The Trump-Musk Break-Up

From strong allies to mortal enemies in nothing flat.  Elon does not approve of the Big Beautiful Bill that continues to spend the country into bankruptcy and Donald isn't so keen on the sudden disloyalty from one of his top supporters through the campaign and early administration.  The spat quickly elevated and now has Musk claiming that Trump is on the Epstein List, thus explaining why it still hasn't been released.  Yes, this break-up has gone nuclear.

I am highly doubtful that Trump is on the list.  If he was, the Biden Administration would surely have released that snippet of the list along with any damning pictures and video.

Maybe the Parties Did Flip?

Recently, someone noted that Trump, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk all used to be Democrats.  In fact, Ronald Reagan had been a Democrat in his younger days.  Reagan often said that the party left him rather than he left the party. Tulsi had run for president as a Democrat during the 2020 primaries, but she soon broke with her party on topics such as LGBTQ, the border, and foreign policy.  Her views on all of these would have been mainstream Democrat in 2008 when Obama won the presidency, but were now viewed as 'far right' positions.  RFK Jr. has been an environmentalist for all of his professional life and a vaccine skeptic for nearly 20 years.  He was a Democrat through all that time until last year, when he became an independent.  Then he supported the Republican to Make America Healthy Again.  Why didn't his message resonate with his old party?  Elon voted for Biden in 2020.  However, the censorship that followed led him to buy Twitter.  Like RFK Jr., he is clearly on the environmentalist side of the aisle - traditionally aligning with Democrats - but he too switched to the Republican candidate.  Elon has tweeted this image to show how he didn't leave the party, it left him:

Remember, Obama opposed same sex marriage in 2008, the trans issue was on the far fringe, and Democrats were the anti-war party.  Today, Trump is anti-war, has no issue with same sex marriage, and opposes transgenderism with regard to minors.

When the party flip story is told, it is always about racism.  Democrats grew into anti-racists and Republicans - the party created to oppose slavery - adopted racism to win votes.  No.  That is false.  However, it does seem that the parties have traded some policies over the years.

Department of Cost Cutting?

Trump has talked about utilizing Elon Musk as a government efficiency expert.  Musk himself has posted about a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which neatly aligns with a cryptocurrency that is associated with him.  Clever.  The new idea from Trump was a Secretary of Cost Cutting.  Much as I want government spending trimmed, a new department is not the way to do it.  The department might work worders for an administration or two, but it would soon suffer the fate of all government agencies: a desire to grow.  Soon, the trick of cost cutting would match the current definition.

Today, government cuts are made to the rate of growth.  So, if the Department of Superfluous Spending had a budget of $20 million this year and was projected to get a 10% increase, the Department of Cost Cutting could announce a $1 million cut so that the budget for next year is only $21 million.  Yes, all those budget cuts through the years have been of this sort.  The DOGE would adopt this strategy within a decade and become a useless waste of taxpayer money, like most government agencies.

Even if Elon does a miraculous job, it will only be a brief pause in the ever-expanding government.  Congressional action is required to shrink government.  Departments must be eliminated, not merely partially defunded.  Funds will just pour back in down the line.  Follow Argentina's Milei and slash government agencies.

Catching a Booster!

Starship launched from Boca Chica for the fifth time today.  Seven minutes after leaving the pad, the booster returned.  It lined itself up and hovered in front of Mechazilla (as the tower is affectionately known) and caught.  As Elon Musk has said, the best part is no part.  By this method, the starship booster does not need landing gear, saving an immense amount of weight.

While the booster landed back at the launch pad, starship demonstrated that the heat shield still needs some tweaking, but it was able to make a pinpoint landing in the Indian Ocean nonetheless.

Here are some links to checkout:

1. Scott Manley
2. Everyday Astronaut
3. The Angry Astronaut

Scott Manley provides a summary of the day while the others were live broadcasting the launch.  Great stuff from all of them.

Topsy Turvy

The current election is seeing a realignment of the parties.  We have Republicans for Democrats and Democrats for Republicans, unions for Republicans and rich industrialists for Democrats.  It's going topsy turvy.  Here are a few highlights:

1. Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.  He is following his daughter, Liz Cheney (R), in this.  She was one of 2 Republicans on the J6 Select Committee that put all the blame on Trump, ignoring that he had offered to call up the National Guard beforehand.

2. Congressman Robert F Kennedy Jr. (D) suspended his independent run for the presidency and has endorsed Donald Trump.  The Kennedys are Democratic Party royalty, so this is more significant than the Cheneys going to Harris.

3. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D), who ran for president in 2020, has endorsed Donald Trump.

4. Elon Musk voted for Biden in 2020, but is now endorsing Donald Trump.

5. Alan Dershowitz has declared "I am no longer a Democrat."  That doesn't mean he is voting for Trump, but he probably isn't voting for Kamala either.

When I was a youth, the Democrats were the party of free speech and the Republicans were the ones who wanted to put warnings on music lyrics, video games, and so forth.  Now, the Democrats are the party of censorship and the Republicans are the party of free speech.  How did that happen?  In the 1990s, the Democrats wanted to stem the tide of illegal immigration to protect American workers from low wage competition.  Today, the Democrats have opened the floodgates, and the country is awash in illegal immigrants.  What happened there?  I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but now Trump is the anti-war candidate.  What explains that shift?

A realignment is underway in the United States and around the world.  The world order that was created in the wake of World War II is undergoing dramatic changes, breaking old party alliances and creating new ones.  That some prominent Republicans have thrown their support to Harris and Democrats have backed Trump just shows how upside down the world is at the moment.

Who Decides?

He [Musk] has lost his privileges and it should be taken down. ... There has to be a responsibility placed on these social media sites to understand their power. ...  They are speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation.  That has to stop.

Kamala Harris

VP Harris spoke out against X/Twitter.  From her perspective, Free Speech is a privilege, not a right.  Musk has lost that privilege according to the would-be president.  What could he do to regain his privileges?  She wants oversight and regulation.  Right.  Who decides?  Who are these regulators and overseers who will make sure that social media understands its power and uses it responsibly?  Is her definition of responsible use the same as my definition of responsible use?  She is using the words oversight and regulation when she really means censorship.  What else could it be?  Proper grammar and punctuation?  No, the people have access to information (maybe misinformation) that the government would rather they didn't.  The government doesn't want to fight 'misinformation' with facts; they want to censor it.  The censors are always the bad guys.

France recently arrested a social media mogul for failing to properly regulate and oversee information.  Free speech must be restricted.  To allow the government to restrict it without admitting they are abridging free speech, they come up with terms like hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, and so forth.  Really, our censoring this is for your own good.  Honest.

Who is African-American?

George Stephanopoulos grilled Byron Donalds (R-Florida) about Trump's questioning of Kamala Harris' racial identity.  Snopes confirms that the Associate Press (AP) listed her Indian heritage in the headline when she became a Senator in 2016 but her Black heritage when she became the VP candidate in 2020.  By merely pointing out this change in reporting, Stephanopoulos accused Donalds (who is black) of a slur.  Really?  Generally, this should be irrelevant.  However, it brings up the race card, which Democrats - like Stephanopoulos - love to play.

On CNN, there was a clip of black men in a barbershop questioning Kamala's heritage.  At best, they are ambivalent on the topic.  Why is that?  Let's talk about who is African-American?

Elon Musk grew up in South Africa and emigrated to the United States.  He has since become a naturalized citizen.  Ergo, he is African by birth and American by citizenship.  However, no one would seriously call him African-American.  So, what is African-American?  The term was popularized by Jesse Jackson in the 1980s and became an alternative for black.  What did it denote?  An African-American was both black and the descendant of slaves in the United States.  With that as a definition, Elon Musk meets neither requirement.  Vice President Kamala Harris qualifies on one factor but not the other.  Her father was born and raised in Jamaica and her mother in India.  Harris cannot trace her ancestry back to slaves in the United States.  This is why her racial identity is questioned.

This same issue applied to President Obama.  His father was Kenyan, and thus had no ties to the black community in America.  His mother was Caucasian from Kansas.  He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, giving him none of the 'black' experience in America.

The reason why the United States adopted affirmative action was to redress the years of slavery and Jim Crow.  Why would anyone who migrated to the United States after the repeal of Jim Crow be included in the affirmative action?  Neither Obama nor Harris' ancestors suffered from these and that sets them apart from most African-Americans.

Thoughts on the Simulation

For those not in the know, the simulation hypothesis is that we are nothing more than a computer simulation by a vastly more advanced civilization.  Kind of like The Sims game, only with more polygons.  Scott Adams and Elon Musk are proponents of the hypothesis.  After all, we have begun making computer simulations that have rapidly improved.  What will they be like in a hundred years?  Will it be possible to tell reality from virtual reality?  It's the Matrix.  It is inevitable that there will be many simulations as computer technology advances.  What are the odds that we are the original and will be the ones who produce countless virtual realities with NPCs who think they are real vs. we are one of the many simulations created by the originals?  Adams and Musk think it is unlikely that we are the first.

One thing I find particularly interesting about the simulation hypothesis is that Christianity has an odd compatibility with it.  God (i.e., the programmer) has indeed created the universe.  Like most programmers of such simulations, he has an avatar so he too can "play" the game: Jesus.  Ergo, Jesus really is God.  That parallel is weird.  The Holy Spirit would be the program itself, the coding that makes the world work the way it works.  Gee, that's always present.  Moreover, the program literally knows all.  The data logs of a well-designed program will show what everything has done and when.  Yeah, the programmer has a record of all the errors (i.e., sins) committed by the players.

Scott Adams holds that those who embrace the simulation hypothesis are able to influence reality.  Of course, he is all about framing, viewing things in a way that maximizes your odds of success, which might not correspond with actual reality.

Free Speech Fears

Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, there have been many complaints that he is lifting restrictions and granting amnesty to banned users.  Oh, the humanity!  The restrictions and bannings are being painted as necessary for safety or to prevent misinformation.  Though I'm in favor of banning users who call for violence, I'm opposed to banning those who offer 'misinformation.'  Who decides it's misinformation?  In China, Xi decides.  I'm sure most Republicans view what Democrats say to be misinformation and that the Democrats view anything Republicans say as misinformation.  We have no objective observer who can decide.  The fact checkers are usually funded by one side or the other, and only claim dispassion.  Therefore, it should be a free for all.  Let them debate.  That one side is eager to keep people out of the debate reveals that that side is not confident in being able to win the debate.

Let everyone make their case.

Twitter

Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and panic has ensued.  I am reminded of the election of Abraham Lincoln, of all things.  No sooner had Lincoln been elected than the South commenced to secede.  There was no waiting to see what policies he might pursue, just immediate panic.  Despite Lincoln winning with less than 40% of the popular vote, the South chose to secede.  Had the South remained, an additional 12 Democratic Senators would have tipped the Senate to the Democrats: 35 Democrats, 29 Republicans, and one Unionist.  There were 7 Democrat Senators from Union states and 7 more from Border States.  Instead, the balance was 29 Republicans, 23 Democrats, and 1 Unionist.  As more Confederate states departed, the balance was further unbalanced.  Even with the Republican dominance that followed, Northern Democrats were still needed to pass the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.  Clearly, this could never have been ratified if the South had not seceded.

Musk has only just purchased Twitter and has implemented little, if anything yet.  Why not wait to see how things shake out?  If it goes to hell, then tweet your prescience and delete your account then.  By staying on the platform, you have the ability to shape the platform.  By leaving, you have none.  I am also reminded of all those who proclaimed that they would leave the United States if Bush or Trump were elected.  Amazingly, they never did leave.

Musk has declared himself to be a free speech absolutist.  As such, one would expect a much higher bar for banning people from Twitter under Musk.  Twitter has, over the last few years, clearly chosen sides in many debates, banning or suspending those who dare to voice opinions on the 'wrong' side of the issue.  One hopes that Musk will let the two sides argue.  Time will tell.

Starship Grounded

The FAA had initially planned to finish its Environmental Assessment on December 31st.  Nevermind.  It is now scheduled to finish on February 28.  Of course, government bureaucracies are always slow, but one wonders how the Boca Chica site was approved 7 years ago for rocket launches but now needs more studies to approve rocket launches.  Huh?  Or is this payback?  Has Senator Warren contacted the FAA and put some pressure on this freeloader who mocker her on Twitter?  Or, now that his latest lawsuit against SpaceX was dismissed, has Jeff Bezos lobbied for a new delay so he can make up some ground with his New Glenn rocket?  Whatever the case, it is sad to see that progress and innovation are being slowed by government.  I can guarantee that China is not putting roadblocks in front of its space program.  Heck, the Chinese have boosters falling on remote villages almost every launch.

We are in a space race to see who will dominate: the China or the West?  China understands the stakes.  Apparently, the US government does not.

Elon Musk & Babylon Bee

The noted innovator and world's richest man joined the creative team of the satirical Babylon Bee for an interview.  I was unaware that the Babylon Bee did interviews.  At more than an hour and a half in length, it covers a wide variety of topics, from his youth in South Africa, his philosophy on going all-in for any of his businesses - even when that might risk bankruptcy, views on the role of government, his recent clash with Senator Elizabeth Warren, perspective on Woke-ism, where things stand with Neuralink and what he hopes to achieve with it, and many other subjects.  For a satire site, it is not the interview one expects.

In one humorous exchange, the hosts asked if he considered becoming Batman or Iron Man.  No, but he did propose Irony Man.  "Defeat villains by the power of irony."  Ha!

Check it out here: Elon Musk Interview

Fear Skynet? Meh

Elon Musk is worried about Artificial Intelligence (AI).  He holds that it is far more dangerous than nuclear-armed North Korea.  However, he also posits that we are living in a computer simulation.  If we are nothing but a computer simulation - just so many AI versions of people in a super advanced computer - then an AI takeover has already happened, hasn't it?  Elon needs to reconcile his beliefs.

Much like the panic the preceded Y2K, the AI concerns are overblown.  A great deal of effort is spent in making computers secure from hacking, an unending process that always seeks to patch exploits that are found in each new line of code.  Those who are worried about the coming takeover by Skynet forget that Norton, Vipre, Sophos, Kaspersky, McAfee, and countless others make a living by preventing the sort of destructive intrusion that the feared all-powerful AI needs to do in order to become all-powerful.

Demographic Collapse

Here is an article that delves into Elon Musk's concern about shrinking populations in developed countries.  It is an interesting article with graphs, tables, projections, and potential consequences but it doesn't ask the important question: why have fertility rates plummeted?

 

In the comments section, one person suggests that secular regions see much lower fertility rates than religious ones.  This certainly reflects the situation in Europe - which has embraced secularism - and has very low fertility vs. the Islamic Middle East which has high fertility rates.  This is surely a factor.

 

What is more likely the reason for the collapse in fertility in the West is the social safety net.  Programs throughout the industrialized world have been implemented to guarantee an income and healthcare to the elderly.  In the United States, there is Social Security and Medicare.  Prior to these programs, people had to count on their children to take care of them in their old age.  When these programs came into being, the government guaranteed that other people's children would take care of them in their old age.  Unless someone had a real desire for offspring (an expensive and time-consuming commitment), one would be better off not having kids.  Europe was the first to embrace the cradle to grave safety net and is the first to suffer the inevitable cost-benefit analysis of rearing children.  Whereas it used to be that more kids would mean more workers on the farm and eventually more adults to support elderly parents, it is now a case of fewer children incurring lower costs to raise while satisfying the desire for parenthood for those who want them.  Therefore, the best way to reverse the fertility crisis would be to abolish the social safety net.  If you want the workers of tomorrow to support you in old age, you need to contribute to having workers of tomorrow.

 

Even if governments were to abolish the safety nets, the development of robots may provide a new safety net that will cause the demographic problem to persist.  The Japanese are far along in developing robots to take care of its aging population.  A robot labor force could thus exacerbate the demographic collapse.  It will be even worse when Skynet comes online.

Green Profiteer

As any regular reader knows, I'm a fan of Elon Musk.  He thinks big and somehow manages to achieve great things.  I am mostly interested in SpaceX but he is also noted for his Tesla cars, the proposed Hyperloop, and underground tunnels to relieve traffic gridlock.  He is now in the solar panel business thanks to a merger with Solar Roof.  He has big, transformative ideas.  However, he also spouts the gospel for global warming, referring to it as a 'crisis.'  It is interesting how a move away from fossil fuels would be immensely beneficial to a man who sells electric cars (Tesla), solar paneling, and alternative transportation systems (Hyperloop).  Everyone who can be scared away from fossil fuels becomes a lifelong customer for his products.  Does he really believe in man-made climate change or is he jumping on a useful hoax that will improve his profit margin?  Decades of predictions on the subject have failed to pan out but he remains a true believer?  Politicians always sell a tax increase or a government power grab by appending 'for the children' to the pitch.  Businesses now use 'sustainable' and 'green' in much the same way.

To the Moon!

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris, the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight.  It took him 33 and a half hours to fly the 3,600 miles.  Fifty years later, the Concorde was making the flight same flight in 3.5 hours.

In 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to leave low earth orbit and orbit the moon.  Interestingly, Lindbergh was present at the launch to wish them well.  The mission was an epic achievement that was eclipsed only a few months later when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in July 1969.  The last time a manned spacecraft circled the moon was in 1972.

SpaceX proposes to send two civilians around the moon next year, repeating the historic Apollo 8 mission nearly 50 years after it was first accomplished.  Will the Dragon space capsule be as far advanced from the Apollo 8 command module as the Concorde was to the Spirit of St. Louis?  Will Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, or Bill Anders - all still living and well into their 80s - be present for a repeat of their mission?  I hope so.

Elon Musk's Boring Company

Annoyed by Los Angeles traffic, Elon Musk is proposing to dig a tunnel under the city so he can bypass the highway gridlock.  Much like the HyperLoop, I don't think seismically active California is the best place to build.  Though I am sure an underground tunnel can be engineered to withstand a serious earthquake, it is going to be much more expensive than a tunnel that traversed the same distance in a seismically inactive area.

 

I find I have more and more admiration for Elon Musk because he tries lots of things.  He's not listening to naysayers like me and that is why he has a rocket company and an electric car company and the forthcoming boring company.  Even if half of his ideas fall flat, he will still have an impressive list of accomplishments with the remaining half.  Can hardly wait for his Iron-Man armor.

Hyperloop

There is a video on YouTube that details the proposed HyperLoop, a transit system that would get someone from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes.  The idea is to have tubes that stretch between the two cities.  The tubes are very low pressure - close to vacuum - so that there is no air resistance.  The pod could thus zoom at 800 miles per hour.  That sounds pretty cool.  You could work in San Francisco and work in LA.  Neat.

It sounds great and even doable but I don't see this working.  First, the proposed pod can only accommodate 24 passengers.  Even with a pod leaving every 5 minutes, that's less than 300 people an hour.  Also, unlike a standard train or subway, there is no getting off at your stop.  This is more like a small jet.  Thanks to the energy efficiency aspect, it may offer private jet-like speed to more people but it won't have the expandable capacity (its a lot easier to build more jets than more vacuum tubes) or the freedom of destination (that private jet isn't stuck in a vacuum tube).  As shown, it looks to be a novelty that isn't really mass transit.  The test of its viability will be its funding source.  If government pays for it, it is a boondoggle.  If private industry pays, it might have a shot of turning a profit and expanding.

 

Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla, PayPal) is the big proponent for this.  Here is a man with big dreams and a string of amazing accomplishments.  That he thinks this is viable is a good argument against my doubts.  Perhaps this is meant to be profitable with a relatively small number of passengers.