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Europe is trying to leave Starlink behind
- matthewdgreen 1y agoGlobal adoption of Starlink sure seems like it will be another likely casualty of the current Elon Musk political era. Why do any of this?
- kranke155 1y agoWhy? Because Elon like many people is extremely smart on narrow fields, he is not generally smart (he can’t fight for example, which is a form of intelligence. He also struggles with being honest, demonstrating potentially low EQ). That’s not to say he’s dumb - it’s just that there is no one (!) who is generally smart - there is no generally applicable intelligence, experience always matters, and you always learn by doing. It’s an illusion of the high IQ crowd that high IQ will means you will always succeed. He is also always taking high risk bets. The X/politics/Trump bet paid off, in a way, but it also has its blowback. edit also having said all this, it’s extremely unlikely that Europe will be successful at this. The future is US-China dominated.
- UncleEntity 1y ago> ...it’s extremely unlikely that Europe will be successful at this. The future is US-China dominated. I think the events of the last few weeks have been a wake-up call to many people around the globe who now see the value of not having their entire economy (or telecommunications &etc) be vulnerable to the whims of one person, be that the richest person in the world or a president nobody in Europe voted for. I suspect there's a lot of really smart people who were previously happily living/working in the US who are now looking to emigrate to other lands, Europe could easily allow them to go over there and practice their skills on a Europe First initiative. Could also rope in the Chinese to help as they also aren't too happy with the current state of affairs.
- bslanej 1y ago> or a president nobody in Europe voted for. Are you talking about the European Commission, which we didn’t vote for?
- debugnik 1y agoYour head of government appointed a member of that commission, though. For better or worse, it's similar to that same head of government being appointed by the people you actually voted for in a parliamentary system (but two steps removed).
- kranke155 1y agoSure I’m just saying Europe is not a place. Europe is not a giant coordinated economy. I’m “European” and I know how hard coordination problems are in the continent, since I’ve lived through its mismanagement my entire adult life.
- arandomusername 1y ago> the value of not having their entire economy (or telecommunications &etc) be vulnerable to the whims of one person, be that the richest person in the world or a president nobody in Europe voted for. . > Could also rope in the Chinese to help This is pretty funny. That's just switching who you rely on. > Europe could easily allow them to go over there and practice their skills on a Europe First initiative In Europe we prefer unskilled labour from third world countries so that they can do uber eats for cheap
- Whoppertime 1y agoBritain tried voting themselves out from under the influence of a politician in Brussels that nobody in Britain voted for, but found that removing that influence was a lot easier said then done.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoHe’s surrounded himself with idiot sycophants. It’s a well-known failure mode of the rich and powerful that he should have seen coming ten years away.
- CamperBob2 1y agoHe had little choice but to defect to Trump's side. If Harris had won, the damage due to supporting Trump would have been finite and likely fixable. However, a Trump victory would wreck essentially all of his companies if he'd gone all-in for Harris. They have massive dependencies on Federal government support. No way to hand-wave the Nazi salutes away with game theory, though. Those were just stupid. Safe to say that nobody including Trump expected him to go that far.
- CamperBob2 1y agoIt would be interesting to hear this refuted rather than simply downvoted, by the way. What are some alternative explanations?
- kranke155 1y agoWhat do you mean? He’s obviously got a point? Even Steve Bannon thinks so. He says Elon was just ahead of the curve. How much of Elon’s conversion was genuine vs mercenary is impossible to know, but it’s likely.
- mindslight 1y agoStay out and distance yourself from either camp? You're absolving the agency of the richest person in the world. And I get that might hard when one has got a crippling social media addiction and can't help but run their mouth. But again, let's not absolve the agency of the richest person in the world.
- CamperBob2 1y agoTraditionally that's what most public-facing CEOs and other business leaders have done, keeping their politics to themselves in order to avoid needlessly alienating customers and to maintain business continuity as administrations come and go. That won't work with Trump. Not if you built your businesses on sectors that he is targeting, ranging from EVs to space exploration and research. Musk had to pick a side. Neutrality was never an option. Few if any of us, regardless of wealth, have any real "agency" with Trump in office. There's nothing he can't fuck up and no one he can't fuck over. This is not an attempt at justification or absolution, just a simple statement of fact.
- hedora 1y agoI hope they offer this in the US (it wouldn’t cost them any extra satellites). I’m looking for a starlink alternative. Ideally they could terminate my connection over there and I’d get gdpr protection too.
- mikrl 1y agoThere is already a Canadian company, Telesat, that’s been doing comms since 1969. Unfortunately, like most things from Canada, there was never enough market for it to catch on. Maybe that will change now the US has unlocked the demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telesat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telesat
- hmmokidk 1y agoEverything musk owns is being affected.
- watwut 1y ago1.) He needs them government contracts. And by needs I mean "really really needs". 2.) He believes in far right and government is far right. He is at home in this goverment. 3.) Attention and power. He got both now to unprecedented degree.
- ashoeafoot 1y agoIf you set starlink to collide with one another , you get a nice kessler shield that prevents all icbm firing
- cedws 1y agoInteresting concept for sci-fi but not realistic.
- e44858 1y agohttps://archive.is/Fc4S4 https://archive.is/Fc4S4
- uncomplexity_ 1y ago[flagged]
- angra_mainyu 1y agoI honestly would not be surprised if we ended up returning to a more fragmented EU, it's becoming quite a mess. Personally, I absolutely love if we could have something looser, like a "Common European Area": freedom to travel, freedom to study, freedom to live, freedom to work. That's it. No EC/EP or anything like that.
- izacus 1y agoWhy would you want to destroy your economy and quality of life like that?
- fifilura 1y agoThis is what the orange guy dreams about as well. That he can strike individual "deals" with each small country so he can win on size like a sumo wrestler against a featherweight wrestler. It is pretty obvious that the common foreign policy is more important than ever. Sadly it is too late to include Canada, South Korea, Australia and Japan into that umbrella, at least this time around. And people here in Sweden are talking about that next we will need to give up our currency and use the Euro since that is what T will weaponize next, going after the smaller currencies.
- matthewmacleod 1y agoThis was something that came up during Brexit of course but it seems difficult when you start getting into the details. The idea is that (completely reasonably) if you have a “single market” as you describe, you need harmonised regulation so everybody is on a level playing field; once you have done that then you need some form of democratic governance. Everyone basically ends up designing the EU when they do this.
- angra_mainyu 1y ago>The idea is that (completely reasonably) if you have a “single market” as you describe I didn't really describe this though. Had I mentioned currencies or trade agreements you might have more of a point. It's more like automatic work permits for Europeans within Europe, unlimited stays, ease of access to renting + purchasing housing.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 1y agoOne web needs ground based gateways, which isn't really an option in warzones. These gateways will be immediately targeted. The only option is to used space based lasers for relay. Of which, spaceX is the only entity on the planet with this technology. Love or hate Elon, he's been able to turn himself into a very powerful figure on the world stage through technology alone. If you think him having complete control over Starlink is a national security risk, he's just getting started. Unfortunately with European employement laws, I don't see them being able to compete. If you tried, you’d face fines, lawsuits, and maybe even criminal penalties for making your employees work the 80+ hour weeks that Elon requires from all of his companies. Europe craves work life balance, Elon craves technological power. He's convinced some smart people their life is the company. Europe just doesn't have that culture, and it's mandated by law that you can't have that culture.
- Onavo 1y ago> Europe craves work life balance, Elon craves technological power. He's convinced some smart people their life is the company. Europe just doesn't have that culture, and it's mandated by law that you can't have that culture. The problem is cultural yes but they have plenty of low cost labor willing to work overtime and put in long hours. It's called Eastern Europe. The bigger problem is an overly bureaucratic Brussels and a lack of imagination among their leadership. Britain can probably do well in this area, maybe the French too if they get their head out of their asses. The day they stop sending their top ML companies like Huggingface and Mistral to the US for funding is the day when the Fifth Republic finally spreads realizes their potential.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 1y agoEuropean oligarchs have different priorities. They invest in land, art and gold, that's how you preserve capital over generations. That's why top european companies end up taking money from venture capital in the US.
- jltsiren 1y agoI've never understood the fetishization of long working hours. If there is a job where you can meaningfully work 80+ hours a week, the same (and often better) results can be achieved with more employees working fewer hours. If the work can't be split like that, it's probably demanding enough that you can't sustain more than 20-30 productive hours a week in the long term. It's possible to mix reasonable hours of demanding work with additional hours of meetings, routine work, and procrastination. Maybe it's cheaper for the employer than managing the work better and hiring additional people for the routine parts. Maybe there are some social and organizational benefits to the employer when the employees have no life outside work. But long hours like that don't lead to superior outputs.
- 486sx33 1y agoTotally fine. Go back to paying long distance charges for dialup and munitions hitting the COs. It’s no problem at all.
- eddyg 1y agoLaunch statistics for 2024, for reference: https://rocketlaunch.org/rocket-launch-recap/2024 https://rocketlaunch.org/rocket-launch-recap/2024
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- tempera 1y agoIt's not Europe, it's some bureaucrats at Bruxelles that have never standed for election.