Something unsurprising they all have in common is how they tout “access”.
From a CBS story:
Bestselling author Walter Isaacson has previously written biographies of inventive and dynamic personalities, from Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein to Steve Jobs. For his latest, “Elon Musk” (published September 12 by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global), Isaacson received unparalleled access with the billionaire entrepreneur.
Back cover of Eric Berger’s book, Liftoff:
Back cover of Ashlee Vance’s book, Elon Musk:
Vance’s book opens with a negotiation with Elon about the extent of control he wants over the book. In his account, Vance doesn’t concede anything. But these guys are kidding themselves if they think they aren’t being influenced.
I mean just listening to the first chapters of Vance’s book (which is a little old now, but free from my local library!), I feel some empathy for Elon. He’s still a jackass though.
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For biographers though access is the name of the game. Romney announced he’s not running and he’s releasing a biography and the biographer talked about his access. Long nights in discussion, paperwork that Romney gave him, diaries, permission to interview family members, etc. I’ve read biographies were access was limited and they weren’t very good.
I still think it’s funny how they can all have unparalleled/exclusive access. It has to come at a price. Berger is a SpaceX advocate. Vance has a project based on his book coming on HBO. They all have a continuing stake in Elon’s image.
The Star Slate Codex guy (who has a super annoying babe-in-the-woods blindness to anything ever being political) just sent out a review of the older Vance book. Sounds pretty puffy in favor of Elon, but there are some telling negatives.
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The reach is enormous. Trump did an interview with ticker Carlton and it got more views than the superbowl mash finale and sneezing panda put together
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Superbowl, M.A.S.H. finale, Sneezing Panda (whatever that is)
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