Don't give it any heed. This is the same guy who wrote that e-bikes could be made cheaper by replacing the cog-and-chain drivetrain (which is extremely efficient) with a motor-generator combination (which is more expensive, heavier, and far less efficient.)

He seems to love writing /r/iamverysmart garbage, pathologically unaware of how little he knows about the things he writes about.

People who 'know what they are talking about' are quite often so buried in details they lose sight of possible futures. On the other hand idealists often simplify to the point of nonsense. The truth is usually somewhere in between. For example, in the case of his bicycle post, efficiency is almost irrelevant except for sports cyclists - the increasing number of people using electric-assisted bikes could well do without a chain and it's limitations, maintenance, etc. They want to get from A-B, while doing some exercise (but not too much).

> He seems to love writing /r/iamverysmart garbage, pathologically unaware of how little he knows about the things he writes about.

Isn't that all modern journalism has become, pay lip service to your fan base, do the occasional controversial thing to garner more eye balls, sell their data for targeted ads marketing: rinse and repeat?

Personally speaking, as a space nerd, I'd love to tell you how the aerospace Industry isn't sewn at he hip to the weapons contractor industry, bu tth etruth all of aerospace has a deep MIC link.

Just look at the backers of ULA and you will see who and how these things were optimized. I'm wondering if the reason SLS never took off was because they needed to iterative design to accommodate a weapons grade payload given who is behind them.

With that said, I think we will hear this type of rhetoric will ramp up even more as China enters the space race as it takes over Russia since they seem intent on becoming the World's most sanctioned country in the World and will simply have no one to work with.

Which is a shame because their are so many Cosomonauts who deserve to remain on the mission manifest and continue their work, but sadly dictatorships posion everything they touch and we cannot have security breaches with something so vital to the betterment of Humanity.

What would be more depressing is if western governments have not already given this some thought, and years later China achieves all this through theft of our IP. Somehow I don't think the Chinese (nor the Russians for that matter) have the same moral qualms.

Realpolitik: speak softly and carry a big stick.

Not sure we can talk about the west's morals or soft-spokenness with a straight face any more.

More like carry a big stick and wave it around wildly while yelling loudly, threatening and bashing people, giving sticks to our enemies' enemies and encouraging them to bash one another and hoping they don't use them on us or our friends later. Also make money selling lots of (slightly smaller) sticks to other people to bash one another with, stirring everyone up with beatings and fear of beatings to help our sales.

But yeah it would be be better for the west if we stay as far ahead of the likes of China and Russia as possible. If nothing else than because we don't want to be on the receiving end of what we've done to others. And when I say "we've done" I don't mean the common person, I'm talking about the warmongering ruling class who privatize the profits from their wars and meddling and socialize the costs and blame for it.

Space was weaponized from the start. The impure usurpers are the ones who look at how to scienceize space weapons.

Space exploration has always been and will always be linked to weapons. The whole thing was an offshoot of the ICBM program; without weapons there is no space exploration, and that continues to this day; DoD is SpaceX's biggest customer.