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Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

Trump vaporized Soleimani; you can't do that when you're just the host of a TV show.

Obama to this day loves to brag about how he sent SEAL Team 6 to deal with enemies of the US; you can't do that either when you're just a successful author.

Hollande (former French president) also bragged to journalists, many times, about assassinating ISIS leaders.

These are "normal" leaders elected in democracies; it's much worse of course with more authoritarian regimes.

Real power is the power to kill other human beings and not suffer any consequence for it. We don't usually talk about that when discussing politics, but this is what aspiring leaders really crave.

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It's not like President Musk would have the authority to murder anyone. His murder powers would largely be limited to the Middle East and loosely defined enemies of the United States.

Musk has never shown a desire to murder random people and he has never shown particular hatred for those in the Middle East. Why would he want the power to murder people who are basically unrelated to him?

He’s South African and can’t be US President due to that, what is this thread

>Real power is the power to kill other human beings and not suffer any consequence for it. We don't usually talk about that when discussing politics, but this is what aspiring leaders really crave.

Well put. It makes sense in that context that Musk's fans think he has no interest in politics and his detractors think he must.

As insane as Musk's fanbase can be, I still find his detractors' view of the world less realistic. There's a metric to assess that opinion by. As a fan, I predict he won't run for political office on Earth.

> Trump vaporized Soleimani; you can't do that when you're just the host of a TV show.

True, but Musk has a fleet of absurdly huge rockets at his command. If he really wanted to, he could de-orbit something large on top of Tehran.

Given the rate at which he is progressing toward his stated goals, he’s not that far from being able to do that and get away with it - by moving to Mars.

Yeah, this post is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but there is some truth to it. SpaceX is a company with assets that could easily be weaponized far in excess of many country’s militaries. I’m now imagining a future where a crazed trillionaire executes a first strike against some country with kinetic energy weapons, flees to a different planet, and all the governments of the world are scrambling trying to figure out if they can retrieve him.

> I’m now imagining a future where a crazed trillionaire executes a first strike against some country with kinetic energy weapons, flees to a different planet, and all the governments of the world are scrambling trying to figure out if they can retrieve him.

This is an excellent plot!!

Contact II: Total Commitment

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