Our community wants to be very practical and earthy in how we interpret such things, but all these experiences demonstrate that we cannot ignore the deep psychology involved.
In a video conversation of other issues with IT executives recently, we agreed that economics and psychiatry are the two additional disciplines needed most to penetrate the veil of illusions in Washington -- not only with Trump, but with reactions to Trump and to what he says. Is Trump a living, breathing Rorshach test, bringing out the deep traumatic aberrations, biases and euphoric aberrations of almost all listeners left and right?
There are many Trump speeches which are best heard as one would hear a report of an extremely vivid dream. (Like the book of revelations?) They are well worth analyzing, but only a few of them should be taken at face value. Many of Trump's speeches represent really important visions of what could be (for good or ill), but it is a HUGE mistake to just assume that they will happen, unless they just happen to fit the game plans of major political donors or emerging IT networks (which do not all agree with each other).
In this case, I was initially very happy to hear about Trump's new determination to build up US capabilities in space, because our situation with launch costs is really quite desperate, and without it our bottom line in the human development of space is zero. Better something risky than the final spasms of total death. And folks aligned with ULA would not allow progress on launch costs unless some excuse were found to keep it deeply classified, so that it does not interfere with the effectiveness of paid chorus lines who sing to the glory of throwing money away on useless makework projects in worthy rural areas, or to the unbound spirit of entrepreneurial zeal uninhibited by regulations OR by technical reality.
As with most of Trump's better initiatives, there may be a few gigantic rough edges which need cleaning up, but that would be part of the package. The cleanup is important in general, but not a basis for switching to the alternative of death to realistic hope for humans in space. It's not as if we haven't probed the alternative pathways.
But in fact, we have often seen cases where Trump speeches ended up in sound and fury without consequence (except to his reputation). The recent chaos regarding immigration sure conveys a lot of that.
He does not control "the swamp," and seems rather oblivious even to where it is. My best guess right now is that the swamp will drown him on this, at multiple levels, and that the nation will throw out the baby with the bathwater. If our only concern is with the future of humans in space, we will not just add redundant strength to the swamp, but think hard about how to save the baby (maybe by cleaning up rough edges like the people Trump turned this over to?).
Best of luck. We all need it.
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On the emerging It networks... yesterday, a guy asking me about the South China see and surveillance reminded me that "drinking from a firehose" is a core issue for NSA. So of course, from keyword filters to Watson.
Is THAT why Mike Rogers a few years ago, in a meeting before a thousand people, said as best I recall: "You need to understand, WE are the tail and HE (a guy representing IBM on the stage) is the dog." Does IBM have more information and power than the president? Does google wonder whether facebook is just "the first domino to fall" before the new order? Whatever...
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