[merman]

You are exactly right that the underlying premise is a dislike of Musk, who has famously made mistakes, I too am critical of all of the things you listed.

So, if a very contentious personality is involved, is there any purpose or value in pointing out seriously flawed assumptions/POV/rationale?

Another example is the excessive divisiveness in politics, what would make discussions around those topics better? In my opinion, it would be better to rein in serious factual errors, even if the errors skew towards "my side"

[bigyabai]

It's about the ideas, and the idea is bad. It would be bad if Elon Musk came up with it, it would be bad if Martin Luther wrote it down on a handkerchief on the eve of his death.

Do we want to discuss this on merits, or are we concerned that the merit of the idea might undermine... checks clipboard ...commercial LLM businesses cashing R&D checks expensed by the US taxpayer?

[merman]

“The idea” is that (the only) megaconstellation sat internet provider is investing in and partnering with an AI company. On its face that seems to make sense to me. If it does not make sense, why not? The reasons you have given are irrelevant and also false.

The “taxpayer” (govt) pays SX a very low rate for launches, and gets an excellent product in return. In what way is the “taxpayer” being swindled?