To be fair, putting satellites in space is very expensive so the chances of it not being owned by some billionaire asshole is zero. But some billionaire assholes are better than others.
The upside of Starlink is it’s not easily blockable by a terrestrial nation state; the downside of Starlink is it’s easily blockable by a single fickle trillionaire. That first problem’s been a bear to work around for the entire Internet era, that second one’s gonna be the challenge going forward.
Starlink currently needs an uplink to the satellites from somewhere reasonably near where it is providing service. Given a reasonably large country, if that country does not agree to host any uplink locations then there will be no Starlink service.
There is no way nationalized SpaceX or Starlink wouldn't immediately get it's budget cut to nothing. Then a few years/decades later maybe the government would host a commercial LEO satellite program to try to revive its fledgling capabilities.
Maybe? But it doesn't really matter. SpaceX and Starlink only work because they keep pouring huge amounts of capital into it. Once that becomes a budget item to fight over then it gets stuck in a deathspiral of no investment, bad service, and running at a deficit.
People keep saying this, how do you guarantee that Starlink doesn't turn to crap after it is nationalized? No one who calls for nationalization ever has an answer to this.
Frankly, there is the argument that all of this tech and optimization was there for others to develop but no one cared that much and its only now after you and others realize how good it is that you want to just go in and take it "because its so vital to national security".
Furthermore why can't someone just copy them? Drop a ton of money on poaching their engineers and just copy whatever the government needs?
Clearly leadership at SpaceX including Musk are a driving force behind this being so good...just look at the trash all the other companies are peddling. The magic might just go away if its nationalized and if it does then you probably can't just go "oh sorry bro heres your company back pls give us more magic".
> how do you guarantee that Starlink doesn't turn to crap after it is nationalized
How do you guarantee that Starlink doesn't turn to crap if you don't nationalize it?
Its a silly question. Governments have successfully operated various telecommunication systems for a long time.
Lots of modern telecommunications and sat tech comes out of the government.
But this will depend on each countries experience. I think one can make a solid argument that the denationalization of telco systems in the 90s was a mistake.
Same goes for the breakup of AT&T. The better option would have been to just nationalize the baby bells. And make AT&T focus on long distance competition and the technology. Maybe also nationalize Bell Labs and keep it operating financed from a the income of the Baby Bells.
Because what actually happened is that these Baby Bells simply got massive monopolies, made gigantic profits and were then able to do lots of other infrastructure plays and then mostly glob back together.
> take it "because its so vital to national security".
I think for that you don't need to take it. If you take (forced sale) it, it would be because you want to provide universal access subsidized without lining Musk pockets even more. But you would need a real long term vision for this to be worth it.
> Furthermore why can't someone just copy them? Drop a ton of money on poaching their engineers and just copy whatever the government needs?
Because the system is already built and working, why spend the capital on building the same thing again.
For me some kind of open access law would make more then nationalization. But the suggestion to nationalize isn't crazy.
I just can’t fathom the logic here. You say that you don’t want to line Musk’s pockets, but seizing SpaceX/Starlink would cost a trillion dollars or more and all of that money would go to Elon Musk! The government would have to issue a trillion dollars of bonds, agreeing to pay interest on them for decades, and then hand all of the money over to Elon Musk who then doesn’t have to pay that interest.
You’re deluding yourself to think that it’s even feasible. And it’s also a bad idea just on general principles.
I agree that the breakup of AT&T was a mistake though.
if a government just seizes a multi trillion corporation, that government has just signed its economic death warrant. no one will ever trust it again and everyone will start examining jumping ship options.
it will actually lose more economic value the very next day than the value of the corporation it seized. probably in just the bond market alone.
and this even ignores the court challenges that will follow and likely undo the action but not the damage.
I call it the toaster fucker problem. Man wakes up in 1980, tells his friends “I want to fuck a toaster” Friends quite rightly berate and laugh at him, guy deals with it, maybe gets some therapy and goes on a bit better adjusted.
Guy in 2021 tells his friends that he wants to fuck a toaster, gets laughed at, immediately jumps on facebook and finds “Toaster Fucker Support group” where he reads that he’s actually oppressed and he needs to cut out everyone around him and should only listen to his fellow toaster fuckers.
The argument is that fundamental infrastructure has long run returns and should be controlled by the government. Not sure why this is hard to understand.
And the government should have that assets so it can use it how it wants, subsidise it, deploy it for military reasons, restrict it and soo n.
Yes, Musk would make a lot of money in a one time payment, but he would lose control over the asset and not continue to profit of new subsidies and other ways the government might want to use it.
And it wouldn't cost 'a trillion'.
> agreeing to pay interest on them for decades
Starlink returns are higher then the interest on bonds.
So you are essentially returning future profits to the government.
The government can raise the capital and buy the assets, just like google or amazon could. The logic is the exact same.
> Elon Musk who then doesn’t have to pay that interest.
Not sure what you are talking about.
Musk would have to pay income and capital gains tax, so government would get it pretty cheap.
> You’re deluding yourself to think that it’s even feasible.
Government have nationalised much bigger infrastructure before. Even the US government let alone many others.
Don’t move the goalposts. You said that you would avoid lining Elon Musk’s pockets, which is impossible. None of the rest of that is right either.
For one thing, the price of a stock accounts for future earnings. Buyouts only work if you have a plan that will let you use the company’s assets to earn a higher rate of return than the company’s current owners. You don’t have such a plan, and the government could never execute it even if one were found.
The trillions that you would spend buying SpaceX represent the next several decades of profits that SpaceX could make, all delivered as a lump sum. Elon would just take that money and found SpaceY, but probably not in the US, and then spend the next two decades out–competing SpaceX because he has better capitalization. Because you gave him a trillion dollars in one lump sum.
In the long term by subsidising his companies. That was implied, but whatever.
> Buyouts only work if you have a plan that will let you use the company’s assets
Governments can have 100 year infrastructure visions.
You are obsessed with specific return rates, as a government the goal isn't to earn a return but use the infrastructure for maximum benefit of the society.
Having a global data and soon mobile data infrastructure around the whole world is worth a lot.
SpaceX doesn’t get subsidies. NASA buys services from them, and so does the DoD (Starshield, launch services). Twenty years ago, back in the early days of the Commercial Crew program, they did get almost billion dollars from NASA as a grant. Since then it’s all been contracts for services provided. Incidentally, Boeing/ULA got even more billions from the same program and has very little to show for it.
> Governments can have 100 year infrastructure visions.
This is wrong. The government could have maintained the telephone network for a century, but it can never innovate. It never would have invented cell phones. Just compare SpaceX to NASA if you want a relevant example. SpaceX has had a consistent vision for the last 25 years: lower the cost of access to space. In that time NASA has had their goal redefined by every single president that got elected. NASA’s vision never lasts longer than 8 years. NASA has thrown away a huge amount of work over the years simply because each president did not want his predecessor to get credit for anything. The only reason Nixon didn’t cancel the Moon landings is because Kennedy was assassinated.
If you want long–term thinking then you must either have a single person in charge for the whole term, or you must deliberately build an institution dedicated to the mission, such as the Catholic Church. Elected governments are the worst at this simply because of their regular turnover, and we don’t want to try a dictatorship. A corporation can have that kind of long–term leadership. Not all of them do, but it is at least possible.
Jesus, I talking about potential future subsidies IF government wants to use Starlink like fundamental infrastructure. Why is this so hard to understand.
> This is wrong. The government could have maintained the telephone network for a century, but it can never innovate.
Blbalbla not even wroth arguing with. Learn some history.
The problem is it's already crap. The DoD and all the civil operators are currently freaking the fuck out because Elon in his infinite wisdom is prematurely ending production of the proven and human rated F9 in favor of the unproven starship.
In addition to this he's literally exercising his own foreign policy goals over those of the US. I normally wouldn't have an issue with this if he was actually standing up for something reasonable instead of nazi shit but the company has already been built entirely off of government dollars. If Lockheed Martin came along and said they wouldn't build F-35s for someone Congress offered them to everyone would absolutely lose their minds but it's Elon so apparently this is fine.
I urge you to think through the consequences of what you are complaining about.
Do you think that Elon should have unilateral, unchecked ability to export military weapons communications systems? Even to Ukraine? I expect the answer to that is no, for you and most people.
But all SpaceX has done is enforce the terms of Starlink licensing. Terms that were there from the beginning that disallowed them from using it for weapons, and ones that are required by ITAR.
Ukrainians are of course very clever and are fighting for their country, and found workarounds to the limits that SpaceX put in. SpaceX then found how to block those. I don't begrudge the Ukrainians this, but at the same time SpaceX cannot allow their civilian network to be used for military purposes. It would be blatantly illegal for SpaceX not to block these uses when possible.
If you think Elon should not be allowed to make these decisions, then you should support precisely what they've done: unconditionally disallow any non-civilian use of Starlink. The military can use Starshield, which is under control of the military and for which the commander in chief decides the rules.
I actually think the bias might run in the other direction - modern western life is historically anomalous in its lack of explicitly acknowledged rituals. We’re really one of the only intellectual traditions that abjures regular recognition of the meaning and significance of our actions and intents - for most other cultures at most other times, the notion of regularly setting aside time to acknowledge the broader context in which one is operating and consider how one intended to proceed would’ve been considered the wise way to live.
Yeah, I’m not mad at this. There’s a lot around SpaceX that makes it hard to really see what an offering from them is*, but this actually looks legitimately interesting - a way to run medium-to-long-term microgravity experiments with a proper data uplink and power structure could be a real boon for a lot of interesting science. Turning microgravity into a purchasable commodity, instead of something you need a specialized project for, is genuinely one of those “human capacity building” things.
* (definitely feel free to fill in the seventy volumes of dialogue I left out of this comment in the replies, though)
> There’s a lot around SpaceX that makes it hard to really see what an offering from them is*
> * (definitely feel free to fill in the seventy volumes of dialogue I left out of this comment in the replies,
Ok, I will. You're alluding to two separate problems which are both pet peeves of mine. The less controversial one is that product marketing/communication is becoming all marketing and little communication. Why do landing pages, press releases and ads created by teams of highly paid professionals fail to clearly convey what something actually is (and is not) and why I should care? (although this case is an exception since the page does make what it is and does pretty clear.)
The second problem is it's getting damn near impossible to discuss any aspect of a high profile company, product or even technology without the politics, personalities, or social impacts related to it swallowing everything. At minimum it's now normal, if not expected, to preface any discussion by signaling your position on {related controversy} and it's accepted for people to intentionally divert the discussion off-topic. Before the last decade, normal people would think always doing that was weird. And to be clear, I think Musk's mis-adventures into politics and social media are bizarre and wrong. Yet I can discuss products and technologies related to his companies without bringing that up.
Here's an example avoiding current 'triggers': in a discussion on foreign policy in the 80s or 90, you could observe ex-president Richard Nixon's China foreign policy was bold and successful - some might agree and others disagree - but no one would feel the urgent need to signal their views on Watergate or the fact Nixon was universally considered by far the worst U.S. president ever (as well as a morally reprehensible toxic personality). Enlightened people could handle discussing different aspects of things without fearing that NOT mentioning the 'obviously problematic' adjacent aspect might somehow be taken as personally endorsing it.
> Enlightened people could handle discussing different aspects of things without fearing that NOT mentioning the 'obviously problematic' adjacent aspect might somehow be taken as personally endorsing it.
My granddad was in the military in WWII and would always mention how strange it felt to have a Toyota now and that it and VW were very frowned on by people in the war for a long time. Probably same would be felt about Tesla the nazi salute and otherwise support even back in the 80s.
The strangeness your grandad felt was from seeing products from Enemy Countries parked in his neighbor's driveway, unrelated to Volkswagen or Toyota as companies or the behavior of their founders. I think that's understandable. His generation witnessed and survived fighting the largest World War in human history. A conflict which divided actual civilizations in an existential battle for survival, during which 70M-85M people died - 3 to 4% of all humans on the planet.
That's not an example which counters my point, in fact, it makes the point perfectly. Which is: it isn't appropriate or normal when people hyper-overreact to something as inconsequential as an erratically eccentric Tech Bro's juvenile trolling (or thoughtlessly stupid unplanned gaffe, depending on who you believe) at a level similar to, as you've pointed out, the reaction of a traumatized survivor of the biggest, most consequential and horrible single event in all of human history - people who watched their friends and families die violent, brutal deaths, and in many cases witnessed systematic genocide against their entire race at scales beyond imagining. That's the level at which some people now react to stupid, wrong, offensive words and gestures by fucking morons and trolls on Twitter and TikTok. Thank you. That's actually a much better example of my point.
I think Elon is a complete nutjob but, seriously, these are NOT remotely the same level or scope. Your granddad was a literal, fucking hero - and obviously made of much sterner stuff than (some) people today. Your grandad mentioned seeing Enemy Vehicles around town was "strange." He didn't hold candlelight vigils in front of Volkswagen and Toyota dealers, he didn't harangue VW owners in the supermarket parking lot, or need to social signal about it every, single time those countries, companies or cars were mentioned.
If he had protested and harangued, I'd understand that level of reaction and constant obsession. War zone PTSD is terrible and never goes away. Oh, and tens of millions died in, arguably, the biggest, worst thing... ever? Yeah, I'm okay if Gramps over-reacts a little. I'd thank him for his service, buy him a beer and listen to his stories from "The War." But apparently your granddad didn't think over-reacting, constantly being 'triggered' and making a fuss over THAT would be appropriate - it just felt 'strange'. My dad lied about his age to enlist at 17. The war left him physically and emotionally scarred for life. But he never made a big deal about it either.
No, he had a Toyota, and talked about how unimaginable it was for him earlier. If the head of Toyota had been whipping out Nazi salutes he probably would have still kept it unimaginable.
lmao this is in no way similar. Someone being triggered at the thought of a man being Republican is not the same as feeling weird seeing the companies that made machines that blew apart your friends advertised in the neighbors’ driveways.
I think people are less worried that he is a Republican and more of where he is taking the Republicans. One Nazi salute to the crowd at the inauguration, then he turns around to face Trump and look him in the eyes and gives another Nazi salute.
Regardless of if a jewish civil rights organization is fine with his two straight arm salutes from the chest at someone else's presidential inauguration, I and everyone else can (and should!) still have our own opinions on it and the following double down in response to the criticism.
To make your implications explicit:
Do you agree with the anti defamation league position you're claiming that that wasnt a nazi salute?
Do you think it was anything like one? Was it enough to be in bad taste and worth assuring people it was not afterward? If it was you would you have tried to clear up the misunderstanding after?
Do you think the person you posted this in reply to should change their mind about musk and his actions here because they are genuinely misunderstanding a good faith situation?
> The second problem is it's getting damn near impossible to discuss any aspect of a high profile company, product or even technology without the politics, personalities, or social impacts related to it swallowing everything.
I don't know what you think is supposed to happen after Citizens United v FEC. Corporate money is protected speech. Therefore doing business with a given corporation is inherently a political act. If you don't like it, campaign to overturn that decision, but bitching at the people who are correctly reacting to changes in the political system is not going to accomplish anything, ever.
Thanks, and I’ll just say in advance that I’m thrilled that whoever’s gonna decide to take the other side of this debate’s gonna go ahead and do that, and if you’re the one who decides to continue with this, well hey, I appreciate you doing that, too.
By hiring other people who actually know what they’re doing - product managers, marketers, designers, etc - and then, here’s the crucial part: listening to them. There are a whole set of people who are _not_ technologists, who do things that are _not_ building shiny widgets, and who have skills that are useful nonetheless and that we cannot trivially replicate just by thinking about it a lot.
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