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Notes -
The NYT wants you to know that Harvard has "no way out." I'm sure Harvard University with its 53.2 billion dollar endowment is going to start having trouble attracting researchers:
I suspect they're scaring their readership to rack in the clicks. The article is being embraced by Rightist influencer people eager for confirmation of their "victory." They're COOKED! Back in reality, the Democrats will likely take back the Presidency in 2028, if not then then very likely by 2032. It will eventually dawn on these people that Harvard remains massively prestigious while nobody knows or cares about Fred's Car Wash in Des Moines Iowa.
Norman_Rockwell_Freendom_Of_Speech.jpg
It's OK to pay money to billionaires.
Federal grants to research universities are just a commission to research some topic that an agency finds valuable enough to fund with taxpayer money. If I don't feel swindled when I buy groceries from a multi-billion dollar corporation like Walmart then I don't believe I should feel bad just because my taxes are funding research at an institution with a multi-billion dollar endowment. We all got what we paid for and at a reasonable price. There is plenty of culture war slop research that should be defunded, but the endowment is a red herring in my opinion.
Same thing applies to the Blue-Tribe hue and cry over the government paying Elongated Muskrat to put their satellites in orbit....
(edit: the government's satellites; NASA, USGS, NRO, &c. &c.). Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?
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What does this add?
Do you have an issue with SpaceX? If so, what?
I don't have an issue with the government paying SpaceX to launch government satellites.
The Blue Tribe has similar antipathy for Mr Musk as the Red Tribe has for Harvard. I was making the point that the monies that they get from the government are both of the form 'Government gives money to rich person/organisation in exchange for services rendered', and thus they are both analogous to @Soul_Stuff giving money to Walmart in exchange for groceries.
(As for my general Views on SpaceX, while I have a few notes on Mr Musk's politics, I suspect that the people calling for his head are not being entirely honest about their motives, and are more driven by resentment not that he is wealthy per se so much as his having the temerity to not be subject to the high-school-cafeteria-style pecking order. I could be wrong.
Futhermore, even if one accepts the aspersions cast against Mr Musk's character, ending the eight-year, ten-month, nine-day period in which America Could Not Into Space has to count for something.)
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Let's not do this.
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