If you’re hitting a paywall, here’s a CNN link to the same story: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/elon-musk-biography-walter-isaacson-ukraine-starlink/index.html
random people having this kind of influence on international conflicts because they have a lot of money is good and healthy and okay
The free market will create another satellite network if musk’s isn’t right! /s
This but kind of unironically, him doing this makes it much more likely the US government will blow some of its military budget to fund some sort of competitor.
That’s kind of how we all get to use and enjoy the GPS today
That would be pretty cool considering they have tons of military budget obviously and more competition is a good thing.
It wouldn’t be free market then.
If Musk doesn’t learn to play ball, the us government might well take control of the tech for the remainder of the war. Geopolitics is the game that is played with all the pieces.
“One of the advantages is the huge amount of innovation coming out of the private sector, which the government wants to leverage to stay ahead of China and others,” said Brian Weeden, the director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation, a think tank.
Well if the government had invested in its space and innovation programs they wouldn’t have to rely on the private sector.
Honestly I’m kind of glad that they didn’t. Imagine if the US government had even more control and surveillance potential over the internet. I know they already basically have 100% but, I dunno, a network of low-Earth-orbit satellites constantly hovering overhead, covering every square centimetre of the earth, is a bit scary.
I don’t think the same network in the hands of an unstable billionaire is an improvement. Given the choice I’d rather the U.S. have control of the network.
You make a good point… what a choice, huh?
I think this one is much easier to look at if I restate the choice:
"A single individual billionaire who has only his self interest in mind has control over the internet "
vs.
“An organization consisting of more than one person, who are voted to power, who must hold their own interests in mind as well as their doners at minimum”
Personally, even if it’s a whole bunch of different billionaires fighting for power, the government ultimately has to answer to more than one person. That makes it an inherently better choice.
Which government? Do you imagine that the vast network of live-feed surveillance satellites run by the various arms of the US intelligence services and military is under the slightest control of the elected government?
The US government has certainly invested in private space programs. SpaceX is just one very expensive and prominent example.
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This is behaviour that gets you killed. Musk may be rich, but not “weapons manufacturer” or “oil magnate” powerful.
I’m starting to think Mr Musk might actually be a CIA asset. If he was doing this shit without signoff he’d turn up dead.
What a shit article. Is it a job requirement that anyone at WaPo writing about Musk turns everything into fawning praise? Almost none of the article is about the incident itself, the majority of it is just rehashing all the things Musk’s companies have done while crediting him for it (lol) and completely burying that the book alleges he shut down the internet during the drone attack after being in contact with senior Russian officials.
It’s pretty much an advert for his biography lol. It’s going to have a bunch of clickbaity stories which look as though they may be critical of Musk, but it turn out that he’s the good guy, after all.
Thankfully a biography won’t be necessary. The dipshit lived his entire life on social media and revealed to everyone just how much of an idiot he is. He really liked when people revered him like some kind of super human but now that’s all done. He can’t ever get it back so he’s resorting to courting Nazis and trolls. They’re the only ones left still tongue punching his rectum and he’s addicted to the feeling. Too bad. He’s only going to get more old, more fat, more pathetic. His money can buy him so much but he can’t buy public sentiment and the internet is merciless. It will never bend the knee to any one person. Even the richest man is powerless.
the book alleges he shut down the internet during the drone attack after being in contact with senior Russian officials
Who threatened a nuclear strike in response. If that’s true, it does paint a different picture of the situation, does it not?
I’m no Musk dick rider (if fact, I can’t stand him), but that’s a tough spot to be in.
Who threatened a nuclear strike in response. If that’s true, it does paint a different picture of the situation, does it not?
Not really, because what that means is Russia now just has to say “nuclear war” any time they want to kill Starlink in Ukraine. If he had real concerns he was more than capable of getting in touch with the correct people. Instead he decided that he, not the Ukrainian military, gets to make calls on drone usage.
He wants to cry crocodile tears about how he never imagined Starlink would be used for war when he made it accessible to Ukraine after the Russian invasion… well, they’re in the middle of a war. If he truly is that stupid he has absolutely no business making decisions any more complicated than “caf or decaf?”
Oh.
Yea turns out he’s just a piece of shit.
Russia threatening a nuclear strike is about as credible as a 3 yr old threatening to hold their breath. Come on you cowardly bitches, nuke us already. I fukkin dare you. Nut up, or shut up.
Wow he is so subtle. What a genius move that no one expected. /s
Literal supervillain behaviour
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I don’t think Ukraine has the resources to create, deploy, and operate its own satellite Internet network.
Surely the US has a satellite network they clould be making use off? Maybe there’s political reasons why they cant be given access.
The US does have its own satellite network, but it’s unlikely they’d let anyone else use it, even allies, because of the risk of leaking information, or even because it would let other people derive more information about its capabilities and limits.
There are certainly more secure options but better is unlikely given how revolutionary starlink is.
there’s nothing revolutionary about satellite internet
The revolutionary aspect is the quantity of the satellites and the affordability of access due to reduction in deployment costs.
That’s how you put yourself on the CIA and KGBs watch list
I’m guessing that as a supervillain (as @bionicjoey@lemmy.ca pointed out), Musk expects the CIA and NSA to have nice thick dossiers on him. Since Musk has Putin on speed dial, the KGB probably shares their file and asks him for updates.
FSB not KGB
In this case, he got on the KGB’s “thank you and we’ll send you some flowers, luvya ❤️” list
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I mean… that’s what the government, more so the political self interest in those of power wanted. Funding for NASA reduced and that easily could have done what SpaceX has accomplished, to pandering and almost begging Elon to get things done.
The system is beautiful.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
But the recounting of the incident is a reminder of how SpaceX — and its founder — amassed enormous power and leverage as its competitors proved incapable of keeping up with a dizzying pace of innovation.
“One of the advantages is the huge amount of innovation coming out of the private sector, which the government wants to leverage to stay ahead of China and others,” said Brian Weeden, the director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation, a think tank.
SpaceX started providing Starlink internet service to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, creating a lifeline for the country when its communications systems had largely been knocked out.
“Despite being the launch provider with the most proven track record and the lowest prices in the industry, SpaceX was seemingly not considered by Amazon,” the suit alleges.
“SpaceX has been truly innovative in several key areas, launch and large constellation broadband internet — two things people have long dreamed of but have been tried and failed before,” Weeden said.
A good portion of that success stems from Musk himself, who works relentlessly and pushes his teams to as well, attempting to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
The original article contains 1,360 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Why is that piece devolving into a suck-fest for Musk? Or is the random firing of employees he is reportedly prone to now considered “pushing his team”?
Wow…this summary had almost nothing to do with Ukraine…
Sorry bot, you usually do a good job, but not this time.
That is a very unflattering photo. lol
Elmo is a very unflattering person
Starlink’s dominant revenue stream is the US military. It’s seen as a moderately strategic program by the US as they attempt to saturate specific orbits of strategic value with US assets to prevent China from using those orbits.
If Musk actually did this, then he did it with the knowledge and likely the direction of the US military. The alternative is that he didn’t do this but the story is being planted as part of a propaganda campaign in which Musk is playing the role of right-wing mobilizer.
They’re hand in glove, that’s for sure. Any attempt to paint Musk or any other haute bourgeois as separate from the capitalist state is intended to confuse readers and hide the material relations in capitalism.
Website is paywalled, no archive link, and I can’t make any sense out of the TL;DR. Why did Starlink cut off the Ukraine’s internet access? I’m guessing it’s for a much less interesting reason than the headline wants us to assume
Probably worse than you think the headline wants you to assume.
Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”
Plenty of other sources.
Thank you very much for the link, that’s really kind of you! I’m a bit lazy/tired so searching myself for it myself wasn’t within my power this evening :)
Musk’s decision […] was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons
That’s not what I was guessing, honestly, it seems almost too well-intended for Musk. I was assuming it was because Zelenskyy hadn’t retweeted him or something.
I think it’s too well-intentioned for Musk also.
I really don’t believe that Putin would essentially end up destroying his own warships by dropping nukes to keep those same ships from being attacked by Ukraine. The whole point of leaving these activities to government is that they have much, much more information, real expertise and are able to actually make informed decisions. There is no way that Musk can make decisions that can even approach the level of those informed by the CIA, NSA, FBI, MI5, MI6, SIS and other 3 character agencies we don’t even know about.
Even if Musk were on America’s side instead of just his own, the idea of him successfully managing foreign policy is as ridiculous as me successfully challenging Serena Williams to a tennis match. Musk has no business talking to Putin about American foreign policy or shutting off the Internet to interfere with Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, and IMO he should be arrested and tried for it. It should be and is against the law.
My $.02, anyway…
If you are hitting a paywall, remember to turn off scripts for this particular site on ublock origin
I have Unlock Origin. How do I turn off scripts for a particular site
pin it, click on the extension, you will get this box
Click on to make sure it’s crossed out. Now reload, if you were successful, you would see purple on
ubextensionTIL
Thanks I’ll try
Waiting for him to have an “accident”
