Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
The Iranian government is corrupt and needs enemies to hold its people together. This is why it treats the U.S. as the great Satan and Israel as the little Satan. There’s no deep reason why Israel and Iran should be enemies or why Iran and the U.S. should be enemies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vS8GGPKtqI
To a lesser degree, he just described the Trump administration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD8BhZEJcjI
The 3 Myths Supporting NIH Funding
https://reason.com/2025/04/01/the-3-myths-supporting-nih-funding/
What Is The ‘Abundance’ Agenda?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOFcn03k22o
Why Can’t We Have Nice Things with Ezra Klein | The Weekly Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcZxaFfxloo
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Politics, Trump, AOC, Elon & DOGE | Lex Fridman Podcast #462
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTPSeeKokdo
How To Recover From Debanking
https://reason.com/2025/02/20/how-to-recover-from-debanking/
I Tried To Fix Government Tech for Years. I’m Fed Up.
https://reason.com/2025/02/13/i-tried-to-fix-government-tech-for-years-im-fed-up
DOGE is not significantly cutting the deficit. To do that, you need to go through Congress. They are not creating government efficiency, they are just firing whoever they can, whether they are useful workers or not.
In Elon’s businesses, he gets quick feedback. So he can cut cut cut, and then see what’s broken and add back in. If a car doesn’t work or sell, something is broken, so let’s fix it. The variety of functions of the government don’t work that way. The government isn’t an engineering business building an actual car or rocket.
Some excuses for destroying government and using it to be self-serving are that the Democrats were doing it. But this isn’t really true. The largest change passed by Democrats in the last few decades is the Affordable Care Act…it was a transfer of money from blue states to red states.
Elon either holds several false beliefs, or he regularly lies and misleads about political issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vv6AvLsx4g
“I hate our big intrusive government, hate that it grabs almost half our money and micromanages our lives. I hate the politicians who act like good things come from them, rather than from millions of free people pursuing our own interests. I hate that government constantly grows more intrusive and takes more of our money (under both Democrat and Republican administrations).
But I do think we need some of it.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/15/can-the-private-sector-really-replace-all-government-functions/