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This new flavor of conservatism is so strange in light of how bound to free market ideals most flavors of conservatism are. In general, I really quite dislike

This new flavor of conservatism is so strange in light of how bound to free market ideals most flavors of conservatism are. In general, I really quite dislike Conservative/Liberal labels as political stances are not two-dimensional, but rather multidimensional. Parties are loose alliances of disparate groups. And somehow there's this rising contingent of neocons, who also happen to dislike SpaceX. Does anyone understand this? Edit: I want to clarify that the alternative to private enterprise competing for government contracts (usually military, again usually a conservative delight) is direct government sponsorship, i.e. NASA. SpaceX is one of those cases where the free market actually has been more effective. So why not seize on it?

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. Even I find this particular turn against SpaceX somewhat weird. My internal model of the alt-right has largely been that they have one wing who are basically Nazi fanfiction, another who idolize the "throne and altar conservatism" of pre-Revolutionary France, and another who think they should build Warhammer 40K's Imperium of Man as a real-life society (they're very pop-culture influenced). Turning against a private space company seems to indicate that some factions (Nazis plus... someone else?) are throwing the "far-right futurism" faction overboard. (Again, these guys are really weird, but hey, it's all there on their blogs.) My big question is: where's Peter Thiel in all this? Just last year, he was the one trying to assure everyone that, oh don't worry, this was all about tearing down overbearing regulations and political correctness in favor of unbound innovation, that the Right weren't anti-science religious people anymore, etc. Turning against SpaceX isn't just throwing a faction of bloggers overboard, it's thrown Thiel overboard, and he was a major billionaire backer for all of this.
- s_kilk 9y ago
  > where's Peter Thiel in all this? The evidence seems to suggest Thiel has gotten in with the "throne and altar" crowd, the Neo-Reactionaries and self-described "Dark Enlightenment". https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein How that intersects with his techy leanings, I don't really know, it's very possible that he's being thrown overboard as you describe.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    Bloody hell, I swear we're living in the pulpiest political-thriller novel I've ever fucking heard of.
    - api 9y ago
      My personal theory for a while has been that the world actually did end in 2000. We are living in a parody alternate dimension where the previous gods have been replaced by low-rent hacks. This timeline is like a show that's been renewed for one season too many.
      - rbanffy 9y ago
        > the previous gods have been replaced by low-rent hacks Do you have any idea how much an actual god costs?! This is the best we could manage. Be grateful this low-budget universe is still here.
    - pault 9y ago
      I don't want to go too far off topic, but every time I turn on the news lately I feel like I'm stuck in a dystopian cyberpunk thriller. Funny how we never got the flying cars and jetpacks from our 20th century utopian sci-fi, but the Phillip K Dicks and William Gibsons seem to be right on the money.
      - PeachPlum 9y ago
        The news, on TV. Where did you find that?
      - sgift 9y ago
        Cyberpunk promised us high tech and low life. Good job, we got at least one of these.
        tankenmate 9y ago
        Low life is easier to distribute than high tech. The future is already here...
- exelius 9y ago
  I'm not saying I agree with them, but a common theme I hear from the alt-right is "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture). Now, nevermind that these guys are setting up as many gatekeeping functions as they tear down; they simply justify it as "protecting real hard-working Americans" through xenophobia. It's all built on the false nationalism of a flagging superpower, and if any of these people traveled in the least they would see that other countries are actually doing a lot of things better than we do here. We got arrogant, our politicians got greedy, and our voter base got complacent. It's only going to get worse too.
  - kevinmchugh 9y ago
    > "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture) that's not a game of thrones reference as far as I can tell. It's an old anarchist and socialist slogan. It'd be an odd fit for that part of the right. "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes in those parts.
    - Freak_NL 9y ago
      > "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes in those parts. Which in turn uses Ayn Rand's philosophy (Objectivism) as the basis of the fictional (failed) society in Bioshock. (Compare with this quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first-man-was-enslaved-by-the-gods-but-he https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first-man-was-ens... ) Ayn Rand and her philosophy are quite popular in right-wing circles (and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles).
      - wmil 9y ago
        > and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles Not surprising. A tenured professor getting government grants for research is a villain by Randian standards.
        jandrese 9y ago
- travmatt 9y ago
  Conservative politics is much like French Revolution - built on successive purges of insufficiently ideologically committed members. The NeoCon / Old Bull wing of the Party was largely broken by the Tea Party’s rise and the deposition of longtime statesmen in the ‘10 elections, and has been increasingly replaced by ethnic and religious nationalist purity tests - the 2000’s era Republican Party competed for Spanish and Muslim votes, but those days have long since passed. Crucially, these populous factions are opposed to science, government, media, and academia. Looking through this lens, Peter Thiel found the same fate as Elon Musk, Gary Cohn, Reince Priebus, and innumerable smaller republican operatives - all thought they would ride the wave and found themselves labeled as just another RINO for being insufficiently ideologically committed. Thiel was never a major backer of this ethnonationalism, he was just someone who recognized it early and hoped to play that advantage. The Mercer’s, Koch’s and Bannon are the drivers, and everyone else is expendable.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  With regard to Peter Thiel, I am not sure being thrown overboard is the right metaphor. He has chosen to ride the tiger, and may have trouble getting off, if he wants to.
  - rhythmvs 9y ago
    That metaphor is deliberate? — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola#Ride_the_Tiger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola#Ride_the_Tiger
    - mannykannot 9y ago
      It wasn't an intentional reference to Evola, if that's what you mean - I was unaware of the association until you pointed it out.
- arethuza 9y ago
  I've just finished reading "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", which is a pretty bleak and depressing book - I would guess the US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (who the Neocons are basically cheerleaders for) would hate SpaceX as they are trying to undercut existing players and reduce the amount of pork - which is basically what makes the MICC run.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    At least it's not like Russia where they have almost all of mainstream government and media in favor of funding weapons operations for foreign human-rights abusing tyrants. It's not even always for foreign policy, but sometimes they even say on their national TV that killing more people is necessary because if they stop, defense jobs will be lost. Except that's us, right here in the US. It does not matter who wins office in that sense, both parties and mainstream media cheerlead the MIC, Wall St, etc, at the expense of human dignity: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...
- alexanderstears 9y ago
  >"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". Hardly. Most nationalists (probably the LCD of dissident right movements) hate foreign entangelements. Trump saying Iraq was a waste of money is hardly an affirmation of the neocon platform of invasion. And it's an over-simplification to identify the 'anti corporate welfare' view with 'anti-spaceX'. They're anti-spaceX to the extent that spaceX is dependent on the government. I can't imagine these people are any more thrilled by Lockheed Martin or Boeing.
  - smhenderson 9y ago
    >"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". I believe the original poster was trying to distinguish between the two groups, not state that they used to call themselves neocons but now call themselves the alt-right. Though both claim to be conservative each of them take political stances that are anathema to the other.
- jbooth 9y ago
  If you want to get conspiratorial about it, SpaceX is a huge threat to both the Russian space launch industry and to Boeing/Lockheed. More seriously, in the 2017 conservative pathology, the Russian government are 'good guys' and American businessmen who quit Trump's economic council are 'bad guys'.
  - api 9y ago
    Putin is a neo-fascist and an admirer of Julius Evola.
- cosmiccartel 9y ago
  > These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". No they don't. Most of "these guys", meaning the new right, distance themselves from that term because of its association with white nationalism. > They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other. This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right. It's a smear campaign. Your statement is a perfect example. In your eyes, anyone on the right not engaging in Nazi fantasies is really just "hiding it". You're "unthinging" the views of the vast majority of them to pretend that they are uniform in ideology.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    >No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other. No, Steve Bannon said in an interview that he led Breitbart in giving a spearhead to the alt-right in large media. >This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right. There are really three problems here. * The "center" and "center-left" are already, by historic standards, quite right-wing on economic policy. This really skews the claim that we're talking about a spectrum between a "center-left" and a "right", insofar as we're really just talking about different degrees of permissiveness or authoritarianism on social issues, plus the "center-left" maintaining the barest rudiments of a vestigial welfare-state. * Within the Right, the factions that we could have called "center-right" got tossed out as RINOs long ago. Ronald Reagan advocated employee ownership of firms as the way of the future; today Republicans would treat that as socialist heresy. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is now unheard-of, as are Republican appeals to conservative people of color or immigrants. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell really are far-right, in the sense that Ayn Rand is far to the libertarian right. * The alt-right has deliberately worked to blur the boundaries between the libertarian right and the authoritarian-nationalist right, usually by invoking anti-democratic, nationalistic libertarian thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe. You know, the guy who wrote that, "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … [violators] will have to be physically removed from society."[1] When your party has come to have a political spectrum stretching from Ayn Rand on its left to Augusto Pinochet on its right, yes, you are "these guys". Stop now, turn around, purge the alt-right, purge the Tea Party, and reestablish some common-sense and humanity, or else history will remember you as the bumbling enablers of American fascism. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or "physical removal" by death squads: which side are you on? [1] -- https://mises.org/library/my-battle-thought-police https://mises.org/library/my-battle-thought-police
fabian2k 9y ago
The only consistency with Breitbart seems to be that they never let any of those annoying facts get in the way of the narrative. I can't see any ideological justification here, SpaceX getting money from the US government isn't fundamentally different than ULA getting money from the US government. The article does imply at the end that there is likely someone behind these articles that has a specific interest in this narrative.
- SEJeff 9y ago
  It actually is different. ULA gets $880 million to $1 billion per year just to keep the factory lights on[1] for the EELV Launch Capability Contract. This isn't money for a service such as launches or new rockets, it is just to keep the lights on. SpaceX doesn't get any of that. If anyone is subsidized by the USG, it is overwhelmingly ULA. SpaceX could have simply charged 1/2 of ULA's $422 million per launch and instead chose to go way below that. This is an example of private enterprise overwhelmingly helping the tax payers through healthy competition. ULA was allowed to essentially rip off the tax payers at $422 million per launch whereas SpaceX is charging < $100 million per launch depending on mission objectives and integration requirements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance#Controv... [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget-reveals-how-much-spacex-undercuts-launch-prices/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget-rev...
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    Lets not be too harsh on the ULA. They offer services like vertical integration that only the government cares about and they've gone over 100 launches without a payload loss. So if I was sending up a $10 billion space telescope they're the obvious choice for that. I doubt they're going to get any more business for $200 commsats though now that SpaceX is getting on tempo.
    - Already__Taken 9y ago
      There might not be a business for $10bil telescopes every 10 years when there's an option of 10 $1bil telescopes launching every year. The launch capacity/cost to propose such thinking just didn't exist.
pjc50 9y ago
> bound to free market ideals Very few conservatives in power are bound to this as an abstract principle; most are bound to markets as they benefit specific incumbents. In this case SpaceX is threatening the incumbents Boeing and Lockheed, who are responding with a lobbying campaign, including the generation of favourable press coverage.
api 9y ago
Musk rebuked the God Emperor by leaving Trump's tech council after Trump appointed a bunch of climate change deniers.
mikeash 9y ago
I imagine it's because Elon Musk leans liberal (or at least non-Republican), and in particular is a highly visible crusader for action to combat climate change. The American right wing has decided that denying climate change is a core value, and trying to get people to take action against it is a mortal sin. SpaceX is not directly involved in that, but Tesla is, and I doubt places like Breitbart are interested in carefully drawing lines between the man's different companies.
- hackerguy99 9y ago
  >SpaceX is not directly involved in that, but Tesla is, and I doubt places like Breitbart are interested in carefully drawing lines between the man's different companies. So you are accusing Breitbart of attacking Tesla (even though this is about SpaceX) because they won't "carefully draw lines", without a hint of irony that you can't be bothered to draw careful lines between the companies, and have dragged Tesla into the conversation? Not every criticism about SpaceX or Tesla is about disliking Musk. If only it were that simple.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    You’re right, not every criticism is about disliking Musk. But I’m pretty sure this one is. I dragged Tesla into the conversation because I think it’s relevant. So do they.
    - LyndsySimon 9y ago
      I spend most of my time online in what the HN crowd would describe as "right-wing circles", and I have to agree with this. I'm seeing a rising sentiment that Elon Musk is someone who is skilled at over-promising and under-delivering, while repeatedly using subsidy and direct government funding to fatten his own pockets. I have no idea what this notion is based upon; it's not really something that has interested me.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        There's a kernel of truth to it: he does over-promise, and often deliver short of his promises. It's just that the result is still pretty spectacular. It's not like he promises the moon and then hands you a bag of crap.
TorKlingberg 9y ago
Everything these days is polarized on a one-dimensional axis. Musk does electric cars and solar, so he's an environmentalist, thus a leftie, and thus their enemy. He also left some Trump advisory council a while back.
- linkregister 9y ago
  Correct, this is an identity politics and team membership controversy, not rooted in good policy. A good parallel would be boycotts of Hobby Lobby due to ideological differences with its ownership. The fundamentals of the business are at worst benign. (I am not making a statement in support of the viewpoints espoused by the Hobby Lobby ownership). SpaceX is a public good since it saves hundreds of millions of tax dollars, so this is unfortunate.
mannykannot 9y ago
As you recognize the simplistic nature of labels, you should not be surprised when a group goes against type. I think the key to understanding the so-called neo-consrvatism is that it is not 'for' anything; rather, it is against a long list of things, and virulently so. They are conservative in that conservatives have generally defined themselves by opposition to whatever has been changing in the societies of their generation. Its other feature is the belief that its ends justifies the means, including the incitement of irrational anger and even hatred, which they regard as a virtue. This trait is latent at all political extremes, but only gains traction when a significant number of the generally more moderate or uninterested members of the populace believe they are being cheated out of something they are entitled to.
- marksellers 9y ago
  And yet what I struggle most with is identifying who, if anyone, benefits from this. Who, if anyone, controls this. Or is it all just chaotic feedback?
  - kortex 9y ago
    My money is on chaos. You take all these powerful and/or power-hungry people, who all want their way, but they are also influenced by other movers and shakers to want certain outcomes, and soon it's one giant spaghetti strange attractor.
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    I think we are seeing combination of short-sighted self-interest and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", together with a willingness to use irrational arguments to advance those interests. There have been many historical precedents, but perhaps none more so than the French revolution, which went through several cycles of this. The Terror only ended when the surviving politicians all realized that they were more likely to be executed than hold on to executive power, if they carried on this way.
grondilu 9y ago
> Does anyone understand this? I don't quite grasp the details of the story, but the "four kinds of money"[1][2] theme may help understand the point of view. Why exactly would Musk spend money in a way that disturbs conservatives more than how say ULA does it, is probably complicated, but I assume they have their reasons. PS. Also, quite illuminating is Ron Paul's original opinion piece on foxnews [3]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MQp-5lZToE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MQp-5lZToE 2. http://lpmaryland.org/liberty-quotation-milton-friedman-four-ways-spend-money/ http://lpmaryland.org/liberty-quotation-milton-friedman-four... 3. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-defense-budget-hands-spacex-monopoly-why.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-def...
- jmh530 9y ago
  The whole thing doesn't even make sense. We used to have a monopoly that cost a whole bunch of money. If Elon Musk can do it for less, then he's breaking up the original monopoly.
  - grondilu 9y ago
    Have you read Ron Paul's piece? I think the argument about Russia makes a lot of sense. He claims that introducing protectionism in space actually made things more expensive, not cheaper. "Specifically, Section 1615 of this year’s NDAA expressly forbids the Air Force from developing new launch vehicles by restricting expenditures to the development of new engines or the modification of existing systems. This prohibition is supposedly designed to address the “Russian threat” -- a threat manufactured by those seeking a new Cold War. In addition to flaming anti-Russian hysteria, this provision makes the company SpaceX the only affordable option for launch services. " Also, shouldn't we be glad that space exploration is an international effort? Why should the USA design and build itself its entire launch systems?
wmil 9y ago
There's a lot of money in defence procurement. Existing players will spend money to badmouth newcomers. It's not entirely clear how Brietbart is being influenced... possibly the author is getting direct money or promises of future business. Or they were simply taken out for a few drinks and convinced that SpaceX is the worst thing ever.
fetbaffe 9y ago
US has a bit weird definition of conservative (similar to the term liberal), European definition of conservative is not always pro free market nor always pro free trade. simplified European definitions on space travel: socialist: all government run ("planned economy") social liberal/social democrat: political co-operations (unions) partly funded by government, private corporations funded by government and government corporations, all government regulated ("corporativism") liberal: privately funded, government regulated ("free market") neoliberal: privately funded, privately regulated ("capitalism") liberatarian: what have space done to us? conservative: national effort to travel to space ("corporativism") US term of conservative is a mix of liberal/neoliberal economics with conservative traditions. Breitbart/Bannon conservatism is more like European conservatism on economics.
rbanffy 9y ago
> This new flavor of conservatism is so strange Calling what Breitbart promotes "conservatism" is very kind. I wouldn't be that generous.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tooltalk 9y ago
I think you got a couple of things mixed up: 1) McCain and Rogers's policy views are close to those of neocons (aka, cold-war liberals), best known for their hawkish foreign policy and efficient, smart gov't. They both are supporters of SpaceX and are behind the new legislation that supposedly favors SpaceX. That said, neither McCain or Rogers identify themselves as neocons -- they are just very hawkish when it comes to foreign policy. 2) Ron Paul and those critical of SpaceX (in this particular context) are paleo/libertarian conservatives. They are the polar opposite of neocons in that they are fervently against hawkish foreign policy and crony capitalism which they view as inevitable products of a big gov't. Now, SpaceX is something neocons would love and SpaceX has cuddled with those two politicians to spice things up. SpaceX's political, campaign donation and McCain and Roger's support of SpaceX/the new legislation which seems to favor Space-X is a big no-no in Paul's book.
toasterlovin 9y ago
I think that framing this in an ideological way misses most of what is happening in political discourse right now. Ideology plays a role, but it is in the backseat. Here's my theory: Social media has created a new environment (in the ecological sense of the word) and we are witnessing people figuring out all the little niches that exist in this new environment which they can profitably occupy. So, in an example like this, what's really happening is that there are a handful of people who stand to gain tremendously by finding a new target for the mob's outrage, because outrage is what drives traffic and traffic is what allows these people to be full-time "social media personalities". But the thing is that, for these people, the outrage of the mob is what truly motivates them, not ideology. There is a certain personality type that makes it's way in the world by maneuvering to the front of the mob. Being ideologically consistent is an after thought, if it matters at all. All you need is for your target to kinda sorta look enough like your ideological opponents that you can sell it to the mob. That is the litmus test for choosing a target and what I mean when I said, above, that ideology is in the backseat. This phenomenon is driven by the opportunities that social media presents and certain actors capitalizing on these opportunities. Which means that this phenomenon is not relegated to right. As a great example, a conservative commentator, Ben Shapiro, recently spoke at UC Berkeley. Some of the protest signage was claiming to be against white supremacy, but, as you may have guessed by his name, Ben Shapiro is Jewish. So, you know, not a white supremacist. And he is not even a Trump supporter. But a reasonable and nuanced take on things is the antidote to outrage, so of course reason and nuance will be absent among the people on the right and the left who benefit from the outrage of the mob.
kobayashi 9y ago
These alt-rightists are about 180 degrees away from neoconservatives. Neocons are the most vocal Never Trump conservative contingent.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. Even I find this particular turn against SpaceX somewhat weird. My internal model of the alt-right has largely been that they have one wing who are basically Nazi fanfiction, another who idolize the "throne and altar conservatism" of pre-Revolutionary France, and another who think they should build Warhammer 40K's Imperium of Man as a real-life society (they're very pop-culture influenced). Turning against a private space company seems to indicate that some factions (Nazis plus... someone else?) are throwing the "far-right futurism" faction overboard. (Again, these guys are really weird, but hey, it's all there on their blogs.) My big question is: where's Peter Thiel in all this? Just last year, he was the one trying to assure everyone that, oh don't worry, this was all about tearing down overbearing regulations and political correctness in favor of unbound innovation, that the Right weren't anti-science religious people anymore, etc. Turning against SpaceX isn't just throwing a faction of bloggers overboard, it's thrown Thiel overboard, and he was a major billionaire backer for all of this.

s_kilk 9y ago
> where's Peter Thiel in all this? The evidence seems to suggest Thiel has gotten in with the "throne and altar" crowd, the Neo-Reactionaries and self-described "Dark Enlightenment". https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein How that intersects with his techy leanings, I don't really know, it's very possible that he's being thrown overboard as you describe.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  Bloody hell, I swear we're living in the pulpiest political-thriller novel I've ever fucking heard of.
  - api 9y ago
    My personal theory for a while has been that the world actually did end in 2000. We are living in a parody alternate dimension where the previous gods have been replaced by low-rent hacks. This timeline is like a show that's been renewed for one season too many.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      > the previous gods have been replaced by low-rent hacks Do you have any idea how much an actual god costs?! This is the best we could manage. Be grateful this low-budget universe is still here.
  - pault 9y ago
    I don't want to go too far off topic, but every time I turn on the news lately I feel like I'm stuck in a dystopian cyberpunk thriller. Funny how we never got the flying cars and jetpacks from our 20th century utopian sci-fi, but the Phillip K Dicks and William Gibsons seem to be right on the money.
    - PeachPlum 9y ago
      The news, on TV. Where did you find that?
    - sgift 9y ago
      Cyberpunk promised us high tech and low life. Good job, we got at least one of these.
      - tankenmate 9y ago
        Low life is easier to distribute than high tech. The future is already here...
exelius 9y ago
I'm not saying I agree with them, but a common theme I hear from the alt-right is "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture). Now, nevermind that these guys are setting up as many gatekeeping functions as they tear down; they simply justify it as "protecting real hard-working Americans" through xenophobia. It's all built on the false nationalism of a flagging superpower, and if any of these people traveled in the least they would see that other countries are actually doing a lot of things better than we do here. We got arrogant, our politicians got greedy, and our voter base got complacent. It's only going to get worse too.
- kevinmchugh 9y ago
  > "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture) that's not a game of thrones reference as far as I can tell. It's an old anarchist and socialist slogan. It'd be an odd fit for that part of the right. "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes in those parts.
  - Freak_NL 9y ago
    > "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes in those parts. Which in turn uses Ayn Rand's philosophy (Objectivism) as the basis of the fictional (failed) society in Bioshock. (Compare with this quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first-man-was-enslaved-by-the-gods-but-he https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first-man-was-ens... ) Ayn Rand and her philosophy are quite popular in right-wing circles (and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles).
    - wmil 9y ago
      > and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles Not surprising. A tenured professor getting government grants for research is a villain by Randian standards.
      - jandrese 9y ago
travmatt 9y ago
Conservative politics is much like French Revolution - built on successive purges of insufficiently ideologically committed members. The NeoCon / Old Bull wing of the Party was largely broken by the Tea Party’s rise and the deposition of longtime statesmen in the ‘10 elections, and has been increasingly replaced by ethnic and religious nationalist purity tests - the 2000’s era Republican Party competed for Spanish and Muslim votes, but those days have long since passed. Crucially, these populous factions are opposed to science, government, media, and academia. Looking through this lens, Peter Thiel found the same fate as Elon Musk, Gary Cohn, Reince Priebus, and innumerable smaller republican operatives - all thought they would ride the wave and found themselves labeled as just another RINO for being insufficiently ideologically committed. Thiel was never a major backer of this ethnonationalism, he was just someone who recognized it early and hoped to play that advantage. The Mercer’s, Koch’s and Bannon are the drivers, and everyone else is expendable.
mannykannot 9y ago
With regard to Peter Thiel, I am not sure being thrown overboard is the right metaphor. He has chosen to ride the tiger, and may have trouble getting off, if he wants to.
- rhythmvs 9y ago
  That metaphor is deliberate? — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola#Ride_the_Tiger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola#Ride_the_Tiger
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    It wasn't an intentional reference to Evola, if that's what you mean - I was unaware of the association until you pointed it out.
arethuza 9y ago
I've just finished reading "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", which is a pretty bleak and depressing book - I would guess the US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (who the Neocons are basically cheerleaders for) would hate SpaceX as they are trying to undercut existing players and reduce the amount of pork - which is basically what makes the MICC run.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  At least it's not like Russia where they have almost all of mainstream government and media in favor of funding weapons operations for foreign human-rights abusing tyrants. It's not even always for foreign policy, but sometimes they even say on their national TV that killing more people is necessary because if they stop, defense jobs will be lost. Except that's us, right here in the US. It does not matter who wins office in that sense, both parties and mainstream media cheerlead the MIC, Wall St, etc, at the expense of human dignity: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...
alexanderstears 9y ago
>"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". Hardly. Most nationalists (probably the LCD of dissident right movements) hate foreign entangelements. Trump saying Iraq was a waste of money is hardly an affirmation of the neocon platform of invasion. And it's an over-simplification to identify the 'anti corporate welfare' view with 'anti-spaceX'. They're anti-spaceX to the extent that spaceX is dependent on the government. I can't imagine these people are any more thrilled by Lockheed Martin or Boeing.
- smhenderson 9y ago
  >"Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". I believe the original poster was trying to distinguish between the two groups, not state that they used to call themselves neocons but now call themselves the alt-right. Though both claim to be conservative each of them take political stances that are anathema to the other.
jbooth 9y ago
If you want to get conspiratorial about it, SpaceX is a huge threat to both the Russian space launch industry and to Boeing/Lockheed. More seriously, in the 2017 conservative pathology, the Russian government are 'good guys' and American businessmen who quit Trump's economic council are 'bad guys'.
- api 9y ago
  Putin is a neo-fascist and an admirer of Julius Evola.
cosmiccartel 9y ago
> These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". No they don't. Most of "these guys", meaning the new right, distance themselves from that term because of its association with white nationalism. > They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other. This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right. It's a smear campaign. Your statement is a perfect example. In your eyes, anyone on the right not engaging in Nazi fantasies is really just "hiding it". You're "unthinging" the views of the vast majority of them to pretend that they are uniform in ideology.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other. No, Steve Bannon said in an interview that he led Breitbart in giving a spearhead to the alt-right in large media. >This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right. There are really three problems here. * The "center" and "center-left" are already, by historic standards, quite right-wing on economic policy. This really skews the claim that we're talking about a spectrum between a "center-left" and a "right", insofar as we're really just talking about different degrees of permissiveness or authoritarianism on social issues, plus the "center-left" maintaining the barest rudiments of a vestigial welfare-state. * Within the Right, the factions that we could have called "center-right" got tossed out as RINOs long ago. Ronald Reagan advocated employee ownership of firms as the way of the future; today Republicans would treat that as socialist heresy. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is now unheard-of, as are Republican appeals to conservative people of color or immigrants. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell really are far-right, in the sense that Ayn Rand is far to the libertarian right. * The alt-right has deliberately worked to blur the boundaries between the libertarian right and the authoritarian-nationalist right, usually by invoking anti-democratic, nationalistic libertarian thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe. You know, the guy who wrote that, "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … [violators] will have to be physically removed from society."[1] When your party has come to have a political spectrum stretching from Ayn Rand on its left to Augusto Pinochet on its right, yes, you are "these guys". Stop now, turn around, purge the alt-right, purge the Tea Party, and reestablish some common-sense and humanity, or else history will remember you as the bumbling enablers of American fascism. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or "physical removal" by death squads: which side are you on? [1] -- https://mises.org/library/my-battle-thought-police https://mises.org/library/my-battle-thought-police

fabian2k 9y ago

The only consistency with Breitbart seems to be that they never let any of those annoying facts get in the way of the narrative. I can't see any ideological justification here, SpaceX getting money from the US government isn't fundamentally different than ULA getting money from the US government. The article does imply at the end that there is likely someone behind these articles that has a specific interest in this narrative.

SEJeff 9y ago
It actually is different. ULA gets $880 million to $1 billion per year just to keep the factory lights on[1] for the EELV Launch Capability Contract. This isn't money for a service such as launches or new rockets, it is just to keep the lights on. SpaceX doesn't get any of that. If anyone is subsidized by the USG, it is overwhelmingly ULA. SpaceX could have simply charged 1/2 of ULA's $422 million per launch and instead chose to go way below that. This is an example of private enterprise overwhelmingly helping the tax payers through healthy competition. ULA was allowed to essentially rip off the tax payers at $422 million per launch whereas SpaceX is charging < $100 million per launch depending on mission objectives and integration requirements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance#Controv... [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget-reveals-how-much-spacex-undercuts-launch-prices/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget-rev...
- Symmetry 9y ago
  Lets not be too harsh on the ULA. They offer services like vertical integration that only the government cares about and they've gone over 100 launches without a payload loss. So if I was sending up a $10 billion space telescope they're the obvious choice for that. I doubt they're going to get any more business for $200 commsats though now that SpaceX is getting on tempo.
  - Already__Taken 9y ago
    There might not be a business for $10bil telescopes every 10 years when there's an option of 10 $1bil telescopes launching every year. The launch capacity/cost to propose such thinking just didn't exist.

pjc50 9y ago

> bound to free market ideals Very few conservatives in power are bound to this as an abstract principle; most are bound to markets as they benefit specific incumbents. In this case SpaceX is threatening the incumbents Boeing and Lockheed, who are responding with a lobbying campaign, including the generation of favourable press coverage.

api 9y ago

Musk rebuked the God Emperor by leaving Trump's tech council after Trump appointed a bunch of climate change deniers.

mikeash 9y ago

I imagine it's because Elon Musk leans liberal (or at least non-Republican), and in particular is a highly visible crusader for action to combat climate change. The American right wing has decided that denying climate change is a core value, and trying to get people to take action against it is a mortal sin. SpaceX is not directly involved in that, but Tesla is, and I doubt places like Breitbart are interested in carefully drawing lines between the man's different companies.

hackerguy99 9y ago
>SpaceX is not directly involved in that, but Tesla is, and I doubt places like Breitbart are interested in carefully drawing lines between the man's different companies. So you are accusing Breitbart of attacking Tesla (even though this is about SpaceX) because they won't "carefully draw lines", without a hint of irony that you can't be bothered to draw careful lines between the companies, and have dragged Tesla into the conversation? Not every criticism about SpaceX or Tesla is about disliking Musk. If only it were that simple.
- mikeash 9y ago
  You’re right, not every criticism is about disliking Musk. But I’m pretty sure this one is. I dragged Tesla into the conversation because I think it’s relevant. So do they.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    I spend most of my time online in what the HN crowd would describe as "right-wing circles", and I have to agree with this. I'm seeing a rising sentiment that Elon Musk is someone who is skilled at over-promising and under-delivering, while repeatedly using subsidy and direct government funding to fatten his own pockets. I have no idea what this notion is based upon; it's not really something that has interested me.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      There's a kernel of truth to it: he does over-promise, and often deliver short of his promises. It's just that the result is still pretty spectacular. It's not like he promises the moon and then hands you a bag of crap.

TorKlingberg 9y ago

Everything these days is polarized on a one-dimensional axis. Musk does electric cars and solar, so he's an environmentalist, thus a leftie, and thus their enemy. He also left some Trump advisory council a while back.

linkregister 9y ago
Correct, this is an identity politics and team membership controversy, not rooted in good policy. A good parallel would be boycotts of Hobby Lobby due to ideological differences with its ownership. The fundamentals of the business are at worst benign. (I am not making a statement in support of the viewpoints espoused by the Hobby Lobby ownership). SpaceX is a public good since it saves hundreds of millions of tax dollars, so this is unfortunate.

mannykannot 9y ago

As you recognize the simplistic nature of labels, you should not be surprised when a group goes against type. I think the key to understanding the so-called neo-consrvatism is that it is not 'for' anything; rather, it is against a long list of things, and virulently so. They are conservative in that conservatives have generally defined themselves by opposition to whatever has been changing in the societies of their generation. Its other feature is the belief that its ends justifies the means, including the incitement of irrational anger and even hatred, which they regard as a virtue. This trait is latent at all political extremes, but only gains traction when a significant number of the generally more moderate or uninterested members of the populace believe they are being cheated out of something they are entitled to.

marksellers 9y ago
And yet what I struggle most with is identifying who, if anyone, benefits from this. Who, if anyone, controls this. Or is it all just chaotic feedback?
- kortex 9y ago
  My money is on chaos. You take all these powerful and/or power-hungry people, who all want their way, but they are also influenced by other movers and shakers to want certain outcomes, and soon it's one giant spaghetti strange attractor.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  I think we are seeing combination of short-sighted self-interest and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", together with a willingness to use irrational arguments to advance those interests. There have been many historical precedents, but perhaps none more so than the French revolution, which went through several cycles of this. The Terror only ended when the surviving politicians all realized that they were more likely to be executed than hold on to executive power, if they carried on this way.

grondilu 9y ago

> Does anyone understand this? I don't quite grasp the details of the story, but the "four kinds of money"[1][2] theme may help understand the point of view. Why exactly would Musk spend money in a way that disturbs conservatives more than how say ULA does it, is probably complicated, but I assume they have their reasons. PS. Also, quite illuminating is Ron Paul's original opinion piece on foxnews [3]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MQp-5lZToE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MQp-5lZToE 2. http://lpmaryland.org/liberty-quotation-milton-friedman-four-ways-spend-money/ http://lpmaryland.org/liberty-quotation-milton-friedman-four... 3. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-defense-budget-hands-spacex-monopoly-why.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-def...

jmh530 9y ago
The whole thing doesn't even make sense. We used to have a monopoly that cost a whole bunch of money. If Elon Musk can do it for less, then he's breaking up the original monopoly.
- grondilu 9y ago
  Have you read Ron Paul's piece? I think the argument about Russia makes a lot of sense. He claims that introducing protectionism in space actually made things more expensive, not cheaper. "Specifically, Section 1615 of this year’s NDAA expressly forbids the Air Force from developing new launch vehicles by restricting expenditures to the development of new engines or the modification of existing systems. This prohibition is supposedly designed to address the “Russian threat” -- a threat manufactured by those seeking a new Cold War. In addition to flaming anti-Russian hysteria, this provision makes the company SpaceX the only affordable option for launch services. " Also, shouldn't we be glad that space exploration is an international effort? Why should the USA design and build itself its entire launch systems?

wmil 9y ago

There's a lot of money in defence procurement. Existing players will spend money to badmouth newcomers. It's not entirely clear how Brietbart is being influenced... possibly the author is getting direct money or promises of future business. Or they were simply taken out for a few drinks and convinced that SpaceX is the worst thing ever.

fetbaffe 9y ago

US has a bit weird definition of conservative (similar to the term liberal), European definition of conservative is not always pro free market nor always pro free trade. simplified European definitions on space travel: socialist: all government run ("planned economy") social liberal/social democrat: political co-operations (unions) partly funded by government, private corporations funded by government and government corporations, all government regulated ("corporativism") liberal: privately funded, government regulated ("free market") neoliberal: privately funded, privately regulated ("capitalism") liberatarian: what have space done to us? conservative: national effort to travel to space ("corporativism") US term of conservative is a mix of liberal/neoliberal economics with conservative traditions. Breitbart/Bannon conservatism is more like European conservatism on economics.

rbanffy 9y ago

> This new flavor of conservatism is so strange Calling what Breitbart promotes "conservatism" is very kind. I wouldn't be that generous.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tooltalk 9y ago

I think you got a couple of things mixed up: 1) McCain and Rogers's policy views are close to those of neocons (aka, cold-war liberals), best known for their hawkish foreign policy and efficient, smart gov't. They both are supporters of SpaceX and are behind the new legislation that supposedly favors SpaceX. That said, neither McCain or Rogers identify themselves as neocons -- they are just very hawkish when it comes to foreign policy. 2) Ron Paul and those critical of SpaceX (in this particular context) are paleo/libertarian conservatives. They are the polar opposite of neocons in that they are fervently against hawkish foreign policy and crony capitalism which they view as inevitable products of a big gov't. Now, SpaceX is something neocons would love and SpaceX has cuddled with those two politicians to spice things up. SpaceX's political, campaign donation and McCain and Roger's support of SpaceX/the new legislation which seems to favor Space-X is a big no-no in Paul's book.

toasterlovin 9y ago

I think that framing this in an ideological way misses most of what is happening in political discourse right now. Ideology plays a role, but it is in the backseat. Here's my theory: Social media has created a new environment (in the ecological sense of the word) and we are witnessing people figuring out all the little niches that exist in this new environment which they can profitably occupy. So, in an example like this, what's really happening is that there are a handful of people who stand to gain tremendously by finding a new target for the mob's outrage, because outrage is what drives traffic and traffic is what allows these people to be full-time "social media personalities". But the thing is that, for these people, the outrage of the mob is what truly motivates them, not ideology. There is a certain personality type that makes it's way in the world by maneuvering to the front of the mob. Being ideologically consistent is an after thought, if it matters at all. All you need is for your target to kinda sorta look enough like your ideological opponents that you can sell it to the mob. That is the litmus test for choosing a target and what I mean when I said, above, that ideology is in the backseat. This phenomenon is driven by the opportunities that social media presents and certain actors capitalizing on these opportunities. Which means that this phenomenon is not relegated to right. As a great example, a conservative commentator, Ben Shapiro, recently spoke at UC Berkeley. Some of the protest signage was claiming to be against white supremacy, but, as you may have guessed by his name, Ben Shapiro is Jewish. So, you know, not a white supremacist. And he is not even a Trump supporter. But a reasonable and nuanced take on things is the antidote to outrage, so of course reason and nuance will be absent among the people on the right and the left who benefit from the outrage of the mob.

kobayashi 9y ago

These alt-rightists are about 180 degrees away from neoconservatives. Neocons are the most vocal Never Trump conservative contingent.