Reality Imitating Art

[ysabetwordsmith]

Exclusive: Musk's SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump's Golden Dome missile shield

SpaceX is leading a bid to build Golden Dome with startups Anduril and Palantir, six people said
The SpaceX-led group is pitching the Pentagon on a 'subscription model' for missile defense, sources said
SpaceX proposes a constellation of 400 to more than 1,000 missile defense satellites, sources said

The stupid, it burns like hydrogen.


Today In “I Literally F*cking Wrote This” by John Scalzi

You know who thought up a subscription-based defense model in his book Starter Villain? FUCKING ME THAT’S WHO. That smug fascist owes me a percentage. I won’t get it, of course and if I did get it I would donate that shit to all the “woke” things he hates so fast it would make his brain swim.


*sigh* Those who don't read science fiction are doomed to repeat it.

Comments

[matt_zimmer]

I feel like we are living in the Stupidest Timeline.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Many signs point to that.

[see_also_friend]

Don't say that, the Universe will take it as a challenge.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Gosh, I remember having this conversation in Nero's time.

Re: Yes ...

[see_also_friend]

[Shrug] By that logic, there might be a new civilization 2,000 years down the line.

[crunchysteve]

And this is what I've always said about the subscription model.

It's a grift and a heist, all rolled into one. Be it making workers subscribe to an app they need for their job, for citizens to prove ID or for national defence.

Elon wants the US to subscribe to his missile defence missiles? Grounds for bringing out Madame Guillotine to investigate if this is corrupt...

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I am particularly scornful of subscription fire services. If you don't pay the protection money, they will literally stand and watch your house burn down, only protecting neighbors who have paid.

Imagine how well this is going to work as the world gets hotter and dryer.

Re: Yes ...

[crunchysteve]

Our fire services in Australia are still unconditional bur Ambulances charge for a callout or for a subscription.

Having survived a heart attack after a lifetime of looking after my health in the best ways possible, diet and exercise (so the infarc was probably genetic, there is family history) you can imagine how I want to rip the head off the state premier who first implemented that allowing the other states to follow.

Subscription anything is feudalism. Tithes to the laird, usually a self-appointed "saviour" and pocket liner. My ambulance rides with heart aftershocks have cost more than everything else heart related combined. Tax people on their deathbed, eesh.

Re: Yes ...

[crunchysteve]

I hasten to add, these are the state run ambulance services that GST and land tax are already supposed to have paid for.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Appalling, but hardly a surprise.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>My ambulance rides with heart aftershocks have cost more than everything else heart related combined. Tax people on their deathbed, eesh.<<

And that's why people often don't call an ambulance when one might be useful. They can't risk having everything taken to pay for it -- their house, their car, etc. In America, many bankruptcies are medical ones, even people who have insurance. Which is evil.

A functional society should meet most people's needs most of the time. That means survival needs such as food, water, shelter, health care, etc. should be met or it is a failed state. There are various ways to do this; what matters is that it gets done. Things like roads and fire service should be paid by the public because they are public goods and not easily done by individuals or small groups. But people today are trying to get away from these fairly obvious principles, with unfortunate results.

[glitteringstars]

Another problem is that some of these assholes have (or claim to have) watched/read so much scifi, but none of them really absorbed the actual "and this is why its bad." To paraphrase an idea I've seen else where: they read the story that says "don't create the torture nexus," proceed to be like "oh this is so cool," and make the torture nexus anyway.

Meanwhile, Reagan wants his idea back.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Maybe we should start stamping "Not Intended as an Instruction Manual" on things.

Re: Yes ...

[glitteringstars]

Add on them taking a four-year degree in some humanities major.

[see_also_friend]

Wouldn't the military just try to take the hardware though, since it is 'vital to national defense'? Granted, in that case, it would be easy for someone to revenge-leak passwords to our national enemies, which is also a bad outcome...

...it seems to be more expensive and less secure than just keeping everything owned by the military and in- house.

And then there's the whole issue of "do we want any one group to be able to nuke us from orbit?" and also "Do we even need a space defense base?"

...Methinks someone is cutting out necessities in the budget to pay for cool toys.
:/

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>...Methinks someone is cutting out necessities in the budget to pay for cool toys.<<

That's part of the plan to shrink the government enough to drown it in the bathtub.

Re: Yes ...

[see_also_friend]

Ugh, I do not want to live somewhere with an emperor-king.