Maybe this is naive of me
It really is. We’re not discussing the philosophy of free and open communication, we’re talking about a single narcissist who has been given money and power and how that’s a problem.
Comment on SpaceX is reportedly building a $1.8 billion network of spy satellites for US intelligence
vvv@programming.dev 3 months agoWould you rather he, as a non-government affiliated citizen, pick a side? War is stupid. Communication is great. Maybe this is naive of me, but I think the world would be better, and maybe require less war, if everyone had equal access to communication.
db2@lemmy.world 3 months ago
vvv@programming.dev 3 months ago
Science fiction of the 90s was the time to discuss philosophy. We didn’t come to a conclusion then. The future is now. A global low latency, highly available communications network is technologically inevitable. In our timeline, a rich narcissist has gathered enough support and competence around himself to start building that network. So now we have a real, concrete questions that needs an answer: who should have access to that network, and who should decide?
The way I see it, the options are (opening the network for everyone globally):
- limit access to non-military purposes: practically impossible
- limit access to the country of which Elon calls himself a citizen: what happens if he moves?
- destroy the network: everyone is worse off
- have the government take over control of the network: I don’t think we want this precedence
Do you have another suggestion?
pennomi@lemmy.world 3 months ago
[deleted]vvv@programming.dev 3 months ago
Then what are we even discussing? we’ve had orbital cameras for decades. These are just networked better and launched different?
Savaran@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I would rather they fund NASA to the fullest, and nationalize SpaceX under them.
vvv@programming.dev 3 months ago
So that the US government can more directly use starlink for surveillance?
Traister101@lemmy.today 3 months ago
Sure, they won’t sell it to Russia at least
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
Communications are important, which is why they’re one of the number one things an invader disrupts upon invasion: communications systems. Disrupting your enemies communications is incredibly common and to act like simply because he’s “offering communications” is such a simplistic fucking take I want to blow my brains out.
vvv@programming.dev 3 months ago
Do you have any particular pieces of theirs you can recommend I read?
I don’t consider Musk, by any means, to be “a good guy”. Ideally, I’d just rather let SpaceX keep building out starlink for the good of the world and have it be a medium for communication that is difficult to disable.
Why do we need to kill our enemies at this point in our civilization even? it’s barbaric and ridiculous. The state of the art of weaponry right now is trending towards remote operations. How long until it just becomes BattleBots but with collateral damage? When do we get to world leaders settling disputes in a game of Worms?
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Musk is a massive POS that cannot be trusted to maintain equal access to that communication.
What don’t you grasp about that?
STOMPYI@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Dumb ass thing to say
Pat12@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Would you rather he, as a non-government affiliated citizen, pick a side? War is stupid. Communication is great. Maybe this is naive of me, but I think the world would be better, and maybe require less war, if everyone had equal access to communication.
I recently read about Ted Hall who shared nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union because he thought everyone should have equal access to nuclear weapons and this would prevent another world war.
Your logic is similar and it’s not a good thing.
vvv@programming.dev 3 months ago
Putting aside the fact that this is a bit of a straw man, multiple countries having nuclear capability is the only thing preventing nuclear war. Russia does not nuke the US (or allies) because they know the US will respond with a nuclear launch of its own. same for the other way around. Awareness and access to similar capabilities makes everyone think twice about becoming the aggressor. if I had to pick, a cold war is preferable to a hot one.
ShunkW@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The fuck are you talking about? These are surveillance satellites, not some unity communications empowering satellites or something.
vvv@programming.dev 3 months ago
Surveillance is a usecase for communication. I can’t think of a communications technology that hasn’t been (ab)used for surveillance… Books even! Historically people have been prosecuted due to the books they possess! Should our target of ire be the entity building the network? Or the entity wanting to use it for surveillance? The vibe I’m getting from this thread is that folks would prefer the US government, via NASA or otherwise, have control of the whole thing instead.
Zron@lemmy.world 3 months ago
You have no idea how a spy satellite works, do you?
They take pictures.
With really, really fancy cameras.
Cameras that are very carefully, and secretly, designed to be very good at their jobs.
No, you can’t just let some third party decide to use your fancy spy satellite, that means they now know what your satellite can and can’t do, which means they can hide things from it, which means it’s now just a very expensive lump in orbit.
And need I remind you that SpaceX is not some magical self funded space ferry service. They’re a US Government contractor, that’s where most of their money comes from. The satellites are made by other contractors. There’s not a government satellite factory somewhere in the desert, they pay companies like Boeing and Honeywell to make them the parts for the satellite, and then SpaceX gets money to launch it.
When the government pays for something, the contractor is legally required to keep their mouth shut about it, hand over the keys, and be available if it breaks. The contractor cannot just decide to let someone else play with the government’s toys, that’s called espionage.
STOMPYI@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ypu sounds like a shit head