4 ms·

Are they wrong to criticize Jeff "you paid for this" Bezos' rocket vanity project?

modeless 3y ago
Yes they are wrong, and you are wrong too. This isn't "Bezos' rocket vanity project" at all. This is Amazon's Kuiper satellites, planned to provide globally available fast internet access and some welcome competition for Musk's Starlink. This isn't space tourism for rich people, Bezos has less than a 10% stake in it (through his remaining, dwindling ownership of Amazon), and this launch is not even a Blue Origin rocket. Kuiper is a real business that should provide a lot of value to real people on Earth. Plus it will likely reduce Musk's chances of ever making a profit on Starlink which these people should cheer since they undoubtedly hate Musk too. Besides that, the non-sequitur overwhelmingly hateful knee-jerk sentiment is way over the top. I want no part of a platform that is seemingly populated almost exclusively by people like that.
- mullingitover 3y ago
  I enjoyed the civil honeymoon Threads enjoyed, but my feeling was always that we’d know Twitter was dead when the jerks migrated to Threads. The Bezos post comments marked that event.
- phatskat 3y ago
  I mean I get that and hooray competition I guess? Personally, I don’t want either of those men in charge of a utility like that. ~Elon has already shown that he’ll mess with Starlink out of spite~, and Bezos is a person who does not understand _anything_ about what being a person is. Correction: Musk did not adhere to a request from the Ukrainian government to extend Starlink to parts of Crimea > the Ukrainian government had asked him to activate Starlink "all the way to Sevastopol," the largest city in Crimea, and he [Musk] refused to do that to avoid escalating the conflict. I still don’t agree with someone having the option to deny potentially critical communication services in a conflict when that person has zero military expertise.
  - modeless 3y ago
    > Elon has already shown that he’ll mess with Starlink out of spite Are you referring to the supposed shutting down of Starlink over Crimea during a Ukrainian operation? That was misinformation and never happened. The US government has control over Starlink in several different ways and you can be sure that if they really needed it turned on or off in any specific area they could have it done immediately. Anyway these concerns are totally irrelevant to the original point about negativity on Threads because nobody there even realized that a Starlink competitor was what they were talking about.
    - phatskat 3y ago
      Thanks! I forgot that that part was from the book by Musk and Isaacson and is clarified shortly thereafter. I’ve updated my comment to reflect the actual impact (which I still don’t agree with)
      - inemesitaffia 3y ago
        The power to grant is almost always the power to deny or even take away

Yes they are wrong, and you are wrong too. This isn't "Bezos' rocket vanity project" at all. This is Amazon's Kuiper satellites, planned to provide globally available fast internet access and some welcome competition for Musk's Starlink. This isn't space tourism for rich people, Bezos has less than a 10% stake in it (through his remaining, dwindling ownership of Amazon), and this launch is not even a Blue Origin rocket. Kuiper is a real business that should provide a lot of value to real people on Earth. Plus it will likely reduce Musk's chances of ever making a profit on Starlink which these people should cheer since they undoubtedly hate Musk too. Besides that, the non-sequitur overwhelmingly hateful knee-jerk sentiment is way over the top. I want no part of a platform that is seemingly populated almost exclusively by people like that.

mullingitover 3y ago
I enjoyed the civil honeymoon Threads enjoyed, but my feeling was always that we’d know Twitter was dead when the jerks migrated to Threads. The Bezos post comments marked that event.
phatskat 3y ago
I mean I get that and hooray competition I guess? Personally, I don’t want either of those men in charge of a utility like that. ~Elon has already shown that he’ll mess with Starlink out of spite~, and Bezos is a person who does not understand _anything_ about what being a person is. Correction: Musk did not adhere to a request from the Ukrainian government to extend Starlink to parts of Crimea > the Ukrainian government had asked him to activate Starlink "all the way to Sevastopol," the largest city in Crimea, and he [Musk] refused to do that to avoid escalating the conflict. I still don’t agree with someone having the option to deny potentially critical communication services in a conflict when that person has zero military expertise.
- modeless 3y ago
  > Elon has already shown that he’ll mess with Starlink out of spite Are you referring to the supposed shutting down of Starlink over Crimea during a Ukrainian operation? That was misinformation and never happened. The US government has control over Starlink in several different ways and you can be sure that if they really needed it turned on or off in any specific area they could have it done immediately. Anyway these concerns are totally irrelevant to the original point about negativity on Threads because nobody there even realized that a Starlink competitor was what they were talking about.
  - phatskat 3y ago
    Thanks! I forgot that that part was from the book by Musk and Isaacson and is clarified shortly thereafter. I’ve updated my comment to reflect the actual impact (which I still don’t agree with)
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      The power to grant is almost always the power to deny or even take away