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Notes -
Elon is a True Believer, and that's why he Backs Trump
https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-reentry-by-eric-berger
So there's been discussion of why Elon Musk put threw in so hard with Trump. What he gets out of owning twitter. I've long had a pretty simple and parsimonious explanation- he wants humanity to spread throughout the universe, and if democrats get in his way he will have to back republicans regardless of his other political opinions. Democrats got in the way.
This review of Reentry is, functionally, a better sourced argument for my intuition. I suppose as a religious fanatic myself I can recognize a fanatic of a different creed by instinct; I guess indifferent PMC types need to be reasoned into the conclusion. As an aside, this is why I'm less worried about woke than some of our other social conservative posters- I don't think I can point to it, but everything about them just screams 'these people sort of believe, in the sense that they don't really disagree, but not in the sense that they'll take licks for their ideology. Like, they're willing to ruin other people's lives over it, sure, but not their own'. Regardless, the actions of SpaceX point to being run by true believers:
That's one example. It's also not just about SpaceX being lean and nimble. It's about being true believers. Elon Musk literally actually believes that humanity spreading through the entire universe is the most important thing... ever, with no exceptions. And he's managed to convince the company that that is correct. Obstacles to this will need to be overcome or removed, such as by sending a guy with a flexible pole to lift up overhead power lines when your rocket engine passes through backroads in the rural south because a barge would take too long. NASA would have accepted the cost. Why? At the end of the day, they believe in going to space, sure, but they're not, like, fanatics about it. SpaceX are fanatics.
And SpaceX just consistently decides not to cash out and take easy money for the rest of their lives. Instead they plow the profits from that easy money into moonshots that push the possibilities of space exploration forwards by developing new technology. Why? I'll quote the review again:
It's actually pretty simple. He's not a perfectly rational money-maxxer because a perfectly rational money-maxxer would not be betting the entire company on moonshot technological progress no matter what the math says. People are risk averse when all they care about is purchasing power.
So how does this tie in with politics? Well, he bought twitter to back republicans because democrats were doing things like making him kidnap seals and record their emotional reactions to recordings of rocket launches, and other such stupid delays. It's extremely rational for Elon to conclude 1) a cooperative government will enable him to get to mars faster and 2) republicans will give him a cooperative government in exchange for support, democrats will never give him a cooperative government. Yes, he condemns woke, but a) woke doesn't have, like, an actual definition, so it can easily refer to the socialism-by-bureaucracy wing even if that's not totally standard b) I get the sense that a lot of the turn of opinion against him relies on woke-ish methods, with things like cancel culture allowing a corralling of left public opinion, and it's pretty reasonable to think he does too c) there's lots of wokeness or woke ideology involved in holding him back(especially with environmental stuff), and plenty of potential attacks on him from a woke perspective(I'm kind of surprised nobody's already tried to metoo him). Yes, he's conspicuously worried about birthrates, but space colonization essentially requires high human capital high tfr populations.
I wrote a post a few months ago about Gen Z not having enough grit, aggression and agency and willingness to go all in. In retrospect, I don't think it was my best work. Elon's plenty gritty. There's lots of lack of grit in modern society; the every-other-month-AAQC about how all marriages are gay marriages now is basically decrying that, because in modern marriages there's no going all in, doing whatever it takes, they're in concept similar to 'partnerships' among sexual minorities. I'm willing to make that argument but not making it here. Instead I wonder- is fanaticism a necessary component of grit? That certainly seems to be the difference between SpaceX and NASA. Is today's malaise just downstream of being unwilling to commit to things? The birthrate crisis, the military recruitment crisis- moderners just not wanting to burn their bridges and have no recourse but to see their commitment through?
I've rambled a lot here, but it seems convincing to me at least.
Yes. Yes it is. I 100% believe this and have vaguely gestured at it before. It's what I observe IRL all the time, every day, in almost every interaction with young-ish urban-ish people. A complete inability to commit to a task, a schedule, a version of the truth, an agreement, a responsibility, a shared model of the world, or even eye contact.
No idea why though. What went wrong?
Theory: daycare from infancy.
I think a lot of the problems stem from how we’ve outsourced raising kids almost entirely to caregivers. This has tge obvious effect of essentially destroying the attachment process between family members, and it’s devastating for kids. Kids who grow up in daycares are one of 8-10 kids in a room in which adults ignore them unless they’re getting in trouble or need care. Parents, assuming an 8pm bedtime might get an hour or two on weekdays and whatever time they can squeeze around household chores on weekends to spend time with the kids. Achieving something in a daycare doesn’t mean much, the care giver is simply too busy with other kids to notice them getting good at something. Parents are too busy to celebrate them doing something. And this is for everything they do. The kids don’t matter, and their attempts to do things don’t matter. Eventually they don’t bother..
Except that I’d guess 100 years ago parents spent way less personal ‘emotional’ time with kids, kids were much more independent, were raised by neighborhood older figures in informal crèches until they were old enough to play by themselves, whereupon they did so until they went to school, which they did until they had to work and/or get married. The sentimental, schmaltzy suburban model of parenting where mom actually spends hours every day with her kids above the age of 3 or 4 is the new thing. I think there are a lot of big failure modes when parents spend too much time with their children; they should love them, but not be too close.
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