Iran. There's ITU complaints and everything. Starlink seems to work in almost every country in Africa regardless of official availability with arrests in Senegal and extralegal action in South Africa and Zimbabwe, Vanuatu Ascension Island, St Helena
I don't trust Elon Musk words, at all. It doesn't mean I think it is wrong, but that it can be right or wrong, and material evidence may point to either direction, but what Elon Musk says is random noise to me. At least when he is talking about his business. He is like a professional poker player, you never know when he is bluffing.
In the case of Starlink, on what grounds does it "breakeven"? It is a department of a private company, there is no way to know. In particular, Starlink is entirely dependent on SpaceX launches. How much does Starlink pays SpaceX for its launches? It is a completely arbitrary value. In reality, the money doesn't leave the company.
For what I know, it may just be a pumping scheme for a future IPO, with the goal of eventually funneling investor money from a public Starlink to a private SpaceX. Or maybe not, Elon Musk is way smarter than me when it comes to business, that's why he is a billionaire and I am not, I can't predict his moves, but I know enough not to trust him.
>In the case of Starlink, on what grounds does it "breakeven"? It is a department of a private company, there is no way to know. In particular, Starlink is entirely dependent on SpaceX launches. How much does Starlink pays SpaceX for its launches? It is a completely arbitrary value. In reality, the money doesn't leave the company.
Well, this is solved by him using cash flow instead of profitability, although I agree everything that elong says should be served with a massive grain of salt
I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.
Probably one of the best uses of taxpayers money. Better than the wars. By the way, Fairchild Semiconductor, the first chip company, the predecessor of Intel was also supported by taxpayers money, because its largest orders came from the Apollo program and the military.
Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government needed launch vehicles, and spacex was the best option. The government wanted to provide satellite internet to the Ukrainian military, and starlink was the best service.
The idea that SpaceX (which actively fought against cost-plus accounting in favor of fixed-cost contracts and has greatly reduced the cost of launch services) is ‘extracting money from American taxpayers’ is laughable. SpaceX is the death knell of the old space industry, whose primary function was delivering recycled tech late and over budget. In the fullness of time it will save the government many tens of billions of dollars—-FAR more than it ekes out in profit from government business. Transferring a single launch from SLS to Starship, for example, could save the US taxpayer a billion dollars while giving SpaceX no more than 5% of that amount in profit.
Don't bother with facts for the elon haters, they are emotionally invested in Elon being an evil billionaire right winger, who is only around because of government tax incentives. Oh and it's his employees that did all the work, he just had money... (why didn't SLS, arianespace and blue origin work then? oh and the N1 russian rocket)
Never mind the hundreds of data points to the contrary, the media now hates Elon, and it's surprising just how effective they've been at turning many people against him.
To me it reeks of a certain lack of self awareness, respect for others and questionable decision making. You can be interesting and edgy without being a total asshole.
I also question his actual interest in sustainability. How exactly does paying $40 billion for Twitter fit into that grand strategy? What about driving a wedge between large groups of people by promoting hate speech helps any positive societal level change? Even if he did, do I want to put that power in one rich man?
I see comment threads about the dude and wonder sometimes where all the hate comes from. People's dissatisfaction with society and injustice and scarcity and all bad things? But then why direct it at this person, who is working to electrify transportation, reduce the cost of space by multiples, make communication globally available, why not some oil billionaire or war profiteer or large scale polluter? Certainly they exist. They must not post jokes on social media.
Like I said before, two things can be true at the same time. I haven't shifted the goalposts here.
You bring up an interesting point: why can't you be just as effective - if not more so - by just doing the things rather than doing the things and shitposting non-sequiturs? By sucking all the oxygen out of the room, you're right, the general discourse is focused on distractions and not the real issues. If, for example, he agrees with you that the real issue is oil companies and climate change, why doesn't he focus his public energies pointing that out???
Nice attempt to strawman my argument. Clearly he has all the rights in the world to express himself. Conversely I have all the rights to express my displeasure with his actions :)
Unfortunately I don't have $40b to throw around to amplify my speech, but that's what you get by being one of the richest people on the planet.
Is he promoting hate speech or just not suppressing it? Who even gets to define hate speech? Often it seems to be speech that aligns with the other teams political agenda. Having a different opinion on something isn’t hate speech even if it’s a very personally held belief. “When does life begin?”, “is sex different than gender?”, “is the Ukraine war righteous, or NATO expansionism?, “should we do everything possible to fight covid, or get back to work?”. Better not fail a purity test.
All cultures have their variant. Its my belief that this primal instinct to consume those who achieve more than average is derived from our ancient history as cannibals.
>it's surprising just how effective they've been at turning many people against him.
He's done plenty of it himself, retweeting nazi shit and great replacement shit and all types of horrible shit he supports on twitter. It takes a real boot licker to not recognize his overt evil he believes politically, and believe it's some media conspiracy. The fact he takes government money isn't a question, whether giving elon that money is a net benefit or detriment is a different question entirely. The boot is so far down your throat you're being as myopic as those you accuse of being myopic.
I'll explain this real slow. The problem with people like elon isn't that they get tax payer money, it's that they act afterwords like they bootstrapped themselves alone in to success and then dodge billions in taxes. Simple enough for you elon simp??
> The fact he takes government money isn't a question
> The problem with people like elon isn't that they get tax payer money, it's that they act afterwords like they bootstrapped themselves alone in to success and then dodge billions in taxes.
Precisely. Elon has stood up and acted like multiple ventures of his either haven't received tax payer funding, or grants, or loans, or subsidies. He and his companies are perfectly entitled to do so. And we are perfectly entitled to call out bullshit when he goes on an interview/Twitter to talk about "without government assistance".
> He's done plenty of it himself, retweeting nazi shit and great replacement shit and all types of horrible shit he supports on twitter.
What "nazi shit" has he posted? When has he posted anything about a global conspiracy to replace white people? What "horrible shit" does he support on twitter? Do you have a handy example of this "overt evil"?
> It takes a real boot licker to... believe it's some media conspiracy.
There is no conspiracy required to generate hatred of someone who has become inconvenient--just a large number of journalists acting on their own desire to take him down a notch. How else do you explain the prevalence of hysterical knuckleheads accusing Elon of insane nonsense (like being "overt[ly] evil)?
Well, gee I don't know, let's start with this, literally just off the top of my head from the past day or two. https://x.com/esqueer_/status/1721235855241547877 but you can look through his likes/follows/rts to see plenty of fucked up stuff.
Following someone on Twitter doesn't mean you support them. It means you want to pay attention to what they say in the future.
If I only followed the people I trust, and ignored the people I dis-trust, I'd never know what the people I dis-trust are up to, and be able to respond in kind.
However, you've made your conclusion, its clear that your prejudice and hatred are all you need.
Yeah cool, except I'm talkin about someone who is asking questions about pedophilia, to give the most generous interpretation of that person, not someone who has some minor debates on budget allocation.
No one said you have to only follow people you like. But following that guy probably says somethin about your character. What? You clearly think nothing so keep sucking him off, good for you lol. I am just not as blind as you.
You are laughably, childishly naive if you think he's following that guy ironically just to "watch out" for his problematic beliefs. It's so comical I have to laugh. "Guys, i follow all these nazis and terrorists to KEEP AN EYE OUT, not because i sympathize with their beliefs!! That would be silly!" Do you hear yourself?? How many stochastic terrorists, white supremacists and pedos do you follow??? lol. "Guys, i followed epstein to his island to keep an eye on him!!" Lmao what an absolute farce.
>I wouldn't be so sure about that. Hate blinds harder than honesty.
I hate things he does, not him. I don't know him. I like other things. But on the whole I think it's pretty evident simply by his twitter what a piece of shit he is. That's not even touching the wealth hoarding or business practices. Simply his politics. I pay for star link, I have commended plenty he's done literally in public on a radio show I run. You're the worshipper who believes one can't point out all flaws in the man without being a "blind hater"
On the other hand, you are stuck on a hate-train which blinds you to the simplicity of the details right in front of you. Literally nothing that you claim is supported in any way, whatsoever, by actual evidence. All you have is conjecture and blather, boosted by an arrogant belief in your own coffeeshop psychology skills - which are very, very faulty.
You've merely brought your hate-train to a station you don't intend to leave.
Where did I say that? I only noted that example would be one of the things he does that inspire dislike independent of some media conspiracy.
If you think following a guy who tweets shit like that says nothin about you good for you, keep sucking elon off, have fun. But not all of us are so blinded by worship.
I think he's evil. That's an opinion. Did you expect a mathematical proof of his character? Did you want me to produce a documentary documenting everything he's done? Are you stupid? Can you read?
In my original comment I asserted he does plenty to inspire dislike without some media conspiracy to foment that disdain. And that I think he's evil/a white supremacist/nazi sympathizer based on his politics. Those are two separate statements you pea brained musk cultist.
How you make the leap from "they absolutely want to exterminate your kind" (the 'kind' being those who are pro-Confederacy) to 'this is white people being replaced' is amazing.
Nothing in Elons' response implies that he sympathizes with the Confederate-loving moron he's replying to. He's merely making the point that 'they' (whoever 'they' are) want to see an end to the kind of people who worship slave owners.
This doublethink is astonishing. Please, seriously reconsider your own prejudice when making such preposterous leaps.
Just cause you're playing glib and acting like you don't understand the rhetoric in that thread doesn't change reality. It's literally verbatim great replacement shit. "They want to exterminate you." The venn diagram between confederates and white supremacists is a circle with a smaller circle in it. Keep playin glib tho I'm sure elon will pay you any time now for all the hard work you do.
There is a big gap between fantasy and reality, and you seem to be stuck in the abyss. "Understand the rhetoric" works in an infinite number of ways - your complete and immutable faith in your own glib hate-train is just one of them.
Tweeting is terrorism? Congratulating someone (tongue-in-cheek) for being featured in a hysterical front-page hit piece is evil? You people crack me up.
What she does is stochastic terrorism. Maybe you should look it up. Here's a definition for you:
Stochastic terrorism refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech
Which is exactly what evil cunts like libs of tik tok does. Demonizing lgbt people and inspiring violence and bomb threats.
You crack me up you boot licking piece of shit, elon isn't going to pay you for simping for him you know?
The only way in which it’s an issue is Musk being a libertarian opposed to government spending. He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. Presumably he believes using taxpayer money to build his own companies is the good kind of capital allocation, but it’s facetious to speak against a thing when you can’t get enough of it for yourself.
>He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money.
1. if this was reversed, wouldn't we expect to see headlines along the lines of "Musk spent millions on lobbying for spending bill that will bring in billions for his companies"? Seems like he's going to get flak either way
2. I don't see the contradiction between advocating against a given policy, but still taking full advantage of it when it passes. Suppose you're against a tax cut bill, but it passes anyways. Are you going to forgo the tax cut and give the extra money to the government?
If he was doing (1) that would preserve his integrity. Sure he’d get flack, but his position would be consistent.
Maybe Tesla had to use the tax money for competitive reasons and under investor pressure, and Musk personally disagrees with the general system of government handouts. Ok I’ll buy that but I haven’t heard such a nuanced take from him.
An NBA coach may not like changes in rules around “traveling” in the past 20 years, but either they embrace the new rules and have their players take the extra step or they just lose to teams that do.
Advocate for the rules you want, but play the game with the rules it actually has.
How is this comparison remotely similar? In the NBA you’re not allowed to break the rules. You’ll be promptly fired. Is the US govt going to shut down Tesla for turning down taxpayer money?
But I get what you’re ultimately saying, which is what I said — it would be a competitive disadvantage to Tesla if it turned down this money and its competitors did not. So it may accept it reluctantly while disagreeing with the overall handout. Again I have not heard that take from Musk. He just rails against the government.
In ratio terms of economic ROI, any of these would be lightyears ahead of Lockheed, Boeing, Blue Origin, Iridium, GM, Ford or a thousand other corps feeding at the trough.
BO has been given billions and hasn’t launched a rat fart.
If a small business installs park benches for government, would you say they'd been "extracting money from the American taxpayer" with no evidence they're profiteering?
Not every government vendor is fleecing them, and your outrage is better projected at consultants, weapons manufacturers and intelligence contractors all of whom scam the government out of trillions.
The entire US Navy is a massive subsidy for the petroleum industry and has been for a century.
And here we are probably bitching about getting government contracts for space launches when SpaceX is the one that's dropping the fundamental economics of orbital lifting possibly by one to two decimal points.
The United launch alliance gains far more benefits from aggressive government contracts and sponsorship than SpaceX does.
Ask for the other common source about this complaint, the fact that Tesla gets some large amounts of sponsorship money from cafe gas efficiency credits it gets paid for by other companies, well that is regulation that is functioning as designed.
I get that musk is stupid and says mean things, is arrogant, sexual harasses women, and still I would likely put 100 CEOs above him for bad people, and maybe 1000. It's just that you're typical. Horrible CEO has learned to STFU.
There are many timelines without spacex where something like starlink isn’t achieved for many more decades, possibly centuries. Very few thought this was possible.
Given it's already been done before by Iridium [0], it's hard to see how it would take centuries for a more efficient version of the same thing to emerge if Spacex was not around. Especially given the general technology progress since Iridium initially launched.
Starlink offers highspeed (actually, not marketing gibberish), low latency internet around the world at a price people can actually afford and without unreasonable datacaps. This is possible because they are mass producing phased array antennas, something that was out of reach of common affordability before Starlink.
Starlink is comparable to Iridium like dial-up internet is comparable to fiber. Just go to Iridium's website and try to figure out what they actually sell to anyone who doesn't have elite pockets.
something that was out of reach of common affordability before Starlink.
True, but Starlink isn't what made phased array antennas affordable. The affordability of phased array antennas is what made Starlink financially feasible.
When the Iridium constellations were launched in the 1990s, the commercial phased array antennas in use today had not yet been invented. When the second-generation satellites were designed in the 2010s, phase array antennas were not yet commercially available, and did not become commercially available until around the same time that the 2nd-gen satellites were launched.
I wonder about a timeline where man is at peace, and develops space travel without the military technology of rockets.
JP Aerospace was doing some cool things with Airships to Orbit.(I know that sounds impossible. Check their out-of-date web site for details.)
https://www.jpaerospace.com/
Some of my students flew sub-orbital space probes with them.
But why do you even think this is so important -- it achieves nothing we don't already have terrestrially and just pollutes the sky visually (causing problems with ground based telescopes) and pollutes the atmosphere we actually breathe:
>
Shipping tracking to reduce black market exchanges and human/drug trafficking
I'm sorry-- what? Surely a totally global satellite network available in remote regions such as mountains and jungles would just be a force multiplier for these kinds of activities.
> Also, without starlink Ukraine has said they would have been defeated quite quickly. (Ie fighting without a gun).
Ukraine uses starlink for live artillery correction. The drone operators don't just send coordinates. They send live video. The people firing artillery can see if they hit things live
Ah so you can attach a cable to a plane? Or a ship? If it achieves nothing, why is there global demand?
The simple fact it, it is superior in many ways for a huge number of application and just denying the is never work.
As for the 'visual pollution' its mostly just not true. For the waste majority of humans its invisible basically always outside of a few situations.
For most terrestrial telescopes it doesn't really matter much. Broad visual surveying telescopes take a slight hit but its not like they will be no longer working. Many of the issues SpaceX has addressed and made the problem way less impactful.
Some very sensitive radio telescopes are also slightly effect and having some regulation like we do on earth for electronic devices would make sense.
The idea that its some horrible thing just doesn't hold up. The benefits outweigh the cost by a gigantic amount. Starlink is used to give good internet to native Americans who life away from infrastructure. The worth of these things are far, far, far higher then the few 10s of millions we lose in observatory performance.
I personally have good internet access because of Starlink. Before that I had very poor options. Living outside of a metro area is a nightmare for internet access. People living in cities take it for granted but it's a complete game changer for my entire neighborhood. Big corps treated us like shit and wanted exorbitant amounts of money to run cables to us.
How is providing access to the internet not an awesome thing for society?
There are millions of people in my same situation for which this system is doing good.
Also airplanes and light from cities pollute the sky infinitely more than these satellites do.
>it a achieves nothing we don't already have terrestrially
Sorry, but this is a very first world, urban perspective. Please have a little empathy. I live in the US and have only one choice for internet from home and it is lousy. Starlink has been a dramatic change for us. This is the situation for many, many people in the US and around the world.
Starlink is absolutely offering something that is NOT available terrestrially.
No it's not at all a first world perspective. I live in the so called developing nations. Aside from some people who might live in rural areas in large countries that are hard to cover georgraphically -- and these people probably could not afford Star Link anyways -- 4G and soon to be 5G is ubiquitous. There is no need for StarLink generally.
I'm from said area you claim to be from. If you use data as much as power users in a month you might well save money on starlink.
There's people importing dishes to use in cities in non covered countries today because of the condition of local networks in cities and the per bit costs
Check the steam download stats for top ISP's. It might surprise you the performance Delta with alternatives.
Telcos are complaining about roll out and spectrum costs. Some of them couldn't survive the 4G transition
I have no cell phone coverage at home, let alone 4G or 5G. I am 10 miles from the center of a town with a population of about 80,000. Most people just don't get how bad internet access is in many areas.
> Aside from some people who might live in rural areas in large countries that are hard to cover georgraphically
> There is no need for StarLink generally.
You point out that there is a market for StarLink and then you say it isn't needed. I'm confused. At any rate, no point in arguing about it. If there is no need they will lose a lot of money. If there is a need, they will make a lot of money. Time will tell.
I hope so. As much as I don't really care for that man, Starlink has been an absolute gamechanger. It's much faster & more stable than anything including 3/4/5g in my region. It hasn't gone down even once on my roof even in really bad weather. Allows me to live in nature comfortably.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 145 ms ] threadAs long as authoritarian governments predictably shut off all internet to their extremely ironic ghettos
In the case of Starlink, on what grounds does it "breakeven"? It is a department of a private company, there is no way to know. In particular, Starlink is entirely dependent on SpaceX launches. How much does Starlink pays SpaceX for its launches? It is a completely arbitrary value. In reality, the money doesn't leave the company.
For what I know, it may just be a pumping scheme for a future IPO, with the goal of eventually funneling investor money from a public Starlink to a private SpaceX. Or maybe not, Elon Musk is way smarter than me when it comes to business, that's why he is a billionaire and I am not, I can't predict his moves, but I know enough not to trust him.
Well, this is solved by him using cash flow instead of profitability, although I agree everything that elong says should be served with a massive grain of salt
[1] https://apnews.com/article/ca-state-wire-technology-lawsuits...
[2] https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...
https://archive.ph/HRuyf
Basically Starlink revenue is projected to exceed launch revenue next year to become SpaceX’s largest revenue source
Never mind the hundreds of data points to the contrary, the media now hates Elon, and it's surprising just how effective they've been at turning many people against him.
Does anyone care beyond internet drama points?
The man's efforts to engineer societal-level technological change toward sustainability seem to matter more in my estimation.
To me it reeks of a certain lack of self awareness, respect for others and questionable decision making. You can be interesting and edgy without being a total asshole.
I also question his actual interest in sustainability. How exactly does paying $40 billion for Twitter fit into that grand strategy? What about driving a wedge between large groups of people by promoting hate speech helps any positive societal level change? Even if he did, do I want to put that power in one rich man?
People are allowed to express themselves?
You bring up an interesting point: why can't you be just as effective - if not more so - by just doing the things rather than doing the things and shitposting non-sequiturs? By sucking all the oxygen out of the room, you're right, the general discourse is focused on distractions and not the real issues. If, for example, he agrees with you that the real issue is oil companies and climate change, why doesn't he focus his public energies pointing that out???
Medice, cura te ipsum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
Unfortunately I don't have $40b to throw around to amplify my speech, but that's what you get by being one of the richest people on the planet.
Unfortunately?
Musk was just as effective on twitter before he owned it. Owning it didn't have much to do with his own communication.
Twitter prior to Musk was full of hate speech too. You just had to be in the target group to understand that.
It shouldn't be too much of a shock, alas, except they don't teach the realities of collective meta-cannibalism much in schools these days.
He's done plenty of it himself, retweeting nazi shit and great replacement shit and all types of horrible shit he supports on twitter. It takes a real boot licker to not recognize his overt evil he believes politically, and believe it's some media conspiracy. The fact he takes government money isn't a question, whether giving elon that money is a net benefit or detriment is a different question entirely. The boot is so far down your throat you're being as myopic as those you accuse of being myopic.
I'll explain this real slow. The problem with people like elon isn't that they get tax payer money, it's that they act afterwords like they bootstrapped themselves alone in to success and then dodge billions in taxes. Simple enough for you elon simp??
> The problem with people like elon isn't that they get tax payer money, it's that they act afterwords like they bootstrapped themselves alone in to success and then dodge billions in taxes.
Precisely. Elon has stood up and acted like multiple ventures of his either haven't received tax payer funding, or grants, or loans, or subsidies. He and his companies are perfectly entitled to do so. And we are perfectly entitled to call out bullshit when he goes on an interview/Twitter to talk about "without government assistance".
What "nazi shit" has he posted? When has he posted anything about a global conspiracy to replace white people? What "horrible shit" does he support on twitter? Do you have a handy example of this "overt evil"?
> It takes a real boot licker to... believe it's some media conspiracy.
There is no conspiracy required to generate hatred of someone who has become inconvenient--just a large number of journalists acting on their own desire to take him down a notch. How else do you explain the prevalence of hysterical knuckleheads accusing Elon of insane nonsense (like being "overt[ly] evil)?
If I only followed the people I trust, and ignored the people I dis-trust, I'd never know what the people I dis-trust are up to, and be able to respond in kind.
However, you've made your conclusion, its clear that your prejudice and hatred are all you need.
No one said you have to only follow people you like. But following that guy probably says somethin about your character. What? You clearly think nothing so keep sucking him off, good for you lol. I am just not as blind as you.
Yeah, it means you want to keep an eye on someone who you may not think is necessarily a positive influence in the world. So?
> I am just not as blind as you.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Hate blinds harder than honesty.
I hate things he does, not him. I don't know him. I like other things. But on the whole I think it's pretty evident simply by his twitter what a piece of shit he is. That's not even touching the wealth hoarding or business practices. Simply his politics. I pay for star link, I have commended plenty he's done literally in public on a radio show I run. You're the worshipper who believes one can't point out all flaws in the man without being a "blind hater"
You've merely brought your hate-train to a station you don't intend to leave.
Following an edgelord makes you a nazi?
If you think following a guy who tweets shit like that says nothin about you good for you, keep sucking elon off, have fun. But not all of us are so blinded by worship.
> If you think following a guy who tweets shit like that says nothin about you good for you.
I go outside, so I’m perfectly aware that it means nothing at all.
>keep sucking elon off, have fun. But not all of us are so blinded by worship.
It’s past your bedtime. Go back to reddit already.
In my original comment I asserted he does plenty to inspire dislike without some media conspiracy to foment that disdain. And that I think he's evil/a white supremacist/nazi sympathizer based on his politics. Those are two separate statements you pea brained musk cultist.
I don't care enough to dig deeper but you have to be blind or not on twitter to see the ripple of his dog shit ideology.
No one sensible gives a fuck about anything but the dodged taxes and pro terrorist shit from jan six to libs of tik tok. He deserves to be hated.
Nothing in Elons' response implies that he sympathizes with the Confederate-loving moron he's replying to. He's merely making the point that 'they' (whoever 'they' are) want to see an end to the kind of people who worship slave owners.
This doublethink is astonishing. Please, seriously reconsider your own prejudice when making such preposterous leaps.
Don't be a boot lick. Elon is evil.
Tweeting is terrorism? Congratulating someone (tongue-in-cheek) for being featured in a hysterical front-page hit piece is evil? You people crack me up.
Which is exactly what evil cunts like libs of tik tok does. Demonizing lgbt people and inspiring violence and bomb threats.
You crack me up you boot licking piece of shit, elon isn't going to pay you for simping for him you know?
1. if this was reversed, wouldn't we expect to see headlines along the lines of "Musk spent millions on lobbying for spending bill that will bring in billions for his companies"? Seems like he's going to get flak either way
2. I don't see the contradiction between advocating against a given policy, but still taking full advantage of it when it passes. Suppose you're against a tax cut bill, but it passes anyways. Are you going to forgo the tax cut and give the extra money to the government?
Maybe Tesla had to use the tax money for competitive reasons and under investor pressure, and Musk personally disagrees with the general system of government handouts. Ok I’ll buy that but I haven’t heard such a nuanced take from him.
An NBA coach may not like changes in rules around “traveling” in the past 20 years, but either they embrace the new rules and have their players take the extra step or they just lose to teams that do.
Advocate for the rules you want, but play the game with the rules it actually has.
Complaints of the following form are generally not reasonable:
“You advocated for A, but the actual rules are still B. How dare you play as if the rules are B and not A!!?”
But I get what you’re ultimately saying, which is what I said — it would be a competitive disadvantage to Tesla if it turned down this money and its competitors did not. So it may accept it reluctantly while disagreeing with the overall handout. Again I have not heard that take from Musk. He just rails against the government.
BO has been given billions and hasn’t launched a rat fart.
Not every government vendor is fleecing them, and your outrage is better projected at consultants, weapons manufacturers and intelligence contractors all of whom scam the government out of trillions.
And here we are probably bitching about getting government contracts for space launches when SpaceX is the one that's dropping the fundamental economics of orbital lifting possibly by one to two decimal points.
The United launch alliance gains far more benefits from aggressive government contracts and sponsorship than SpaceX does.
Ask for the other common source about this complaint, the fact that Tesla gets some large amounts of sponsorship money from cafe gas efficiency credits it gets paid for by other companies, well that is regulation that is functioning as designed.
I get that musk is stupid and says mean things, is arrogant, sexual harasses women, and still I would likely put 100 CEOs above him for bad people, and maybe 1000. It's just that you're typical. Horrible CEO has learned to STFU.
Meanwhile Xfinity took government money and did fuck all with it. Added some more fees, poisoned DNS, laughed all the way to the bank.
Plus, while they were selling terminals at a loss, they are close to even now and some of the more fancy terminals are likely making some money.
So its really not that crazy.
That's not what cashflow positives means.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...
Starlink offers highspeed (actually, not marketing gibberish), low latency internet around the world at a price people can actually afford and without unreasonable datacaps. This is possible because they are mass producing phased array antennas, something that was out of reach of common affordability before Starlink.
Starlink is comparable to Iridium like dial-up internet is comparable to fiber. Just go to Iridium's website and try to figure out what they actually sell to anyone who doesn't have elite pockets.
You align the element order to what is actually being compared. Just pointing that out for any other non-native English speakers.
True, but Starlink isn't what made phased array antennas affordable. The affordability of phased array antennas is what made Starlink financially feasible.
When the Iridium constellations were launched in the 1990s, the commercial phased array antennas in use today had not yet been invented. When the second-generation satellites were designed in the 2010s, phase array antennas were not yet commercially available, and did not become commercially available until around the same time that the 2nd-gen satellites were launched.
SpaceX was willing to sink over 3 billion into phased array r&d to make it happen.
Also tech from Broadcom and ST Micro
Wait what? Where's your source for that? Because phased array antennas were used on lots of 4G networks and are one of the cornerstones of 5G.
There where some PAA in deployment when I was in college almost two decades ago.
You should check out the proposed pricing for Starlink's maritime and aviation offerings...
Marine is a $10K one-time fee plus $5K/month.
Aviation, $150K plus $25K/month.
I'm sure you can get starlink at sea for around $1k per month
JP Aerospace was doing some cool things with Airships to Orbit.(I know that sounds impossible. Check their out-of-date web site for details.) https://www.jpaerospace.com/
Some of my students flew sub-orbital space probes with them.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/11/05/0330226/spacecra...
I can't see any upsides to this venture.
Also, without starlink Ukraine has said they would have been defeated quite quickly. (Ie fighting without a gun).
There are many upsides.
I'm sorry-- what? Surely a totally global satellite network available in remote regions such as mountains and jungles would just be a force multiplier for these kinds of activities.
> Also, without starlink Ukraine has said they would have been defeated quite quickly. (Ie fighting without a gun).
What? :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/07/ukraine...
> There are many upsides
Please let us know when you've found some.
The simple fact it, it is superior in many ways for a huge number of application and just denying the is never work.
As for the 'visual pollution' its mostly just not true. For the waste majority of humans its invisible basically always outside of a few situations.
For most terrestrial telescopes it doesn't really matter much. Broad visual surveying telescopes take a slight hit but its not like they will be no longer working. Many of the issues SpaceX has addressed and made the problem way less impactful.
Some very sensitive radio telescopes are also slightly effect and having some regulation like we do on earth for electronic devices would make sense.
The idea that its some horrible thing just doesn't hold up. The benefits outweigh the cost by a gigantic amount. Starlink is used to give good internet to native Americans who life away from infrastructure. The worth of these things are far, far, far higher then the few 10s of millions we lose in observatory performance.
How is providing access to the internet not an awesome thing for society?
There are millions of people in my same situation for which this system is doing good.
Also airplanes and light from cities pollute the sky infinitely more than these satellites do.
Sorry, but this is a very first world, urban perspective. Please have a little empathy. I live in the US and have only one choice for internet from home and it is lousy. Starlink has been a dramatic change for us. This is the situation for many, many people in the US and around the world.
Starlink is absolutely offering something that is NOT available terrestrially.
There's people importing dishes to use in cities in non covered countries today because of the condition of local networks in cities and the per bit costs
Check the steam download stats for top ISP's. It might surprise you the performance Delta with alternatives.
Telcos are complaining about roll out and spectrum costs. Some of them couldn't survive the 4G transition
The market can prove me wrong! :)
> Aside from some people who might live in rural areas in large countries that are hard to cover georgraphically
> There is no need for StarLink generally.
You point out that there is a market for StarLink and then you say it isn't needed. I'm confused. At any rate, no point in arguing about it. If there is no need they will lose a lot of money. If there is a need, they will make a lot of money. Time will tell.