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> a civilisation that decides that serving internet is more important than its ability to observe the universe It's slightly worse than that. Starlink is only
by crispinb 3y ago
> a civilisation that decides that serving internet is more important than its ability to observe the universe
It's slightly worse than that. Starlink is only viable because of huge gaps in planned provision of what is now a basic utility (even government services in many parts of the world are hard to access without the internet).
We're actually giving up our inalienable and multimillenial rights to a real night sky in order to leave gaps in utility provision for greedy wanker billionaires to make money and gain power filling.
- wkat4242 3y agoStarlink sats don't stick around for multiple millennia. Their orbit degrades quite fast. You need much higher orbits for such longevity.
- crispinb 3y agoNo wasn't suspecting nuisance-satellite of being near-eternal! I mean we have had a real night sky for millenia, and now a handful of men are being permitted, with hardly any communal discussion or decision, to expunge it. Many won't notice, of course, having been denatured by suburbia.
- ghaff 3y agoLet's ban commercial aviation at night too. Though I'm not sure why the night sky enjoys special status over the day sky. The rich people wouldn't be getting paid money if lots of people who couldn't otherwise get it weren't happy to pay for Internet.
- crispinb 3y ago[flagged]
- newZWhoDis 3y agoPeople like you said the same thing when we built roads, bridges, steam ships, aircraft, and now spacecraft. Instead of bothering those who are building the future, you’re welcome to run off in the woods and LARP as ted kaczynski. It’s certainly preferable to moaning on the internet about how others are “denatured”.
- edgyquant 3y agoI disagree with that poster as well, but this is a bit of an immature response. People are welcome to have worries about this stuff and it’s better to argue for their arguments being misguided than tell them to go live in the woods if they don’t like it.
- evandale 3y agoAt a certain point the only way to get through to people is to respond in a way that matches their maturity level. When people are saying ridiculous things like "You will be as insouciant, and as clueless, when your much-admired billionaire masters destroy the last remaining living ecosystem" about satellites in LEO you're not dealing with a person with adult emotions. For one, the last time I checked LEO isn't an ecosystem with living things in it and I can't think of a single ecosystem out there we could destroy. Whatever "ecosystem" that exists in LEO is an ecosystem _we_ created. I guarantee good old "nature" won't be creating life there anytime soon if you're excluding humans from nature.
- crispinb 3y agoIf it's "mature" to disregard basic values, then we're stuffed. Attitudes and values cluster. People who care about night skies also care about ecosystems. Denatured, psychologically-damaged people who value neither, destroy both. There is no distinction between "nature" and anything else. There is only the real physical world.
- evandale 3y ago
- wkat4242 3y agoAh now I understand. Sorry for my misunderstanding.
- crispinb 3y agoNot at all. I phrased the comment clumsily in a quick fly-by way, so it was very easily misunderstood ;)
- oh_sigh 3y agoYou can't see the satellites with the naked eye when they are in their target orbit. You can occasionally see them as they are advancing to their orbit, and they look no different than an airplane at night looks. Except cooler.
- Gordonjcp 3y agoThey're more-or-less invisible in all but the darkest skies. I've seen a freshly-launched train of the very early ones from a quite light-polluted city sky in Glasgow, but even going deliberately looking for Starlink sats in properly dark skies I've never seen any.
- crispinb 3y agoIf we allow billionaires to just chuck up what happens to suit their whims, there won't be night skies for long.
- edgyquant 3y agoThis is such a bad take. How would you get internet to the deep Amazon or the middle of the ocean without satellite?
- crispinb 3y agoHow will you get access to a real night sky, if there's no democratic control over billionaire's actions? You just assume (without argument) that the internet has to be absolutely everywhere (and all high-bandwidth). You can argue it, and then figure those arguments into pros/cons. If you see none of the cons, you are not even part of the debate (you're just an ideologist). To assume one side, without interrogation or thought, is to be a decerebrate plaything of the billionaire's momentary whim. I don't even particularly like the notion of a 'take'. As if it's just an opinion about one minor supermarket choice. It's not. I see it more as a fundamental attack on my planet and species, by a self-appointed colonising elite.