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.

[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...

[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.

[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.
:/