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Progress tends to have downsides. Highways and rail tracks destroy the environment and make areas hard to cross, but I think most people would acknowledge that

Progress tends to have downsides. Highways and rail tracks destroy the environment and make areas hard to cross, but I think most people would acknowledge that on balance, having them them is a good thing. In this case, the obvious solution would be to provide a small number of orbital observatories to the astronomy community for free or with heavily subsidized pricing.

croes 1y ago
You could turn that around. Progress in Earth bound astronomy has the downside of less satellite internet.
- nkrisc 1y ago
  I'm fairly certain that Earth-based astronomy predates artificial satellites by at least a few years.
  - croes 1y ago
    And since then there was no progress? We can build better, bigger and more sensible telescopes but we can hardly use those new capabilities if they are impaired by satellites. Space telescopes are expensive and harder to maintain.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
What progress? I gain nothing from this. I have symmetrical cheap reliable fiber to my house.
- dboreham 1y ago
  I don't, so there's that.
- lxgr 1y ago
  You call that progress? I gain next to nothing from cheap reliable fiber being available at your house either.
- 93po 1y ago
  this reads really strongly as satire to the point i can't believe it's authentic. hacker news poster says "my cheap fiber is working just fine, why does anyone need satellite internet", completely ignoring the literally billion people who can't access the internet reliably at all due to infrastructure failures
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
    My point was only that progress isn't so black and white. Oil drilling is progress too!
timewizard 1y ago
> but I think most people would acknowledge that on balance, having them them is a good thing. Of course it is. The next question is "is it a good thing to let a single owner completely control access to this resource?" We've actually decided in the case of highways and rails, that no, it's not. There needs to be reasonable and non-discriminatory access to these resources otherwise the trade is not worthwhile. We actually have laws that are meant to enforce this. > the obvious solution would be to provide a small number of orbital observatories to the astronomy community for free or with heavily subsidized pricing. Define the "astronomy community." Do we do first come first served or do we have a priority list? How do we handle disputes? Is it just US citizens or do we need to offer this to the entire world? What if the vendor fails to make good on their concessions? What sort of penalties should surround this system? There's really nothing "obvious" about this.
thrance 1y ago
Building a highways is not necessarily "progress". We really ought to stop calling "progress" the destruction of a natural habitat that we will never be able to rebuild, for the construction of a superflous road that will close in 15 years because of poor traffic anyway.
immibis 1y ago
If Jeff has the right to jam my telescope with his satellite due to the lack of regulation, do I have the right to jam his satellite with my telescope due to the same lack of regulation, or does it only work one way?

croes 1y ago

You could turn that around. Progress in Earth bound astronomy has the downside of less satellite internet.

nkrisc 1y ago
I'm fairly certain that Earth-based astronomy predates artificial satellites by at least a few years.
- croes 1y ago
  And since then there was no progress? We can build better, bigger and more sensible telescopes but we can hardly use those new capabilities if they are impaired by satellites. Space telescopes are expensive and harder to maintain.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

What progress? I gain nothing from this. I have symmetrical cheap reliable fiber to my house.

dboreham 1y ago
I don't, so there's that.
lxgr 1y ago
You call that progress? I gain next to nothing from cheap reliable fiber being available at your house either.
93po 1y ago
this reads really strongly as satire to the point i can't believe it's authentic. hacker news poster says "my cheap fiber is working just fine, why does anyone need satellite internet", completely ignoring the literally billion people who can't access the internet reliably at all due to infrastructure failures
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  My point was only that progress isn't so black and white. Oil drilling is progress too!

timewizard 1y ago

> but I think most people would acknowledge that on balance, having them them is a good thing. Of course it is. The next question is "is it a good thing to let a single owner completely control access to this resource?" We've actually decided in the case of highways and rails, that no, it's not. There needs to be reasonable and non-discriminatory access to these resources otherwise the trade is not worthwhile. We actually have laws that are meant to enforce this. > the obvious solution would be to provide a small number of orbital observatories to the astronomy community for free or with heavily subsidized pricing. Define the "astronomy community." Do we do first come first served or do we have a priority list? How do we handle disputes? Is it just US citizens or do we need to offer this to the entire world? What if the vendor fails to make good on their concessions? What sort of penalties should surround this system? There's really nothing "obvious" about this.

thrance 1y ago

Building a highways is not necessarily "progress". We really ought to stop calling "progress" the destruction of a natural habitat that we will never be able to rebuild, for the construction of a superflous road that will close in 15 years because of poor traffic anyway.

immibis 1y ago

If Jeff has the right to jam my telescope with his satellite due to the lack of regulation, do I have the right to jam his satellite with my telescope due to the same lack of regulation, or does it only work one way?