Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
I believe lke so many of the Musk Enterprises - Elon is Job number One and too much time is spent humouring a jack of all trades that the masters aren’t allowed to do the work diligently.
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I love TWIS! However, the amount of time spent apologizing, justifying, & pandering to extremists is really disheartening. The space community is apolitical & intellectual. Anyone in the space community rooting against or hating on others within the community based on political dissidence should not be taken seriously or welcome. This is insane, we will not pretend Elon is problematic, he’s completely moderate & holds very mainstream positions. Stop giving the extremists & a hate-cult credibility by considering their feelings. Stop walking on eggshells for them. <3
It really isn’t April 1st 
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It sure isn’t, so we’ll stop pretending SpaceX or Elon are problematic. Far-left extremists can kick rocks. 
It takes all kinds to make the world go around. I don’t think it’s correct to say just because someone disagrees with your opinion (which appears to be “Elon Stan”) that they’re extremists. Elon is not perfect, nor even close to perfect. His very obvious willingness to exaggerate (if not outright lie) is potentially putting lives at risk (when it comes to beta testing automated driving as one example.) He’s not the worst evil in the world, but neither is he some shining light. Let the future decide if his net result to humanity will be a positive, but stop calling other people names because they don’t agree with your views on his current record.
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. Y view on him solidified after the tweet that made me leave twitter. I am far from extreme left.
My favourite comedian, the late and great Dave Allen always used to say he had a soft spot for politicians - a peat bog in County Limerick.!
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I am a moderate, like Elon. I am a space enthusiast, not an “Elon Stan”. My view is that the space community is apolitical & should remain that way. If you hate or root against SpaceX because Elon is a moderate who sometimes hold, mainstream views, unapproved of by 1 party, you’re an extremist who should not be taken seriously or welcome in the space community. No space journalist should feel the need to walk on eggshells & explain themselves to such people as so many are currently doing. It’s sad.
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Musk is not a moderate, he comes across as a narcissistic, semi psychopath, he would make an ideal politician!
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I came here to complain about the antediluvian cold war politics of one of the hosts, until I heard his unbelievably ignorant views about the environmental effects of Musk’s space launches. I understand this is one of the dusty corners of TWIT, but maybe a little Spring cleaning is in order…
This is a friendly place. Knock it off. It’s pretty obvious you joined to start a flame war. Not on my watch.
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Ignoring safety protocols is problematic… And that seems to be a common theme throughout all of Elon’s businesses - SpaceX didn’t have the absorbtion plates ready in time for the launch, but they went ahead anyway, with the result that the pad broke up and damaged nearby buildings and vehicles and possibly the rocket itself.
Tesla’s autopilot is supposed to stop if the driver takes the hand of the wheel for a prolonged time, yet it just kept trying to drive and warn the user to put their hands back on the wheel, until they had accidents, or it doesn’t work on city streets, but it let a driver turn it on on city streets and cause an accident…
Twitter has disbanded all of the safety and moderation teams - they just got notification of a 50M€ fine in Germany for ignoring their responsibilities under the NetzDG law, which has them having to take down racial hatred, incitement to violence, glorification of violence, fake new etc. within 24 hours, if the posts are obviously breaking the law or 72 hours, if the content is borderline and they need to take further steps to verify it.
By the way, I’m certainly not a far-left extremist.
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I will try harder- I don’t root against SpaceX, but where they bungle a launch, I won’t try and push it under the rug. Companies make mistakes (and not putting in place the safety equipment to make the launch safe and ignoring safety protocols is a huge mistake, they are there for a reason and have been honed over the last 80 years or so) and they should be taken to task for their mistakes.
If it was Boeing, JPL or one of the others that made the mistake, I’d take them to task as well. - I am not American and don’t have any party alliance, certainly not to US parties. I certainly aren’t an extremist in any sense of the word. I’d never vote for AfD or Die Linke, for example.
Edit: Sorry, @Leo. I went through the thread in order and didn’t see you post until after I had posted. My posts aren’t meant to be inflamatory, but if you feel they are not conjucive to the conversation, please feel free to remove them.
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You’re the extremist I’m talking about.
OG comment still stands. No need to tiptoe & explain yourself when reporting on SpaceX.
Agree to disagree and move on
Here are my thoughts in long form on the quite overt reactionary politics expressed in this episode:
The idea of space exploration is of course tremendously exciting, but that enthusiasm has been hijacked from the start by those with very specific political objectives. One of the hosts justifies Musk’s contempt for law, the environment and public safety by praising his performance in closing the launch “gap” with China, mirroring an old argument about a supposed missile gap between the US and the USSR. Invoking the Red Menace is hardly a friendly invitation to consider the wonders of the universe. It is an argument with obvious roots in the Cold War politics that gave rise to the space race mentality in the first place.
While this injection of jingoistic nationalism in the guise of scientific advancement was bad enough, the host was not done, going on to dismiss the environmental impacts of this reckless launch as a few boiled crayfish (listen to the podcast again if you think this is a caricature of the host’s remarks). The explicit rationale given is that what Musk is doing is important and overrides any concerns about exploding the world’s biggest rocket over a wildlife refuge. During the Vietnam War this view was encapsulated by the insane notion that (paraphrasing) in order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it.
These are very old and long discredited tropes that are being normalized and repurposed under the TWIT umbrella. We are living through a time in which there are very strong regressive forces trying to drag this country backward to an imagined Golden Age, which now apparently includes nostalgia for Cold War clarity of purpose. The Cold War epitomized the stupidity and wastefulness of arms races of all kinds, including the space race. In this era of global climate change, their sheer wastefulness can now more easily be seen as imposing unacceptable costs on the planet. We should not be cheering on another round of this idiocy.
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Rod & Tariq you know deep down you do not need to walk on eggshells or explain yourselves to these people when reporting on SpaceX & Elon.
You know damn well. 
Just a regular guy here…I see words I know and some I had to look up.
Not sure what your point is.
I did find this online and it seems relevant to your post…
“Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.”
― William Penn
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