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What's the biggest difference between a startup and a country? Aside from the obvious distinction, Musk has no experience running existing corporations with lo

What's the biggest difference between a startup and a country? Aside from the obvious distinction, Musk has no experience running existing corporations with lots on the line to lose, he comes from move fast break things, great for a social media app, who gives a shit, great for literal moonshots, go big or go home. However when you manage something big, any upside from improving is weighed against its risk of degradation. What I find confusing is that this is not typical of conservatism, it's like a progressive right of political outsiders whose express goal is to destroy the government, I don't think that's a controversial statement. And I truly believe that's what (at least half of) the people voted. My best estimation is that they are conservatives in that they want to conserve power that they hold, and they see the government not as a foundation for their corps, but as an enemy, not state as a literal creator of money, but as its dilluter or robber (through taxes), not the state as the basis for the fiction that is a corporation, but as a taxer of them. And their emnity is mostly due to the redistributive role of their state. And I believe that people vote out of aspirational belonging to a rich class, they think they are rich, or they want to aspire to become rich, or they buy into the establishes morals that entitles the rich to power. So that's how I wrap my heads around the conservative right overthrowing and destroying the government, they see it as a threat to their established power, or their chances to rise to power. But I'm just some idiot on hn who hopefully will come back to delete this later

michaelscott 2y ago
The American right has (always?) been anti-government overreach traditionally. I don't actually think Trump or Musk are particularly conservative or right wing (they'll say and do what gets them the support) but on this topic they are actually very much in line with political tradition. I think they're overshooting here and will need to correct, but I get the impression as an outsider that the American people who voted Trump in are sick and tired of a social structure that isn't benefiting them and seems to give them no "out" or way forward. They will take the wild and crazy antics/experiments because hey, it wasn't exactly working before anyway, was it?
- lelandfe 2y ago
  Grover Norquist, 2001: > I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. Frankly I don't see how you read Norquist's statement any other way: he doesn't want to abolish the government, he just wants to be sure it holds no dominion over him personally.
- watwut 2y ago
  American right was always pro government overreach when it comes to cops, military and so on. The are anti government when the government is helping someone they dont like. They are against public schools, public health care, consumer protection, safety rules. Trump or Musk are very much American right as it always was, except without pretension of respectability.
  - michaelscott 2y ago
    Yeah this is exactly my impression as well
- eesmith 2y ago
  The American left has also (always?) been anti-government overreach too. It's all a matter of who gets to define the "over" in "overreach". Laws which enforce racial segregation are overreach, for those in the American left who support equality. Federal laws which override state segregation are overreach, for those in the American right who support structural racism. Marijuana prohibition laws - overreach, or not? Anti-mask laws - overreach, or not? Required prayer in school - overreach, or not? Anti-pollution laws - overreach, or not?
  - 2y ago
diputsmonro 2y ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. The president is a con man who larps as the richest person on the planet and his biggest accomplishment last term was a giant tax cut for the rich. The "actual" president is the richest man on earth and has a vested interest in destroying anything that can tax him or hold him / his businessess accountable in any way. Awfully convenient that the richest people in the world think that the proper way to balance the budget isn't by raising taxes, but by burning the whole government to the ground. They have the resources to live in a walled garden for the rest of their lives and they don't care who else gets hurt.
- zitsarethecure 2y ago
  > The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
  - UncleMeat 2y ago
    Worse, the very rich have a stake in the country degrading. Institutional collapse and chaos represent opportunities. The Yarvin-ites believe that they will be the god-kings of the new state while the poor are turned into biofuel.
bee_rider 2y ago
Maybe “reactionary” or “accelerationist” is the word you want? Please let’s not popularize the label “progressive right,” our political labels are already a mess in the US but that is just too much.
- everdrive 2y ago
  I don't have a strong opinion here, but I am curious. What don't you like about the term progressive right?
  - jhbadger 2y ago
    Because it's contradictory. By definition, the Left is progressive -- they want society to progress and see a future where the problems of the past and present are solved by moving forward. The Right is regressive by definition -- they believe that modern society is inferior to some past "Golden Age" that needs to be returned to to make things great again -- the 1950s, the 19th century, or even the 18th century.
    - everdrive 2y ago
      I'm not sure I agree, but I appreciate your response. I think the question is whether "left" always means progressive, and whether "right" always means conservative. For instance, I would not claim that the American right is very conservative these days, but they also don't feel "leftist" whatsoever. I don't want to really delve into political topics, however I feel strongly that what is currently going on with executive orders and gutting the executive branch workforce is not conservative whatsoever. It's more closely matches an unfamiliar kind of progressivism than it does conservatism in my mind. I could definitely understand how and why someone wouldn't agree with this, of course. I also think it could potentially be argued that leftist programs, such as entitlements, social programs, etc, are not necessarily "progressive." There could be ways these programs were strictly regressive. (and by that I mean "past-looking" rather than "bad.") Now, I would also agree that terms like left, right, conservative, and progressive are not really strictly defined a lot of the time. With such loose definitions it might be hard to claim that I've got the definitions correct. In other words, they may just be no strict definition, and I think you could also argue that _I'm_ the one taking a minority definition. Progressivism itself is an interesting topic in general. I think there is a lot of progressive thought which is strictly apolitical, but is definitionally progressive. An easy example would be video games. Is Doom 2 better than Doom 1 because it added more gameplay elements? Is Doom 2016 even better because it added so many more systems, and has more advanced graphics? In my opinion "apolitically progressive" gamers would almost always claim yes; things _advanced_ and having advanced the older media is inherently inferior. They would claim that the older Doom games are "janky" which is shorthand for "the older games have not adopted or anticipated modern conventions." Other folks take a different tact; they tend to dislike any newer advances in gaming, and get "stuck" preferring older games. Others take a more balanced approach; they appreciate both new and old games, but don't necessarily prefer something merely because it's newer. I think movies are another interesting example. I think it could be argued that there are potentially objective improvements when it comes to movie making; cinematography would be one example. The movie Citizen Kane and the Director Alfred Hitchcock created totally novel approaches to cinematography which been widely and thoroughly adopted by filmmakers of all skill levels. (in other words, nearly everyone agrees that these are objective advancements) Even some of the worst movies nowadays may have more competent cinematography than some of the best movies from the 50s and 60s. On the other hand, there are clearly a lot of stylistic aspects to film-making which cannot really be said have to improved, but merely changed with the fashions of the times. I would argue that strongly-progressive-minded folks would not be able to see this; they'd see any older movie as inherently inferior, and see movies through a lens of progress. In other words, movies were always going to "advance" to where they are now, and anything older is inherently inferior. (and this is true even if they can still appreciate the movie.) Now, this is what I might call "hard apolitical progressivism," and is not necessarily the most common view out there. It's a useful example because of its explanatory nature. It's easy to see how this mentality _could_ map to politics, but I guess my point is that it doesn't necessarily do so. And, even when it does map to politics it doesn't necessarily follow that people on the left are always progressive and people on the right are always conservative. (although I'll obviously admit that this trend is _usually_ true; the left tends to be more progressive on average, and the right tends to be more conservative on average.)
StefanBatory 2y ago
"What I find confusing is that this is not typical of conservatism, it's like a progressive right of political outsiders whose express goal is to destroy the government, I don't think that's a controversial statement" I think it'd be fair to call them populist right? I think they couldn't be further from classical conservatism. Chesterton's Fence is a concept that seems foreign to them.
- computerthings 2y ago
  Destroying government and rule of law and replacing it with a violent movement, giving people implicit permission to be brown shirts ("he who saves the country cannot violate the law") isn't just "populist right" in the same way "cancer" isn't an "inconvenience" -- yeah sure technically you could say that, but you probably wouldn't.
  - krapp 2y ago
    But Trumpism is literally a right-wing populist movement. It's directly influenced by the alt-right/Tea Party and right-libertarianism, accelerationist white supremacy and the Christian right. It would be incorrect to call it a "progressive" right movement, because it stands in direct opposition to what progressivism is commonly understood to be. Doing so would be the same kind of category error as calling the Nazis socialists because the word "socialist" is in their name, ignoring the fact that they hated socialists. The Nazis weren't socialist, and Trumpists aren't progressive.
    - computerthings 2y ago
      Oh, I didn't disagree that they're populist right, and not progressive. I just think it's so much worse than that. Or maybe I don't associate enough "weight" with "right-wing populist"? For me it's the difference between someone who has a different opinion on the same facts, as wrong as I may find that opinion (and they mine) -- and a movement that just destroys and creates facts ad-hoc, believes what it wants, and smears and attacks anyone not aligned. It's the difference between someone who disagrees with or even fights me -- and someone who attacks me while they're basically wrestling with the voices in their head, without seeing or hearing me, at all.
kelnos 2y ago
> What I find confusing is that this is not typical of conservatism, it's like a progressive right of political outsiders whose express goal is to destroy the government Right, these people aren't classical conservatives in any sense of the word. I would think of most of these people more as libertarians: small government, little regulation or oversight, let the market sort it out. The striking thing is that the actual conservatives in Congress are sitting on their thumbs, letting this all happen. But I think that's because actual conservativism in US politics is mostly dead, and has been so for a while. Republicans would rather play at culture wars, and cry about spending (that they themselves never rein in, even when they have the power to do so) and taxes (for the rich and corporations of course, that need to be cut). It is pathetic that it seems like the only prominent Republican that has a problem with all this now is Mitch McConnell, when he's the one who enabled Trump in the first place during his first term, and failed to shut him down when he actually had the power to do so. Be careful what you wish for, Mitch.
- daemonologist 2y ago
  There's a good 538 article on this subject: https://abcnews.go.com/538/gop-trumps-party-now/story?id=118574467 https://abcnews.go.com/538/gop-trumps-party-now/story?id=118... 59% of Republicans in Congress are newly elected since Trump began his first term (which saw the highest attrition among members of the president's part in modern history). Those who remain are the most aligned with Trump, or at least willing to appear so in order to retain their office.

michaelscott 2y ago

The American right has (always?) been anti-government overreach traditionally. I don't actually think Trump or Musk are particularly conservative or right wing (they'll say and do what gets them the support) but on this topic they are actually very much in line with political tradition. I think they're overshooting here and will need to correct, but I get the impression as an outsider that the American people who voted Trump in are sick and tired of a social structure that isn't benefiting them and seems to give them no "out" or way forward. They will take the wild and crazy antics/experiments because hey, it wasn't exactly working before anyway, was it?

lelandfe 2y ago
Grover Norquist, 2001: > I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
- XorNot 2y ago
  > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. Frankly I don't see how you read Norquist's statement any other way: he doesn't want to abolish the government, he just wants to be sure it holds no dominion over him personally.
watwut 2y ago
American right was always pro government overreach when it comes to cops, military and so on. The are anti government when the government is helping someone they dont like. They are against public schools, public health care, consumer protection, safety rules. Trump or Musk are very much American right as it always was, except without pretension of respectability.
- michaelscott 2y ago
  Yeah this is exactly my impression as well
eesmith 2y ago
The American left has also (always?) been anti-government overreach too. It's all a matter of who gets to define the "over" in "overreach". Laws which enforce racial segregation are overreach, for those in the American left who support equality. Federal laws which override state segregation are overreach, for those in the American right who support structural racism. Marijuana prohibition laws - overreach, or not? Anti-mask laws - overreach, or not? Required prayer in school - overreach, or not? Anti-pollution laws - overreach, or not?
- 2y ago

diputsmonro 2y ago

I think you hit the nail on the head. The president is a con man who larps as the richest person on the planet and his biggest accomplishment last term was a giant tax cut for the rich. The "actual" president is the richest man on earth and has a vested interest in destroying anything that can tax him or hold him / his businessess accountable in any way. Awfully convenient that the richest people in the world think that the proper way to balance the budget isn't by raising taxes, but by burning the whole government to the ground. They have the resources to live in a walled garden for the rest of their lives and they don't care who else gets hurt.

zitsarethecure 2y ago
> The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  Worse, the very rich have a stake in the country degrading. Institutional collapse and chaos represent opportunities. The Yarvin-ites believe that they will be the god-kings of the new state while the poor are turned into biofuel.

bee_rider 2y ago

Maybe “reactionary” or “accelerationist” is the word you want? Please let’s not popularize the label “progressive right,” our political labels are already a mess in the US but that is just too much.

everdrive 2y ago
I don't have a strong opinion here, but I am curious. What don't you like about the term progressive right?
- jhbadger 2y ago
  Because it's contradictory. By definition, the Left is progressive -- they want society to progress and see a future where the problems of the past and present are solved by moving forward. The Right is regressive by definition -- they believe that modern society is inferior to some past "Golden Age" that needs to be returned to to make things great again -- the 1950s, the 19th century, or even the 18th century.
  - everdrive 2y ago
    I'm not sure I agree, but I appreciate your response. I think the question is whether "left" always means progressive, and whether "right" always means conservative. For instance, I would not claim that the American right is very conservative these days, but they also don't feel "leftist" whatsoever. I don't want to really delve into political topics, however I feel strongly that what is currently going on with executive orders and gutting the executive branch workforce is not conservative whatsoever. It's more closely matches an unfamiliar kind of progressivism than it does conservatism in my mind. I could definitely understand how and why someone wouldn't agree with this, of course. I also think it could potentially be argued that leftist programs, such as entitlements, social programs, etc, are not necessarily "progressive." There could be ways these programs were strictly regressive. (and by that I mean "past-looking" rather than "bad.") Now, I would also agree that terms like left, right, conservative, and progressive are not really strictly defined a lot of the time. With such loose definitions it might be hard to claim that I've got the definitions correct. In other words, they may just be no strict definition, and I think you could also argue that _I'm_ the one taking a minority definition. Progressivism itself is an interesting topic in general. I think there is a lot of progressive thought which is strictly apolitical, but is definitionally progressive. An easy example would be video games. Is Doom 2 better than Doom 1 because it added more gameplay elements? Is Doom 2016 even better because it added so many more systems, and has more advanced graphics? In my opinion "apolitically progressive" gamers would almost always claim yes; things _advanced_ and having advanced the older media is inherently inferior. They would claim that the older Doom games are "janky" which is shorthand for "the older games have not adopted or anticipated modern conventions." Other folks take a different tact; they tend to dislike any newer advances in gaming, and get "stuck" preferring older games. Others take a more balanced approach; they appreciate both new and old games, but don't necessarily prefer something merely because it's newer. I think movies are another interesting example. I think it could be argued that there are potentially objective improvements when it comes to movie making; cinematography would be one example. The movie Citizen Kane and the Director Alfred Hitchcock created totally novel approaches to cinematography which been widely and thoroughly adopted by filmmakers of all skill levels. (in other words, nearly everyone agrees that these are objective advancements) Even some of the worst movies nowadays may have more competent cinematography than some of the best movies from the 50s and 60s. On the other hand, there are clearly a lot of stylistic aspects to film-making which cannot really be said have to improved, but merely changed with the fashions of the times. I would argue that strongly-progressive-minded folks would not be able to see this; they'd see any older movie as inherently inferior, and see movies through a lens of progress. In other words, movies were always going to "advance" to where they are now, and anything older is inherently inferior. (and this is true even if they can still appreciate the movie.) Now, this is what I might call "hard apolitical progressivism," and is not necessarily the most common view out there. It's a useful example because of its explanatory nature. It's easy to see how this mentality _could_ map to politics, but I guess my point is that it doesn't necessarily do so. And, even when it does map to politics it doesn't necessarily follow that people on the left are always progressive and people on the right are always conservative. (although I'll obviously admit that this trend is _usually_ true; the left tends to be more progressive on average, and the right tends to be more conservative on average.)

StefanBatory 2y ago

"What I find confusing is that this is not typical of conservatism, it's like a progressive right of political outsiders whose express goal is to destroy the government, I don't think that's a controversial statement" I think it'd be fair to call them populist right? I think they couldn't be further from classical conservatism. Chesterton's Fence is a concept that seems foreign to them.

computerthings 2y ago
Destroying government and rule of law and replacing it with a violent movement, giving people implicit permission to be brown shirts ("he who saves the country cannot violate the law") isn't just "populist right" in the same way "cancer" isn't an "inconvenience" -- yeah sure technically you could say that, but you probably wouldn't.
- krapp 2y ago
  But Trumpism is literally a right-wing populist movement. It's directly influenced by the alt-right/Tea Party and right-libertarianism, accelerationist white supremacy and the Christian right. It would be incorrect to call it a "progressive" right movement, because it stands in direct opposition to what progressivism is commonly understood to be. Doing so would be the same kind of category error as calling the Nazis socialists because the word "socialist" is in their name, ignoring the fact that they hated socialists. The Nazis weren't socialist, and Trumpists aren't progressive.
  - computerthings 2y ago
    Oh, I didn't disagree that they're populist right, and not progressive. I just think it's so much worse than that. Or maybe I don't associate enough "weight" with "right-wing populist"? For me it's the difference between someone who has a different opinion on the same facts, as wrong as I may find that opinion (and they mine) -- and a movement that just destroys and creates facts ad-hoc, believes what it wants, and smears and attacks anyone not aligned. It's the difference between someone who disagrees with or even fights me -- and someone who attacks me while they're basically wrestling with the voices in their head, without seeing or hearing me, at all.

kelnos 2y ago

> What I find confusing is that this is not typical of conservatism, it's like a progressive right of political outsiders whose express goal is to destroy the government Right, these people aren't classical conservatives in any sense of the word. I would think of most of these people more as libertarians: small government, little regulation or oversight, let the market sort it out. The striking thing is that the actual conservatives in Congress are sitting on their thumbs, letting this all happen. But I think that's because actual conservativism in US politics is mostly dead, and has been so for a while. Republicans would rather play at culture wars, and cry about spending (that they themselves never rein in, even when they have the power to do so) and taxes (for the rich and corporations of course, that need to be cut). It is pathetic that it seems like the only prominent Republican that has a problem with all this now is Mitch McConnell, when he's the one who enabled Trump in the first place during his first term, and failed to shut him down when he actually had the power to do so. Be careful what you wish for, Mitch.

daemonologist 2y ago
There's a good 538 article on this subject: https://abcnews.go.com/538/gop-trumps-party-now/story?id=118574467 https://abcnews.go.com/538/gop-trumps-party-now/story?id=118... 59% of Republicans in Congress are newly elected since Trump began his first term (which saw the highest attrition among members of the president's part in modern history). Those who remain are the most aligned with Trump, or at least willing to appear so in order to retain their office.