r/politics • u/T_Shurt • 19h ago

Possible Paywall Hegseth Announces Elon Musk and Newt Gingrich Will Help Lead Military

https://newrepublic.com/post/216045/pete-hegseth-elon-musk-newt-gingrich-help-lead-military
22.5k Upvotes

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u/VariationDry 19h ago

This is the stupidest thing I have read all month.

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u/SurroundTiny 19h ago

The title left out the third person; Palmer Lucky. Designer of Occulus VR, co-founder of Anduril Industries, self described 'radical Zionist ', and brother-in-law of Matt Gaetz.

See? It did get dumber.

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u/Jdmaki1996 Florida 19h ago

What’s with the all the techno fascists naming their shit after Tolkien stuff?

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u/drpestilence 19h ago

I've been wondering that. It's like they only read an AI summary of the stories..

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u/Faux_Real_Guise 19h ago edited 17h ago

They root for Sauron— “Gandalf's the crazy person who wants to start a war…Mordor is this technological civilization based on reason and science. Outside of Mordor, it's all sort of mystical and environmental and nothing works.”

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u/jfudge 18h ago

Honestly they probably see themselves like Saruman thought of himself. They think that they are the special snowflakes who are wise enough to use whatever power they get for "good", or at least their version of it. They don't think of themselves as the big bad, but more that they are completely willing to take the power given to them regardless of what harm it causes.

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u/yorlikyorlik 17h ago

They fail Galadriel’s test. Every time.

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u/alexthealex 15h ago

Meanwhile Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) is trying to protect people from AI using their likeness and creations without their direct consent.

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u/Neverhoodian 10h ago

I've always liked Cate, she's a class act.

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u/Splizmaster 9h ago

Destined to be wraiths in some barrow. Sad fucks.

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u/Successful_Shoe_8083 14h ago

Hitler thought hitler was a good guy

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u/mkspaptrl 17h ago

This! This is 100% the mindset.

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u/MangoCats 16h ago

The Empire did nothing wrong.

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u/_DrDigital_ 6h ago

I mean I wish it was even that. Peter Thiel (cofounder of Palantir, Valar Ventures, Erebor Bank)

"If you're evil, you're at least competent. And if you're evil, you're not bad. And therefore, maybe you're actually kind of good because you're at least getting something done."

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u/nhavar 19h ago

But the Uruk-hai are so cool, so masculine, and did you see that all seeing tower??? Amazing technology.

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u/SpinosRule 19h ago

I mean, Barad-Dur IS cool looking.

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u/nhavar 19h ago

It's just like how they keep quoting and promoting Nazi stuff, it just looks so cool to them.

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u/Absolute--Batman 18h ago

Germany never got rid of the Nazis.

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u/azflatlander 18h ago

The South’s reconstruction was incomplete.

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u/FluffyAd9290 17h ago

It was really never started. It was more of a reconciliation.

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u/Gustavius040210 16h ago

They didn't have to. We recruited them via Operation Paperclip.

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u/klausness 17h ago

Nazi-cool? Nazgûl? There’s a joke in there somewhere…

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u/FellowHumanNo404 7h ago

Possibly Tolkien was thinking "nazi ghoul".

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u/Kijafa 17h ago

That's because fascism is a political ideology based solely on aesthetics.

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u/Environmental-Ice319 17h ago

No, that's because they are nazi's.

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u/SpinosRule 16h ago

I actually just like the design of Barad-Dur, nothing to do with political ideologies. Personally, I’d love to build it in Lego form for my work desk. Complete with eye and all.

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u/Kyokenshin Arizona 16h ago

To be fair, the Nazis oozed style. Genocidal psychopaths but they had drip.

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u/rawstone 6h ago

Thanks, Hugo Boss.

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u/Author_A_McGrath 15h ago

The Shire looks like a better place to live, though.

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u/SpinosRule 15h ago

I couldn’t agree more. Just love the aesthetic.

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u/WrathOfMogg 18h ago

Sauron had drip.

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u/SpinosRule 18h ago

Second in line is his Mouth, that fucking thing is the BEST.

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u/Beautiful_Welcome_33 16h ago

Is it?

Or did silicon valley and hollyweird literally put an idea of what Mordor looks like in your head?

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Barad-d%C3%BBr

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u/SpinosRule 16h ago

It’s how this reality that we live in “reads” evil though, spikes and gloom. I can totally get behind the original depiction, gives me Black Company and Malazan vibes as well, but I can understand why the movies went with the style they did. They’re in it for the money and the best bet is on appealing to the masses unfortunately.

Just being honest.

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u/whyamiawaketho 18h ago

They could just read smut like the rest of us 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/nhavar 17h ago

Mother wouldn't like that

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u/tiresian22 Canada 17h ago

The soldiers had low testosterone and we were like, let’s fix that, boom 💥 Uruk-hai!! Get that testosterone in ya buddy, what’re you waitin’ for‽

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u/TheGringoDingo 17h ago

A super tower, some are calling it

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u/nhavar 16h ago

The tallest tower in all of Amordor. People are saying a high tower. I'll be a man in a high tower even.

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u/TheGringoDingo 16h ago

It’ll be $30T, but it’ll be worth it

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u/Gilwen29 13h ago

Huh, I finished watching this in 2023 as a fantasy series. Never thought it would become closer to a documentary two years later. 

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u/ThanklessThagomizer 18h ago

There's actually an alternate story of The Lord of The Rings told from the viewpoint of Mordor, that basically argues that exact premise. Funnily enough, it was written by a Russian. It's actually not bad, though it's been awhile since I read it.

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u/Dsnake1 I voted 16h ago

Yeah the quote you're replying to is Thiel talking about that book. It's not his interpretation of the books Tolkien wrote.

I'm not saying that to give Thiel any credit, but it doesn't look like he's the one who headcannoned his way into Sauron being the good guy.

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u/klausness 17h ago

Definitely worth a read. Not great literature, but an interesting take on “history is written by the winners”.

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u/i_tyrant 16h ago

There's a youtuber (I think they go by Warlockracy) that reviews all sorts of Fallout-style games (like the original 1 and 2 Fallouts), and most of them are Russian or at least made by slavic studios, and he often goes into how these Russian games tie deeply into their ridiculous political and intellectual squabbles between the writers and their various ideologies.

A recent video was about this dude and his cult of personality.

It's actually taught me a fair bit about how some of these modern Russian writers tend to think, and it seems similar to Russian culture in general (or at least its dark side). Paint anyone you disagree with as an absolute monster but also incompetent, using the worst slurs you can think up, and use every dirty, underhanded tactic you can think of to discredit them and ruin their livelihood, because all that matters is you winning even if you're ruling an intellectual dungheap after because you flooded the discourse with shit.

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u/Hrafn2 16h ago

I just read the linked article from above...seems you are both talking about same story actually.

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u/historicusXIII Europe 12h ago

Two Orc soldiers ("Orc" being a racial slur used by the West

🤔

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u/Whos_that_Gorilla2 7h ago

So is it like a LOTR version of Atlas Shrugged? I'm so tired of these people. 

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u/neverwrong804 19h ago

Alex jones loves him some Star Wars Imperial flavored bullshit.

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u/structured_anarchist 14h ago

If anything, Alex Jones would be Jabba the Hutt. Ain't no way he's fitting into an Imperial uniform. He couldn't keep pace with the Imperial March. They'd have to write the Imperial Shuffle Along Until You Find A Chair for his grand entrances.

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u/Tasgall Washington 18h ago

"The revolution will be bloodless (for orcs), if Gondor allows it to be."

-- Melkor, 3434, 2nd Age

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u/Frapplo 17h ago

I was just watching The Two Towers. Sarumon pretty much says this. Industry will drive order. The forests will fall to serve that industry, and the iron fist of the orcs will carry it out. He then sets a bunch of malcontents on the villages of Rohan and assigns Grima Wormtongue to cripple the government and defense of the country.

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u/Mr_Funbags 18h ago

Seriously?!

...

Yeah, seriously.

Yikes.

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u/Mr_Funbags 18h ago

That's scarily true for a lot of powerful people. Thanks for making the connection!

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u/lapsedhuman 18h ago

Appropriation. 'Palantir', 'Erebor', 'Anduin', etc. We're taking these treasured themes and making them our own, because that's what you really want, isn't it?

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u/turquoise_amethyst 19h ago

They get all engorged for evil.

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u/Un1CornTowel 19h ago

Turgid for Sauron

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u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 California 19h ago

They are pro Saruman trying to bring Middle Earth into the industrial age. He's not the bad guy!!!

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u/Yontevnknow 18h ago

Russian fanfic making Sauron the hero actually.

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u/jgilla2012 California 18h ago

They are power-hungry billionaires, they don’t want to be good guys.

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u/DieCastDontDie 17h ago

They are the darkness in the stories

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u/travio Washington 19h ago

At least he named his company after something the good guys used. Naming your intelligence company palantir after the seeing stone the big bad guy used to spy on people is just bonkers.

Same with Zuck and the Metaverse. It came from Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson, a cyberpunk dystopia where governments have been superseded by mega corporations.

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u/PassiveGambler Washington 18h ago

Well, the palantiri were not evil themselves, nor were they created by the big bad. They were communication devices originally created by the elves (in Tolkien's universe, elves were more closely aligned with divinity than men). They were then given to the Numenoreans. They only responded appropriately to those who had the right to use them (ie the nobility and those they appointed to guard them). The reason they were dangerous is the big bad got hold of one and was able to use it combined with his own power.

The metaphor they're going for is: "We, the brilliant, righteous, and divinely aligned, created a way to retrieve and share information. We must ensure that it is only used by those who have a divine right to use it (the ultra wealthy neo-aristocracy). If it falls into the wrong hands, it can be used for great evil."

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u/GaiaMoore California 18h ago

You got me thinking, it feels like the techno-fascists are speedrunning Akallabeth and the fall of Numenor.

"We're brilliant and righteous and divinely aligned, the Valar are just jealous and won't share their cool stuff with us. We totally won't risk greater forces destroying the entire world because we thought we were gods"

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u/Ashamed_Kale_1077 17h ago

I just finished reading the LOTR a couple months ago. It's such an amazing series but after I read some other books since then, I've realized the writing style in them is so much. I'm reading dune now and just speeding through it comparitively.

I can't wait to read more Tolkien after though. Also wtf is akalabeth? Is that in one of the other books?

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u/dinodicksafari 17h ago

The Silmarillion. It is denser than the Lord of the Rings trilogy as it goes into the mythology and history of Middle Earth.

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u/Ashamed_Kale_1077 17h ago

Good deal. I've got the hobbit next and then will probably read the Silmarillion

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u/Spirited-Way2406 15h ago

Warning, The Silmarillion is the history that all of the characters in LOTR are reacting to whether they know it or not. It wasn't written in a fictional style, more a saga or Biblical style, like it was mean to be read aloud in remembrance.

However, if you read it and then watch or read LOTR, suddenly a lot of things have even more depth and punch. Galadriel is the last survivor of a whole lot of awful shit. Elrond founded a peaceful hidden refuge for a lot of damn good reasons. Etc. The old histories even influence how people live in the Shire, although Bilbo and a few other oddballs may be the only ones who know or care.

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u/ButtholeConnoisseur7 16h ago

Dense really is the right word for Tolkien's writing. Comared to say, Stephen King, whose books you can digest in a day, (I like Stephen King) it kinda becomes too much information after reading a certain amount of time

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u/Enlightened_Gardener 11h ago

Like a plumcake made too rich and eggy.

You have to have a few pages a day, or you get indigestion.

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u/oops_all_memes 14h ago

I'm reading dune now and just speeding through it comparitively.

Huh? Dune? Speeding through as compared to LOTR? What? You couldn't have picked a more puzzling book to compare it to when it comes to writing style

I more or less devoured the first book but it was a slugfest

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u/bigmcstrongmuscle 14h ago

It's in the Silmarillion.

There are five main parts to the Silmarillion. The third part (Quenta Silmarillion) is the main one people talk about, and is all about the Elves and the First Age. Akalabeth is the fourth part, and it's about the rise and fall of Numenor in the Second Age.

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u/According_Tea_6329 18h ago

The wrong hands being the poors?

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u/PassiveGambler Washington 14h ago

I think it's intentionally vague. I don't think they view the poor as bad. They view them (us) as lesser. They don't have any ethical qualms with manipulation, lias, or any attempts to overrule the will of the people because the people don't have a right to make decisions. That's the right of the special, chosen few. They are the only ones who have access to all of the information and believe they know best. They also aren't actually any smarter than most people. "Evil" or "the wrong people" is just whoever they're beefing with. Right now, that would be Iran. Just listen to Peter Theil talk about the antichrist.

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u/RobutNotRobot 17h ago

Sauron poisoned them in the same way that malicious liars destroyed social media

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u/Tathas 16h ago

There's also the fact that

A weaker user could be dominated or deceived by a stronger one, as seen when Sauron manipulated Saruman and Denethor through the stones.

While the stones always show truthful images, selective presentation could mislead the viewer, creating false impressions without lying.

That 2nd one is especially apt.

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u/somewhat_random 18h ago

In the same way that hydrogen bombs are not evil in themselves as long as the right people use them to take care of the "other" people.

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u/Independent_Vast9279 19h ago

Finally someone who knows snow crash. Sadly underrated. And yes they are saying the quiet part out loud with these names. 

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u/killertofu41 19h ago

I plan on attending the CosaNostra Pizza University in the spring!

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u/UsernamesAllTaken69 17h ago

I think the megacorps being more powerful than government is great in the story....the using language to program people's minds is so much more unsettlingly accurate lol I'm not remembering that wrong right? Its been so so many years since I read it.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 16h ago

You’re remembering the right book.

The metaverse aspect wasn’t, imho, specifically a corporate vs traditional elected government ‘warning’ really, but more a side effect of a ‘if you thought we don’t care about physical goods, the rust belt economy, and knowing our neighbors now, what happens if we turn up the soap opera/inside edition/maury povich media fascination dial to eleven… elevty-hundred. On screen or nothing...’

I suspect that if it weren’t for college football, half the population couldn’t care less if they were in Iowa or Indiana. What a small step it becomes to live in Instaville or Tokland.

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u/d3ssp3rado Texas 17h ago

That first chapter though... But personally I don't think it's saying the quiet part out loud so much as they just aren't media literate. Like Paul "I like Rage Against the Machine" Ryan, or all those that thought Superman was suddenly "woke," or denying there is any real politics in "Star Trek." So many of them are just dumb.

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u/twotokers Illinois 18h ago

Pretty sure Snow Crash is also one of Sergey Brin’s favorite books.

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u/FewAward6923 17h ago

There are a lot of people that need to listen to "Reason".

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u/ragun2 16h ago

Snowcrash isn't underrated with anyone into cyberpunk. It's a pretty popular book.

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u/Sufficient-Fact6163 19h ago

Yup… I recently started Snowcrash and had to put it down because - in the 90s it may have been edgy but today, it feels too cynically real.

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u/RickyalldayTD 17h ago

The new Alien series said the governments weren't working so the major 5 corporations had to take over. These 5 corporations probably made sure governments didn't work so they could take over.

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u/CitySeekerTron Canada 18h ago

Thiel would sympathize with Sauron. I'm convinced that, despite the antichrist talk, he actually believes that Melkor had it right.

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u/Trail_Dog 18h ago

Ah. So a work of historical fiction then. 

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u/ThunderChild247 11h ago

Yep. At this point I’m waiting on a cabinet reshuffle to introduce the new Secretary of State for Urban Renewal, the founder and CEO of Dark Lord Morgoth industries.

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u/Basicly-Inevitable 19h ago

Musk stole Grok from Robert Heinlein.

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u/SpinosRule 19h ago

I doubt Musk even groks the word Grok. What an asshole.

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u/pianotherms 18h ago

He does not. I guarantee he has never read the book, nor Foundation, or any of the other shit he acts like he likes.

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u/Gibonius 18h ago

I think he did, it was just as a teenager. He has a dorky, arrogant kid's understanding of this stuff. It's exactly the stereotype of a teen reading Ayn Rand and convincing themselves that they're the most special boy and everyone else in the problem, and then becoming a sociopathic libertarian.

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u/SpinosRule 18h ago

I couldn’t do Foundation BUT that’s because I just don’t like the way Isaac writes. Just my personal hangup. I love complicated reading though!

Hopefully he doesn’t purport to like Malazan, Satisfactory or Qabalah either though, don’t want him shitting on the things I love with his bullshit 😒

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u/CrunchAndRoll 18h ago

Oh god, he's exactly the type to say the Rhulad did nothing wrong.

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u/SpinosRule 16h ago

Okay. OKAY. An argument COULD be made either way. BUT you’ve gotta have some BIG Malazan balls and the guff to back it up before even going down that road. I can’t tell you how deep into it I am, slathering as I wait for our lovely dynamic duo to churn out more soul candy, but even I won’t walk down that path of broken potsherds.

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u/CrunchAndRoll 14h ago

Something something jaghut.

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u/notassigned2023 18h ago

I finally slogged through Foundation and it wasn't worth the time.

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u/Slam_Beefsteel 16h ago

You slogged through a 200 page book?

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u/notassigned2023 16h ago

It was a trilogy. Kinda like the His Dark Materials trilogy. I was just trying to get done, but it was a sunk cost fallacy issue.

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u/harrysaxon Canada 15h ago

There’s more books than the original trilogy.

IMO it’s not one of my favourite sci-fi series, but the original trilogy reads much better when you realize they’re not novels; they’re a short story collection.

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u/bigmcstrongmuscle 14h ago

Foundation has a whole series. The first couple are pretty quick, but some of the later books do get a little sloggy.

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u/azflatlander 17h ago

He likes the “Culture” because the AI is benevolent to humans. Deus ex machina.

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u/infinitetheory Kentucky 16h ago

he saw a post-everything utopian society and didn't bother even reading the discussions of the themes of why there might be negatives there. and then he didn't try to make the utopia either

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u/123f0urfive678nine10 17h ago

Didn't you hear? Reading is woke. /s

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u/GrandOldCheese 13h ago

I’m not normally this much of a gate keeper but Musk is such a fucking poseur.

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u/NatashOverWorld 7h ago

He probably tried reading it because it was supposed to be about poly and lots of sex and gave up disappointed in 4 four chapters.

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u/TheDakestTimeline 18h ago

The moon is a harsh mistress

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u/Enshitification 18h ago

It's a shame Michael Valentine isn't around to tiddlywink them all into a higher spacial dimension.

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u/SpinosRule 18h ago

I doubt the SAM aliens would want them in their dimension anyway! Always a blast when I can make political talk Satisfactory.

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u/ETxsubboy 19h ago

To be fair, if you don't have a good grasp of some of the social and political stuff that Heinlien puts in his books, you can definitely get the wrong ideas from them.

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u/tryingisbetter 19h ago

I'm a little surprised that Elon would read, let alone like, strangers in a strange land though.

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u/SnipesCC 19h ago

Remember that he's obsessed with Mars, and Stranger in a Strange Land is about what happens when a human grows up on Mars.

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u/tryingisbetter 18h ago

I don't think he understands what the theme of the book is about, lol

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u/SnipesCC 18h ago

Happens a lot. Steve Miller i a Star Trek fan. Dressed up for Halloween as a kid. The Wokest show in the 60s.

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u/JBaecker 18h ago

I believe you mean he did not grok the book….

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u/Zoo412Review 18h ago

He really doesn’t, it frustrates me to no end. It’s a common take with a type of dude I already find frustrating (including the person who handed me a copy of the book as a teen), and add unimaginable wealth and it’s just exhausting. I am also slightly convinced he thinks the Larkin Decision is a real law. Let’s make a bet that someone in that sphere will get so high on their own AI (or ketamine) supply that one of them accidentally slips those actual words.

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u/lapsedhuman 18h ago

Well, Michael Smith is martyred.

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u/SpinosRule 16h ago

DEFINITELY NOT.

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u/structured_anarchist 14h ago

I'm thinking he definitely thought Starship Troopers was a blueprint for society.

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u/MangoCats 16h ago

If he wanted, he can pay people to tutor him in the Cliffs' Notes - after his paid assistants level him up in the video games.

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u/indigo945 10h ago

You can definitely get the wrong ideas from Heinlein's books if you do have a good grasp of the social and political stuff in them. Misogynistic bullshit.

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u/spinningcolours 19h ago

“Grok” has a cannibalism implication in Heinlein’s novel.

Not a bad parallel to how ai is consuming civilized products and creating distorted versions.

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u/meh_69420 14h ago

I mean, it's there sure, but it reads more like physics and the conservation of energy in the book. I feel like focusing on the eating of your water brother rather than everything else it implies is an incredibly simplistic and reductive reading of the material.

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u/GatsoFatso 19h ago

Truth is Stranger than a Stranger in a Strange Land...

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u/Crab__Juice 18h ago

It really sucks that that word is now more associated with a dumb nazi prick than its originator, at least for now.

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u/SpinosRule 16h ago

For now. Heinlein will have his day again.

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u/redalert825 19h ago

Why wouldn't he? He's a greater athlete than LeBron James! Faster than Usain Bolt! Stronger than Derrick Henry. Etc etc

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u/MaNewt 16h ago

Ai bros stole it first  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grokking_(machine_learning)

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u/FreeRangeEngineer 7h ago

Even so, computer scientists already established its use decades earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok#In_computer_programmer_culture

I don't know why people think Musk derived it from a book when he may simply have taken it out of context from CompSci jargon.

It's not exactly an obscure word in the technical world.

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u/Mr_Funbags 18h ago

In my mind (based on what I think I've read) Heinlein was almost fascistic in his personal beliefs. It's that what you're referencing?

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u/partisanal_cheese Foreign 18h ago

Libertarian - Heinlein was a political 14 year old.

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u/dfh-1 18h ago

...no. Heinlein was anything but fascist.

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u/nobodyoukno 15h ago

Everything 'musk' is stolen from someone else.

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u/ImAShaaaark 19h ago

They also listen to rage against the machine. Understanding art isn't a strength of theirs.

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u/Water_Damage987 18h ago

"Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses! Hell yeah brother, back the blue!!"

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 16h ago

You don’t need an honors degree in political science, from Harvard, to understand that…

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u/SquirrelDragon 19h ago

We need a law that anyone wanting to name their product or company after anything from Lord of the Rings needs to publicly present a book report demonstrating a comprehensive literary understanding of the books

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u/Narissis 18h ago

They probably like the idea that one can easily interpret everybody in Middle Earth as being fair-skinned.

There's probably a non-zero overlap on the Venn diagram of AI enthusiasts and people who freaked out about the casting of people of colour in The Rings of Power.

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u/charcoalist 18h ago

It's Peter Thiel specifically naming these companies after LoTR. He is either the founder or major early investor in all of them.

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u/mulled-whine 17h ago

“The Nerd Reich” by Gil Durán is an illuminating (and frankly terrifying) book that explores how we got here…

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u/flabcannon 17h ago

Yes - I'm half way through the book and it's scary how these people coalesce around mediocre philosophies as long as it justifies their selfishness and need for power.

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u/Witchgrass West Virginia 18h ago

Media illiteracy. And it's not just Tolkien.

For example, Elon has never grokked a single thing in his entire sad life

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u/ruffas 17h ago

They're big fans of a Russian LoTR fanfic written from the point of view of Mordor, which is "amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic".

They see themselves as the Saurons and Sarumans from the fanfic.

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u/AggressiveAnt7613 18h ago

what they miss is the book is about a desire to return to the simple life and the rise of the evils of industrialization.... tolkien was talking about england when he was growing, and the WW1.. but alas, these subtleties are lost on the bro crowd

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u/Griffolion 18h ago

Same reason Musk designed and named the Cybertruck straight out of any one of the dystopian Cyberpunk novels he claims to love: media illiteracy.

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u/candygram4mongo 18h ago

At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus.

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u/Feyrauth 19h ago

Not all the techno fascists. Just Peter Thiel.

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u/Jdmaki1996 Florida 18h ago

“Anduril” Industries is 100% a LOTR name

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u/Byeuji 18h ago

All the times people tried to call out bigots in nerd hobbies and got pushed down and shut up by people saying "you call everyone fascist" by people who happened to feel attacked by or happened to agree with the opinions of those being accused of being bigots -- that's why there are bigots and fascists who believe they have a right to use these things for their own purposes.

They were not thoroughly shunned and marginalized.

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u/Noatz United Kingdom 18h ago

"Flame of the West"

There's a lot of "west good" in Tolkien's work which they latch onto, not apparently understanding that their analogue in Tolkein is, at best, the Numenoreans corrupted by Sauron into destroying themselves.

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u/AnalTongueDarts Minnesota 19h ago

It did, in fact, get dumber.

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u/AlligatorRaper 19h ago

So even more fucked?

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u/deadheffer 19h ago

Worse, there is another, Former President of Uber….

2

u/millahnna 18h ago

Oh but that one is always around right now because he's the chief technology officer for the Pentagon.

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u/TheSodernauts 16h ago edited 16h ago

I thought the dumbest thing I've ever read was "Donald J. Trump has been elected President of the United States. Again." but each day after that I've somehow read a dumber headline than the one previous.

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u/Throwawaylikeme90 19h ago

The immersive Jackstation goggles ceo is related to known (alleged) sex trafficker matt gaetz and co founded a company with Epstein associate Peter Thiel? That anduril?

Legit had no idea occulus was owned by such a syphilitic turbotaint. Not shocked, but definitely surprised. 

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u/UtopiaInProgress 18h ago

'syphilitic turbotaint' is very, very good. just sayin.

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u/Throwawaylikeme90 18h ago

Thank you, I’m a published poet. I like to show that craft in my insults as well. 💅

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u/NeededToChooseAName 19h ago

You forgot open pedophile.

As in, so open in his pedophilia that he will happily tell you about it.

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u/lkmk 18h ago

Luckey, or Gaetz?

3

u/Conscious-Mulberry17 Arizona 15h ago

I think Palmer Luckey is a psychopath with no political loyalty beyond what it takes to develop markets for his weapons.

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u/raouldukesaccomplice Texas 15h ago

Designer of Occulus VR, co-founder of Anduril Industries, self described 'radical Zionist', defender of ephebophilia, and brother-in-law of Matt Gaetz.

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u/G36 14h ago

defender of ephebophilia

Only if he is on reddit

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u/Fezzick51 17h ago

jeebus - these asshoels have nothing to contribute to anything militarily apart from grunts and tiny-dick twirling.

We are in the flat-out dumbest timeline, fucking ever.

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u/turquoise_amethyst 19h ago

Had to Google his face to see if it’s worse than his name.

Was not disappointed. Damn. 

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u/Un1CornTowel 19h ago

Palmer Lucky sounds like an incel that took the name of his right hand after marrying it.

2

u/SnooPears754 19h ago

Is all of America Florida now?

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u/IShookMeAllNightLong 19h ago

(and Pentagon chief technology officer and former Uber vice president Emil Michael to “creatively look to the future and identify the domains that we must conquer.”)

Did it get even dumberer?

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u/biznology 19h ago

Also, these losers supposedly have other actual jobs.

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u/cwx149 18h ago

I have no idea but I always think of Billy Mitchell the Donkey Kong guy for some reason to me I like have them messed up in my brain

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u/King_Chochacho 17h ago

Can we just expose Pete's Grindr account already? This fucking chode is going to manosphere us into the most vulnerable country on earth.

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u/Oiiack Indiana 14h ago

How the fuck? 10 years or whatever when the occulus first came about, I would have never suspected there was a connection between Palmer Lucky and Matt Gaetz???

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u/boofles1 19h ago

Wow Matt Gaetz.

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u/Jessieflow 18h ago

Wow good job.

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u/Asgardian_Force_User 18h ago

Fuck, it was bad enough when McNamara ran DoD, but Mac at least had some measure of self-awareness.

1

u/ElectronicFloor1898 18h ago

Why do all these assholes gotta steal their names from Lord of the Rings villains?

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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 18h ago

co-founder of Anduril Industries,

Another peter theil backed company.

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u/Kindly-Ad-5071 18h ago

Seems this guy has a knack for dead tech trends

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u/mollila 18h ago

Of course. There's always a one up for any stupidity.

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u/SurroundTiny 17h ago

It's like some law of physics isn't it?

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u/slow70 18h ago

And more dangerous.

1

u/Greenpoint_Blank 18h ago

More and more everyday i regret being literate.

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u/lr99999 18h ago

And, he is getting rid of the high brass who are not Nazi enough. 

The coup is progressing.

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u/OkWolverine2976 18h ago

Pauly Shore has also been named as a potential leader.

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u/RaidoFehu9 17h ago

And to my knowledge, none of them have ever served nor understand the basics of combat.

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u/maxsmart01 17h ago

God damn…. It sure enough did.

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u/Reasonable_Chair_346 17h ago

oh, cool, VR! Maybe we'll do that black mirror episode with the soliders using VR! That'll be fun. /s

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u/BreakingBread_Love 17h ago

They literally want to build an army of robots that you can control with VR or by AI.

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u/Jegator2 17h ago

Horrible, Terrifying people.

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u/focusonthefireworks 16h ago

Hegseth positioned to be the leader of the bunker boyz

https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1uadlqt/bunker_boyz/

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