…what feels like forever ago there was a quote that did the rounds…it went roughly like this “I think if they win I should get all the credit & if they lose I should get none of the blame”…three guesses who said that

The voters who put Trump in the White House a second time expect lower prices — cheaper gas, cheaper groceries and cheaper homes.

…don’t really think you need to guess if they’ll get any of those out of him

But nothing in the former president’s policy portfolio would deliver any of the above. His tariffs would probably raise prices of consumer goods, and his deportation plans would almost certainly raise the costs of food and housing construction. Taken together, the two policies could cause a recession, putting millions of Americans — millions of his voters — out of work.

And then there is the rest of the agenda. Do Trump voters know that they voted for a Food and Drug Administration that might try to restrict birth control and effectively ban abortion? Do they know that they voted for a Justice Department that would effectively stop enforcement of civil and voting rights laws? Do they know they voted for a National Labor Relations Board that would side with employers or an Environmental Protection Agency that would turn a blind eye to pollution and environmental degradation? Do they know they voted to gut or repeal the Affordable Care Act? Do they know that they voted for cuts to Medicaid, and possible cuts Medicare and Social Security if Trump cuts taxes down to the bone?

Do they know that they voted for a Supreme Court that would side with the powerful at every opportunity against their needs and interests?

What Do Trump Voters Know About the Future He Has Planned for Them? [NYT]

…jamelle’s guess is they already did the fucking around part…& my guess is jamelle is what you call a shit-load smarter & so much better informed he basically lives in a different universe…or…maybe just a parallel republic?

There have been multiple American republics.

I know that sounds strange. The unusual stability of our constitutional system means we don’t think of our political orders in those terms — that’s for the French, now on their fifth republic.

But the long endurance of our constitutional text — to say nothing of our cultural reverence for the framers as oracles — obscures the structural transformations that mark our political history and experience. The American republic of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe is not the republic of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay, which is not the republic of Ulysses Grant and so on.

It’s not just that, with each era, Americans brought fresh eyes to the Constitution, exercising powers that their predecessors might have rejected as tantamount to tyranny. It’s that they organized themselves, politically, in new and novel ways and reconfigured the republic for their own purposes. The Americans of the framers’ era could not imagine the mass politics of Jacksonian America, which could not imagine the biracial politics and unified national state of Reconstruction.

This isn’t an idle academic exercise. To recognize that there have been multiple iterations of these United States is to clarify the stakes for today’s election. It’s not that we’ll lose America if Donald Trump wins a second term. The United States will endure. But his victory might mark the end of one republic and the start of another, although republic may not be the right word for what comes next.

…which…tracks with the ones who think their republic “isn’t a democracy”…so…are we calling that the “broken clock” voting demographic?

The American republic we have was forged in the fire of the 1930s, the 1940s and the consensus that followed. It is defined by an administrative state that takes an active role in the management of the economy; by social insurance that supports most Americans with some protection from the vicissitudes of the market; by courts that restrain the power of the individual states to act on their citizens; and by the federal protection of civil rights as well as a broad interpretation of the Constitution that secures rights of privacy, including the right to contraception and the right to an abortion.

Of course, this settlement was never quite settled. It was contested from the moment it took shape. And since Trump won office in 2016 — and with it, the opportunity to remake the Supreme Court — conservatives have notched critical victories against each part of the foundation of the current republic. In just the last two years, the court has gutted the ability of federal agencies to interpret statutes and issue rules, all but made it illegal for public institutions to directly address racial inequality, undermined federal protection of voting rights and unraveled the Constitution’s long-established protection of the right to bodily autonomy, threatening the right to privacy as a result.

…I don’t know if there’s a name for it…but…it’s sort of like they think there’s an implicit deal where things are only allowed to get better for them even if they pick the things they want to happen from a list of ones that will go badly for them…unfortunately…us to…but…hopefully we’ll at least be somewhat prepared for that

Despite these victories, the problem for conservatives is that they have not yet had the chance to consolidate these victories using the national state. A second Trump victory gives them that chance. What else is the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” — the now infamous Project 2025 — but a blueprint for weaponizing the federal government against what remains of the existing political order? With Trump in the White House, social conservatives can use executive action to try to ban abortion; MAGA nationalists can end most forms of immigration, commence mass deportations and leverage civil rights laws against imagined “anti-white” discrimination; and reactionary opponents of social insurance can weaken Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And this is to say nothing of Trump’s own plans to rule as an autocrat under a court-sanctioned theory of unitary executive authority.

Should the United States take this path on Election Day, then we can expect the America we have to fade into the past, to be supplanted by an American republic that is far more exclusive — and far more resistant to change — than the one we have. The majority of Americans may not want it, they may not even expect it, but they’ll be on the way to living in a United States that treats the “rights revolution” of the 1960s and ’70s, to say nothing of the New Deal, as a legal and political mistake.

…so…I never found out if it’s true or not…but there was a line in a movie about there being a german word for an idea so awful everyone pretends it’s not true in a polite fiction sort of a way because to do otherwise would make it impossible to ignore & that’s too awful to contemplate

The 1860 presidential election usually wins the contest for the most consequential election in American history. After all, it put the United States on an irrevocable path to disunion and war. But as important as 1860 was, I tend to think of 1864 as the critical campaign. In that election, conducted during wartime in an extraordinary demonstration of the nation’s commitment to its Constitution, a national unity coalition of Republican and Democratic unionists faced off against “Peace Democrats” whose main objective was to sue for peace and end the war at all costs. They would leave slavery intact, affirm the total sovereignty of the individual states and, should they want to return, welcome Confederates back into the Union with open arms.

The stakes were as high as they’ve ever been, as is evident from the first words of the National Union Party — the name given to the unionist coalition — platform. “Resolved,” it reads: “That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain against all their enemies the integrity of the Union and the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

If Abraham Lincoln had lost re-election, the United States would have still stood. There would have been, even in disunion, an American republic. But the nature of that republic — the meaning of it — would have fundamentally changed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/opinion/harris-trump-lincoln-memorial.html

…but…if we go with the german signposts…I can’t help having a sneaking suspicion that what we’re looking at is less götterdämmerung & more verschlimmbesserung

To wake up the morning after Election Day was to understand the appeal of oblivion. Regaining consciousness meant assuming the crushing weight of the darkest knowledge. The Motherfucker is back.

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard,” wrote American journalist H.L. Mencken in 1916.

Now, everyone will unleash their theories. Salvaging comfort in a situation like this means smoothing down the events so that they conform to our own world view. So people will say: Kamala Harris lost because she did not embrace the policy views that I do. Or: Kamala Harris lost because the ignoble rats on the [left/​ right/​ middle] did not work hard enough for her. Or: If Kamala Harris had only taken my strategic advice, had spent more time in that state, had crafted her message differently, had used a different slogan, had picked a different advisor, she would have won. In this way we assure ourselves that it is just the candidate and not the world itself that is broken.

…maybe you’re hitting weltschmerz…but for that you need to be hitting lord byron levels of ennui (if they appear in inside out 2 I don’t think the link is necessary?)

…your boy HamNo…eh…you can guess about where he’s fetched up

The only way to be able to smile today will be to laugh bitterly at the explanations that you will hear about this. Did Americans conclude that their lives were better when Trump was president? He finished his term in 2020, one of the worst years of the 21st century. Hardly a sunny memory. Was it the economy? ​“The Economy,” as measured by most economists, has been consistently strong under President Biden, and is currently thriving in historic terms. Was it the grave concern that voters in Wisconsin naturally have for the conditions at the Texas border? Was it the strong populist appeal of a rich man spending hours at every rally airing the pettiest of personal grievances? Was it the powerful institutional support of a man who is despised by the leadership of his own party and who was denounced by his own former cabinet members?

No. Traditional political analysis dies upon the mountain of Donald Trump. Facts? There are no facts here. He has been lying steadily for a decade and the media has been steadily publishing stories explaining that he is lying and yet he is winning the popular vote. Everyone knows and nobody cares. We in the press have been proven less influential than we had even imagined. Why am I writing this? What does it matter? On Inauguration Day, we can all think back to the quaint little arguments that we had among one another about whether or not this or that New York Times story was honest in its framing of Trump’s latest outrage, and chuckle ruefully. What a worthless and self-indulgent pastime that turned out to be.

Newspaper endorsements? Op-ed columns? Television pundits making their most persuasive case that Trump Endangers Democracy? The idea that all would be well if we could only get this stuff right has been laid bare as an illusion treasured by the minority of us who care what the press has to say. Out in the world at large, that is not what most voters give a damn about. The combined investigative and explanatory powers of all of the journalists in America turned out to be less than the power of a bloated, sneering celebrity pointing a short finger at immigrants and saying ​“They are stealing your country.”

…I roll towards theories of functional cognitive dissonance myself…but…blame the german words…because…there’s a lot of selbstentfremdung going on there

The American people want Donald Trump. And now they will get him. He will bring with him a horde of cranks, frauds, religious zealots, gutter racists, and vindictive thugs unprecedented in modern American history. The Nixon White House will look like a zen temple compared to what is coming. Trump’s second term will be a wave of pure malevolence. There will be revenge against his enemies, and there will be assaults on innocent and vulnerable Americans of the sort that our government usually reserves only for people overseas. Fringe lunatics will dictate health policy; Crypto grifters will dictate economic policy; Christian evangelicals will dictate Middle East policy; Flinty corporate lawyers will dictate labor policy; and the mighty American federal government will be run with all the propriety of a late night infomercial selling miracle cures to insomniacs. The cure will be branded ​“TRUMP,” in large golden letters. It won’t work. There will be no refunds.

…hell…if you argued that america as an anthropomorphized entity was estranged from itself…I’d…probably buy that…which is a bit of a problem…since…it might make me an accidental communist…more specifically a marxist…but…look…this all sucks & me banging on about it sucks…so…maybe you’d rather go read something more interesting with a higher probability of including something you maybe hadn’t thought before

HEGEL’S CONCEPT OF ALIENATION AND MARX’S REINTERPRETATION OF IT – LOUIS DUPRÉ (1972)

…pretty sure HamNo isn’t hitting any marks you’re less than familiar with, either

Should I reiterate the prescription for reform? Will it make us feel better? We have an antidemocratic government structure, plagued by institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College which marginalize the majority of the population. We must reform the Supreme Court lest we suffer decades of a far-right veto over all progressive policies. And capitalism, capitalism itself, is the grand machine producing all of this, the machine we must attack and, at minimum, remake if we do not want to continue down this road. Economic inequality has risen for most of my lifetime, creating a tiny group of super-rich winners that warp our politics and leave most people grasping for the mirage of the American dream that they will never reach. The labor movement, the most promising and powerful tool to turn this all around, has fallen into paltry weakness, and must, must be rebuilt to strength. To lose the class war that underlies politics is to doom ourselves to a darker and more unequal future. Join a union if you want to live.

All this is still true, sure. There is the path. It’s just that the path just got a lot steeper. The path has just been planted with a fresh crop of landmines. The path will now be full of dogs that will bite you and then try to sell you Ivermectin for your wounds. The activists who are politically engaged and who understand how difficult it is to fight capitalism even in friendlier environments are depressed today, because they, more than anyone, grasp how much harder all of this is about to get.

…but…hey…don’t shoot the messenger?

There will be time for hope. But not today. Today is the time to do our very best to look this right in the face. Most of America, knowing who Trump is, picked him. We find ourselves in the absurd circumstance of facing a slew of awful policy outcomes because our country’s most sensitive narcissist is addicted to the simulacrum of love that power provides him. Only a nation brittle from long failures to embrace genuine democracy could ever find itself in this position. It is convenient to the operation of America for its population to be distracted and hateful and ignorant of root causes, and that environment is a fertile one for Trump’s personality. This stupid idiot man will throw so much on the bonfire. All so he could get up last night and say, with unmatched gravitas, ​“We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing.”

https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-victory-election-2024

…I could get into it about who he looks like picking for what posts…or how they blew off the ethics paperwork for the transition that only got put on the checklist because of their insurrectionist tendencies…or his demands to have his appointments rubber-stamped no matter how unsuitable they might be…or how much his choice of chief of staff makes it seem like he thinks he’s the culkin brother in succession…but…then there might be screaming…&…if they take me away somewhere where the sleeves are so long they do up in the back…it’d be…hard to type?

…so…which is it?

You’ve probably already heard the worst-case takes: that a second Trump presidency is a disaster for the climate, and will almost certainly lead to emissions being higher than they otherwise would have been. There’s obvious truth in that. But it’s also true that Trump 2.0 will almost certainly not play out in line with immediate post-election predictions.

…because we’re back to this now…you gotta parse what he says…who the audience he’s saying it for is…what he wants from them…what big-boy smoke-signal he things he’s puffing up…& what the pro quo is they need to pony up so he’ll pick a different quid

Most obviously, Trump promised to bring coal power back but failed, spectacularly. Coal-fired generation fell nearly 40% during his first term as investors and markets abandoned it as a viable, affordable energy source. States and cities ramped up climate action in response to Trump’s rise and private capital began to respond to the signal from the landmark 2015 Paris agreement even as the US pulled out of that deal.

…& what that might be

Beyond that, there is much more we don’t know. Trump wants the country to “drill, baby, drill”, including in Alaska’s Arctic wilderness, but it is unclear what this will mean in practice. Fossil fuel extraction in the US reached record levels under the Biden administration, much of it for export, before approval of liquified natural gas developments was paused this year. Support for clean energy will survive because it makes economic sense but it will be a while before the scale is clear.

…which is generally tough because he needs a lot fo those to stay firmly out of the public record

What we do know is that the most consequential decisions affecting the climate over the next four years will not be made in Washington.

…& even he might be better at that now he’s had just so many mistakes to learn from…but…then again…there may be no more arrogant man…& that is a high fucking bar, indeed…& he thinks immunity is his like his older voters think their social security & healthcare are theirs…&…let’s leave the term-unlimited scenarios for a different day, shall we…in any case the common denominator is that even with a nanny for a chief of staff the baby is not known for being oversubscribed in the self-control department…&…if you ask me…based on who he has playing wormtongue these days…the big talk on the tariff game is probably triangulated primarily between those two…&…go on…have a guess

It was already true, but more than ever the most important gauges of climate progress will be what happens in China – easily the world’s largest polluter due to its extraordinary population, rising middle class and role as the globe’s main manufacturer – and how, where and when global investors deploy trillions of dollars in capital.

…so…about that?

As always, the Chinese story on the climate crisis is mixed. According to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a respected China analyst from Finnish thinktank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the country’s domestic emissions have flatlined over the past two quarters, leaving open a slight possibility they could fall this year.

If that happens, it will be a significant moment and ahead of schedule – China’s global commitment is that its climate pollution will peak before 2030 on the way to net zero before 2060. But it will need to do much more to play its part in staving off the worst effects of global heating.

China continues to go big on solar power, having installed 163 gigawatts of new solar (more than twice Australia’s entire electricity capacity) in the first nine months of this year alone. Its solar and wind generation are up 44% and 24% compared with a year ago, respectively. Nuclear power played a smaller role, creeping up only 4%.
[…]
The bottom line is that China is easily the world’s biggest driver of renewable energy – it has more than a third of the global capacity – while it also continues pursuing fossil fuel interests. Delegates at the Cop29 talks are watching for signs of whether it will respond to Trump’s return by taking a more aggressive leadership role on climate – not to save the planet, but to advance its strategic interests.

…I know…to the ones who are over the moon that they maybe just gave away the farm for the right to pay more than they can afford for non-dairy-creamer made in china when the new owner turns the domestic dairy herd into hamburger…strategic interests might as well not exist…& china might as well be in an oort cloud somewhere for all the relevance they think it has to anything that might touch on their world…but…out here in the world the rest of us live in?

On the question of global investment in non-fossil fuel energy: it has grown dramatically over the past five years, increasing by nearly two-thirds, and is forecast to reach US$2tn this year. Most of the spending is on renewable power and energy efficiency, with support for energy grids and storage making up a smaller chunk and nuclear a much smaller piece again.

The solar and wind component, in particular, will need to continue to expand to meet a global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. A potential side-effect if Trump delivers on his promise to scrap the huge tax and production credits for clean energy in the Inflation Reduction Act may be that it increases competition between other countries, including Australia, to attract green spending.

All of this hangs over Cop29, where the main focus will be negotiations over a climate finance goal to help the developing world – and how to avoid backsliding on last year’s agreement that the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels.

Trump 2.0 could make even the most optimistic climate observers cynical – but it’s not the whole story [Guardian]

COP29 chief exec filmed promoting fossil fuel deals [BBC]

…what was that you were saying about needing getting on for a trillion bucks a year to help the people whose atols & archipelagos are going to be seamounts pretty much whatever we manage to un-fuck from here?

“2024 – a masterclass in climate destruction.” That is how UN secretary general António Guterres started his address to world leaders at Cop29 on Tuesday.

“Families running for their lives before the next hurricane strikes; Workers and pilgrims collapsing in insufferable heat; Floods tearing through communities, and tearing down infrastructure; Children going to bed hungry as droughts ravage crops. All these disasters, and more, are being supercharged by human-made climate change,” he said.

…let’s say…just for fun…that there’s something to it…that…like china…if you go for the less-fossil-fuel-y option like you mean it…it can work for you…like…I dunno…the way the zaibatsu…before everyone had those…found going all in on making better tvs cheaper than you could in the states did…but without even needing to sell your shit at a loss…so…better, even…or…you could…do what donny told you would make it all better & keep you drilling…&/or dying of black lung…like a red-blooded pioneer…& not something we’d all be better off with still being buried in a fossil record somewhere?

With solar and wind the cheapest source of new electricity almost everywhere, “doubling down on fossil fuels is absurd,” he said. “The clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, and no government can stop it. But you must ensure it is fair and fast.”

…good thing everyone’s coping so well with it…staying calm…not blowing shit up…& giving due consideration to what it is they’re voting into the places that determine the gradients we need to traverse with the boulders

Guterres listed three priorities. First “emergency” emissions reductions, with the G20 countries leading. Second, protecting people from the ravages of the climate crisis, especially the most vulnerable, which will require hundreds of billions of dollars. Third, delivering the overall finance goal, which should be at least $1tn a year and is the key task at Cop29.

“Developing countries eager to act are facing many obstacles: scant public finance; raging cost of capital; crushing climate disasters; and debt servicing that soaks up funds,” he said. “Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed. A deal is a must.”

Guterres highlighted both government funding, cheap loans from development banks and “innovative” sources, particularly levies on shipping, aviation, and fossil fuel extraction. “Polluters must pay,” he said.

…really…playing to our historical strengths, that

“The world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price,” he said. “Climate finance is not charity, it’s an investment. Climate action is not optional, it’s imperative. Both are indispensable to a liveable world for all humanity.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2024/nov/12/world-leaders-to-speak-as-cop29-resumes-live-updates

…putting a man who seems to feel cheated of his rightful due any time his name is uttered & he doesn’t get paid as a direct result…by someone else…especially when he says it himself…but who appears to be allergic to paying what he owes…even nominally in charge…& in the company of mister X…well…experiments can teach you a lot but it may be worth remembering that we wouldn’t have penicillin if fleming wasn’t bad at staying on top of the housework…so…sometimes when men fuck up it can actually save lives…& they say even stranger things have happened at sea?

Every uncalled race left in the fight for control in Washington [NBC]

…no offense, NBC…but…that sounds hopelessly naïve…that’s just the visible symptoms…the race is against the infection…& you might be missing that forest on account of being a tree & all?

Now, Trump is looking to return the favor. Speaking with reporters last month, he said he would appoint Musk as “secretary of cost-cutting”. Musk, for his part, has joked he would be interested in serving as head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) with a stated goal of reducing government spending by $2tn. Practically speaking, experts say those cost cuts could result in deregulation and policy changes that would directly impact Musk’s universe of companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink.

Trump administration officials, eager to maintain Musk’s support, may similarly loosen rules and reassign federal government officials to benefit Musk’s interests. It’s an explicit, openly transactional relationship unlike any seen in recent US political memory, experts said.

“We’ve seen lobbying efforts, we’ve seen Super Pacs, but this is a different level we’ve never seen before,” said Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Business School. “There will be some quid pro quo where he [Musk] will benefit.”

Pausing for a moment, Johar added: “‘Conflict of interest’ seems rather quaint.”

…the alleged administration 2.0 is back to believing the united states is back to being the family piggybank & I can’t currently think of a single reason not to look to the hybrid model of klepto-pluto-cracy provided by…say…vald’s russia…or the politburo’s standing committee over in the land of xi…in terms of how much more sophisticated you need a population to be to be able to filter that diet & sift out a truthful representation of reality

Tesla is already reaping the benefits of a second Trump administration. On Wednesday, just hours after the Associated Press official called the race in favor of Trump, the car company’s stock shot up 13% to a 52-week high. By the end of the week, Tesla reached $1tn in market capitalization, its highest valuation in two years. Musk’s own fortune shot up $26bn with the stock.

That might seem odd considering the former president’s vocal disdain for electric vehicles. In recent years, the president-elect has referred to efforts to promote environmentally friendly cars as a “Green New Scam” and claimed EVs simply “don’t work”. He has also pledged he would end Joe Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate” on his first day in office. Biden has implemented tax credits and emissions standards that favor electric vehicles.
[…]
Still, experts agreed a Trump administration will probably roll back tax credits for consumers looking to buy new electric vehicles. That would hurt newer EV startups and legacy carmakers that are still trying to bring down the costs of manufacturing their vehicles. By contrast, eliminating those credits may be a boon to Tesla since the company has already made extensive use of those credits to capture a commanding lead in the EV market in the US.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” the Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a recent note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment.” For the rest of the electric vehicle industry, though, Trump presidency would be “an overall negative”, Ives wrote.

…&…what’s the betting there’s a friends & family rate on tariffs that might apply?

Tesla will also find itself caught in the middle of Trump’s much-vaunted but still vague tariff proposals. Though auto tariffs could help insulate Tesla from cheap, competitive Chinese electric vehicles entering US markets from the likes of BYD, stiff import taxes would simultaneously make it much more expensive to manufacture new cars. Tesla’s supply chain is highly dependent on goods and materials from China. Steel tariffs would probably drive up the cost to produce the company’s Cybertruck, while tariffs impacting rare earth metals and minerals sourced from China would also drive up costs of semiconductors crucial to powering the fleet’s cameras and sensors.

“If there is a general tariff, the price of those will skyrocket,” the George Mason University Mercatus Center research fellow Matt Mittelsteadt said in an interview. “You can’t re-shore what you can’t make.” Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

…remember “move fast & break things”? …well…why do think the cybertruck has those acceleration modes you really shouldn’t employ in traffic?

Experts say Musk’s role in the Trump administration could help chart the path for Tesla’s autonomous vehicle rollout. The company is being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) over the role its Autopilot and “full-self driving” features may have played in a spate of accidents, including more than two dozen fatal ones. A Trump administration favorable toward Musk’s business interest could wind down those investigations.

…also…I know it’s a tiny thing…but how come NHTSA gets to be NHTSA but these days it’s just Nasa in the grauniad?

Musk has also explicitly said he would try to leverage his influence in a Trump administration to streamline regulations around fully autonomous “driverless” vehicles like those operated by Waymo and Cruise. Though Tesla vehicles aren’t currently capable of the same level of autonomy, Musk recently revealed the concept for a more advanced “Cybercab” robotaxi he says will operate without a steering wheel.

Current safety regulation for this level of autonomous vehicles varies by state and generally require years of testing with humans behind the wheel. Musk advocated for a “federal approval process” that would preempt those strict state rules during a third-quarter Tesla earnings call. If that weaker federal process were to be approved, Tesla may have a shorter climb to catch up with more advanced competitors.

…it’s…not a fucking conspiracy theory, for a start…but…even if jacob’s dad was on to something with the whole sovereign individual thing…which…is debateable…when it comes to people with the resources to put the theory into practice…it’s all about proving plato’s case for the philosopher king…because the more you aspire to be be that sort of sovereign individual…& the more you equate not being thwarted with being right…the more of a pox on humanity it turns out you are…& there may be others who are better at staying out of the limelight…but the would-be CEO of mars inc. in a space-moses-but-also-john-the-baptist-&-jesus-&-ummm-croesus? …midas? …ozy-fucking-mandias? …whatever-fucking-mold…that they should have broken before they poured all the shit into it required to produce whatever critical mass that guy has where his critical faculties should have gone

Few of Musk’s endeavors have benefited as directly from government partnerships in recent years as SpaceX. The private space company secured a $3bn federal contract in 2021. It is currently competing with Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for a series of contracts with the US Space Force worth some $5.6bn. Musk has already asked Trump to appoint SpaceX employees to top government positions, according to the New York Times.

Experts agreed Musk’s relationship with Trump would strengthen its position as a top contender for space contracts. Mittelsteadt said recent Republican opposition to the Biden administration’s beleaguered rural $42.45bn broadband initiative could also open up a new path for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. A GOP-led Federal Communications Commission, Mittelsteadt argued, could decide to pay SpaceX to expand Starlink access nationwide. Trump lauded Starlink’s role in providing internet access to hurricane survivors during a speech on election night.

“The ceiling for what he could possibly get out of government contracts could be raising,” Mittelsteadt said.

…fuck it

Trump and Musk also appear united in their interest in sending a rocket to Mars. The president-elect has repeatedly praised Musk’s “beautiful, shiny white” rockets on the campaign trail and has said he wants to land a rocket on the red planet before the end of his next term.

“We will land an American astronaut on Mars,” Trump said during an October rally.

Musk, meanwhile, has repeatedly emphasized his dream of colonizing Mars and creating an interplanetary human species. Equally as often, he has criticized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for bureaucratic “superfluous delays”. A favorable Trump administration could feel motivated to soften those rules and guidelines, experts said. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

…&…I know…I bitch all the time about how he should keep iain m banks’ name out his mouth on account of how badly he misrepresents what that author seemed to be trying to get across to a reader…but…neuralink?

Telsa and SpaceX aren’t the only Musk-owned properties that stand to thrive during a second Trump term. Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company, has drawn scrutiny from the US Food and Drug Administration over alleged issues related to record-keeping and quality controls for its animal testing. A more favorable FDA under the Trump administration could help wind down those inquiries and provide a clearer runway for the company’s future experiments. Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment.

…first off…we’re all animals for testing things on with that kind of care & attention as far as that asshole is concerned…&…for another thing

Don’t Create the Torment Nexus
byu/arcee2013 inCyberpunk

I Really Miss Iain M Banks
byu/Unfair-Bicycle-4013 inscifi

…well…he had a superintelligent AI…that all the other superintelligent AIs thought was a bit fucked up in the head…explain to a person wondering what the weird impossibly fine filigree thing they couldn’t identify in its “torture museum” that a “neural lace” was the sine qua non of torture devices…fun fact…the other “Minds” call that one “meatfucker”

The scope of Musk’s influence in the Trump administration and US politics more broadly is just beginning. The billionaire said last week in a conversation livestreamed on X that he would continue pouring money into America Pac, his organization founded this summer to support Trump’s bid for president, and has plans to “weigh in heavily” on future elections like the 2026 midterms.

“It’s impossible to imagine how much influence Elon Musk could have in this administration because there’s no precedent,” the University of California Berkeley professor Dan Schnur said. “He could have spent over $1bn, and it would’ve still been an incredibly savvy investment for him.”

Experts speaking to the Guardian unanimously agreed Musk’s potential efforts to influence policies that could directly impact his business would constitute a clear conflict of interest. Whether or not the billionaire faces substantive penalties, however, remains to be seen. Musk and the allied Trump administration could face a barrage of lawsuits alleging misconduct, but litigation alone may not prevent Musk from achieving his preferred policy agenda, experts predicted.

“There are all sorts of potential conflicts of interest. The question is whether that bothers Trump or not,” Schnur said. “It’s a reasonable bet to assume that it does not.”

…not sure what reasonable bets have to do with any of this

Musk has said he would attempt to trim $2tn in government spending if appointed to the cost-cutting position in the Trump White House. Though he hasn’t fully outlined how he would achieve such a goal, the billionaire has suggested much of that belt-tightening could come from eliminating what he sees as redundant government workers and reducing overly burdensome regulations. But Mittelstead says Musk will probably face an uphill battle if tries to apply a “move fast and break things” attitude toward US government positions.

“The type of cost-cutting, slash-and-burn approach that he brought to Twitter is not possible in the public sector,” Mittelstead said.

…in any “reasonable” sense…it wasn’t fucking possible with twitter even after taking it private…but we know what came of that?

It’s also an open question as to whether or not Musk and Trump’s newfound relationship can withstand the weight of two notoriously volatile personalities. Musk made headlines in 2017 when he stepped down from a pair of Trump advisory councils after disagreeing with the then president’s decision to exit the Paris climate accords. Trump, for his part, has previously referred to Musk as a “bullshit artist”.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/10/donald-trump-enrich-elon-musk

…it’s…like when they show apes their reflection…being able to recognize themselves that way is supposedly a sign of more than rudimentary intelligence & allow for the possiblity that a theory of mind might be in order

…but…apes are higher life forms than that pair of shit-gibbons…so…I wouldn’t necessarily read too much into that part?

I Study Guys Like Trump. There’s a Reason They Keep Winning. [NYT]

…I mean

The US has lost faith in the American dream. Is this the end of the country as we know it? [Guardian]

…sure, john

John Oliver on the US election: ‘Despair doesn’t help anything’ [Guardian]

…but despair isn’t where I’m at

Kremlin denies reports of Trump-Putin call about Ukraine invasion [Guardian]

…how many of his oh-so-happy not-the-few faithful fuckwits even fucking know how fucking illegal it would be for him to have had that kind of conversation already…let alone fucking why that’s how fucking unthinkably athwart the way national security works that shit would be?

…they think the apprentice didn’t have to work hard to make the guy even look smart on scripted & edited TV…they don’t think it’s possible to force the whole US into chapter 11…but…that’s the main thing I’m pegging my belief he might not try to stay in office past his expiry date on…that that’s his obvious route to fire-walling himself away from the howling posse of apoplectic creditors once he plows the thing into the dirt

…who says I can’t find a silver lining in that dark cloud that seems to be following me around like it mistook me for a rain god?

"And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him…"
byu/AFLBabble indouglasadams

…I’ll…try to find some tunes…probably not enough to make up for all that…but…one step at a time
?

…speaking of steps…my day appears to have wrong-footed me…so…those tunes are gonna be a while, I’m afraid

[…not even that many considering how long that took today…may @farscythe forgive me?]