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> The way I see it, this is a feature, not a bug. The energy costs of trying to build a civilization like ours on trustless systems would be prohibitive (and no

> The way I see it, this is a feature, not a bug. The energy costs of trying to build a civilization like ours on trustless systems would be prohibitive (and no one would be happy about the amount of bureaucracy it would involve). Oh, absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in a trust-based cooperative world. I mean more to emphasize that we aren't really doing any analysis on the risk debt we are accumulating through profit driven global development. Without putting some time and thought into it, we can't make decisions about which risks are acceptable to keep long term and which ones need to be revisited. > Trust is not only vital to the continuous existence of our civilization, it's also a very powerful tool for advancing it. That's why the growing lack of trust of the general population worries me. The rule of law works only as long as most people trust in its implementation. Again, I agree, although I don't how you'd go about justly identifying such behavior, let alone enforcing and punishing it fairly. > What about the Internet? ;). GPS is a special case because of how expensive geosynchronous access is and how few the points of failure are. The US could just turn off the spigot or Russia/China could shoot down the satellites - the GPS signal they send out is basically a giant homing beacon so it's not as difficult as shooting down spy satellites - and that's that. The tech for laying fiber and connecting to the rest of the world is far cheaper and more accessible making it much harder to disconnect an adversary completely. It's easier to trust a system built to be decentralized instead of dependent on a single constellation.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> Again, I agree, although I don't how you'd go about justly identifying such behavior, let alone enforcing and punishing it fairly. It's a difficult problem and I'm not sure what even approaches a good - and stable over time - solution; naïve approaches would quickly degenerate into totalitarianism... > GPS is a special case because of how expensive geosynchronous access is and how few the points of failure are. Fair enough :). I was just addressing the "created by and for the US armed forces" angle. Satellites are fragile, but they're also very expensive to shoot down. So I think GNSS systems are pretty safe, as points of failure go. Random rogue actors won't be able to afford destroying them, and if anti-satellite missiles start flying, we'll have much bigger problems than lack of satellite navigation systems.
themeiguoren 8y ago
It should be noted that you don’t need satellites in GSO to triangulate signals between satellites and the ground. It’s not a much more difficult technical problem to have a table of the full ephemeris data for a bunch of satellites in lower orbit, and use that information in GPS receivers. It’s just that our current chips wouldn’t be compatible with receiving data such a system. IMO the Kessler Syndrome is overblown as a risk. Most of our space infrastructure would go to hell in such a scenario, but it’s not an existential threat like it’s often made out to be.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > IMO the Kessler Syndrome is overblown as a risk. Most of our space infrastructure would go to hell in such a scenario, but it’s not an existential threat like it’s often made out to be. It's not a threat to existence of life (or civilization) - though losing satellites would have severe economical and geopolitical consequences. GNSS systems are one thing, but then there are also weather satellites, climate observatories, satellite comms, emergency beacon tracking and spy satellites. The main worry here is that a full-blown case of Kessler syndrome would simply lock us out of space access for couple decades or centuries, depending on the severity of it. You could forget about satellites. Space probes might work if launched straight into some transfer orbit. Manned missions would be most likely deemed too dangerous.
  - themeiguoren 8y ago
    Existential was the wrong word to use. What I mean is geared towards your second paragraph - that we won’t be locked out of space. Our current systems are in a pretty narrow range of ideal orbits which would get cluttered up. But there’s a lot of room in sub-optimal orbits that would still be clear, and can still be used for everything we do today. Just at a little higher technical cost.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> Again, I agree, although I don't how you'd go about justly identifying such behavior, let alone enforcing and punishing it fairly. It's a difficult problem and I'm not sure what even approaches a good - and stable over time - solution; naïve approaches would quickly degenerate into totalitarianism... > GPS is a special case because of how expensive geosynchronous access is and how few the points of failure are. Fair enough :). I was just addressing the "created by and for the US armed forces" angle. Satellites are fragile, but they're also very expensive to shoot down. So I think GNSS systems are pretty safe, as points of failure go. Random rogue actors won't be able to afford destroying them, and if anti-satellite missiles start flying, we'll have much bigger problems than lack of satellite navigation systems.

themeiguoren 8y ago

It should be noted that you don’t need satellites in GSO to triangulate signals between satellites and the ground. It’s not a much more difficult technical problem to have a table of the full ephemeris data for a bunch of satellites in lower orbit, and use that information in GPS receivers. It’s just that our current chips wouldn’t be compatible with receiving data such a system. IMO the Kessler Syndrome is overblown as a risk. Most of our space infrastructure would go to hell in such a scenario, but it’s not an existential threat like it’s often made out to be.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> IMO the Kessler Syndrome is overblown as a risk. Most of our space infrastructure would go to hell in such a scenario, but it’s not an existential threat like it’s often made out to be. It's not a threat to existence of life (or civilization) - though losing satellites would have severe economical and geopolitical consequences. GNSS systems are one thing, but then there are also weather satellites, climate observatories, satellite comms, emergency beacon tracking and spy satellites. The main worry here is that a full-blown case of Kessler syndrome would simply lock us out of space access for couple decades or centuries, depending on the severity of it. You could forget about satellites. Space probes might work if launched straight into some transfer orbit. Manned missions would be most likely deemed too dangerous.
- themeiguoren 8y ago
  Existential was the wrong word to use. What I mean is geared towards your second paragraph - that we won’t be locked out of space. Our current systems are in a pretty narrow range of ideal orbits which would get cluttered up. But there’s a lot of room in sub-optimal orbits that would still be clear, and can still be used for everything we do today. Just at a little higher technical cost.