Irony of ironies: Fork in the road

[MasterAnimus]

What did you expect when you have two egomaniacs trying to control the future of 'Merica so they can enrich themselves personally? I still have a small hunch that this maybe a PR stunt by Musk to win back his brand, with tacit approval from Trump.

Fork in the road, indeed.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/04/trump-musk-megabill-attacks-00386691

 

[dmallord]

My eyes are a bit blurry tonight. I misread the thread title at first, thinking it had some sex in the road aspect.

Continue on. I'll stand down.

 

[Saint_Ann]

The megabill does seem to go against everything Musk has been trying to accomplish (not that I've read it). On the other hand, I can't hardly believe Musk had no idea what would be in it. On the other other hand, Trump did manage to pull off a fake assassination attemp.
It's all as convoluted as a British who done it.

 

[MasterAnimus]

My eyes are a bit blurry tonight. I misread the thread title at first, thinking it had some sex in the road aspect.

Continue on. I'll stand down.

Well.. things got more interesting today. I am getting my popcorn ready

 

[Chernosoth]

I've seen some blather about the large language models (LLM) funding and protection in the bill.

Many jobs will be replaced by LLMs, for long enough that the skills of those jobs may be lost. When the LLMs run out of electricity and high end chips, the lost skills will either be relearned or recognized as wastes of money and forgotten.

 

[dmallord]

I've seen some blather about the large language models (LLM) funding and protection in the bill.

Many jobs will be replaced by LLMs, for long enough that the skills of those jobs may be lost. When the LLMs run out of electricity and high end chips, the lost skills will either be relearned or recognized as wastes of money and forgotten.

We’re not drawing pivot tables in the dirt just yet—but if we keep swapping human know-how for algorithms and calling it progress, don’t be surprised when the Wi-Fi goes out and no one remembers how to change a light bulb. Tech makes us faster, sure—but it shouldn't make us helpless.

 

[butters]

I would have gone with the cynicism at first but given how things have escalated, with trump dissing musk, musk calling him an out and out liar, trump's threat to drop musk's commissions, musk hitting back with saying he's taking his space dragon-ball home with him and then saying trump is in the epstein's island files? Maybe it started as one thing but it surely looks to be ending as another.

 

[MasterAnimus]

I would have gone with the cynicism at first but given how things have escalated, with trump dissing musk, musk calling him an out and out liar, trump's threat to drop musk's commissions, musk hitting back with saying he's taking his space dragon-ball home with him and then saying trump is in the epstein's island files? Maybe it started as one thing but it surely looks to be ending as another.

This is now beyond cynicism - too bad Musk thinks his money can buy everything. The one thing be probably didn't learn in running DOGE is how government can entangle you and your business in meaningless process if they want to. Also, for losing his and his investors' fortunes on something that could have been private tells me he isn't the clever businessman everyone claimed he was.

Here are my predictions, although should be a foregone conclusion by now:
- Musk businesses lose government contracts (easy)
- Musk's H1B status "violations" to be investigated (remember this from Biden days?) and Musk gets deported to Canada. Ah, the further irony of this!
- Bezos becomes besties with Trump, and his company becomes favored by NASA for future flights
- Dems choose not to work with him either given how much of a loose cannon he is, making him a pariah both in politics and business

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

The megabill does seem to go against everything Musk has been trying to accomplish (not that I've read it). On the other hand, I can't hardly believe Musk had no idea what would be in it. On the other other hand, Trump did manage to pull off a fake assassination attemp.
It's all as convoluted as a British who done it.

I’m glad to see other people are coming to the realization that the shooting in Butler was not an assassination attempt.

 

[HisArpy]

This is now beyond cynicism - too bad Musk thinks his money can buy everything. The one thing be probably didn't learn in running DOGE is how government can entangle you and your business in meaningless process if they want to. Also, for losing his and his investors' fortunes on something that could have been private tells me he isn't the clever businessman everyone claimed he was.

Here are my predictions, although should be a foregone conclusion by now:
- Musk businesses lose government contracts (easy)
- Musk's H1B status "violations" to be investigated (remember this from Biden days?) and Musk gets deported to Canada. Ah, the further irony of this!
- Bezos becomes besties with Trump, and his company becomes favored by NASA for future flights
- Dems choose not to work with him either given how much of a loose cannon he is, making him a pariah both in politics and business

Lol, you're an idiot.

Right now the D's are trying to court Musk to come back to their side.

 

[Saint_Ann]

I’m glad to see other people are coming to the realization that the shooting in Butler was not an assassination attempt.

Not surprised to see your sarcasm meter is still broken.

 

[MasterAnimus]

Lol, you're an idiot.

Right now the D's are trying to court Musk to come back to their side.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6374028830112
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co...ccept-campaign-donations-elon-musk-rcna211700
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/06/elon-musk-democrats-trump-jeffries-pelosi

Any other cogent arguments?

 

[Politruk]

I've seen some blather about the large language models (LLM) funding and protection in the bill.

Many jobs will be replaced by LLMs, for long enough that the skills of those jobs may be lost. When the LLMs run out of electricity and high end chips, the lost skills will either be relearned or recognized as wastes of money and forgotten.

Why would they run out of electricity or chips?

You're thinking Malthusian where you should be thinking Cornucopian.

 

[butters]

This is now beyond cynicism - too bad Musk thinks his money can buy everything. The one thing be probably didn't learn in running DOGE is how government can entangle you and your business in meaningless process if they want to. Also, for losing his and his investors' fortunes on something that could have been private tells me he isn't the clever businessman everyone claimed he was.

Here are my predictions, although should be a foregone conclusion by now:
- Musk businesses lose government contracts (easy)
- Musk's H1B status "violations" to be investigated (remember this from Biden days?) and Musk gets deported to Canada. Ah, the further irony of this!
- Bezos becomes besties with Trump, and his company becomes favored by NASA for future flights
- Dems choose not to work with him either given how much of a loose cannon he is, making him a pariah both in politics and business

I don't doubt for one millisecond that trump (and enablers) wanted to cancel those contracts. However, is it a given when the skies are dominated by musk's satellites, Starlink; trump's desire for that 'Golden Dome' (which would depend on musk's technology as plans now stand); the influence he can potentially wield against trump via social media; his Dragon spacecraft being the only current vehicle currently capable of representing the U.S carrying loads back and forth to the space station; around half of NASA's projects jeopardised if musk is 'cancelled' or drops out; his status as the wealthiest man in the world and considering which other nations might see fit to ask him to share their beds??? Not so it's such a sure thing. Yes, trump will be demanding it, but those trying to keep the government working must at least be telling him it'll be s shitshow, right? One would hope so, anyway.

 

[Politruk]

The government could seize the Dragon spacecraft by eminent domain -- the power is not limited to real estate.

 

[butters]

The government could seize the Dragon spacecraft by eminent domain -- the power is not limited to real estate.

Saw that... I was wondering just how functional it would be without Starlink but it uses Russia's Soyuz to operate. Interesting.

musk has since pulled back from saying he'll decommission it

Michael Liemohn, a professor of climate and space sciences and engineering at the University of Michigan, said SpaceX has been essential to NASA's commercial cargo program.

"[SpaceX has been] very important," he told ABC News. "When we retired the space shuttles, our only way [for] sending humans into low Earth orbit was to contract with Russia on a Soyuz capsule, and that's why NASA commissioned both Boeing and SpaceX to build new crew capsules so that there would be capability there."

"Basically, the United States has uniquely put all of its eggs into the Elon Musk basket in terms of a sovereign, uniquely American vehicle to get people into and out of space," Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, told ABC News."Now that relationship's severed; it leaves the United States completely vulnerable."

If musk withdraws/is cancelled, Boeing and Blue Origin would have a hard, expensive time getting up to where America now stands. A shit ton of investment, time and testing just to basically stand still:

"If Dragon goes away and then it's just Blue Origin, we would have to put more funding resources not just into trying to get Blue Origin to launch sooner, but also in being able to test all those technologies in ways that they haven't been tested yet," he said. "Like, so far, the SpaceX technologies have been very successful in getting people into and out of space. That has not happened yet with the Blue Origin technologies and, at most, they've only had sub-orbital flights."

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/e...ion-dragon-spacecraft-nasa/story?id=122568163

 

[butters]

“A rogue CEO threatening to decommission spacecraft, putting astronaut’s lives at risk, is untenable.”

-Lori Garver, Former Deputy Administrator at NASA.


musk has said he won't decommission Dragon.

 

[Chernosoth]

Or we could put the pope on the next rocket up to personally bless some satellites.

We don't need astronauts going up. Satellites can be launched on unmanned rockets for less money and less risk. If one is damaged by debris or sabotage, launching another is still the practical solution, until the accumulated debris is too much risk for any type of launch.

 

[MasterAnimus]

The government could seize the Dragon spacecraft by eminent domain -- the power is not limited to real estate.

It doesn't even have to seize it - Musk's businesses can be drowned in unending bureaucracy. Trump was already good at delaying tactics, and now he has the full power of the government.

Although I am sure he won't weaponize the government, since he was opposed to that /s