Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 03:13
nextcollapse
See what we should do…is look to the french for inspiration on guillotine designs. Why would anyone not want to get rid of this asshole? Why would anyone like him?
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 03:23
nextcollapse
kambusha@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 06:25
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Man, that was worth the wait!
iamkindasomeone@feddit.org
on 07 Jun 08:06
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Reverse accelerating space ship. I like the idea!
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 03:26
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They think he’s a tech god because he has money to burn, knows how to make himself look smart, knows how to slave drive, and knows how to cut corners without pissing off the wrong people.
He said, talking about the guy who did a nazi salute on national television, intentionally, and then turned around and did it again for the people in the back. In case there was anyone who missed it the first time.
santa@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 03:30
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They’re just following in the footsteps of Comcast. The FCC gave SpaceX/Starlink $885.5 million to provide rural broadband after they gave Comcast over $1 billion less than 5 years ago to do the same thing. Starlink actually works out there from what I understand, so I guess that’s something.
Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 05:39
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The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we’re talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth’s atmosphere, not being recycled.
Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 06:14
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Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They’re never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.
They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn’t a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.
There’s a reason it’s as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.
burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 06:41
nextcollapse
i dont feel the cost and waste of all the rocket launches and debris justifies remote areas having satellite Internet
BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social
on 07 Jun 08:54
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I think if you consider the cost to manufacture then bury a fibre optic cable for everyone who lives 10km from a town centre, I think it's still a net positive. It's not great for sure, but amortised over a huge population it's probably the best option we have at this time.
Maybe do a cursory Google search before being confidently incorrect
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 00:56
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Fair enough, you got me there. Didn’t realize there was such a population of internet craving people in what’s supposed to be one of the last relatively untouched areas of nature on the planet.
That being the case though, why didn’t this all happen in 2013, when O3b launched to specifically solve this problem for them? It’s still running, by the way, after several rounds of upgrades, and significantly more stable than Starlink with their dinky little 5 year disposables. Microsoft, Honeywell and Amazon all use it. But the original and ongoing intent of the project was explicitly to bring internet access to all otherwise unreachable areas, such as islands, deep in Africa, and the open ocean.
I don’t oppose Brazilian villagers having internet if they want it, but the situation in which it arrived to them feels suspect to me. I have no proof that Starlink actively went out and pushed internet service onto them like a drug dealer but it would not be out of character for Musk and his subordinates to do so, and that just feels bad.
Regardless there is already an existing solution to this. If you want internet in the Amazon you can use satellite internet. It does not have to be Starlink. If you want good internet, maybe don’t live in the Amazon. People in general should probably be leaving that place alone. The article you linked even talks about one of the village leaders splitting his time between the village and the city. We can try and run a fiber line to Manaus and/or Porto Velho and that should be able to serve a reasonably large enough area around them, but even if that fails there are already other solutions.
I agree with almost everything you wrote. Purely speculation but the starlink terminals might be cheaper? The latency/bandwidth would also be significantly worse with O3b since it’s in medium earth orbit compared to starlinks low earth orbit. “Regular” satellite internet is prohibitively expensive with even worse bandwidth/latency.
I also agree that people shouldn’t be living in the Amazon but they are and we can’t really force them to leave.
This is a really weird “ends always justify the means” because I could also say it wouldn’t be necessary if Ukraine never gave up their nuclear weapons and how I doubt the Ukrainians would disagree. This is also further impacted by the protection of Starlink by the US military because if it wasn’t an act of war against the US to destroy them, Russia could take down low earth orbit satellites pretty easily.
But none of this is relevant to how Starlink is not an ISP, it is not infrastructure it is a fleeting wasteful service.
From what I understand the Ukrainians never had control of the nukes, they didn’t actually have the launch codes to use them.
Regardless, having global access to the internet is great. Ask the people living in remote areas of the Amazon, no chance for them to get fiber, or Africa, or remote islands, or ships/airplanes.
If youre speaking of rural America not needing starlink because fiber is a thing, then you should broaden your horizons
I’m ignoring that fact because its mostly irrelevant to this conversation.
Would the Ukrainians prefer if it was controlled by a more reliable ally? Of course
“Regular” satellite internet is nowhere near what starlink offers and it’s pretty telling you assume it is.
An actual problem that you’ve not mentioned is the interference with ground based telescopes
You claim “Starlink is a bad ISP” because you think the satellites are wasteful, I disagree since Starlink can provide a global service to areas where it’s needed in a way no one else can. I don’t know what you find so difficult to understand?
“a TrUe LeMmY eXpErIeNcE”
Yeah, it sure can do it in a way nobody else can, the most wasteful way. But I appreciate you shifting the goalposts from Ukraine because being used in war is a reason why it is a bad ISP. See, if a war breaks out and a power can destroy them, we’re talking global breakdown of internet via starlink. If a war breaks out on the other side of the world a traditional isp keeps working.
Then there’s also the piss poor service, the poor number of total connections, the lack of redundancy, the cost, the ecological damage of launching rockets every week so that someone is the middle of nowhere can jack it with high speed internet, being disabled when a nazi feels like it…
“because being used in war is a reason why it is a bad ISP”, like I said before, I very much doubt the Ukrainians would agree with your take on this.
“if a war breaks out and a power can destroy them, we’re talking global breakdown of internet via starlink” ??
Do you think anyone is advocating we should replace all internet connections with Starlink?
“Then there’s also the piss poor service, the poor number of total connections, the lack of redundancy, the cost,” Should I copy-paste about Ukraine again?
“ecological damage” negligent amount compared to actually wasteful industries
I didn’t realize how temporary and disposable Starlink’s satellites were. They incinerate 4 or 5 a day by de-orbiting them into the ozone. Here’s a pretty good CNET article that talks about how they “dispose” of them. IDK, doesn’t seem sustainable. They also mention the bandwidth gains are being diminished with the influx of new users, so their solution is more temporary satellites.
Yeah, if they want to make satellites last longer, they could go a bit higher in their orbits. The option is there.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 23:58
nextcollapse
But they specifically don’t want to do that because ensuring a 5 year service life means you are required to continue buying more satellites from them every 5 years. Literally burning resources into nothingness just to pursue a predatory subscription model.
It also helps their case that LEO has much lower latency than mid or high orbit but I refuse to believe that that is their primary driving concern behind this and not the former.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 06:10
nextcollapse
Who’s buying satellites?
SpaceX is putting up satellites for SpaceX, they’re the manufacturer and operator…
It’s definitely in their best interest to keep them working as long as possible.
That said, they’re high end communications devices, very fancy routers essentially. And like all computer technology, these things become obsolete quickly. So even if they could last 20 years, you wouldn’t want them even 10 years from now. 100 GB/s speeds might be great now, but 10 years down the road 10 TB/s could be the norm, so at that point why are you still trying to provide service with ancient hardware 100x slower than it should be.
At the time it looked like one of the main reasons to launch Starlink was to provide SpaceX with a new market, much larger than the usual space launching stuff. Also this meant Felon could get subsidies through 2 different companies.
I mean the reason for starlink was that they could, and they could do it for cheaper than anyone else because they would be launching at cost.
Also, falcon doesn’t really get subsidies for launching. SpaceX got a grant for the rural broadband infrastructure thing, but that’s like a one time thing, it doesn’t really pay for ongoing launches.
LEO does offer legitimate advantages not just to latency but also for minimizing the abandoned space junk left in orbit. The satellites will deorbit fairly quickly after running out of fuel.
Though I’m sure you’re correct about the main reason for the choice.
That would also make latency worse and the signal weaker.
Would the small ground starlink dish be able to reach higher orbits? I guess if the satellite is going to stay up longer you could afford to make it’s antennas a bit bigger to mitigate that.
Well you wouldn’t want to put them much higher, but if you raised their orbit by say 40%, they’d be getting significantly less atmospheric drag. It could probably extend their life by 15 years. And yeah, they’ll be 40% further away, so slightly more latency. Perhaps going from 70 ms ping to 100 ms ping. Not awesome, but definitely not a huge problem.
You are right in how wasteful it is, especially since it turned out a lot of those satellites don’t even make it to 4 years.
However there is zero risk of space trash with Starlink. They orbit so low, it’s basically within the atmosphere still. They need to constantly boost themselves, otherwise they fall down and burn up. So these satellites are coming down within years all on their own, even without any controlled disposal.
It’s insanely wasteful, but it keeps SpaceX in business launching every week, which is kind of the point. But at least there isn’t a Kessler syndrome waiting to happen.
Even though it’s not a space trash problem, it is a regular upper atmosphere polluter of aluminum oxide ash. We don’t yet know the long term consequences.
It might! But the article I linked also suggests it might destroy ozone and have a net warming effect. We just don’t know. The upper atmosphere has never before had this level of direct pollution injection.
I’m not sure what isn’t viable about it, I mean it’s demonstrably viable, it’s working now.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 06:57
nextcollapse
The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn’t meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn’t think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.
No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.
The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.
They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.
Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements
If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.
Edit: extra details.
Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I’d said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.
Works is a strong word. It’s a better choice than dialup or Hughesnet, but that’s damning with extremely faint praise. If you need to rely on it you might be in trouble. There are still gaps in the coverage where you will be dropped for a while.
They also nationalized other sectors. They were actually quite centrist economically.
seven_phone@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 04:41
nextcollapse
Hang on a minute, equivalents of SpaceX and Starlink could have naturally grown out of NASA, it was the obvious place for them to come from but NASA did not show that innovation and nationalisation of them might dilute their abilities. For clarity I am not suggesting the innovation came from Musk, he has no science or engineering, his talents are grifting, showmanship and taking credit for other people’s work, he is a natural figurehead though and seemed quite clear thinking until he lost his mind.
NASA has had it’s funding cut year after year for decades. It’s far easier to innovate when you have money to back up the r&d and testing.
seven_phone@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 05:33
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I wasnt discussing underlying cause, whatever the reason for stifled innovation in some fields possibly evident in NASA it is likely preferable not to pull independent labs into NASA that are having success in these areas.
Not just funding cuts, but it was heavily politicized and had its direction changed every 4 years. You can’t plan long term like that. It needs to be a government agency but not at the whim of the president or congress.
something_random_tho@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 04:59
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Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 05:15
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Few words are dirtier to Republicans than “nationalize”. They must be torn between following their god-emperor’s hurt feelings and allowing Musk’s company to be taken over by the government. The best I see them doing is cancelling all contracts and subsidies with SpaceX/Tesla and passing them off to its competitors.
luxyr42@lemmy.dormedas.com
on 07 Jun 05:38
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Just weird it in a way that is more capitalist lingo: " The govt will acquire a majority controlling stake and take the company private under it’s direct control"
Then, how do we benefit from SpaceX? I’m not bashing the NASA, but I see no point in all the waste SpaceX is producing, down on earth and its orbit. These satelites are likely to crash one day in a chain reaction.
How are there so many people in this thread talking with such confidence and yet know absolutely nothing? SpaceX is the reason NASA doesn’t need to rely on Russia to get astronauts to and from the ISS, so that’s one huge benefit.
And Starlink is in such a low orbit that their orbits are constantly decaying and will burn up in the atmosphere without any orbit corrections. So there will never be a chain reaction crash.
I mean you have to realize how important it will be to have fully reusable rockets and a significantly reduced price to get to space. The goal with starship is to reduce the cost of getting to orbit by at least an order of magnitude (but possibly much more than that). When that starts to happen it’ll allow for new and exciting things to happen in space.
First, we can go back to the moon and to Mars, we can explore again. But more than that, it will make some new things possible. It will eventually become feasible for resource extraction and manufacturing to move to space. That would mean processes that produce harmful waste don’t have to happen on our planet. Mining asteroids would mean again, minimal ecological impact compared to mining a mountain on Earth. And of course creating industry in space is the first step towards a future where people actually live in space, the first step towards humanity getting a real foothold off of earth.
But you literally can’t get to any of those possibilities without reusable rockets first, it’s just not feasible.
“Who needs NASA anyway”, “who needs to go to space anyway”
Very narrow-minded viewpoint. Like it or not spacex is cutting edge
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 09:44
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Right? Like I’m assuming a lot of these people are self labeled progressives but they sure sound conservative to me. If any risk or collateral damage is unacceptable to make progress then we might as well just fucking go back to living in caves and be done with this civilization thing. I understand the disillusion with tech, and specifically the owners of said tech but you don’t have to swing to the other side and become a fucking Luddite or something. The problems are solvable through other mechanisms rather than just stopping tech innovation or this terrible terrible idea of nationalizing corporations.
These are the same people who complain about Trump having too much unfettered power btw. Ain’t that something?
It’s also frustrating that people keep saying SpaceX “relies on taxpayer money” as if we’re just giving them money for no reason. It’s all contracts! SpaceX only gets money for providing some kind of service. They’re not being bailed out or anything. The Musk hate is justified but so misdirected.
This really is just the dumbest thread on Lemmy right now. A bunch of reactionary mob think. “Grab your torches and pitchforks, let’s burn it all down!”
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 13:34
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I’ve got the feeling none of y’all read past the headline.
The article is not far off from the mob mentality in this thread. It makes one good point, that one oligarch should not be in control of a global communications network, but it fails to notice that this move would take the power from one wealthy individual and hand it over to another, who now holds all the power.
And let’s be clear, if we nationalized, Trump would ruin SpaceX, run it right into the ground like every company he’s ever touched. Starship would never be finished, despite being within sight of the rocketry holy grail, reusable rockets. Washington would take control of starlink, which would probably be good, except it gives trump control over a communication system, which is a terrible idea. But it wouldn’t last long, because when we mismanage and underfund SpaceX and it crumbles, we’ll have no way to replace starlink sats and the whole network will disappear.
Nationalisation is SpaceX is a dumb idea because people aren’t really thinking it all through. The outcome would be a lot worse for everyone, especially with a vindictive president that would like nothing more than to seize the assets of his opponents and liquidate them into his own coffers.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 18:24
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Donald Trump does not have “all the power”. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be acquiescing to the courts at all. It’s wild to me that you think that the US government would do a worse job of running SpaceX and Starlink than Elon Musk.
You’re treating it like simply replacing one CEO with another, but that isn’t what it would be. I know that Trump wants to be king, but he still isn’t.
It’s wild to me that you think that the US government would do a worse job of running SpaceX and Starlink than Elon Musk.
Two things. First, I’m not suggesting the US couldn’t run SpaceX given the appropriate funding. I’m suggesting the US won’t run spaceX. Trump will figure out how to deprive it of all funding, or appoint some lackey as a director to totally disassemble it. Do you honestly have any doubt that’s exactly how it would go down?
Second, It’s wild to me that you think that the SpaceX is run by Elon Musk. Go look up who the CEO is.
Yeah wait until we we have someone in power who gives a shit about science and then re-fund NASA and nationalize SpaceX under the NASA umbrella. (Pipe dreams, I know)
I don’t think that the US currently can go back to the times when Kennedy announced that in 10 years they will put a man on the moon, by a long shot.
To have someone in power that give a shit about science, you need a revolution to wipe out the current political class and radically change the mentality of the population.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 13:31
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Yeah, let’s leave all that power in the hands of one narcissistic egomaniac who’s frequently going on ketamine benders. What could possibly go wrong?
Giving companies to the state doesn’t always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
on 07 Jun 08:20
nextcollapse
We’ve seen China give companies to the state, but have there been any large examples of giving companies to the workers?
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
on 07 Jun 08:28
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I can’t think of any examples. Taking over the company requires capital, which is the one thing that capitalists constantly extract from workers so they don’t have any.
The workers of xs4all tried when their new corporate owners, KPN, decided to dissolve them. But a combination of lack of funding and unfriendly courts prevented that. They did end up starting a new company though…
It’s a shame you commies don’t know history? Do you avoid it on purpose because it interferes with your ability to make shit up and try to sound intelligent
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
on 07 Jun 17:32
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I know it’s asking a lot, but you could give an example instead of insulting me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 11:10
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Yes sorry. We nationalized General Motors in 2009 Amtrak in 1973 the banks in 2008.
Don’t even get me started on World War II
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
on 09 Jun 13:43
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All of these were taken by the state, not the workers, which was the question.
In the US we would remove the leadership, fix the problems with the companies. In this case it’s Elon who is a military risk and political liability. He has broken enough laws and violated our constitutional rights. We can happily remove him from the seat of his power, which are his companies, especially the publicly listed one. Under new leadership these companies can be returned to the public sector just like with General Motors.
Post Soviet Russia. There’s a fun history lesson in there. They gave stock in all the companies to all the workers. Then a couple rich people got together and tricked all the people to accumulate all the stocks. Those people became the oligarchs. And we know what happened to the workers of Russia. They all died in a trench in Ukraine very happy story.
IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 11:19
nextcollapse
First of all, it was performed the way that nobody knew what to even do with those privatization vouchers. They didn’t directly give anyone stocks, just vouchers for part of a company etc. Those had to be exchanged for stocks.
People didn’t know what to do with them, people had problems feeding their families, and people were offered some money for them. And people thought that’s what capitalism is, you get offered money for something, you give it. Nobody scams you, right?
Since those oligarchs happened to all have right friends, it’s without any doubt not a mistake that those stocks could even be sold.
And - attention - another history lesson. All the Soviet propaganda against religion led to everyone becoming “kinda church-loving” in the 90-s initially. All the Soviet propaganda for scientific view of the world led to thousands of sects and charlatans, together scamming most of the population. All the Soviet propaganda for honest and labor ethic led to most people not even considering such scams really scams, because in Soviet propaganda doing business was treated same as scamming someone.
So nobody even thought what’s happening is wrong. And the part of the population which did understand was those who got the shorter stick. People losing themselves in a bottle or a needle, people literally dying from hunger, people having to do crime or prostitution or mercenary work to survive. It was an unholy kingdom where for a part of the population it seemed they are almost the middle class now, just like in those American movies and ads, and the other part saw those ads and those people daily, but could barely survive.
And then, after a few years, the former part grew some understanding that Russia is approaching fascism, and the latter part, which already lived it since 1993, was so broken that it obeyed the fascists after they gave it a bit of a life without hunger and depression in the 00s.
See, there is a layer of the Russian (and general ex-Soviet) culture, in vibes and emotions, showing things as they really were, but it’s horrible to look into that. It was plainly impossible for a normal person to accept some group of people like Anatoly Sobchak’s daughter as opposition. After real opposition figures were being marginalized, jailed and even murdered for a few years. After the Chechen wars. After the way that privatization happened, and the 1993. Nobody would follow people who are just a subset of the same evil, except playing clean because it’s in fashion.
Then, of course, such a decision, so to say, made by a whole country leads to madness.
And this is what we live since then. Those stormtroopers on crutches storming Ukrainian positions - they know that their orders come from the evil itself. They are not fighting for something or against something, only to feel that evil as more material, or take their share of the suffering, or prove something to themselves. It’s a whole society of depressed people who need to prove something to themselves, because everything around is both evil, fake and dirty, one yearns for purification. It’s desperation of the better kind of people, whether you believe it or not. The worst kind finds ways not to die. It’s even natural for humans, like best shown in Japanese culture of honorable death. In European military cultures honorable suicide was a thing, well, in 2022 a few Russian generals shot themselves. I’ve read about them.
It’s really disgusting to be of the “fat” part of the population of these two.
Thank you for elaborating my point. It’s all very reminiscent of what’s going on right now in the United States. 20 years of an infowar and the American people seem to be in a similar position. The majority of this country doesn’t understand what going on in financial markets yet they all depend on them to survive their retirements. The wealth is being massively consolidated through means that people don’t understand.
Anyway appreciate you bringing the proper details into my point. And the chilling reminder of what the future holds.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 08:58
nextcollapse
Ya like in Russia! When all the poor got tricked out of their shares and a billionaire class was made which continued to strangle the poor for 30 years
p_kanarinac@retrolemmy.com
on 07 Jun 10:38
nextcollapse
True. We have a lot of public owned companies in Croatia, they are the most corrupt. Big comoanies are too, but not to that extent
Oh, high standing officers controlling shares in a hypercapitalist megacorp, I see how that can be confused with siezing the means of production from the jaws of capitalism, but I think you and him are talking about vastly different things to be honest
itisileclerk@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 07:00
nextcollapse
Nationalization is so communist thing to do.
paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 07 Jun 07:34
nextcollapse
African Nation - has natural resource and has no way to get it out of the ground.
Foreign company that does this all the time: Yo, we’ll literally pay you to let us dig up this stuff.
Regime: Yes, I was paid, perfect. Thanks. And we’ll charge you what seems like tons of money also.
10 years later
New Regime: Hm…that’s an awfully nice mine you have there. We’ve increased taxes on it 400 times and you are still not closing. It means there’s too much money to be had! So we will take it and do the mining ourselves! How hard could it be?!
New regime nationalizes mine
3 months later
New Regime: Sadly, we must now close the mine and send everyone with jobs home because my drunk cousin is not a good mine director, and all the things broke and we didn’t know you had to order more spare parts.
New Regime places FOR SALE sign on mine and waits for another foreign company to start the cycle over again.
Despotic Ibrahim Traoré, using the money from nationalised formerly French gold mines to checks notes give $180.000.000 to farmers in farm equipment to industrialise agriculture. So despotic and antidemocratic.
wow, tell me you know nothing about West Africa without telling me you know nothing about West Africa.
I’m all for the Sahellian states getting rid of the French, but the Burkinabe gold mining system is pure chaos, often costing informal miners their lives. Burkina, in particular, didn’t have anything other than use of the CFA really tying them to the French anyway. Sure, some gold mines, but that’s more like a final vestige.
Like, just overall, Bukina Faso is a weird place. Every time I’ve been there, the only bird I really see around is vultures. Like, no doves, no pigeons. Just vultures.
Checked some data. In 2024, 82% of exports of Burkina Faso were in the category “Pearls, Precious Stones, Metals, Coins”. In 2021, the main export partner was Switzerland with a 70% of the total exports going there. How the fuck is this not western colonialism?! I don’t care if It’s particularly France (CFA mentioned, good for you), it’s still the victim country of the exploitation of western companies.
Data is nice. I lived in West Africa for nearly a decade total, up until 18 months ago, working on economic devlopment. The data is notoriously bad, and you’re comparing apples and camels.
Look, we have in common that we want to see greater African agency and less European colonialism of any sort (or Chinese for that matter).
That being said, I have seen dozens of examples of greed and corruption being the driving force behind nationalization. Often with only the short-sighted goal of raiding capital investment accounts and giving friends jobs. And nearly every time leading to costly failure. Decades of exampes, from Idi Amin to Zambia to South Africa to Mali to DRC to Tanzania to Niger to Ghana, across every possible industry, show that the only only only result from nationalizing something is killing it, and killing it stupidly. Down to things like water desalination plants, power distribution companies, or telecom companies. Maybe you can find a few that are barely solvent across a continent of 54 counties and 1 billion people. The rule is that it’s always a play to line pockets and buy a flat on London or Paris and horde wealth for yourself.
And keep in mind that nationalizing something is eliminant domain of stuff. It’s theft with a sorry card. Not for some greater good, to make someone else rich, not the first guy.
The result is my daily experience anywhere other than SA, Morocco, and Kenya: the power goes out for hours at a time most days, water comes from a truck and maaaaybe on Mondays or Tuesdays from the city, and mobile phone and internet only works from private companies like MTN or Vodaphone. Often that buy out the old, failing government telco for the license and have to pay hundreds of ghost workers that were promised jobs by a president way back when.
You should note that one of the wealthiest counties per capita in SSA, is Botswana. Which is basically a podunk AF suburb of Pretoria/Joburg anyway. But they never nationalized their diamond mines, and their population is relatively better off. Riddle me this - why has Botswana been the success story with a PPP while all these places with nationalized everything struggle to literally keep the lights on?
Which is not to excuse the bad parts of the system. I once spent a couple years living in a rural village of about 400 people in Niger, and we had a brackish well. A few people wondered of it might be oil. Clearly, it’s not. But all I could was warn them they should hope is not oil, and the dangers of being near extractive industry. Mines are more often than not, a blight on the earth.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Jun 07:46
nextcollapse
Doesnt make it a bad idea tho :D
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 09:33
collapse
Yes it does.
iamkindasomeone@feddit.org
on 07 Jun 08:05
nextcollapse
No, we just hate people that glaze ruthless dictators and genocidal maniacs whose whole ethos was contradictory to the very idea of communism just because they had a red flag.
Ruthless “dictators” who saved a billion lives through the elimination of Nazism, the industrial development of the second most populous country on Earth and half the continent of Europe, and through the refusal to participate in the exploitation of the global south.
Communists saved Europe from Nazism and you will never forgive them for it
… only after they were betrayed by Hitler after they allied themselves with the Nazis to invade Poland.
And then raped and killed civilians in the countries they “liberated” by forcing millions of people from their Eastern European vasal states to die to protect the Russians.
Then replaced Nazism with a slightly different authoritarian system that opresses it’s people and performs ethnic cleansings, but has a red and gold cost of paint.
And then also exploited the global south, but just weren’t as good at it as the west, and filtered even more of what was exploited up the chain to the party leaders.
And tried to make up for that lack in ability to exploit the global south by exploring Eastern Europe.
Communist we’re allied with the nazis at the start of the war and as someone who’s great grandmother fled Poland to the UK to avoid being rapes and murdered by the red army, I will never forgive them for that.
only after they were betrayed by Hitler after they allied themselves with the Nazis to invade Poland.
This is literally pro-nazi historical revisionism. I’ve made a detailed response to this load of bullshit here, if you care to learn some history about it. Please do read that in good faith and respond point by point if you actually wanna get educated on the subject.
Regarding deportations in time of war, I agree it was a failed policy and I don’t support them generally, it happens that systems and political ideologies you support make mistakes. This was one of them. It’s still extremely minor compared to actual imperialism and genocide committed by western states in times of peace while plundering billions of people in the global south, and it’s something that happened during a period of 10 tumultuous war/preparation years and never happened again, unlike the constant imperialism of the west.
Again proving that you don’t care about brown people and your entire “leftist” ideology is supported on CIA propaganda.
I took one look at you describing the “liberating” of Poland by the soviets because some of it belongs to different modern day countries and new you weren’t arguing in good faith. Invading another country and stealing their land doesn’t magically become “”“liberation”“” just because it was stolen by someone else first.
You can use this same logic to excuse the nazi invasion of certain countries as well.
doesn’t magically become “”“liberation”“” just because it was stolen by someone else first
No, it becomes liberation when majority-Ukrainian regions oppressed under the Polish nationalist state without any mode of representation, recognition of their language, and under bourgeois rule, instead obtain Ukrainian representation and institutions and recognition of its language as an official language. I assume you would know this since you seem to care so much about Ukrainians?
After Russia brutally suppressed their independence, then sent 10 million of them off to die to protect Russians. Which you keep wilfully ignoring.
Ukrainians didn’t want to be under Russian rule. It’s wild the mental gymnastics you’re doing to excuse Russia allying with Hitler himself to steal foreign land. So I’ll say again, the fact those regions were mistreated under Poland does mean it’s okay to invade them and colonise them.
Like you can find examples of time were colonial countries “”“liberated”“” foreign nations in much the same way, putting them under a different boot and treating them marginally better than the last guy. But if a colonial apologist gave you that argument you would (rightly) not accept it, would you?
The Secretary General Nikita Khruschyov of the Soviet Union was Ukrainian… The claims of Russification of the Soviet Union are wildly exaggerated by western sources as proven by the fact that Kazakhstan is its own country with its own culture, as are Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus…
mental gymnastics you’re doing to excuse Russia allying with Hitler
go ahead. Answer point by point to my comment that i showed you, I’m looking forward to that instead of vibes-based claims.
Like you can find examples of time were colonial countries “”“liberated”“” foreign nations in much the same way, putting them under a different boot and treating them marginally better than the last guy
What’s the life expectancy in Russia or China vs what is it in Indonesia or Myanmar? What’s the le expectancy in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan compared to Afghanistan or Pakistan?
explodicle@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 15:11
collapse
Fediverse is superior to state-owned.
Now that you mention it, we need an Amazon replacement too.
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Jun 08:33
nextcollapse
have a government run space agency
a private company shows up
does everything better at a fraction of the cost and actually innovates
commies on lemmy: We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
migo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 08:43
nextcollapse
A private company shows up that gets federal funding while the space agency gets funding consistently cut while having to support multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects.
A private company whose survival is 100% reliant on government money.
Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it’s private
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 09:37
nextcollapse
No matter how much you cut from NASA it always had more funding than SpaceX did and innovation in space exploration was dead until SpaceX came around.
Nationalization will make SpaceX yet another bureaucratic, money waster for the government to maintain. By being private if SpaceX becomes shit the government can just drop them at any moment.
Giving things to the state is a dumbass idea. Exhibit A: the entire current administration.
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Jun 10:47
nextcollapse
Government agency starts multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects, delays ensue, costs overrun, results are unimpressive. It has to rely on private contractors or other countries for the most basic things, spends $211 billion for a space shuttle program that goes nowhere and ends up costing $0.5 billion per launch.
Private company goes from nothing to a successful rocket launch in 10 years for less than $1 billion, half of which is private funding. In the next 10 years makes rockets reusable, lowers the cost to orbit by 30x, launches a viable commercial service people are willing to pay for.
Communists on lemmy:
Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it’s private
This is a poor understanding of how the system works. SpaceX is company that provides a service. This service is open to anyone who wants to use it, but this happens to mostly be the government. The reason is because it’s services are cheap, safe, and reliable. SpaceX does what it does very well, and the government chooses their services because it’s economical.
NASA and other agencies provide a service, they’re not companies. They’re research agencies who’s job is to advance scientific knowledge and developed new technology. Their goal isn’t to create a sustainable business, but to conduct research that’s beyond the capacity of the private sector or individual researchers.
The public and private sector compliment each other. They do things that the other isn’t good at. It’s an ecosystem. Getting rid of one will cause the whole system to collapse… and that’s not a good thing.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 09:05
nextcollapse
Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
Great judgement cal here chief. You’re worse than the commies
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Jun 10:13
nextcollapse
Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
That government guy sure seems incompetent, I hope no one puts it in charge of a space company.
Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets
That private guy sure seems like he knows what he’s doing, I bet he’d be great at running a space company.
and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
IDK where that’s coming from, I never said that, you’re just making stuff up now.
You’re conflating Musk with his companies. He might be the one who founded them, but these companies run themselves. This goes for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. The leadership, research, production, and management are all handled by company employees.
But that’s besides the point, regardless of how you feel about Musk himself, there’s clearly a place for private companies in this area. NASA and other space agencies are not businesses, they’re research agencies. Their job is to expand scientific knowledge and innovate new technology. They can’t run a service like SpaceX, which btw doesn’t only serve the government by also other governments and the private sector. It’s better for them to just outsource shuttle launches entirely to the private sector which is why they’ve been doing it for decades. It just so happens that SpaceX provides this service at really good price reliably and safely, which makes them the best choice. It’s symbiotic relationship. It’s an ecosystem where one sector compliments the other.
Idk why everyone keeps talking like nationalizing Elon musk companies means changing them? It’s just removing Elon musk from them, and then reordering them to the public.
Also hello cyber truck called and that was Elon musk at the helm. He’s good for making good teams and bad decisions
I mean companies can force him out by themselves if they’re pressured enough. Also all companies make unsuccessful business bets. What matters is that from a neutral third person point of view, these companies aren’t doing anything that they’re not supposed to be doing. They’re putting sectors of the American economy in danger of collapse, they’re not committing crimes left and right, and their services are satisfactory for most people.
He can’t be forced out of his private companies lol. And the Tesla BoD is all his family and filthy rich crony’s. No one’s ousting him from Tesla, next question please.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 09:06
nextcollapse
With the amount of logical deduction, you just did here. You should just join the other commie I was posting under.
“ I don’t really know what the fuck’s going on so I’m just gonna make up some shit to fill in the blanks because it makes me feel better.”
Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations
Private companies: mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos’ attempts at space, with one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself, underpaying and exploiting its engineers, and lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets
Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR
Also, you’re focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Jun 16:09
nextcollapse
Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations
Yes, government funded endeavors are sometimes the only way to do things that don’t have a clear ROI but they are also incredibly inefficient and as such should be kept only until it becomes viable for the private sector to take over.
Private companies: *mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos’ attempts at space
That’s the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy, if you suck - you die. If those were public initiatives they would have been kept regardless of the costs or the results, wasting the taxpayer’s money instead of the shareholders’.
one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself
If it was that easy NASA or all the failed companies you mentioned would have done it themselves. SpaceX has done an absolutely incredible job at innovating in the industry that has been in stagnation since the 80s, designing rapidly reusable rockets, lowering the cost per kg to LEO from $72k in today’s money, from the space shuttle days to $2500 and planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.
The public funding part doesn’t mean free money from the government, the government pays SpaceX for fulfilling contracts because NASA can’t do it themselves, at least not as efficiently as SpaceX. Right now majority of SpaceX’s revenue comes from starlink which mainly serves private consumers so it’s reliance on the government contracts is being overstated.
lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets
As of 2025, SpaceX is the only U.S. company with a human-rated rocket system certified by NASA for regular flights to the International Space Station. NASA completed the certification of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket in 2023, marking the first time a commercial system was certified for human spaceflight.
Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR
Dude, most research altogether is government funded, companies don’t innovate for shit. Public research in Universities and research institutions amounts for the overwhelming majority of research, except in some sectors like automotive (where they managed to make cars 50000% bigger over the past 50 years and sell SUVs to city dwellers without lowering fuel consumption one fucking bit, my 2006 diesel car uses less fuel than most 2025 hybrids). Medicine, biology, languages, physics, chemistry… Without public funding, research dies. FFS, why do you think during the cold war the west rushed to fund public research with trillions of dollars instead of just “giving it to the free market to do its thing”?
That’s the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy
Hahahahaha. This “don’t tread on me” snake has never heard of the word “monopoly”, or of market power. You live in an imaginary world made up by capitalist economists. Without public funding there’s no education, without education there’s no research, end of the story dumbass.
Why do you think communist China is outpacing r&d in pretty much every field it decides to? Whether it be renewables, lithium batteries, electric cars, soon silicon, AI, and many other fields, China is advancing at paces the west doesn’t dream of. You’re taking the example of the most capitalist economy in the world (the USA) and using it to show how bad state-funded things in this hellhole are, no shit Sherlock.
planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.
Hahahahahahahaha yeah buddy, and we’ll have full self-driving by 2021. A Musk fartbreather, of course you are.
In 2019, the U.S. invested $667 billion in R&D. The private sector is responsible for most R&D in the United States, in 2019 performing 75 percent of R&D and funding 72 percent
In some economies, the private sector overwhelmingly drives R&D. Israel leads the way, with the private sector responsible for 92% of total R&D, followed by Viet Nam (90%), Ireland (80%), and both Japan and the Republic of Korea (79%). The private sector also plays a significant role in the US, China, several European economies, Thailand, Singapore, Türkiye, Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, where it contributes over half (50%) of total R&D.
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/96df7590-c92a-4cab-9be6-54dade8a7f5b.jpeg"> source
The business sector is the largest funder of R&D in the top R&D-performing countries, with lower shares funded by government, higher education, and private nonprofit institutions. In each of the leading R&D performers in East and Southeast Asia—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—the domestic business sector accounted for at least 75% of R&D funding in 2021.
source
In order to maintain a monopoly you have to keep innovating and offering a quality service, otherwise there there will be a 100 startups waiting to take your place if you ever give them an in. The most dangerous monopolies are created by government regulations, bureaucracy and bailouts.
Starship has ~150 tons payload capacity, if made fully reusable you only have to cover the fuel and operational costs, fuel is ~1 mil for a LEO launch so $6.66 per kg + operational costs, so the $10 per kg figure isn’t too far off.
All of your comment is pointless. My whole point was research, not research and development. No shit, in countries where the predominant mode of production is capitalism, where it’s been socially determined that development is done by private companies, the main source of funding for research and development is private capital, because there is no public development as a consequence of a social decision.
In order to maintain a monopoly you have to keep innovating and offering a quality service
No, you have to consolidate market power, bribe officials, perform marketing campaigns, buy the competition, and abuse your overwhelming economic and legal power and economy of scale. Good examples are car manufacturers eliminating the public transit systems in the beginning of the 20th century USA, natural monopolies such as energy, water and internet supply, or the significant additional rise of prices all over the economy as a consequece of corporate greed after the 2022 inflation episode. You’ve been lied about your economic axioms and you live in an imaginary world of neoclassical/neoliberal economics that have 0 predictive power.
This is such a childish take. The private and public sectors are not opposites and they don’t contradict each other. They serve different purposes in the economy, and they compliment each other quite well. It’s an ecosystem where one covers the gaps of the other. We need both.
Also, you’re focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?
NASA as well as the other American space agencies absolutely floor the global competition and it’s not even close. When it comes to China, they will always have cheaper prices because they are poorer country with a weaker currency, which means they’ll have a stronger purchasing power. In real terms, Chinese labor is much cheaper than American labor, Chinese materials are cheaper than American materials, Chinese manufacturing is cheaper than American manufacturing. China’s space expenditure is actually around as the US as percentage of GDP (both are around 0.5%), but China’s economy is smaller per capita and therefore they have a smaller budget to work with. This is why the US has the biggest, the most advanced, and the most flashy projects while China seems to be able to do a lot with less.
You could always just fund the space agency you already have, instead of funneling money to a foreign billionaire.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 08:55
nextcollapse
No this the one time I’m with the commies. Nationalize that shit. Like you said it’s all taxpayer money anyway. A little bit of Wall Street speculation, but who gives a fuck about those people
I’ll settle for whichever one annoys him the most.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 09:21
nextcollapse
NASA was always there and they couldn’t achieve what SpaceX has while simultaneously having a lot more capital to do so. I’m sorry but if there’s any proof that private sector’s self interest is a better driver of innovation than common interest SpaceX is it. This is a terrible idea that sounds like a good idea if you do not understand how good Musk was and is at cutting costs. That’s his actual real skill in business and is well documented. Doesn’t make him less of a prick but you also cannot downplay what he has achieved with this company.
Senal@programming.dev
on 07 Jun 09:38
nextcollapse
You mean the NASA who landed people on the moon?
So let’s assume you aren’t a moon landing denier and use that as a baseline, NASA is clearly capable of things given the right circumstances and budget.
SpaceX benefited from his reputation and money, because they sure as shit didn’t benefit from his technical acumen.
Business wise he is successful because he’s rich and influential and that works to mitigate how shitty he is at actually running an organisation, that doesn’t mean he has skills as a business person that means he has money and influence, in his case originally from the mine, then from buying and bullying his was in to businesses that were technologically sound and boosting them with his money.
You could make an argument he’s a relatively good investor, but he’s an actively bad CEO.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 09:51
nextcollapse
They landed people on the moon and then did fuck all for decades.
When Musk started SpaceX he was not well known yet, SpaceX came before Tesla.
He was able to get into the businesses he has because he was rich yes, but you can find many accounts of engineers that worked under him speak of how good he was at finding ways to cut unnecessary costs.
He’s not a technical genius that’s for sure. But he has been a good CEO for SpaceX. Terrible one for Tesla though, mostly because he bought into his own myth and became a drug addict. But I refuse to simply wave away his achievements simply because I don’t like him. I can not like someone and still acknowledge they have done something good.
They landed people on the moon and then did fuck all for decades.
Indeed, all i was saying is that they were capable given budget and circumstances.
That budget and direction comes from the government.
When Musk started SpaceX he was not well known yet, SpaceX came before Tesla.
I will admit, i thought spacex was just another company he bought his way in to, like tesla, seems i was mistaken about that.
He was able to get into the businesses he has because he was rich yes, but you can find many accounts of engineers that worked under him speak of how good he was at finding ways to cut unnecessary costs.
And you can equally find many accounts of having to distract him from the day to day operations because he’s unreliable , unpredictable and chaotic (none of those meant in a good way).
He’s also known for buying good press and using litigation to silence people.
He’s not a technical genius that’s for sure. But he has been a good CEO for SpaceX.
I doubt this, but that could just be bias, i don’t have any actual evidence of the long term impact of him as CEO.
Recently though, he’s provably been significantly more of a liability than a benefit, even if just from a PR and public sentiment point of view.
But I refuse to simply wave away his achievements simply because I don’t like him. I can not like someone and still acknowledge they have done something good.
Indeed, i push back on the myth that he’s some self made tony stark genius, but it isn’t like he’s not achieved anything.
I would personally attribute most of that to neptoism, wealth, luck and opportunity, but that doesn’t remove the achievement itself.
NASA is clearly capable of things given the right circumstances and budget.
Absolutely agree with this but there is no denying the innovation levels at spacex are higher (I’m not saying this is down to musk specifically. The man is a horror story of a human).
We were all in total awe when seeing booster stages land themselves successfully for the first time. It was such a giant leap forward and to the best of my knowledge no government funded space agency was even considering it before spacex.
SpaceX has an internal team that works to make sure Musk can’t interfere with anything, because he’s so bad at managing businesses. Gwynne Shotwell is the one in charge of SpaceX.
I am not surprised in the slightest. I mean if you have a bunch of smart, highly motivated people it sounds like keeping the crazy man at arms length is the kind of thing they’d organise very effectively.
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 10:02
collapse
The agency that landed people on the moon so long ago most of the people involved have died if old age, and the event will soon pass out of living memory?
The one where when they let a single rocket explode, one time, rocked the nation, because their record was so close to flawless?
The one that constantly gives us new sources for scientific data?
let’s not forget the agency that launched the probe that passed the edge of the solar system and is still functional and doing valuable things…… in the 70s
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 15:58
collapse
and is still functional and doing valuable things in the 70s
I fully agree. Any industry that can’t survive on its own and needs public funds, shouldn’t exist. If it’s an essential service it should be nationalized.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 13:36
collapse
So you want Donald Trump in charge of the telecom industry and any other industries that have received some sort of public subsidy?
captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org
on 07 Jun 16:08
collapse
Yeah, maybe we can nationalize them with the clause that it kicks in when his heart stops beating
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 16:13
collapse
This is the same mistake everyone makes. They think Donald Trump is just a person. That he actually matters and we just have to get rid of him and everything will be okay.
It doesn’t work that way.
As fascism didn’t die with Hitler, it’s not going to die with Trump. All of the problems — all of the rifts in our society — will still be there when he’s gone.
captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org
on 08 Jun 18:15
collapse
Very true. It’s easy to focus on a figurehead and much harder to target a broad feeling of disillusionment affecting tens of millions.
lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 12:03
nextcollapse
Are you against universal and free healthcare, education and retirement? Are you against improving worker rights, paid holidays, sick leave, guaranteed housing and guaranteed employment? Are you against unionisation of workplaces and collective worker decisions mattering in business? Are you against heavy regulation against climate change and pollution of the environment? Are you against anti-racism, feminism, anti-fascism and the redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest? I’m sure you have a lot more common ground with us commies than you think
AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
on 07 Jun 21:36
nextcollapse
Most of those things I mentioned are/were a material reality in socialist countries such as Cuba or the Soviet Union, except for climate change and pollution and some things regarding feminism and homosexuality due to moral shortcomings of 20th century thought.
Yes, I’m a tankie, you got me. How about you address the actual argument though? In the 1970s Soviet Union there was:
Guaranteed employment, free education to the highest level, free healthcare for everyone, guaranteed housing for everyone and the abolition of homelessness, 45h working week, retirement with guaranteed pension at 61 for men and at 55 for women, paid holiday and sick leave, highest unionisation population in the world, more female engineers inside the Soviet Union than in the rest of the world combined, lowest level of wealth inequality in the history of the region, subsidised and affordable basics like energy access or public transit… The list goes on and on.
How about you try to refute any of these individual claims I made instead of dismissing the actual historical reality just because you dislike my political views? Spoiler alert: you won’t find reliable sources contradicting any of my claims and I can provide sources to all of it because I actually know what I’m talking about.
See, that’s just cognitive dissonance. You start by saying it’s only in theory, and when prompted with actual examples of this existing, you just shut your ears. I went as far as being honest on the particular points that were lacking, such as women/homosexual rights or climate/pollution regulation, but you’re incapable of engaging with honest and reality-based analysis because it contradicts your absorbed anticommunist propaganda.
That’s actually commendable if you’re going and fighting ICE, they’re actual fascists. Maybe you could take inspiration from Bolsheviks on how to fight fascists (look up “Black Hundreds” on Wikipedia).
I’m western European and in a Marxist-Leninist org, I’m doing my part on the othet side of the ocean.
Please, PLEASE stop vilifying communists. We are NOT the enemy. The woman in charge of the students union of my country is prosecuted by the far right, THOSE are the enemy, not marxists
No I’m also with the commies on single payer health care and super high tax brackets for the rich. I do hate me a fascism, infact I hate all authoritarians.
I’m clearly for the workers rights we have fought for and established in this country. And while I can acknowledge the communist impact in these achievements, I would not go ahead and give you guys full credit nor say that these are policies that are specific to you. Most of this stuff is just center/left social welfare and human rights. Commies are the ones that like to do purity tests and isolate anyone that doesn’t agree with 100% of your policy points.
Pretty big jumps from liberal to leftist to self proclaimed communist ideas on how these ideas and policies look, so yes we agree on general principles and concepts. But we certainly don’t agree on how to bring them about.
Also, every single self-proclaimed communist is on the suspect list because you guys did a lot of campaigning against Joe Biden to help Donald Trump get elected so I’m just saying I don’t really fuck with you guys anymore. That’s my new purity test. Did you support Joe Biden and Kamala during the most important election in American history?
I’m a communist and I believe in the expropriation of their capital to eliminate super-richness, not in their taxation.
workers rights we have fought for and established in this country
Your country (the US judging by the comment) has miserable worker rights, as a western-European. Worker rights are bad here, but the US takes the cake.
I would not go ahead and give you guys full credit nor say that these are policies that are specific to you. Most of this stuff is just center/left social welfare and human rights
I’m not so sure. The legal abolition of homelessness and unemployment is far from being a centre/left welfare measure, as evidenced by the fact that the only countries that have achieved this are communist ones such as Cuba or the Soviet Union.
we certainly don’t agree on how to bring them about
We don’t agree on how to bring them about because the liberal method of bringing them about is proven ineffective in every single instance of liberal democracy. Worker rights and welfare are systematically being eroded in essentially all liberal democracies for the past 3-4 decades, home ownership rates decrease, unemployment increases, retirement age gets delayed (Denmark just rose it to 70 years e.g.), education and healthcare budgets get gutted, infrastructure crumbles, real wages diminish for the majority of the population, and little action is taken against climate change. There were only advancements in worker rights in Europe (and less so in the USA) because of the fear of communist revolution in the past century, hence the complete lack of progress and actual degradation of rights and democracy with the rise of the far right all over the Western World.
I’m not USian so I didn’t support any of your genocidal candidates. Funny how you talked of purity tests earlier in your comment and come up with that later. But as an outsider: the US liberal obsession with blaming the election loss on the progressives and not on, you know, the politicians enacting genocide and not doing anything about improving the living conditions of people in the US while in government seems pretty weird. If the Democrats can’t bring themselves to even remotely appear more appealing than LITERAL DONALD TRUMP to the average voter, what the fuck are they doing?
This is the thing, NASA is underfunded as it is, if we nationalized SpaceX, we wouldn’t actually continue to fund it appropriately and it would simply die. Actually, with trump at the helm, nationalizing it would mean Trump immediately liquidating it. SpaceX is definitely the most successful rocket company in the US. It would be an awful shame for the space industry and for humanity’s future in space.
I hate musk as much as the next guy, but I think the success of spaceX is undeniable. Their success with reusable rockets is not just impressive, it’s ground breaking and important. Developing a fully reusable rocket is probably the most important challenge humans are working on in this era, and I only know of three companies attempting to do it. I don’t want to kill the company that’s furthest along.
Of course he was always a jerk, but I still think of a reality where Elon never went (officially) Nazi and just stuck with his otherwise important companies. Tesla being an important early mover in EVs, especially in such an oil-dependent country, and all the cool stuff SpaceX has been up to.
lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 12:02
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You guys are so stuck in the cult of personality. WE PAID FOR EVERYTHING SPACEX DID. IT BELONGS TO US.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 12:30
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Let’s say I bought you a car, I paid for it in full and then gave it to you, and in return you sometimes drive me around.
Let’s say I get tired of this arrangement, should I repossess the car just to drive it into the ocean? What would be the point of that? Sure, it’s rightfully mine, but what good does it do to destroy it?
“IT BELONGS TO US” is not a very compelling argument for arbitrary distribution.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 14:13
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Us? Do you own NASA? Do you have any say on how funds are assigned to NASA? No? Then it doesn’t belong to “Us” it belongs to the government, a distinct organization with different goals and motivations than “Us” the people.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 16:26
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Not to mention that Musk himself contributed nothing to SpaceX’s technical achievements. All he did was insist that the audio of their launches and recoveries include employees cheering maniacally - easily the most annoying aspect of SpaceX.
Has US nationalized anything this millenia? I really don’t see that ever happening
psycho_driver@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 12:05
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Tax burdens for billionaires
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 12:18
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Also losses. Gotta get that sweet, sweet too-big-to-fail bailout money.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 13:08
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Airport security was nationalized as the TSA. Aside from that no.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 15:46
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So it takes a spectacular failure of capitalist grifters? Check.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 13:09
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Technically the auto industry in 2008.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 15:06
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I mean if we count bailouts as nationalization, then now we’ve got like some kinda national “socialism” where state and corporate power have fused.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 16:28
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The GM situation was a more than a bailout, they took complete control of the company, took it private, liquidated some assets, then sold it off in a new IPO.
It’s not all that different from a private equity firm doing the same thing, the major difference is the legal protections the US had (e.g. it got priority over all other creditors). If the US wanted to keep it and run it, it could’ve.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 15:48
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Technically no. Bailout =/= nationalization.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 16:23
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It was more than something like a loan, the federal government actually a fair amount of control over the company. It ended up divesting itself once the new, restructured company made its IPO, but during the bailout, the US gov was technically in control, and it got priority over all other interests since the company went private with special financing.
It’s certainly different than other nationalized industries, but it was also much more than a regular bailout.
Friend, the magazine this article is from is named Jacobin, after that political movement.
It is a US-based magazine, and it’s not very popular, so it’s understandable that you haven’t heard of it. But it does pay to read the article before commenting.
Well that’s not really the case. Conservatives will accuse progressive of being communists, and claim any social services are examples of communism. But it’s mostly those progressives here on Lemmy suggesting communist ideas.
So it’s not really ironic, just unsurprising I guess.
For whatever reasons Musk has found himself as ceo of some wildly successful visionary companies. It has not changed that they are finally bringing the future to the present, disrupting old technologies in favor of newer and better, for a better world. And the musk from before his breakdown deserves a lot of credit.
At this point I no longer care about musk either, but SpaceX and Tesla are critical. Or at least SpaceX is. Tesla has not yet finished disrupting vehicle manufacturing , but if we’re content to let Chinese companies go ahead, they’re ready and willing. Legacy manufacturers have been slapped up the side of the face, but if they’re still not awake at this point it’s on them
hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz
on 07 Jun 13:49
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I’m sorry, but credit for what? For being born privileged and buying talent? If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em, right?
Yeah, I guess he deserves praise for being a good liar and basically selling pipe dreams?
Tesla was started by a handful of really smart people with a great idea. Musk was ceo as it grew from an idea into the first new major automaker in almost a century. As it grew from a dismissed toy that no one would buy, into an industry-wide paradigm shift. Most of that time musk preached the gospel. You can’t disregard that influence, you can’t claim the guy in charge had nothing to do with it. You might decide his skill was more manipulative than visionary, but you can’t deny that him being the front man was part of the success. You might decide any engineering or problem solving ability was not real, but he was the guy in charge, he did make decisions, and Tesla has generally been a huge success (until recently).
We just need some drug rehab and find a way to reset the god complex ….
Sure, I mean technically paypal was a rather innovative idea for its time, but again, the guy basically associated himself with smart people that had bright ideas.
Yes, he does have a knack for growing businesses to a larger scale, but most millionaires/ billionaires do, cause they outsource brain matter and decision making to a select few.
I’m not sure if I ever liked the guy or his largely exaggerated marketing, but being a POS nazi isn’t helping either, so i’m biased towards nazi hate I guess. Either way, he will need a paradigm shift for people to accept him back into the decent human beings club.
I do hope he will find a way, but doubt it really.
I mostly hope that his companies make it back into the “disruptive technology” club, regardless of him.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 14:17
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Sure, he gets credit for building hype and getting investors on board. He’s a decent salesman, and probably decent at business in general.
I don’t care if he’s rich or not, he’s relatively harmless when it comes to things I care about. Trump, on the other hand, is dangerous because he seems to work off vibes and compliments, and that’s scary.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 13:26
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Trump has been impeached successfully. Twice. What I assume you mean is that he hasn’t been removed from office. That could be the consequence of an impeachment, but not necessarily.
Just having such wealth and thus power in hands of singular humans is risk to all of humanity. With musk you are but big enough drug fueled temper tantrum away from pretty important infrastructure coming crashing down.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 12:54
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Do that, so that when the US Gov. falls SpaceX and Starlink does too.
gemappliedfax@lemmy.zip
on 07 Jun 13:32
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Pedo-nation
Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml
on 07 Jun 13:58
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We? No. USA can if it wants that shit.
Burghler@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 14:08
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American exceptionalism is so fucking annoying. Their country is failing to a point hopefully this first person shit rightfully corrects to third person.
Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml
on 07 Jun 16:03
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It’s worse here than on Reddit, IMO.
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 19:20
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American exceptionalism definitely sucks, but this is not an example of American exceptionalism. The source is an article from an American magazine, published for an American audience.
What “they made” 50 years ago is of little value now. Expertise matters, and it’s lost with time passing.
Still - yes. Nationalization is a bad solution because it gives the state power to nationalize. Seems a truism.
Just let NASA work in its normal role. Instead of replacing that with SpaceX contracts.
Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 14:36
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Starlink should not just be nationalized but internationalized.
It is internet for everyone on earth, not everyone in the USA.
Every larger nation deploying their own constellation would be a pointless waste of resources, and every smaller nation having to find reliable partner-nations to tap into for that internet access would inevitably lead to people ending up without access due to political games.
Low orbit satellite constellations are the perfect candidate for sharing, they would literally sit unused over most of their orbits otherwise.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 15:02
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I think every larger nation deploying their own constellation would reduce people losing access due to political games.
If there’s only one network with the same topology as Starlink, then the USA, China, or Russia will end up making a bunch of rules on everyone else just like Elon does today. Look how the USA abuses centralized internet infrastructure already. Multiple overlapping systems would be wastefully redundant, but reduces the risk of censorship.
You want a truly multinational organization responsible for it, nothing that can be controlled by a single nation, even one as (ex)influential as the us.
Something based on the UN perhaps.
Combine that with making internet access a human right, to stop denying connectivity outright.
Ideally then you could’t enforce meaningful censorship, but more realistically you would route regions to their respective governments servers so they could censor as before on their territory.
That would not guarantee free access to the internet to everyone, but should be an acceptable compromise to basically all nations.
After that, other doubting nations could still pull their own constellation, nothing is stopping that.
I would love if the internet program was uncensored, but that probably needs personal circumvention same as now, if such a program wants any degree of success.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 15:34
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It sounds like we don’t disagree that much, I just think other doubting nations is extremely likely.
Edit: but gosh darn that is nice to imagine. Everyone, everywhere, having free internet.
Yeah.
The maintenance of these conatellations is pricy, so perhaps if such an international program does prove itself trustworthy you’d see other national alternatives get retired.
I mean it’s not like the US would do it anyway as things stand, more likely for such a program to get started independently and to end up outcompeting starlink down the line.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 14:59
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Yeah, let’s give the trump administration the power to seize companies it doesn’t like, that is a great idea that def won’t be abused all the time
barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
on 07 Jun 15:36
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We no longer live in a world where our biggest fear would be the government controlling high level corporations and their operators.
We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology. Right now it’s mostly tourism rockets and satellites, but now we see Skum weaponizing that technology, and/or using it as a bargaining chip. He has cut off Starlink in a war zone to benefit the county who defers to him, but is openly hostile to the US, and now he’s threatening to cut off our access to the space station. He is using tech that WE PAY FOR with government contracts and grants, to pursue his own diplomacy, for his own benefit, and against our interests.
Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn’t step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
We paid for Skum’s technology, and he gets to control it as a courtesy. Just the threat of using it against us should be enough reason to declare him a national security threat, confiscate his American-taxpayer financed businesses, and imprison him.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 15:40
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Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn’t step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
Bruh this has already happened over and over again. Nobody stops them because the most violence empire on the planet is leading the way. AFAIK the USA is the only state to have actually nuked people.
First of all, America is not “the most violent empire on the planet.” America has the capability of being the most violent nation, but at the moment, our potential for violence is being eclipsed by other nations who are actively employing the same levels of violence that we are capable of. Nothing we are currently doing comes close to the violence that Russia and Israel are employing.
And yes, America is the only nation to have deployed nuclear weapons against human targets, but that was 80 years ago, and ended the worst war in human history. After demonstrating its power, just the presence of nuclear weapons in a nation’s arsenal has been enough to keep the most powerful, well-armed, violent nations (including America) from going too far.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 16:43
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We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology.
People have lived in that world for most/all of human history. Assuming you come from the west, you’re coming from a place where for the last couple of hundred years it’s been more cost effective to just buy the government instead. Is that better? Maybe, it’s a little more stable. I dunno if it’s good though.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 04:02
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It’s hilarious seeing all these “anti oligarch” people come out of the woodwork now that it’s a catchphrase of their political party, despite that party being run by oligarchs.
Like you said, this is how the world has been essentially forever. People are only against it now that their teams oligarchs are upset that they aren’t in as much control as usual.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 15:39
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The author probably forgot who runs the nation of usa.
We are already fucked. The choices given are siding with Trump, and end up like Russia, or side with Elon, and end up like Cyberpunk 2077
Disaster@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Jun 16:29
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…or organize, start/join unions, get involved with your local community and build up some real resistance that isn’t based off obscene wealth, lawfare or media brainwashing. Once you have experienced something real, it’s quite hard to understand how or why anyone would fall for the alternative.
mycelium_underground@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 16:32
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Only useless people side with those two.
Stop being useless.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 19:36
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Congress has always had this power. I’m personally for nationalizing telecomm companies.
Health; education; energy production; food production & distribution; water; housing; mass transit and telecommunications should all be classified as essential services and nationalised.
Everything else can be whatever.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:43
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The problem would be that nationalising them in this day and age would mean prices would get even worse for everyone, as the government having a monopoly on these things would mean they can charge whatever they want.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 08 Jun 03:44
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As we all know, private corporations don’t charge whatever they want, and don’t jack up the prices because of a “Fuck you, why not?” fee and bill.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:47
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Did you stop reading after the first part of my sentence?
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 08 Jun 11:25
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No.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 16:02
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Your comment says yes.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 15:37
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Maybe… But never going to happen. Privitization and capitalism work the other way in the imperial core.
I don’t think the majority of Americans understand what that means. They’ll just scream “commies!” And raise their maga flag.
But the idea of a starlink-like business owned by UN would be nice, and not an American corporation owned by a nepobaby Elmo.
AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 17:08
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In the USA space-x gets away with a lot. A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
If your want proof that the wealthy live by a different set of laws, look no further than the time Elon Musk, ceo of SpaceX, went on a podcast and smoked weed.
SpaceX has DOD contracts for launches, and somehow him blatantly violating federal law had no impact on the contracts his company fulfilled for the government.
Do I think weed should be classified like it is? No.
Do I think that everyone should be held to the same standard? Yes. And if anyone else had been involved in government projects while going on podcasts and smoking weed, they’d at the very least be fired.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Jun 19:35
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A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
How long back was that? I genuinely didn’t hear about that, but I believe that would happen. I tried googling “space x faa” but I’m getting results of FAA investigating rocket issues and approvals of rocket models.
They say this is for enterprise and government, and they talk about “terminals”. This seems more like a Hughes network, and let me tell you, if it’s that bad, you want nothing to do with it.
Can you imagine who would run those companies if they were government owned?
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
on 07 Jun 20:41
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Yeah. A gov; be it the UN or a country.
Having worked and then contracted to regional and Muni govs, and worked for dotcoms, I can tell you one of them follows way, WAY more of the regs than the other.
It’s like transpo & highways vs private roads and rail: one of them is way better-maintained when there is a comparison.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:42
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Not the person you commented on, but think about the reason why people are wanting SpaceX to be nationalised when NASA exists and is already Government owned.
SpaceX is light years, pardon the pun, ahead of NASA. If SpaceX was taken over by the government, SpaceX would likely end up like NASA as it would be taken over by the same people and have mountains more red tape in order to do anything. It would destroy SpaceX and put space exploration back decades.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:31
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Then the UN should start their own starlink-like company. Nothing is stopping them.
Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
on 08 Jun 14:45
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In an ideal world, starlink should be internationalized by the U.N.
We don’t need half a dozen companies in every developed nation putting their own garbage in orbit just to provide rural internet for a minority of a minority of the planet. Those systems are in orbit, they can provide internet to the overwhelming majority of humans.
But instead we’re gonna fuck up our ability to use a load of space telescopes needed to help see potentially dangerous asteroids, and all these satellites burning up in orbit are gonna fuck up the atmosphere, opening up the hole in the ozone layer even more.
If we do, we’ll definitely reach mars. I can imagine it now! Its 3055 and everything is totally fine now that we can escape to Mars in an inflatable city. A whole 4000 square feet of freedom soaring thru the sky with the last of us aboard ready for a whole new life and a good 7 in inflated cities for our children to live. She changes her name to Mother Gaia and His name is now Adam. One day in the distant future perhaps a large meteor would come roaring and reshaping our planet into livable space again.
MyOpinion@lemmy.today
on 07 Jun 16:52
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Step one Musk needs to be arrested and sent to El Salvador.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 20:42
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No thanks. We need to shut down all U.S. affiliation with prisons outside the U.S. Release those prisoners or transfer them back to the U.S. and have proper trials. Trump needs to stand trial for the fake electors and for every unconstitutional measure he has done before/since as an unconstitutional act that the Supreme Court deems unconstitutional should not be considered an official act. The President should be suspended from all duties until Congress performs an investigation draws up the articles of impeachment and it is tried by the Senate.
Musk should be tried for election interference and any other laws he may have broken but it should be done right here in the U.S. If anything freeze all of his accounts and require him to step down from any/all roles within his companies as part of his required bale terms, or otherwise he would be choosing to spend the time awaiting trial in jail.
These actions would ensure they aren’t trying to drag court cases out for years, they would want the court cases to move along faster.
Would Trump get convicted by the Senate, unlikely. That’s on us for voting terrible people into the legislative branch. But we can’t complain about those who break the law if we think it’s fine to break the law when it fits our wants. We need to update those laws legally or tear the whole thing down and say Musk and Trump didn’t break any laws because we didn’t think those laws mattered as well.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 17:02
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No thanks, demolish Leon Hitler’s space program and bury it. NASA should be the US leader for space missions and not a South African neo-Nazi sack of shit.
imagine how many more rockets we could reuse if the NASA subdivision formerly known as SpaceX did literally any of the standard, rigorous fault-checks.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 17:17
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NOW they complain about giving Musk money?
Most of the 38 billion was given by Biden.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 19:08
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We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.
RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 22:22
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SpaceX has loads of capable engineers. If NASA gets a massive budget increase, they need to draw from that pool of talent.
NASA hasn’t take the slightest risk since Challenger. They wouldn’t have accomplished 1/20th of the launch capability SpaceX has developed in the last 5 years.
It’s the specification process that’s the thing, nobody there would have gone out on a limb the way SpaceX has with their recovery systems. Look where they are on a shuttle replacement: the Apollo capsule with more room.
These last few years they’ve had very little successes, but the point is it should stay competitive and not be automatically handed to these doofuses. Even the USSR maintained a competitive rocketry sector.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:30
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SpaceX and starlink have had very little success the last few years? What have you been smoking?!
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:49
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You say “failed”, engineers say “ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?”. These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn’t a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
They are years behind schedule and obscenely over budget on this testing. They’re not even making new technology here, they are just cheaping out on the builds to funnel money into their own pockets.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 19:47
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You have any links to support that it’s just cheap materials causing the failures?
How has spacex had very few successes? Their Falcon 9 rocket is basically operating like clockwork. They launch more rockets than the rest of the world combined.
The starship failures are higher profile but even those failures are typical when testing new vehicles, especially one as experimental and complex.
Also spacex lost like 20 or so Falcons before their first successful mission. Maybe they will explode as many Starships, but they have hit that number yet.
It’s ok to hate Elon, and there are many valid criticisms to make regarding spacex, but they’re the best in the world right now and it isn’t even close.
The biggest issue with Spacex is that Elon needs to be removed before he ruins it like he ruined Tesla.
zbyte64@awful.systems
on 07 Jun 20:39
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The oligarchs wouldn’t like that precedent but they might go for purchasing SpaceX since it is owned by a foreigner. Kind of like with TikTok…
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 21:44
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When’s the last time the US nationalised something?
PumpUpTheJam@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 22:02
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Tencent would never allow it.
Besides it’s software, that has no subsidiaries.
If it were cars like BYD or Geely then maybe.
In this case there is nothing to steal.
The US has a sale-or-ban order in force right now, it is not up to Tencent, but the Taco King right now.
Besides it’s software, that has no subsidiaries.
You must mean assets. I’m talking about the legal entity, that’s what subsidiary means, a local US sub-company owned by the Chinese parent company. US Tiktok operations are owned by the local US subsidiary Tiktok Inc, incorporated in California, owned by Bytedance. That ownership relation is entirely regulated by US law.
In this case there is nothing to steal.
$10 billion in US revenue, the market share and the cultural, societal and political impact of the platform is there for the taking.
I think during world war 2. But things were worse then 15% unemployment and people still had massive economic leverage. I don’t think the US government is nationalizing anything anytime soon now. Neither party will participate in it because they are in the pockets of the oligarchs.
TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 00:23
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The automotive manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler were partially nationalized in the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis as were several banks… these were less a full government takeover and more of a government guided restructuring, but the government owned large stakes in these companies. Before that, the only full nationalization of anything substantial was the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad and subsequent establishment of Consolidated Rail (branded as ConRail) the US’s only national freight rail company.
Conrail was later privatized into what is now the private companies CSX and Norfolk Southern. The collapse of Penn Central was the largest bankruptcy in history until Enron in the 1990’s. Amtrak, our national passenger rail corporation, is also a nationalized entity created around the same time as ConRail, for similar reasons, and is still nationalized (although the Trump admin wants to privatize it).
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 17:17
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Didn’t know about Amtrak. Interesting. Thanks
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 01:01
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Conrail?
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 07 Jun 23:05
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I’ve been saying this for years. the footprint that spaceX represents in national launch authority is out of whack to say the least.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 01:36
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The only reason SpaceX exists is because Boeing and Lockheed managed to compete so badly the only solution was to merge their launch businesses.
So we had one launch company, then spaceX made it two providers, now its back to one because B-mart is using antiquated launch systems (single use).
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 01:58
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this isn’t incorrect. ULA is a fucking pork barrel of hideous proportions. doesn’t mean we shouldn’t nationalize spacex.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:29
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You don’t nationalise a company (SpaceX) just because the existing government owned company (NASA) is significantly worse. What do you think would happen to SpaceX if they did nationalise it? Lol. It would go to hell, like NASA.
The government should not be responsible for things like this. The government should provide services for necessities for human rights and general standards of living, but they shouldn’t take over successful companies just because they couldn’t do it themselves.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:37
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You haven’t put your eggs in any basket. SpaceX are a private company. The government owns NASA, they can pour money into that and hire people to do what SpaceX are doing. Hell, they could poach people from SpaceX!
Why do you think they haven’t already done this? Because the government don’t care about it. If someone else will do it they can use them to provide their services via ludicrously expensive contracts, and give them massive subsidies, as is the Government way.
The government taking over SpaceX is not something anyone with even half a brain should be wanting. It makes ZERO sense. It doesn’t matter who owns it privately, just not the government because they will fuck it up and/or neglect it - like they did with NASA and most of their other projects.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 07:07
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You haven’t put your eggs in any basket.
$38 billion in government funding. huh.
what reality do you live in?
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 07:52
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That’s not putting eggs in a basket, that’s just wasteful government as always. The same government that you guys want to take control of SpaceX lol.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 23:43
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ok freedumb, I get it, you’re not reading, just responding. gonna block you now
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 06:14
nextcollapse
NASA was pretty damn efficient with the budget they used to have.
The wasteful NASA storyline is tiresome and busted.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:34
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And why do you think they have zero budget? The government lol. You think if the same government takes over SpaceX they’ll all of a sudden give them the huge budget that they need?
We shot a space telescope half way to the sun and are observing the dawn of the entire universe.
And you just wanna see a bigger penis rocket🌈
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 15:59
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Sending something one way into space isn’t hard. Having it come back is. Having it, and all the parts that it took to get it there and back, be safely returned to earth and able to be reused is stupidly hard.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 11:06
nextcollapse
Oh, I know, man I’ve been following the SpaceX project for the last 12 years. I’m a huge fan of outer space. But now that they’re slashing my science budgets for weapons budgets it makes me sad. And a bit mad.
The only reason SpaceX exists is because Boeing and Lockheed managed to compete so badly the only solution was to merge their launch businesses.
To compete even worse
mechoman444@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 00:39
nextcollapse
The precedent that will set and the implications… No… We should not do this.
pneumatron@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 01:25
nextcollapse
Health insurance, ISP, Oil Cos, and utilities should also be nationalized. The US is a weird place where everything is a business. A shithole capitalist hellscape
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 02:55
nextcollapse
Tankies live in alternate reality where they think that nationalization is extremely common and is a magical solution to all of societies problems… even though this view is entirely delusional.
For example, only 3 countries have nationalized the entire ISP industry, and those are Cuba, Turkmenistan, and North Korea. All three of which are horrid tyrannical dictatorships with horrible internet. We should NOT be like them. Even when it comes to health insurance, except for 3 countries I just mentioned, every single country allows private health insurance, even if their system is public. Clearly nationalization is not what you think it is.
pneumatron@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 03:26
nextcollapse
Tankie your ass. You don’t have to have a shitty dictatorship to have nationalized services. Clearly you don’t know as much as you think you do.
Most countries have public options for services and private alternatives as either competitors, backups, or complimentary pieces. It’s very rare for countries to completely nationalize sectors, and it’s especially rare for them to national that many sectors.
pneumatron@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 04:26
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Yep that’s my point. Not everything needs be a business.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 08:46
nextcollapse
Allowing government to compete with business creates better outcomes in both. There is certainly something to be said about a more involved government. It’s really silly to allow big business or the government to have a monopoly on critical services.
A strawman is when somebody mischaracterize an argument, calling someone a tankie is not that.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 23:37
nextcollapse
sure thing bud. I’m not going to waste my afternoon going through your shitstream to point out how you’re wrong, I simply have better things to do with my life. in fact, gonna block you now, QOL plus
no_more_dogz@endlesstalk.org
on 16 Jun 09:23
collapse
You’re the tankie
Bloomcole@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 06:56
nextcollapse
LOL “We should NOT be like them.”
And then starts talking about health insurance. What health insurance?
You can only dream of being like Cuba.
But your shithole country keeps licking the boots and are good little servants of the oligarch ruling class.
And that’s great, you deserve all you get, all you do is comlain and cry about it online anyway.
Cuba is a shithole by every definition of the word. The only people in the world who think Cuba is decent are brainless Marxists online. Even Cubans don’t agree with your delusions.
I hate tankies, but not as much as I hate Nazis. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We’re losing 100 years of social advancement. But here you are telling us to protect the fucking corporations that are sucking them up.
This is a false dichotomy. We don’t have to accept either Nazis Marxists. Fuck them both, there other options out that are much better.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:21
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Those are different to taking over private companies. The government should, imo, compete against private enterprise in those areas, in turn bringing prices down and making it better for the taxpayers.
NASA is government owned. Look at the state of it. Do you think the government taking over SpaceX would really be a good thing?
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 08:42
nextcollapse
Nice 30-year-old Fox News talking points you got there. Time to go to bed, grandpa.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 15:57
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No, the private funding of politicians, which nowhere in the world happens as thoroughly or blatantly as in the US, is another issue to solve. It’s companies pushing for privatization of services that they sabotage first to show that the government doesn’t do well with them. It’s like the postal service headed by that Trump appointee that was a big cheese in a transport firma. I forgot his name.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 19:49
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So they were sabotaging nasa for all those years before SpaceX was a thing for what reason?
turtlesareneat@discuss.online
on 08 Jun 01:33
nextcollapse
Nationalization is the opposite of privatization, it’s how the US’s bureaucratic state was really built, we should absolutely do this and right now is the time
No, this is just pure ignorance. The US never nationalized any sector. The US has only used nationalization as a means to stabilize certain sectors from collapse temporarily, and even this happens very rarely.
Nationalization stable, growing industries would have devastating impacts on the economy. These companies are running just fine, and they’re providing their services reliably and at competitive prices, what would be the justification to nationalize them? If the government feels like it needs more control on these companies they can pass regulations, and if they want total control then they should launch their own public alternatives.
pneumatron@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 03:45
collapse
Gotcha. So fascism it is then. How’s that working out for y’all? Lmao
Your comment doesn’t make sense. You say the US never nationalized and in the next sentence you say that they have. Remember after the 2008 collapse when the automotive industry was nationalized for a while and the government made a profit? Maybe you need to check your own ignorance.
Gotcha. So fascism it is then. How’s that working out for y’all? Lmao
This is going to be shocking for you, but there’s more to politics than fascism and marxism
Your comment doesn’t make sense. You say the US never nationalized and in the next sentence you say that they have.
My point was that the US never nationalized any sector permanently for the sake of making it public. It also temporarily nationalized portions of some sectors to stabilize them before making them private again.
pneumatron@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 04:28
collapse
Omg you really think you’re smarter than everyone. Of course there’s in-between. Lmao glad you were able to clear it up for yourself.
I’m not smarter than everyone, but you are dumb enough to think Marxism and Fascism are economic opposites otherwise you wouldn’t have said what you did earlier.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:32
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The precedent that will set and the implications
and what precedent is there for dealing with the executive of your country’s entire space launch infrastructure when they become dependent on horse drugs?
No really, what’s the precedent here, I want to know. Because if we set a precedent by ignoring it until the problem is impossible to ignore, that’s gonna be a far more expensive fix.
So yeah, yeah we should consider this very strongly.
If the government actually nationalized SpaceX, the precedent would be insane. You’d be telling every private company working in defense, infrastructure, or tech that if they become too essential, the government might just take it. Doesn’t matter how much risk or capital they fronted.
SpaceX isn’t just launching rockets for fun—it’s practically a branch of the U.S. space program at this point. GPS, Starlink for military comms, launching classified payloads, putting astronauts in orbit. If we nationalize that over a political pissing match between Trump and Musk, we’re basically saying innovation is conditional on obedience.
And let’s be honest—once you do this to SpaceX, you open the door to doing it to AWS, Tesla’s energy grid systems, Google’s AI infrastructure. Any private company that gets too important suddenly becomes “too critical to stay private.” That’s a fast track to killing private innovation in sectors where we need it most.
If Trump’s threatening funding, and Musk is threatening to walk, and the public’s response is “just take the company,” then we’ve officially politicized the tech-industrial base. That’s not governance, that’s dysfunction.
Nationalizing SpaceX would be a Cold War move in a modern economy. It might feel good in the moment, but long-term, it’s a terrible idea.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 23:47
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how can you be so casually apathetic about saddling our soldiers sailors airmen and spaceforce with the products of a horse drug addled asshole?
What kind of prick tells these people VOLUNTEERING TO DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY “hey man, the ketamine kid is the only way!” - how are you comfortable or confident in the products produced when he’s tripping balls in the oval office?
meh. this is a pointless argument, I’m never going to convince these elon fanboys their hero is a prick
I’m sorry were you talking to me? Because nothing in your response had anything to do with what I actually said.
I never claimed to like Elon. I don’t.
I never expressed support for this administration’s policies. I don’t.
My argument is about the moral, ethical, and historically dangerous precedent of nationalizing a private company.
That drug-addled sycophant stood before the most powerful political body on Earth wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt while the Vice President of the United States told President Zelensky to put on a suit.
Unbelievable.
Where the hell do you get off making wild, baseless assumptions about things you barely understand? What exactly prevents you from engaging in civil discourse like an adult, instead of spouting off like you did in that comment?
Fine if we’re slinging assumptions now, here’s mine:
You strike me as a fedora-wearing, vape-huffing, woman-hating neckbeard. Am I wrong? Don’t care. That’s the image your words paint.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 04:44
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I never claimed to like Elon. I don’t. I never expressed support for this administration’s policies. I don’t.
you just defend his right to run spaceX on specialK.
mmkay bud.
mechoman444@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 12:03
nextcollapse
I don’t give two flying fucks who runs space x. Once again. I’m not defending Elon in anyway.
I am expressing my concern about the United States government nationalizing a private company. You’re still making bassless assumptions. Pull your head out of your own ass and actually think about what I’m saying before spouting off at the mouth.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 21:56
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then defend his drug use. defend doge. come on, make rational arguments for the bullshit, oh, you can’t, that’s why you’re down to insults.
look fuckwit, you couldn’t find your point with a flashlight and a map, and you’re telling me to remove my rectum from MY CRANIUM? You want a man addled on horse tranq to run the only company producing orbital launch for the US.
I think it’s your head that’s rectum-fied. In fact, this entire discourse is dragging me down to your level. Gonna block you, should have done it before. Enjoy your ketamine kid, hope when he’s responsible for killing astronauts you pause and reflect.
you just defend his right to run spacex on specialK.
Is not the US “the land of the free” ?
Obviously he has the right to run SpaceX, like you have the right to try to build another one.
But obviously you seems to not understand what are the implication of setting this kind of precedent and all the implications that will arise. But that’s ok, after all the only important thing is to hate Musk.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 21:53
nextcollapse
ffs have better standards in your selection of contractors. or perhaps you’re on too much horse tranq too.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 21:53
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But obviously you seems to not understand
Yeah, and obviously, you only have a passing familiarity with the english language.
I mean if they’re utilities, we shouldn’t let a board decide what should rightfully be in the hands of the voting public. Really they should welcome a stable (OK maybe not so stable in the US atm, but generally…) owner as the government.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:26
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Just because something is a “utility” it doesn’t mean that the government should own and run it lol.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:42
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By your logic spaceX should stop taking gov $ then.
Just because something is private doesn’t mean they should get public funding.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:39
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It’s not up to SpaceX to stop taking government handouts - it’s up to the government to stop giving handouts.
I agree with you - they shouldn’t get public funding. IMO anything the government funds they should own instead, but this doesn’t mean they should take ownership of the things that they fund - they should instead use that funding to start their own taxpayer owned competitor.
I’m completely against government handouts for private business and NGOs btw.
Take the /s off the ruskies might believe you and run with it
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 01:39
nextcollapse
Arrest Musk on violation of controlled substances acts, file immigration violation charges, invalidate his ownership shares due to securities fraud, as he falsified education and naturalization forms.
Or just emminent domain the shit. The Law is just made up right now.
Such an effort would be likely to fail AND take longer than the current administration is likely to exist.
Campliving69@aussie.zone
on 08 Jun 02:09
nextcollapse
Agreed. These are things that should be of the people.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:19
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These things only exist and are as good as they are because they’re not government owned and run.
Look at NASA compared to SpaceX to see why this would be an absolutely terrible move. Government is where projects like these go to die, while making every politician and contractor involved filthy rich.
Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
on 08 Jun 14:33
nextcollapse
It dying is better than it being in the hands of a billionaire fascist.
So how come NASA was doing all these things before SpaceX even existed? SpaceX never put anyone on the moon. NASA did.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 09 Jun 06:43
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And NASA hasn’t put anyone on the moon in how long? Did NASA make a re-usable booster? Were they even trying to? Were nasa planning to send people to Mars?
NASA has gone down the drain over the last say 30 years, would you agree?
I think that’s a complicated question. It’s both yes and no. Yes, we should nationalize them. No, nationalizing them should not be by tRump. That sets the precedent, or at least reinforces, the concept that the architecture of industry can be nationalized as payback for petty political squabbling. They should be nationalized, however, because fElon has proven himself to be unstable, reckless, petty, and a risk to the nation.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:40
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remember the halcyon days when NASA could do something and the president might not like it, but they were all FUCKING ADULTS and the grift was well distributed amongst the congresscreatures, so it never devolved into adolescent twitter whining?
goddamn those were better than whatever this shit is
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 02:35
nextcollapse
No, they’re fine remaining as private companies. If the government wants to better control over the companies then they can pass regulation and if they want total control then they can build their own alternatives. Nationalization of companies should never be used as a political weapon.
abbotsbury@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 03:13
nextcollapse
Nah fuck the shareholders, if they do something we depend on and pay for it with tax dollars then we should own them.
Yeah, we’re not going to nationalize the entire economy because that’s really stupid. Our tax dollars reach every nook and carny of the economy, but that’s fine. Tax dollars are meant to be used in a way that makes the country operate safely, smoothly, and reliably. A lot of this is done by putting the money back into the economy in the form of subsidies, welfare, wages, and government contracts. It’s fine for the government to pay a business to provide as long as the business is offering fair market prices and they’re delivering an acceptable product or service. The tax money that goes into such a business doesn’t just go to the shareholders, it also goes to everybody else as well.
That being said, shareholders can be scumbags, I’m with you there. If they are clearly conducting unethical behavior or illegal behavior then they should be immediately cut off. This includes things like delivering unacceptable products and services by cutting too many corners or committing fraud to take more tax money than they should or trying to scheme to monopolize and so on. These types of shareholders should’ve receive bailouts or awarded government contracts, they should be thrown in jail. But we shouldn’t nationalize the economy because some shareholders are crooks.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:27
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we’re not going to nationalize the entire economy because that’s really stupid.
Yes, that’s why no one in this entire thread suggested anything even remotely close to this. it’s stupid, and a stupid strawman.
Nationalizing spaceX temporarily in order to restore confidence in it’s largest, most important customer, after that customer’s trust has been repeatedly violated by the executive and the board that keeps him in power, is NOT NATIONALIZING THE ENTIRE ECONOMY nor would it be untoward if Boeing or Lockheed’s CEO was dumb enough to engage in this bullshit.
Yes, that’s why no one in this entire thread suggested anything even remotely close to this. it’s stupid, and a stupid strawman.
The guy that I replied said that we should nationalize any company that receives tax dollars if we depend on it… Buts that case for virtually the entire economy. Everything is touch by our tax dollars and everything in our economy is intertwined. It is a ridiculous suggestion.
Nationalizing spaceX temporarily in order to restore confidence in it’s largest, most important customer, after that customer’s trust has been repeatedly violated by the executive and the board that keeps him in power, is NOT NATIONALIZING THE ENTIRE ECONOMY nor would it be untoward if Boeing or Lockheed’s CEO was dumb enough to engage in this bullshit.
The government doesn’t nationalize on the behalf of companies, it only temporarily nationalizes when to protect the American economy at large. For example, in 2008 the government took hold of a bunch of auto companies to prevent a collapse of this sector. This is not happening here for SpaceX so it doesn’t make sense to do it.
The thing is you would actually have a really good case to temporarily nationalize Boeing because it is basically our entire commercial plane manufacturing sector, and it’s quickly heading towards collapse. This is a case where it makes sense. Starlink and SpaceX don’t fall under this umbrella.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 20:56
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you genuinely don’t care that critical national infrastructure - literally our ability to put stuff into orbit - is compromised by this penny ante shitbird. I get it, fanboys don’t use logic.
I don’t like Elon, fuck him. My point is that what you’re asking for is setting a precedent we never had. We’ve always had complimentary system between the private and public sectors, most countries are like this as well. Nationalizing companies without a genuine justification is going to cause shock waves throughout the economy. Why would investors spend capital in the country if the government can snatch up their business the moment they’re deemed important? If that’s the only thing needed to nationalize companies, what’s stopping idiots in government like Trump from just weaponizing it by nationalizing any company that competes with his own businesses, political opponents, or his crony friends? Not to mention, where is confidence that our incompetent government is going to manage these companies better than they can manage themselves? These are all really big questions.
There’s a reason why nationalization is left as a temporary last resort measure to rescue economic sectors from collapse. You could make an argument that this would apply for a publicly traded company like Boeing that’s quickly heading towards collapse. Considering how they’re only commercial plane manufacturer, that means they’re our entire industry. The company’s stability is a matter of national security. But SpaceX? None of this applies.
SpaceX is a private business that’s stable, reliable, and competitive. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to. It’s easy to say that we should just nationalize companies without thinking about the consequences. I’m in favor of things like universal healthcare, public transit systems, and more power to our research agencies. But these things have to come to fruition through stronger regulations and government alternatives, not nationalization. If there are cases where a company has to be nationalized and there are no alternatives, then they should be bought out.
I don’t think what I’m saying is controversial.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 23:42
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I don’t think what I’m saying is controversial.
no, it’s simply business as usual, nothing ever changes, nothing ever improves, and fuck you america, that’s the way it has to be because reasons.
I strongly suspect NASA can manage spaceX better than the ketamine kid. Why don’t you give a fuck about those astronauts who have to put their faith in his hardware? why don’t you give a fuck about the kids who are growing up in an age where that drug addled prick is put up as an icon of success?
Do you really think soldiers sailors and airmen (and spacemonkeys) should have to rely on that HORSE DRUG ADDICTED PRICK for their mission critical infrastructure?
If you do, fuck right off, you’re either a musk fanboy or stockholder.
Either way, get bent.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 02:45
nextcollapse
Are you sure you’re not on drugs? Because this is quite the unhinged rant
I strongly suspect NASA can manage spaceX better than the ketamine kid. Why don’t you give a fuck about those astronauts who have to put their faith in his hardware? why don’t you give a fuck about the kids who are growing up in an age where that drug addled prick is put up as an icon of success?
ROTFL, SpaceX managed 259 launch in 2024, show me how many launch managed NASA, if they are more than maybe you are right, else…
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 21:59
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You think my dislike of Musk is all of spaceX. I don’t want him ruining spaceX. Musk is responsible for the launch cadence that keeps exploding, if you’d like to make comparisons.
Wait a minute. It is not that NASA when developed the rocket that culminated with the Apollo V did not even had a rocket exploding, they had their fair share of failures (and some even letal).
But the main difference is that SpaceX and NASA have different approaches: NASA cannot, for various polical reasons, tolerate a rocket exploding during a test, SpaceX can.
I would argue that NASA, in its current incarnation and political situation, would never be able to design, build and manage something like the Falcon 9.
So Musk is not ruining SpaceX with the Starship failures in my opinion, since it is inherent to SpaceX that way to work.
Then that Musk is sometime a little too borderline is true, but I suppose that now he cannot really ruin any of his companies, for whatever you can think about him I really doubt that he is that stupid.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 10 Jun 20:50
collapse
is not that NASA when developed the rocket that culminated with the Apollo V did not even had a rocket exploding
dude english, wtf is this sentence even supposed to say? are you an LLM?
fucking hell.
Then that Musk is sometime a little too borderline is true, but I suppose that now he cannot really ruin any of his companies, for whatever you can think about him I really doubt that he is that stupid.
again with the word salad. english better be your third or 4th language.
if you doubt his stupidity, then evaluate the logic of doing large amounts OF HORSE TRANQUALIZER WHILE MANAGING MULTIPLE COMPANIES AND LAUNCHING ROCKETS.
is not that NASA when developed the rocket that culminated with the Apollo V did not even had a rocket exploding
dude english, wtf is this sentence even supposed to say? are you an LLM?
Nope, just a regular guy that do not speak English as first language.
But let me rephrase it, even if i am sure you understand what I mean.
When NASA was developing the rocket to go to the moon (the Apollo V) they had their large shares of failures, exactly like SpaceX is having now while developing Starship (and before it, the Falcon 9) which is even more complex and bigger than the Apollo V.
Then that Musk is sometime a little too borderline is true, but I suppose that now he cannot really ruin any of his companies, for whatever you can think about him I really doubt that he is that stupid.
again with the word salad. english better be your third or 4th language.
You are right. But again, I am sure you understand what I mean, but ok, let me rephrase also this.
Musk is sometime too borderline but I suppose that actually he really don’t want to ruin his companies because, for bad as you can think about him, I think is not that stupid.
if you doubt his stupidity, then evaluate the logic of doing large amounts OF HORSE TRANQUALIZER WHILE MANAGING MULTIPLE COMPANIES AND LAUNCHING ROCKETS.
Come on, make that one make sense word salad llm
Wait, do you really think that Musk is the one that is doing all the jobs at Tesla and SpaceX ?
Again, you can think what you want about Musk himself, but the track record for SpaceX (over 250 launch in 2024) and Tesla (it demostrated something that every other car manufacturer deemed impossible) does not seems too bad.
And I would like to have an estimate about the “large amounts”
But feel free to attack my grammar and hate Musk.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 11 Jun 21:42
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When NASA was developing the rocket to go to the moon (the Apollo V) they had their large shares of failures, exactly like SpaceX is having now while developing Starship (and before it, the Falcon 9) which is even more complex and bigger than the Apollo V.
this is a specious comparison. NASA was racing the soviets using 1950 and 60’s tech, and it cost lives, but there was a driving motivation for the tempo (kennedy’s goal of humans on the moon first). There’s no contemporary equivalent. And no NASA director was EVER ON HORSE DRUGS. Period.
Nor did any NASA director ever try to manage multiple fortune 500 companies WHILE on ketamine while DANCING AROUND WITH A CHAINSAW and fucking with our government.
Your comparison is invalid.
Wait, do you really think that Musk is the one that is doing all the jobs at Tesla and SpaceX ?
No, I think he’s distorting the work of thousands of talented people (Shotwell down) for EGO. If he truly cared he’d step down.
None of this is complex. I’m glad you speak english well enough to reorder your thoughts in a comprehensible manner, but the premise remains unchanged. Musk represents a larger threat to SpaceX and NASA and the US than any potential benefit to those same parties.
I will feel free to attack musk, didn’t need your permission but thanks!
When NASA was developing the rocket to go to the moon (the Apollo V) they had their large shares of failures, exactly like SpaceX is having now while developing Starship (and before it, the Falcon 9) which is even more complex and bigger than the Apollo V.
this is a specious comparison. NASA was racing the soviets using 1950 and 60’s tech, and it cost lives, but there was a driving motivation for the tempo (kennedy’s goal of humans on the moon first). There’s no contemporary equivalent. And no NASA director was EVER ON HORSE DRUGS. Period.
Your comparison is invalid.
Only if you could link the fact that Musk is on horse drugs with the fact that Starship explodes.
The starting point was that I dismissed the point that Musk is ruining SpaceX (since Starship’s test are not that good) and the fact that he is on drugs.
Nor did any NASA director ever try to manage multiple fortune 500 companies WHILE on ketamine while DANCING AROUND WITH A CHAINSAW and fucking with our government.
I don’t see the problem: NASA was a state agency, SpaceX is private.
What I can see from here is that Musk is doing the right thing (trying to make the government more efficient and cheaper) using a completely wrong method, to which I agree.
Wait, do you really think that Musk is the one that is doing all the jobs at Tesla and SpaceX ?
No, I think he’s distorting the work of thousands of talented people (Shotwell down) for EGO. If he truly cared he’d step down.
I don’t think it could do it anymore, at least not to the level you think.
Musk represents a larger threat to SpaceX and NASA and the US than any potential benefit to those same parties.
I am not sure. What I think from here (Europe) is that, as I said, Musk is doing the right thing in the wrong (very wrong) way if we speak about DOGE. If we speak about SpaceX and Tesla, well, it don’t seems to do that bad after all.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 12 Jun 19:05
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I don’t see the problem: NASA was a state agency, SpaceX is private.
lives are literally at stake, grow the fuck up.
Elon Musk decided to wreck USAID. The death toll is ghoulish. This dickwad said “the fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy”.
If we speak about SpaceX and Tesla, well, it don’t seems to do that bad after all.
haha tesla is cratering in the EU and that cybertruck sure is a winner. pfft
I don’t see the problem: NASA was a state agency, SpaceX is private.
lives are literally at stake, grow the fuck up.
And incidentally SpaceX is the only US entity to have a ship certified for human flight. Where is the Dragon’s equivalent of NASA ? Or any other company/state agency.
Elon Musk decided to wreck USAID. The death toll is ghoulish.
An agency created in the 1960’s to fight URSS influence. Maybe it is time to let it go and start with something else, don’t you think ?
Or maybe it is time that US start to think that without everyone else it is nothing and begin to be an reliable ally and not one that can change idea every 2 years.
This dickwad said “the fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy”.
To be honest, empathy is something you should be aware of after a certain point.
But whatever…
QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 03:42
nextcollapse
Would you support forcing Musk out of his roles in these companies due to his drug useage?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 06:42
nextcollapse
Nobody thinks about that, just about hitting the people they don’t like. They don’t think of consequences, they don’t think that nationalization means humongous companies and wealth in fact changing hands in favor of people who already control the government.
That’s every fascist regime in history BTW - make your natural opponents hang themselves. Like in Russia in 1999 groups people most hurt by Yeltsin’s regime were deceived into voting for Putin, because he managed to create that “Soviet intelligence agent” image, despite being continuation of said regime. Or again in 2004, when he managed to take credit for growing oil prices, which meant that said groups of people feared literal starvation less, and the factor they’ve grown by compared to 1998 was so huge, that Russia’s level of life really didn’t catch up, but that was enough. Hold people in misery, throw them bones, they’ll be grateful.
Also why most Russians gloated over Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, other oligarchs being beaten by Putin.
Cause the oligarchs seemed the face of that regime, except Putin was its soul materialized. They somehow thought that when he hurts all the oligarchs enough, things will be good.
This is a very valid point. Nationalization essentially means transferring control of these companies to either Trump or congress as well giving them power to use nationalization as a tool. Not only are they horrendously incompetent but they’re also sure to weaponize it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump went on a spree nationalizing “liberal Democrat” companies or nationalizing companies that compete with his businesses.
Nationalizing companies is not going to fix the accountability issue we have in the country. The same problems are going to happen, just under new management.
Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 14:56
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Learn from SpaceX progress. Return to NASA risk aversion. Trial new designs in 20 years, repeat.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 16:47
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Which is the advantage of SpaceX. As it is people are looking to cut money for NASA. Still, NASA has always subcontracted out, so absorbing SpaceX does not seem like it might change much (outside of public opinion)
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 03:15
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That would literally be the worse thing that could happen with regards to them, because they only exist and thrived because they are private enterprise. If the government were capable of doing what those companies do and doing it well, SpaceX and Starlink wouldn’t exist in the first place.
Can you even imagine just how much money would be wasted and misused and unaccounted for, while nothing actually got done?
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is delusional
freddydunningkruger@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 03:41
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Please. They only exist because of government funding. If NASA had as many rockets explode as SpaceX has, people like you would be screaming about the waste of taxpayer dollars.
Also, it’s only a matter of time before starlink satellites crash into each other and start a chain reaction. You can kiss space travel goodbye after that.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:38
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isn’t it amazing how much private companies can do when given hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal teat?
wow. that private enterprise just rocketing up out of the atmosphere by yanking on it’s bootstraps so hard.
just, you know, after a few more hundred million, burp. ahem. just a few more.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:41
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And isn’t it amazing how little government entities can do despite being given the same or more taxpayer dollars from the federal teat?
Private enterprise gets shit done because if they don’t they go out of business and people lose their jobs, money, and livelihood. Government departments don’t get shit done because they’ll all keep their jobs and their pensions and their benefits no matter what. Again - NASA vs SpaceX.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 06:46
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If NASA had as many rockets explode as SpaceX has, people like you would be screaming about the waste of taxpayer dollars.
The point of the launches that have ended in explosion were to test various parts of the systems and hardware, and to learn if/when a “disaster” does happen. That’s how you improve things, make them better and safer. Would you prefer when we finally send people to the moon or to Mars that it’s the first time we’ve launched that rocket? Those explosions weren’t bad things.
freddydunningkruger@lemmy.world
on 22 Jun 07:26
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Are you for real? Can you guess how many Saturn V rockets ended up exploding throughout the first mission to put man on the moon? Trick question, the answer was ZERO.
The Saturn V program had completed more successful milestones in 1 year than SpaceX has managed in 5 year.
SpaceX has been late on every single deliverable to NASA. They were supposed to show they can reliably perform the propellant transfer for the NASA contract, and instead Musk focused on testing the deployment of starlink satellites, which of course failed. And now they lost one more on the pad getting fueled up.
It’s complete incompetence, which is the one thing Musk can guarantee
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 22 Jun 22:03
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How many of those Saturn V rockets landed themselves back on the launch pad?
NASAs milestones were not the same as, nor anywhere near as hard as, SpaceX’s.
Your incompetence line shows you’re not capable of being impartial in this so there’s no real point continuing. You’re saying the guy responsible for the EV market we have no, the almost fully self driving cars we have now, the satellite internet network we have now, and the reusable spaceship booster rockets we have now is “incompetent”. You’re not here to actually have a discussion.
Again someone who thinks that public policies are natural laws…
NASA could do and did do what SpaceX is doing now, but they are beholden to the government and if the government says “we don’t do that for ideologigal reasons” then it doesn’t matter what can be done.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 08 Jun 16:00
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Ideological reasons? You think nasa hasn’t made reusable self landing rockets and boosters because of ideological reasons?
r_deckard@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 03:28
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And the international customers, what about them? The ground stations, POPs, and terminals in other countries, hmmmm?
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:30
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SpaceX’s largest customer is the US government; once that relationship has been repaired I’m ambivalent about private/public ownership.
HMmmmM?
because let’s be honest, without tons of US GOV’T SUPPORT, SpaceX wouldn’t have ever been able to provide all those POPs, terminals and services. Funny thing that.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 08:39
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Dude… nationalize just means the US takes ownership of the company. They keep all the employees they keep all the customers. It runs like normal under new ownership. The taxpayers now own it. it’s a great idea.
You see too long we have been using public funding and allowing rich people to privatize the gains. It’s time to privatize those games and take back what we invested in as US citizens. We will still offer you eurocucks Internet since apparently it is more important than having a moral fiber in your body
I didn’t say it was a bad thing, I wanted to know about some of the broader implications, e.g. govt ownership doesn’t remove legal obligations. I doubt the govt could continue to offer service under the previous T&C, some sections would need revision. And Starlink’s T&C are slightly different in some countries, as are the operating conditions. Some countries who are nominally friendly with Starlink/SpaceX to allow ground stations, POPs, etc, might not be so keen on the US govt controlling things.
These are just some of the things that popped into my head when I read the article.
Usually the US government would take over an important business, replace the leadership, stabilize the business and return it to the public sector.
Elon was tampering with connections in Ukraine during live combat. I’m surprised anyone would trust or want to support one of his businesses. He should’ve been thrown in a black site after that incident.
Seriously this comment doesn’t make any sense. It’s like you do not understand what you are commenting on and yet here you are with four up votes and now have my down vote and go forth and use a dictionary before you comment next time
QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Jun 03:41
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If not Musk should be forced from his roles in these companies. You cannot be a defense contractor and do ketamine.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 04:19
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how can you trust a board that trusts such incompetence, for DOD projects no less?
The nationalization of SpaceX will mean a slowdown in development, like in the case of NASA.
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 08 Jun 12:47
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sounds good who gives a shit
Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
on 08 Jun 13:38
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Ignoring the lack of evidence or argument presented here for that, I’d rather take a slowdown than Musk get a single new dollar.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 13:51
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Because American politicians would rather spend the money on engaging international wars. NASA will only get the funding it desperately needs if one of US’ rivals one up them, like how the launch of Sputnik spurred the race to the moon.
sommerset@thelemmy.club
on 08 Jun 13:20
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What? Why?
.he wants to create a 3rd party, let him.
theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 15:13
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Best time would’ve been when he pulled that stunt in Ukraine, second best time is now
NASA is too beholden to politics… You can’t do 7 year builds and missions when the Senate flips every 4 years and has to kill everything the other side did on principle that it has a D or R attached to it. Everything is political.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 08 Jun 17:36
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<.< Legitimate question, what was the last thing each party killed that was put in place by the other party?
These programs require continuous funding. The probe went to Jupiter. The scientist and listening stations back on earth still have to run to receive the data.
Stop electing stupid people and maybe you will get something.
and saying the earth is flat
Stop treating every opinion as worth of discussion even if it is clearly stupid.
and that global warming is a myth.
Start to propose some reasonable solutions and start to pass over the NIMBY syndrome.
(and no, only stopping to use ICE cars or fossil fuel is not a reasonable solution until you propose a sustainable alternative solution)
hexonxonx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 08 Jun 19:25
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Starlink should be globalized. A planet only needs one low-altitude orbiting communications network. Better to standardize the technology and platform and let them contribute to one system than to have a dozen identical competing systems crashing into each other and fucking things up for everyone.
michaelmrose@lemmy.world
on 08 Jun 21:13
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There is no such thing as something being “globalized” The UN for instance is a debating club where the majority of the seats represent individual dictators who dominate but do not speak for their countries citizens.
The idea of 50 countries collectively providing 0% of the funds should determine the mission is somewhat laughable. Also no country on earth has a process by which foreign dictators can seize or direct a company run out of their nation.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca
on 09 Jun 17:17
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Ah. My Kessler syndrome is acting up again.
frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world
on 08 Jun 20:27
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There’s already NASA which gets piss poor funding iirc
Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 08 Jun 21:25
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No, we should regain control of our nation from fascists (this does not mean just replace the President), then nationalize SpaceX and Starlink, and make telecoms public utilities.
No I would not like taxpayer dollars to buy out Elons shit shows.
Hard pass. Thanks no thanks jacobin
Knightfox@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 00:48
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A lot of people are calling this a bailout for Elon, but in reality it would be a seizure. Elon doesn’t want to let go of Starlink and the US likely wouldn’t pay him what it’s worth to take it over.
What people seem to be missing is the precedent this would set. It’s all well and good when we empower the office of the president to seize a private company we don’t like, but after we give them that power what’s to stop them from seizing other businesses?
XYZ company refuses to get rid of their DEI policy because the shareholders voted to keep it? Well now the orange man can seize it.
Let’s not forget that previously it took 2/3rd majority to confirm presidential appointments, but the Senate under Obama decided to change that rule to 50% to get past Republican objections. The result of this is all these shit appointments Trump has passed with 51% of the Senate, none of them would have gotten by if the Democrats hadn’t made a precedent for changing the rules.
What people seem to be missing is the precedent this would set. It’s all well and good when we empower the office of the president to seize a private company we don’t like, but after we give them that power what’s to stop them from seizing other businesses?
XYZ company refuses to get rid of their DEI policy because the shareholders voted to keep it? Well now the orange man can seize it.
The problem they don’t see is that once a precedent is set, also the other party can do it. What you point out is valid also like “XYZ company refuses to establish a DEI policy because the shareholders voted agains ? Well not the democratic president can seize it”.
Let’s not forget that previously it took 2/3rd majority to confirm presidential appointments, but the Senate under Obama decided to change that rule to 50% to get past Republican objections. The result of this is all these shit appointments Trump has passed with 51% of the Senate, none of them would have gotten by if the Democrats hadn’t made a precedent for changing the rules.
Tipical case of not looking beyond one’s nose
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
on 09 Jun 01:44
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I disagree.
You already have a government space agency. Maybe give them more funding so they don’t have to rely on space-x to get their stuff into orbit?
There’s a national telecom network already in place. It at least has the potential to be faster and more reliable, if it isn’t already… At least compared to low earth orbit satellite coverage.
There’s no good reason to continue providing Elon or his companies with any government handouts. Pull that funding and give it to… I dunno, students who have more debt than homeowners with a mortgage… NASA… Literally anything that helps people?
TheBannedLemming@lemmy.world
on 09 Jun 01:48
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I am not saying that I don’t agree with you. But this country is still not even close to considering nationalizing its own telecommunication infrastructure. Much less a privately held space company and a service of communication satellites. A large chunk of America believes that a for-profit business model for every good and service possible in life is the best course of action.
Yes it’s the right long term goal, but the US is nowhere near ready for strong nationalised enterprises, they would just stop getting funding and die. There is a requirement for strong, positive minded government and a shared understanding of the benefits of having nationalised societal services before it can work.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 11 Jun 17:28
nextcollapse
threaded - newest
See what we should do…is look to the french for inspiration on guillotine designs. Why would anyone not want to get rid of this asshole? Why would anyone like him?
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/85a1acee-fb28-4328-9a38-d57dcc09593c.webp">
Man, that was worth the wait!
Reverse accelerating space ship. I like the idea!
They think he’s a tech god because he has money to burn, knows how to make himself look smart, knows how to slave drive, and knows how to cut corners without pissing off the wrong people.
At least, there was a time when that appeared to be the case
He said, talking about the guy who did a nazi salute on national television, intentionally, and then turned around and did it again for the people in the back. In case there was anyone who missed it the first time.
Dissolve them.
In acid?
Yeah I mean the tax payers have literally already paid for all of both SpaceX and Starlink. The public paid for it, the public should own it.
They’re just following in the footsteps of Comcast. The FCC gave SpaceX/Starlink $885.5 million to provide rural broadband after they gave Comcast over $1 billion less than 5 years ago to do the same thing. Starlink actually works out there from what I understand, so I guess that’s something.
The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we’re talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth’s atmosphere, not being recycled.
Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.
Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They’re never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.
They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn’t a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.
There’s a reason it’s as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.
i dont feel the cost and waste of all the rocket launches and debris justifies remote areas having satellite Internet
I think if you consider the cost to manufacture then bury a fibre optic cable for everyone who lives 10km from a town centre, I think it's still a net positive. It's not great for sure, but amortised over a huge population it's probably the best option we have at this time.
Only short term, long term the repeated rocket launches can’t win out over a ditch digger.
I’m sure digging fiber out in the Amazon rainforest will turn out great
People paying for internet service don’t live in the Amazon rainforest
Maybe do a cursory Google search before being confidently incorrect
Fair enough, you got me there. Didn’t realize there was such a population of internet craving people in what’s supposed to be one of the last relatively untouched areas of nature on the planet.
That being the case though, why didn’t this all happen in 2013, when O3b launched to specifically solve this problem for them? It’s still running, by the way, after several rounds of upgrades, and significantly more stable than Starlink with their dinky little 5 year disposables. Microsoft, Honeywell and Amazon all use it. But the original and ongoing intent of the project was explicitly to bring internet access to all otherwise unreachable areas, such as islands, deep in Africa, and the open ocean.
I don’t oppose Brazilian villagers having internet if they want it, but the situation in which it arrived to them feels suspect to me. I have no proof that Starlink actively went out and pushed internet service onto them like a drug dealer but it would not be out of character for Musk and his subordinates to do so, and that just feels bad.
Regardless there is already an existing solution to this. If you want internet in the Amazon you can use satellite internet. It does not have to be Starlink. If you want good internet, maybe don’t live in the Amazon. People in general should probably be leaving that place alone. The article you linked even talks about one of the village leaders splitting his time between the village and the city. We can try and run a fiber line to Manaus and/or Porto Velho and that should be able to serve a reasonably large enough area around them, but even if that fails there are already other solutions.
I agree with almost everything you wrote. Purely speculation but the starlink terminals might be cheaper? The latency/bandwidth would also be significantly worse with O3b since it’s in medium earth orbit compared to starlinks low earth orbit. “Regular” satellite internet is prohibitively expensive with even worse bandwidth/latency.
I also agree that people shouldn’t be living in the Amazon but they are and we can’t really force them to leave.
I doubt the Ukrainians would agree with you
This is a really weird “ends always justify the means” because I could also say it wouldn’t be necessary if Ukraine never gave up their nuclear weapons and how I doubt the Ukrainians would disagree. This is also further impacted by the protection of Starlink by the US military because if it wasn’t an act of war against the US to destroy them, Russia could take down low earth orbit satellites pretty easily.
But none of this is relevant to how Starlink is not an ISP, it is not infrastructure it is a fleeting wasteful service.
From what I understand the Ukrainians never had control of the nukes, they didn’t actually have the launch codes to use them.
Regardless, having global access to the internet is great. Ask the people living in remote areas of the Amazon, no chance for them to get fiber, or Africa, or remote islands, or ships/airplanes.
If youre speaking of rural America not needing starlink because fiber is a thing, then you should broaden your horizons
I love how you completely ignore how starlink is only viable for ukraine because the US military industrial complex.
There was satellite internet before Starlink and Starlink should be banned for all the 5ghz interference it creates
I’m ignoring that fact because its mostly irrelevant to this conversation. Would the Ukrainians prefer if it was controlled by a more reliable ally? Of course
“Regular” satellite internet is nowhere near what starlink offers and it’s pretty telling you assume it is.
An actual problem that you’ve not mentioned is the interference with ground based telescopes
Lol “Starlink is a bad ISP” “BuT wHaT aBoUt Ukraine!!?!?!?!?” “Mostly irrelevant to this conversation” A true lemmy experience.
You claim “Starlink is a bad ISP” because you think the satellites are wasteful, I disagree since Starlink can provide a global service to areas where it’s needed in a way no one else can. I don’t know what you find so difficult to understand? “a TrUe LeMmY eXpErIeNcE”
Yeah, it sure can do it in a way nobody else can, the most wasteful way. But I appreciate you shifting the goalposts from Ukraine because being used in war is a reason why it is a bad ISP. See, if a war breaks out and a power can destroy them, we’re talking global breakdown of internet via starlink. If a war breaks out on the other side of the world a traditional isp keeps working.
Then there’s also the piss poor service, the poor number of total connections, the lack of redundancy, the cost, the ecological damage of launching rockets every week so that someone is the middle of nowhere can jack it with high speed internet, being disabled when a nazi feels like it…
Where am I shifting the goalposts exactly?
“because being used in war is a reason why it is a bad ISP”, like I said before, I very much doubt the Ukrainians would agree with your take on this.
“if a war breaks out and a power can destroy them, we’re talking global breakdown of internet via starlink” ?? Do you think anyone is advocating we should replace all internet connections with Starlink?
“Then there’s also the piss poor service, the poor number of total connections, the lack of redundancy, the cost,” Should I copy-paste about Ukraine again?
“ecological damage” negligent amount compared to actually wasteful industries
Those places can get internet from satellites outside of low earth orbit that is simply slower with higher latency.
If only we could adjust the plot of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes to where it’s mostly just cleaning up dead starlink satellites.
In any case, highly recommended as a fantastic anime. And for those that haven’t seen it:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESIHA0qK3U
That’s a dubbed trailer, but those of you looking for a Japanese language trailer know where to find it or probably have already watched it lol
I’m checking this out!
I didn’t realize how temporary and disposable Starlink’s satellites were. They incinerate 4 or 5 a day by de-orbiting them into the ozone. Here’s a pretty good CNET article that talks about how they “dispose” of them. IDK, doesn’t seem sustainable. They also mention the bandwidth gains are being diminished with the influx of new users, so their solution is more temporary satellites.
Yeah, if they want to make satellites last longer, they could go a bit higher in their orbits. The option is there.
But they specifically don’t want to do that because ensuring a 5 year service life means you are required to continue buying more satellites from them every 5 years. Literally burning resources into nothingness just to pursue a predatory subscription model.
It also helps their case that LEO has much lower latency than mid or high orbit but I refuse to believe that that is their primary driving concern behind this and not the former.
Who’s buying satellites?
SpaceX is putting up satellites for SpaceX, they’re the manufacturer and operator…
It’s definitely in their best interest to keep them working as long as possible.
That said, they’re high end communications devices, very fancy routers essentially. And like all computer technology, these things become obsolete quickly. So even if they could last 20 years, you wouldn’t want them even 10 years from now. 100 GB/s speeds might be great now, but 10 years down the road 10 TB/s could be the norm, so at that point why are you still trying to provide service with ancient hardware 100x slower than it should be.
Isn’t that part of the grift?
At the time it looked like one of the main reasons to launch Starlink was to provide SpaceX with a new market, much larger than the usual space launching stuff. Also this meant Felon could get subsidies through 2 different companies.
Isn’t what?
I mean the reason for starlink was that they could, and they could do it for cheaper than anyone else because they would be launching at cost.
Also, falcon doesn’t really get subsidies for launching. SpaceX got a grant for the rural broadband infrastructure thing, but that’s like a one time thing, it doesn’t really pay for ongoing launches.
LEO does offer legitimate advantages not just to latency but also for minimizing the abandoned space junk left in orbit. The satellites will deorbit fairly quickly after running out of fuel.
Though I’m sure you’re correct about the main reason for the choice.
That would also make latency worse and the signal weaker.
Would the small ground starlink dish be able to reach higher orbits? I guess if the satellite is going to stay up longer you could afford to make it’s antennas a bit bigger to mitigate that.
Well you wouldn’t want to put them much higher, but if you raised their orbit by say 40%, they’d be getting significantly less atmospheric drag. It could probably extend their life by 15 years. And yeah, they’ll be 40% further away, so slightly more latency. Perhaps going from 70 ms ping to 100 ms ping. Not awesome, but definitely not a huge problem.
You are right in how wasteful it is, especially since it turned out a lot of those satellites don’t even make it to 4 years.
However there is zero risk of space trash with Starlink. They orbit so low, it’s basically within the atmosphere still. They need to constantly boost themselves, otherwise they fall down and burn up. So these satellites are coming down within years all on their own, even without any controlled disposal.
It’s insanely wasteful, but it keeps SpaceX in business launching every week, which is kind of the point. But at least there isn’t a Kessler syndrome waiting to happen.
Even though it’s not a space trash problem, it is a regular upper atmosphere polluter of aluminum oxide ash. We don’t yet know the long term consequences.
It’s not enough, but I would bet it might have a cooling effect as it reflects more light in the upper atmosphere.
But we should really still make sure, and more importantly not trust Elon with any data flowing over those satellites.
It might! But the article I linked also suggests it might destroy ozone and have a net warming effect. We just don’t know. The upper atmosphere has never before had this level of direct pollution injection.
I’m not sure what isn’t viable about it, I mean it’s demonstrably viable, it’s working now.
The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn’t meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn’t think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.
No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.
The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.
They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.
Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements
www.ookla.com/…/above-maine-starlink-twinkles
Median DL: 116.77 (over the required 100)
Media UL: 18.17 (just shy of the required 20)
90th Percentile DL: 250.96
90th Percentile UL 27.17
If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.
Edit: extra details.
Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I’d said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.
Works is a strong word. It’s a better choice than dialup or Hughesnet, but that’s damning with extremely faint praise. If you need to rely on it you might be in trouble. There are still gaps in the coverage where you will be dropped for a while.
Fold it in into nasa.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c964484e-8370-46fe-bb62-715496537f64.gif">
Oh my god, please. Just to see the temper tantrum from Musk.
seize it via eminent domain.
That would be national socialism right?
I zi what you're doing there, and no.
Yes, but don"t say it to Musk’s haters…
Who doesn’t hate Musk these days?
He’s pissed of everyone except the ones who want to be ruled by a technobro king.
Probably the ones that don’t always speak about him
No, he pissed off everyone that think that the world is black and white: the US. The rest of the world is indifferent about him
Edgy!
No, nazis actually privatised a lot of formerly state-owned sectors of the economy
They also nationalized other sectors. They were actually quite centrist economically.
Hang on a minute, equivalents of SpaceX and Starlink could have naturally grown out of NASA, it was the obvious place for them to come from but NASA did not show that innovation and nationalisation of them might dilute their abilities. For clarity I am not suggesting the innovation came from Musk, he has no science or engineering, his talents are grifting, showmanship and taking credit for other people’s work, he is a natural figurehead though and seemed quite clear thinking until he lost his mind.
NASA has had it’s funding cut year after year for decades. It’s far easier to innovate when you have money to back up the r&d and testing.
I wasnt discussing underlying cause, whatever the reason for stifled innovation in some fields possibly evident in NASA it is likely preferable not to pull independent labs into NASA that are having success in these areas.
Not just funding cuts, but it was heavily politicized and had its direction changed every 4 years. You can’t plan long term like that. It needs to be a government agency but not at the whim of the president or congress.
Also the Tesla charging infrastructure!
Nationalize the cars too, fuck it
Few words are dirtier to Republicans than “nationalize”. They must be torn between following their god-emperor’s hurt feelings and allowing Musk’s company to be taken over by the government. The best I see them doing is cancelling all contracts and subsidies with SpaceX/Tesla and passing them off to its competitors.
Just weird it in a way that is more capitalist lingo: " The govt will acquire a majority controlling stake and take the company private under it’s direct control"
I would suggest that maybe you should leave SpaceX alone, if you want to still have a space program.
Maybe think about to nationalize healthcare insurance, it seems to be something more usefull
Who needs this bs space program anyway?
The humanity does. Well, maybe not “need” it but deserve it. Finding out about the world around us is what we exist for.
Then, how do we benefit from SpaceX? I’m not bashing the NASA, but I see no point in all the waste SpaceX is producing, down on earth and its orbit. These satelites are likely to crash one day in a chain reaction.
How are there so many people in this thread talking with such confidence and yet know absolutely nothing? SpaceX is the reason NASA doesn’t need to rely on Russia to get astronauts to and from the ISS, so that’s one huge benefit. And Starlink is in such a low orbit that their orbits are constantly decaying and will burn up in the atmosphere without any orbit corrections. So there will never be a chain reaction crash.
I mean you have to realize how important it will be to have fully reusable rockets and a significantly reduced price to get to space. The goal with starship is to reduce the cost of getting to orbit by at least an order of magnitude (but possibly much more than that). When that starts to happen it’ll allow for new and exciting things to happen in space.
First, we can go back to the moon and to Mars, we can explore again. But more than that, it will make some new things possible. It will eventually become feasible for resource extraction and manufacturing to move to space. That would mean processes that produce harmful waste don’t have to happen on our planet. Mining asteroids would mean again, minimal ecological impact compared to mining a mountain on Earth. And of course creating industry in space is the first step towards a future where people actually live in space, the first step towards humanity getting a real foothold off of earth.
But you literally can’t get to any of those possibilities without reusable rockets first, it’s just not feasible.
“Who needs NASA anyway”, “who needs to go to space anyway” Very narrow-minded viewpoint. Like it or not spacex is cutting edge
Right? Like I’m assuming a lot of these people are self labeled progressives but they sure sound conservative to me. If any risk or collateral damage is unacceptable to make progress then we might as well just fucking go back to living in caves and be done with this civilization thing. I understand the disillusion with tech, and specifically the owners of said tech but you don’t have to swing to the other side and become a fucking Luddite or something. The problems are solvable through other mechanisms rather than just stopping tech innovation or this terrible terrible idea of nationalizing corporations.
These are the same people who complain about Trump having too much unfettered power btw. Ain’t that something?
Completely agree
It’s also frustrating that people keep saying SpaceX “relies on taxpayer money” as if we’re just giving them money for no reason. It’s all contracts! SpaceX only gets money for providing some kind of service. They’re not being bailed out or anything. The Musk hate is justified but so misdirected.
This really is just the dumbest thread on Lemmy right now. A bunch of reactionary mob think. “Grab your torches and pitchforks, let’s burn it all down!”
I’ve got the feeling none of y’all read past the headline.
The article is not far off from the mob mentality in this thread. It makes one good point, that one oligarch should not be in control of a global communications network, but it fails to notice that this move would take the power from one wealthy individual and hand it over to another, who now holds all the power.
And let’s be clear, if we nationalized, Trump would ruin SpaceX, run it right into the ground like every company he’s ever touched. Starship would never be finished, despite being within sight of the rocketry holy grail, reusable rockets. Washington would take control of starlink, which would probably be good, except it gives trump control over a communication system, which is a terrible idea. But it wouldn’t last long, because when we mismanage and underfund SpaceX and it crumbles, we’ll have no way to replace starlink sats and the whole network will disappear.
Nationalisation is SpaceX is a dumb idea because people aren’t really thinking it all through. The outcome would be a lot worse for everyone, especially with a vindictive president that would like nothing more than to seize the assets of his opponents and liquidate them into his own coffers.
Donald Trump does not have “all the power”. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be acquiescing to the courts at all. It’s wild to me that you think that the US government would do a worse job of running SpaceX and Starlink than Elon Musk.
You’re treating it like simply replacing one CEO with another, but that isn’t what it would be. I know that Trump wants to be king, but he still isn’t.
Two things. First, I’m not suggesting the US couldn’t run SpaceX given the appropriate funding. I’m suggesting the US won’t run spaceX. Trump will figure out how to deprive it of all funding, or appoint some lackey as a director to totally disassemble it. Do you honestly have any doubt that’s exactly how it would go down?
Second, It’s wild to me that you think that the SpaceX is run by Elon Musk. Go look up who the CEO is.
Right. Now go back to live in a cave.
Yeah wait until we we have someone in power who gives a shit about science and then re-fund NASA and nationalize SpaceX under the NASA umbrella. (Pipe dreams, I know)
I don’t think that the US currently can go back to the times when Kennedy announced that in 10 years they will put a man on the moon, by a long shot.
To have someone in power that give a shit about science, you need a revolution to wipe out the current political class and radically change the mentality of the population.
Yeah, let’s leave all that power in the hands of one narcissistic egomaniac who’s frequently going on ketamine benders. What could possibly go wrong?
Giving companies to the state doesn’t always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.
We’ve seen China give companies to the state, but have there been any large examples of giving companies to the workers?
I can’t think of any examples. Taking over the company requires capital, which is the one thing that capitalists constantly extract from workers so they don’t have any.
The workers of xs4all tried when their new corporate owners, KPN, decided to dissolve them. But a combination of lack of funding and unfriendly courts prevented that. They did end up starting a new company though…
It’s a shame you commies don’t know history? Do you avoid it on purpose because it interferes with your ability to make shit up and try to sound intelligent
I know it’s asking a lot, but you could give an example instead of insulting me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes sorry. We nationalized General Motors in 2009 Amtrak in 1973 the banks in 2008.
Don’t even get me started on World War II
All of these were taken by the state, not the workers, which was the question.
In the US we would remove the leadership, fix the problems with the companies. In this case it’s Elon who is a military risk and political liability. He has broken enough laws and violated our constitutional rights. We can happily remove him from the seat of his power, which are his companies, especially the publicly listed one. Under new leadership these companies can be returned to the public sector just like with General Motors.
Post Soviet Russia. There’s a fun history lesson in there. They gave stock in all the companies to all the workers. Then a couple rich people got together and tricked all the people to accumulate all the stocks. Those people became the oligarchs. And we know what happened to the workers of Russia. They all died in a trench in Ukraine very happy story.
I’m not sure our idea of happiness aligns.
First of all, it was performed the way that nobody knew what to even do with those privatization vouchers. They didn’t directly give anyone stocks, just vouchers for part of a company etc. Those had to be exchanged for stocks.
People didn’t know what to do with them, people had problems feeding their families, and people were offered some money for them. And people thought that’s what capitalism is, you get offered money for something, you give it. Nobody scams you, right?
Since those oligarchs happened to all have right friends, it’s without any doubt not a mistake that those stocks could even be sold.
And - attention - another history lesson. All the Soviet propaganda against religion led to everyone becoming “kinda church-loving” in the 90-s initially. All the Soviet propaganda for scientific view of the world led to thousands of sects and charlatans, together scamming most of the population. All the Soviet propaganda for honest and labor ethic led to most people not even considering such scams really scams, because in Soviet propaganda doing business was treated same as scamming someone.
So nobody even thought what’s happening is wrong. And the part of the population which did understand was those who got the shorter stick. People losing themselves in a bottle or a needle, people literally dying from hunger, people having to do crime or prostitution or mercenary work to survive. It was an unholy kingdom where for a part of the population it seemed they are almost the middle class now, just like in those American movies and ads, and the other part saw those ads and those people daily, but could barely survive.
And then, after a few years, the former part grew some understanding that Russia is approaching fascism, and the latter part, which already lived it since 1993, was so broken that it obeyed the fascists after they gave it a bit of a life without hunger and depression in the 00s.
See, there is a layer of the Russian (and general ex-Soviet) culture, in vibes and emotions, showing things as they really were, but it’s horrible to look into that. It was plainly impossible for a normal person to accept some group of people like Anatoly Sobchak’s daughter as opposition. After real opposition figures were being marginalized, jailed and even murdered for a few years. After the Chechen wars. After the way that privatization happened, and the 1993. Nobody would follow people who are just a subset of the same evil, except playing clean because it’s in fashion.
Then, of course, such a decision, so to say, made by a whole country leads to madness.
And this is what we live since then. Those stormtroopers on crutches storming Ukrainian positions - they know that their orders come from the evil itself. They are not fighting for something or against something, only to feel that evil as more material, or take their share of the suffering, or prove something to themselves. It’s a whole society of depressed people who need to prove something to themselves, because everything around is both evil, fake and dirty, one yearns for purification. It’s desperation of the better kind of people, whether you believe it or not. The worst kind finds ways not to die. It’s even natural for humans, like best shown in Japanese culture of honorable death. In European military cultures honorable suicide was a thing, well, in 2022 a few Russian generals shot themselves. I’ve read about them.
It’s really disgusting to be of the “fat” part of the population of these two.
Thank you for elaborating my point. It’s all very reminiscent of what’s going on right now in the United States. 20 years of an infowar and the American people seem to be in a similar position. The majority of this country doesn’t understand what going on in financial markets yet they all depend on them to survive their retirements. The wealth is being massively consolidated through means that people don’t understand.
Anyway appreciate you bringing the proper details into my point. And the chilling reminder of what the future holds.
Ya like in Russia! When all the poor got tricked out of their shares and a billionaire class was made which continued to strangle the poor for 30 years
True. We have a lot of public owned companies in Croatia, they are the most corrupt. Big comoanies are too, but not to that extent
If the state is bad giving it a company just seems dumb. Giving the workers ownership, like profit share, only supports working class people.
Which… is mostly what SpaceX already is. It’s a privately owned company, and the employees own a huge amount of the shares
Any evidence to this? Even if it is true I doubt it’s evenly distributed.
Oh, high standing officers controlling shares in a hypercapitalist megacorp, I see how that can be confused with siezing the means of production from the jaws of capitalism, but I think you and him are talking about vastly different things to be honest
Nationalization is so communist thing to do.
Okay 👍
Also every African despotic regime that has has ever existed.
Stopping exploitation by Shell, BP & Friends isn’t exactly what made those regimes despotic
Hardly. Usually the process goes like this:
African Nation - has natural resource and has no way to get it out of the ground.
Foreign company that does this all the time: Yo, we’ll literally pay you to let us dig up this stuff.
Regime: Yes, I was paid, perfect. Thanks. And we’ll charge you what seems like tons of money also.
10 years later
New Regime: Hm…that’s an awfully nice mine you have there. We’ve increased taxes on it 400 times and you are still not closing. It means there’s too much money to be had! So we will take it and do the mining ourselves! How hard could it be?!
New regime nationalizes mine
3 months later
New Regime: Sadly, we must now close the mine and send everyone with jobs home because my drunk cousin is not a good mine director, and all the things broke and we didn’t know you had to order more spare parts.
New Regime places FOR SALE sign on mine and waits for another foreign company to start the cycle over again.
Despotic Ibrahim Traoré, using the money from nationalised formerly French gold mines to checks notes give $180.000.000 to farmers in farm equipment to industrialise agriculture. So despotic and antidemocratic.
wow, tell me you know nothing about West Africa without telling me you know nothing about West Africa.
I’m all for the Sahellian states getting rid of the French, but the Burkinabe gold mining system is pure chaos, often costing informal miners their lives. Burkina, in particular, didn’t have anything other than use of the CFA really tying them to the French anyway. Sure, some gold mines, but that’s more like a final vestige.
Like, just overall, Bukina Faso is a weird place. Every time I’ve been there, the only bird I really see around is vultures. Like, no doves, no pigeons. Just vultures.
Checked some data. In 2024, 82% of exports of Burkina Faso were in the category “Pearls, Precious Stones, Metals, Coins”. In 2021, the main export partner was Switzerland with a 70% of the total exports going there. How the fuck is this not western colonialism?! I don’t care if It’s particularly France (CFA mentioned, good for you), it’s still the victim country of the exploitation of western companies.
Data is nice. I lived in West Africa for nearly a decade total, up until 18 months ago, working on economic devlopment. The data is notoriously bad, and you’re comparing apples and camels.
Look, we have in common that we want to see greater African agency and less European colonialism of any sort (or Chinese for that matter).
That being said, I have seen dozens of examples of greed and corruption being the driving force behind nationalization. Often with only the short-sighted goal of raiding capital investment accounts and giving friends jobs. And nearly every time leading to costly failure. Decades of exampes, from Idi Amin to Zambia to South Africa to Mali to DRC to Tanzania to Niger to Ghana, across every possible industry, show that the only only only result from nationalizing something is killing it, and killing it stupidly. Down to things like water desalination plants, power distribution companies, or telecom companies. Maybe you can find a few that are barely solvent across a continent of 54 counties and 1 billion people. The rule is that it’s always a play to line pockets and buy a flat on London or Paris and horde wealth for yourself.
And keep in mind that nationalizing something is eliminant domain of stuff. It’s theft with a sorry card. Not for some greater good, to make someone else rich, not the first guy.
The result is my daily experience anywhere other than SA, Morocco, and Kenya: the power goes out for hours at a time most days, water comes from a truck and maaaaybe on Mondays or Tuesdays from the city, and mobile phone and internet only works from private companies like MTN or Vodaphone. Often that buy out the old, failing government telco for the license and have to pay hundreds of ghost workers that were promised jobs by a president way back when.
You should note that one of the wealthiest counties per capita in SSA, is Botswana. Which is basically a podunk AF suburb of Pretoria/Joburg anyway. But they never nationalized their diamond mines, and their population is relatively better off. Riddle me this - why has Botswana been the success story with a PPP while all these places with nationalized everything struggle to literally keep the lights on?
Which is not to excuse the bad parts of the system. I once spent a couple years living in a rural village of about 400 people in Niger, and we had a brackish well. A few people wondered of it might be oil. Clearly, it’s not. But all I could was warn them they should hope is not oil, and the dangers of being near extractive industry. Mines are more often than not, a blight on the earth.
Doesnt make it a bad idea tho :D
Yes it does.
don’t threaten me with a good time!
Marxist are genuinely dumb enough to understand why this would be an issue.
Never gonna happen under republicans… or dems as they are sell outs too.
We just need to allow them to keep the money. They like money. Give them 10% as a finders fee and the Yes vote will be unanimous
why stop there?
do it to meta, twitter, amazon, etc
Based? Then they can become regulated.
But that’s communism, and .world is famously against that
No, we just hate people that glaze ruthless dictators and genocidal maniacs whose whole ethos was contradictory to the very idea of communism just because they had a red flag.
Ruthless “dictators” who saved a billion lives through the elimination of Nazism, the industrial development of the second most populous country on Earth and half the continent of Europe, and through the refusal to participate in the exploitation of the global south.
Communists saved Europe from Nazism and you will never forgive them for it
… only after they were betrayed by Hitler after they allied themselves with the Nazis to invade Poland.
And then raped and killed civilians in the countries they “liberated” by forcing millions of people from their Eastern European vasal states to die to protect the Russians.
Then replaced Nazism with a slightly different authoritarian system that opresses it’s people and performs ethnic cleansings, but has a red and gold cost of paint.
And then also exploited the global south, but just weren’t as good at it as the west, and filtered even more of what was exploited up the chain to the party leaders.
And tried to make up for that lack in ability to exploit the global south by exploring Eastern Europe.
Communist we’re allied with the nazis at the start of the war and as someone who’s great grandmother fled Poland to the UK to avoid being rapes and murdered by the red army, I will never forgive them for that.
This is literally pro-nazi historical revisionism. I’ve made a detailed response to this load of bullshit here, if you care to learn some history about it. Please do read that in good faith and respond point by point if you actually wanna get educated on the subject.
Regarding deportations in time of war, I agree it was a failed policy and I don’t support them generally, it happens that systems and political ideologies you support make mistakes. This was one of them. It’s still extremely minor compared to actual imperialism and genocide committed by western states in times of peace while plundering billions of people in the global south, and it’s something that happened during a period of 10 tumultuous war/preparation years and never happened again, unlike the constant imperialism of the west.
Again proving that you don’t care about brown people and your entire “leftist” ideology is supported on CIA propaganda.
I took one look at you describing the “liberating” of Poland by the soviets because some of it belongs to different modern day countries and new you weren’t arguing in good faith. Invading another country and stealing their land doesn’t magically become “”“liberation”“” just because it was stolen by someone else first.
You can use this same logic to excuse the nazi invasion of certain countries as well.
No, it becomes liberation when majority-Ukrainian regions oppressed under the Polish nationalist state without any mode of representation, recognition of their language, and under bourgeois rule, instead obtain Ukrainian representation and institutions and recognition of its language as an official language. I assume you would know this since you seem to care so much about Ukrainians?
After Russia brutally suppressed their independence, then sent 10 million of them off to die to protect Russians. Which you keep wilfully ignoring.
Ukrainians didn’t want to be under Russian rule. It’s wild the mental gymnastics you’re doing to excuse Russia allying with Hitler himself to steal foreign land. So I’ll say again, the fact those regions were mistreated under Poland does mean it’s okay to invade them and colonise them.
Like you can find examples of time were colonial countries “”“liberated”“” foreign nations in much the same way, putting them under a different boot and treating them marginally better than the last guy. But if a colonial apologist gave you that argument you would (rightly) not accept it, would you?
The Secretary General Nikita Khruschyov of the Soviet Union was Ukrainian… The claims of Russification of the Soviet Union are wildly exaggerated by western sources as proven by the fact that Kazakhstan is its own country with its own culture, as are Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus…
go ahead. Answer point by point to my comment that i showed you, I’m looking forward to that instead of vibes-based claims.
What’s the life expectancy in Russia or China vs what is it in Indonesia or Myanmar? What’s the le expectancy in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan compared to Afghanistan or Pakistan?
Fediverse is superior to state-owned.
Now that you mention it, we need an Amazon replacement too.
A private company shows up that gets federal funding while the space agency gets funding consistently cut while having to support multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects.
A private company whose survival is 100% reliant on government money.
Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it’s private
No matter how much you cut from NASA it always had more funding than SpaceX did and innovation in space exploration was dead until SpaceX came around.
Nationalization will make SpaceX yet another bureaucratic, money waster for the government to maintain. By being private if SpaceX becomes shit the government can just drop them at any moment.
Giving things to the state is a dumbass idea. Exhibit A: the entire current administration.
Government agency starts multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects, delays ensue, costs overrun, results are unimpressive. It has to rely on private contractors or other countries for the most basic things, spends $211 billion for a space shuttle program that goes nowhere and ends up costing $0.5 billion per launch.
Private company goes from nothing to a successful rocket launch in 10 years for less than $1 billion, half of which is private funding. In the next 10 years makes rockets reusable, lowers the cost to orbit by 30x, launches a viable commercial service people are willing to pay for.
Communists on lemmy:
This is a poor understanding of how the system works. SpaceX is company that provides a service. This service is open to anyone who wants to use it, but this happens to mostly be the government. The reason is because it’s services are cheap, safe, and reliable. SpaceX does what it does very well, and the government chooses their services because it’s economical.
NASA and other agencies provide a service, they’re not companies. They’re research agencies who’s job is to advance scientific knowledge and developed new technology. Their goal isn’t to create a sustainable business, but to conduct research that’s beyond the capacity of the private sector or individual researchers.
The public and private sector compliment each other. They do things that the other isn’t good at. It’s an ecosystem. Getting rid of one will cause the whole system to collapse… and that’s not a good thing.
Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
Great judgement cal here chief. You’re worse than the commies
That government guy sure seems incompetent, I hope no one puts it in charge of a space company.
That private guy sure seems like he knows what he’s doing, I bet he’d be great at running a space company.
IDK where that’s coming from, I never said that, you’re just making stuff up now.
You’re conflating Musk with his companies. He might be the one who founded them, but these companies run themselves. This goes for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. The leadership, research, production, and management are all handled by company employees.
But that’s besides the point, regardless of how you feel about Musk himself, there’s clearly a place for private companies in this area. NASA and other space agencies are not businesses, they’re research agencies. Their job is to expand scientific knowledge and innovate new technology. They can’t run a service like SpaceX, which btw doesn’t only serve the government by also other governments and the private sector. It’s better for them to just outsource shuttle launches entirely to the private sector which is why they’ve been doing it for decades. It just so happens that SpaceX provides this service at really good price reliably and safely, which makes them the best choice. It’s symbiotic relationship. It’s an ecosystem where one sector compliments the other.
Idk why everyone keeps talking like nationalizing Elon musk companies means changing them? It’s just removing Elon musk from them, and then reordering them to the public.
Also hello cyber truck called and that was Elon musk at the helm. He’s good for making good teams and bad decisions
I mean companies can force him out by themselves if they’re pressured enough. Also all companies make unsuccessful business bets. What matters is that from a neutral third person point of view, these companies aren’t doing anything that they’re not supposed to be doing. They’re putting sectors of the American economy in danger of collapse, they’re not committing crimes left and right, and their services are satisfactory for most people.
He can’t be forced out of his private companies lol. And the Tesla BoD is all his family and filthy rich crony’s. No one’s ousting him from Tesla, next question please.
With the amount of logical deduction, you just did here. You should just join the other commie I was posting under.
“ I don’t really know what the fuck’s going on so I’m just gonna make up some shit to fill in the blanks because it makes me feel better.”
Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations
Private companies: mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos’ attempts at space, with one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself, underpaying and exploiting its engineers, and lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets
Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR
Also, you’re focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?
Yes, government funded endeavors are sometimes the only way to do things that don’t have a clear ROI but they are also incredibly inefficient and as such should be kept only until it becomes viable for the private sector to take over.
That’s the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy, if you suck - you die. If those were public initiatives they would have been kept regardless of the costs or the results, wasting the taxpayer’s money instead of the shareholders’.
If it was that easy NASA or all the failed companies you mentioned would have done it themselves. SpaceX has done an absolutely incredible job at innovating in the industry that has been in stagnation since the 80s, designing rapidly reusable rockets, lowering the cost per kg to LEO from $72k in today’s money, from the space shuttle days to $2500 and planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.
The public funding part doesn’t mean free money from the government, the government pays SpaceX for fulfilling contracts because NASA can’t do it themselves, at least not as efficiently as SpaceX. Right now majority of SpaceX’s revenue comes from starlink which mainly serves private consumers so it’s reliance on the government contracts is being overstated.
SpaceX $155K-$247K/yr ($117K - $175K/yr base pay + $39K - $72K/yr stock)
NASA $113K - $158K/yr
As of 2025, SpaceX is the only U.S. company with a human-rated rocket system certified by NASA for regular flights to the International Space Station. NASA completed the certification of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket in 2023, marking the first time a commercial system was certified for human spaceflight.
Yes.
Dude, most research altogether is government funded, companies don’t innovate for shit. Public research in Universities and research institutions amounts for the overwhelming majority of research, except in some sectors like automotive (where they managed to make cars 50000% bigger over the past 50 years and sell SUVs to city dwellers without lowering fuel consumption one fucking bit, my 2006 diesel car uses less fuel than most 2025 hybrids). Medicine, biology, languages, physics, chemistry… Without public funding, research dies. FFS, why do you think during the cold war the west rushed to fund public research with trillions of dollars instead of just “giving it to the free market to do its thing”?
Hahahahaha. This “don’t tread on me” snake has never heard of the word “monopoly”, or of market power. You live in an imaginary world made up by capitalist economists. Without public funding there’s no education, without education there’s no research, end of the story dumbass.
Why do you think communist China is outpacing r&d in pretty much every field it decides to? Whether it be renewables, lithium batteries, electric cars, soon silicon, AI, and many other fields, China is advancing at paces the west doesn’t dream of. You’re taking the example of the most capitalist economy in the world (the USA) and using it to show how bad state-funded things in this hellhole are, no shit Sherlock.
Hahahahahahahaha yeah buddy, and we’ll have full self-driving by 2021. A Musk fartbreather, of course you are.
In 2019, the U.S. invested $667 billion in R&D. The private sector is responsible for most R&D in the United States, in 2019 performing 75 percent of R&D and funding 72 percent
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/9b90d8ab-538c-47e4-889b-98a3d8add424.png">
In some economies, the private sector overwhelmingly drives R&D. Israel leads the way, with the private sector responsible for 92% of total R&D, followed by Viet Nam (90%), Ireland (80%), and both Japan and the Republic of Korea (79%). The private sector also plays a significant role in the US, China, several European economies, Thailand, Singapore, Türkiye, Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, where it contributes over half (50%) of total R&D. <img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/96df7590-c92a-4cab-9be6-54dade8a7f5b.jpeg"> source
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/996babd5-3e83-4e5f-988c-648a0e9c026f.webp"> source
The business sector is the largest funder of R&D in the top R&D-performing countries, with lower shares funded by government, higher education, and private nonprofit institutions. In each of the leading R&D performers in East and Southeast Asia—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—the domestic business sector accounted for at least 75% of R&D funding in 2021. source
In order to maintain a monopoly you have to keep innovating and offering a quality service, otherwise there there will be a 100 startups waiting to take your place if you ever give them an in. The most dangerous monopolies are created by government regulations, bureaucracy and bailouts.
Starship has ~150 tons payload capacity, if made fully reusable you only have to cover the fuel and operational costs, fuel is ~1 mil for a LEO launch so $6.66 per kg + operational costs, so the $10 per kg figure isn’t too far off.
All of your comment is pointless. My whole point was research, not research and development. No shit, in countries where the predominant mode of production is capitalism, where it’s been socially determined that development is done by private companies, the main source of funding for research and development is private capital, because there is no public development as a consequence of a social decision.
No, you have to consolidate market power, bribe officials, perform marketing campaigns, buy the competition, and abuse your overwhelming economic and legal power and economy of scale. Good examples are car manufacturers eliminating the public transit systems in the beginning of the 20th century USA, natural monopolies such as energy, water and internet supply, or the significant additional rise of prices all over the economy as a consequece of corporate greed after the 2022 inflation episode. You’ve been lied about your economic axioms and you live in an imaginary world of neoclassical/neoliberal economics that have 0 predictive power.
failed. What starship has, is failed.
Cool beans, see ya soon, I’ll keep you updated.
Keep inhaling that Elon hopium and believing in your free market fantasies, buddy
This is such a childish take. The private and public sectors are not opposites and they don’t contradict each other. They serve different purposes in the economy, and they compliment each other quite well. It’s an ecosystem where one covers the gaps of the other. We need both.
NASA as well as the other American space agencies absolutely floor the global competition and it’s not even close. When it comes to China, they will always have cheaper prices because they are poorer country with a weaker currency, which means they’ll have a stronger purchasing power. In real terms, Chinese labor is much cheaper than American labor, Chinese materials are cheaper than American materials, Chinese manufacturing is cheaper than American manufacturing. China’s space expenditure is actually around as the US as percentage of GDP (both are around 0.5%), but China’s economy is smaller per capita and therefore they have a smaller budget to work with. This is why the US has the biggest, the most advanced, and the most flashy projects while China seems to be able to do a lot with less.
You could always just fund the space agency you already have, instead of funneling money to a foreign billionaire.
No this the one time I’m with the commies. Nationalize that shit. Like you said it’s all taxpayer money anyway. A little bit of Wall Street speculation, but who gives a fuck about those people
I’ll settle for whichever one annoys him the most.
NASA was always there and they couldn’t achieve what SpaceX has while simultaneously having a lot more capital to do so. I’m sorry but if there’s any proof that private sector’s self interest is a better driver of innovation than common interest SpaceX is it. This is a terrible idea that sounds like a good idea if you do not understand how good Musk was and is at cutting costs. That’s his actual real skill in business and is well documented. Doesn’t make him less of a prick but you also cannot downplay what he has achieved with this company.
You mean the NASA who landed people on the moon?
So let’s assume you aren’t a moon landing denier and use that as a baseline, NASA is clearly capable of things given the right circumstances and budget.
SpaceX benefited from his reputation and money, because they sure as shit didn’t benefit from his technical acumen.
Business wise he is successful because he’s rich and influential and that works to mitigate how shitty he is at actually running an organisation, that doesn’t mean he has skills as a business person that means he has money and influence, in his case originally from the mine, then from buying and bullying his was in to businesses that were technologically sound and boosting them with his money.
You could make an argument he’s a relatively good investor, but he’s an actively bad CEO.
They landed people on the moon and then did fuck all for decades.
When Musk started SpaceX he was not well known yet, SpaceX came before Tesla.
He was able to get into the businesses he has because he was rich yes, but you can find many accounts of engineers that worked under him speak of how good he was at finding ways to cut unnecessary costs.
He’s not a technical genius that’s for sure. But he has been a good CEO for SpaceX. Terrible one for Tesla though, mostly because he bought into his own myth and became a drug addict. But I refuse to simply wave away his achievements simply because I don’t like him. I can not like someone and still acknowledge they have done something good.
Indeed, all i was saying is that they were capable given budget and circumstances.
That budget and direction comes from the government.
I will admit, i thought spacex was just another company he bought his way in to, like tesla, seems i was mistaken about that.
And you can equally find many accounts of having to distract him from the day to day operations because he’s unreliable , unpredictable and chaotic (none of those meant in a good way).
He’s also known for buying good press and using litigation to silence people.
I doubt this, but that could just be bias, i don’t have any actual evidence of the long term impact of him as CEO.
Recently though, he’s provably been significantly more of a liability than a benefit, even if just from a PR and public sentiment point of view.
Indeed, i push back on the myth that he’s some self made tony stark genius, but it isn’t like he’s not achieved anything.
I would personally attribute most of that to neptoism, wealth, luck and opportunity, but that doesn’t remove the achievement itself.
.
Absolutely agree with this but there is no denying the innovation levels at spacex are higher (I’m not saying this is down to musk specifically. The man is a horror story of a human).
We were all in total awe when seeing booster stages land themselves successfully for the first time. It was such a giant leap forward and to the best of my knowledge no government funded space agency was even considering it before spacex.
Perhaps look into the DC-X program, fully 20 years before SpaceX Falcon: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
Undeniably, they’ve been doing amazing work (at least from my rocketry technology peasant point of view).
SpaceX has an internal team that works to make sure Musk can’t interfere with anything, because he’s so bad at managing businesses. Gwynne Shotwell is the one in charge of SpaceX.
I am not surprised in the slightest. I mean if you have a bunch of smart, highly motivated people it sounds like keeping the crazy man at arms length is the kind of thing they’d organise very effectively.
The agency that landed people on the moon so long ago most of the people involved have died if old age, and the event will soon pass out of living memory?
The one where when they let a single rocket explode, one time, rocked the nation, because their record was so close to flawless?
The one that constantly gives us new sources for scientific data?
Yeah fuck them. They never made a dick rocket.
let’s not forget the agency that launched the probe that passed the edge of the solar system and is still functional and doing valuable things…… in the 70s
Oh, wow, you might wanna sit down for this.
which part? it’s still transmitting right? and they got useful and interesting data from it only a few years ago
No, honey, it’s 2025.
I don’t know what happened to you, but im so fucking sorry.
Edit: you can down vote me all you want. It doesn’t change the truth. Odds are everyone you knew is dead.
What are you talking about. They were saying nasa sent it to space in the 70s and it’s still functioning.
Thanks for murdering a perfectly good bit.
Nobody knows what your bit is. That’s why you’re getting downvoted.
It’s kind og funnier if you don’t get it.
I’m sorry… dick rocket? Your issue with SpaceX is that the rockets are… rocket shaped?
Like everything else notwithstanding, physics dictates the shapes of these things. That is why they all look rather… dick-ish
Yes im coming out against dick rockets here.
it’ll be sold to the highest bidder is my bet
I would find it funny that billionaires would pass off the opportunity of taking musk’s position on a discount
Good point.
So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?
Well, now that you bring it up…
I fully agree. Any industry that can’t survive on its own and needs public funds, shouldn’t exist. If it’s an essential service it should be nationalized.
So you want Donald Trump in charge of the telecom industry and any other industries that have received some sort of public subsidy?
Yeah, maybe we can nationalize them with the clause that it kicks in when his heart stops beating
This is the same mistake everyone makes. They think Donald Trump is just a person. That he actually matters and we just have to get rid of him and everything will be okay.
It doesn’t work that way.
As fascism didn’t die with Hitler, it’s not going to die with Trump. All of the problems — all of the rifts in our society — will still be there when he’s gone.
Very true. It’s easy to focus on a figurehead and much harder to target a broad feeling of disillusionment affecting tens of millions.
Yes, absolutely. And power too
And pharma. And O&G
Yes please, maybe they’ll fix the shit they’ve been getting paid for decades to fix finally.
lol you really threatened Lemmy with a good time
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Yes but with very little to show for it. If the government just treated all undelivered orders as debt, it would end up deep in the red.
What do you mean little to show for it?
Reusable rockets are cool
Never lived up to the hype. Take almost as much effort to get ready for another flight as building another one.
I’m no Musk apologist, but this statement is nowhere close to being true.
inverse.com/…/spacex-elon-musk-falcon-9-economics
Are you against universal and free healthcare, education and retirement? Are you against improving worker rights, paid holidays, sick leave, guaranteed housing and guaranteed employment? Are you against unionisation of workplaces and collective worker decisions mattering in business? Are you against heavy regulation against climate change and pollution of the environment? Are you against anti-racism, feminism, anti-fascism and the redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest? I’m sure you have a lot more common ground with us commies than you think
*in theory
Most of those things I mentioned are/were a material reality in socialist countries such as Cuba or the Soviet Union, except for climate change and pollution and some things regarding feminism and homosexuality due to moral shortcomings of 20th century thought.
A tankie says what?
Yes, I’m a tankie, you got me. How about you address the actual argument though? In the 1970s Soviet Union there was:
Guaranteed employment, free education to the highest level, free healthcare for everyone, guaranteed housing for everyone and the abolition of homelessness, 45h working week, retirement with guaranteed pension at 61 for men and at 55 for women, paid holiday and sick leave, highest unionisation population in the world, more female engineers inside the Soviet Union than in the rest of the world combined, lowest level of wealth inequality in the history of the region, subsidised and affordable basics like energy access or public transit… The list goes on and on.
How about you try to refute any of these individual claims I made instead of dismissing the actual historical reality just because you dislike my political views? Spoiler alert: you won’t find reliable sources contradicting any of my claims and I can provide sources to all of it because I actually know what I’m talking about.
No thanks.
See, that’s just cognitive dissonance. You start by saying it’s only in theory, and when prompted with actual examples of this existing, you just shut your ears. I went as far as being honest on the particular points that were lacking, such as women/homosexual rights or climate/pollution regulation, but you’re incapable of engaging with honest and reality-based analysis because it contradicts your absorbed anticommunist propaganda.
Stuff it tankie. Nobody gives a shit.
Stay uneducated, loser
Get back in your bread line
Murder some more brown people, lib
Sorry, we out here on the streets of LA fighting ICE right now. No time to chat.
That’s actually commendable if you’re going and fighting ICE, they’re actual fascists. Maybe you could take inspiration from Bolsheviks on how to fight fascists (look up “Black Hundreds” on Wikipedia).
Join us
Depends what you mean by “us”
I’m western European and in a Marxist-Leninist org, I’m doing my part on the othet side of the ocean.
Please, PLEASE stop vilifying communists. We are NOT the enemy. The woman in charge of the students union of my country is prosecuted by the far right, THOSE are the enemy, not marxists
What do you mean by that?
No I’m also with the commies on single payer health care and super high tax brackets for the rich. I do hate me a fascism, infact I hate all authoritarians.
I’m clearly for the workers rights we have fought for and established in this country. And while I can acknowledge the communist impact in these achievements, I would not go ahead and give you guys full credit nor say that these are policies that are specific to you. Most of this stuff is just center/left social welfare and human rights. Commies are the ones that like to do purity tests and isolate anyone that doesn’t agree with 100% of your policy points.
Pretty big jumps from liberal to leftist to self proclaimed communist ideas on how these ideas and policies look, so yes we agree on general principles and concepts. But we certainly don’t agree on how to bring them about.
Also, every single self-proclaimed communist is on the suspect list because you guys did a lot of campaigning against Joe Biden to help Donald Trump get elected so I’m just saying I don’t really fuck with you guys anymore. That’s my new purity test. Did you support Joe Biden and Kamala during the most important election in American history?
I’m a communist and I believe in the expropriation of their capital to eliminate super-richness, not in their taxation.
Your country (the US judging by the comment) has miserable worker rights, as a western-European. Worker rights are bad here, but the US takes the cake.
I’m not so sure. The legal abolition of homelessness and unemployment is far from being a centre/left welfare measure, as evidenced by the fact that the only countries that have achieved this are communist ones such as Cuba or the Soviet Union.
We don’t agree on how to bring them about because the liberal method of bringing them about is proven ineffective in every single instance of liberal democracy. Worker rights and welfare are systematically being eroded in essentially all liberal democracies for the past 3-4 decades, home ownership rates decrease, unemployment increases, retirement age gets delayed (Denmark just rose it to 70 years e.g.), education and healthcare budgets get gutted, infrastructure crumbles, real wages diminish for the majority of the population, and little action is taken against climate change. There were only advancements in worker rights in Europe (and less so in the USA) because of the fear of communist revolution in the past century, hence the complete lack of progress and actual degradation of rights and democracy with the rise of the far right all over the Western World.
I’m not USian so I didn’t support any of your genocidal candidates. Funny how you talked of purity tests earlier in your comment and come up with that later. But as an outsider: the US liberal obsession with blaming the election loss on the progressives and not on, you know, the politicians enacting genocide and not doing anything about improving the living conditions of people in the US while in government seems pretty weird. If the Democrats can’t bring themselves to even remotely appear more appealing than LITERAL DONALD TRUMP to the average voter, what the fuck are they doing?
That’s true but it doesn’t solve the problem now.
This is the thing, NASA is underfunded as it is, if we nationalized SpaceX, we wouldn’t actually continue to fund it appropriately and it would simply die. Actually, with trump at the helm, nationalizing it would mean Trump immediately liquidating it. SpaceX is definitely the most successful rocket company in the US. It would be an awful shame for the space industry and for humanity’s future in space.
I hate musk as much as the next guy, but I think the success of spaceX is undeniable. Their success with reusable rockets is not just impressive, it’s ground breaking and important. Developing a fully reusable rocket is probably the most important challenge humans are working on in this era, and I only know of three companies attempting to do it. I don’t want to kill the company that’s furthest along.
Of course he was always a jerk, but I still think of a reality where Elon never went (officially) Nazi and just stuck with his otherwise important companies. Tesla being an important early mover in EVs, especially in such an oil-dependent country, and all the cool stuff SpaceX has been up to.
I hear you, why can’t we be in that timeline?
You guys are so stuck in the cult of personality. WE PAID FOR EVERYTHING SPACEX DID. IT BELONGS TO US.
Let’s say I bought you a car, I paid for it in full and then gave it to you, and in return you sometimes drive me around.
Let’s say I get tired of this arrangement, should I repossess the car just to drive it into the ocean? What would be the point of that? Sure, it’s rightfully mine, but what good does it do to destroy it?
“IT BELONGS TO US” is not a very compelling argument for arbitrary distribution.
Us? Do you own NASA? Do you have any say on how funds are assigned to NASA? No? Then it doesn’t belong to “Us” it belongs to the government, a distinct organization with different goals and motivations than “Us” the people.
Not to mention that Musk himself contributed nothing to SpaceX’s technical achievements. All he did was insist that the audio of their launches and recoveries include employees cheering maniacally - easily the most annoying aspect of SpaceX.
I’m sorry… you don’t think employees who are achieving world firsts are allowed to celebrate?
You must be fun at parties
This meme is even more annoying than SpaceX employees being ordered to cheer.
You paid for services rendered. By your logic you should eventually own your neighborhood grocery store because that’s where you buy your bread.
You’re talking to someone on lemmy, there’s a very high likelihood they think exactly that.
Has US nationalized anything this millenia? I really don’t see that ever happening
Tax burdens for billionaires
Also losses. Gotta get that sweet, sweet too-big-to-fail bailout money.
Airport security was nationalized as the TSA. Aside from that no.
So it takes a spectacular failure of capitalist grifters? Check.
Technically the auto industry in 2008.
I mean if we count bailouts as nationalization, then now we’ve got like some kinda national “socialism” where state and corporate power have fused.
The GM situation was a more than a bailout, they took complete control of the company, took it private, liquidated some assets, then sold it off in a new IPO.
It’s not all that different from a private equity firm doing the same thing, the major difference is the legal protections the US had (e.g. it got priority over all other creditors). If the US wanted to keep it and run it, it could’ve.
Technically no. Bailout =/= nationalization.
It was more than something like a loan, the federal government actually a fair amount of control over the company. It ended up divesting itself once the new, restructured company made its IPO, but during the bailout, the US gov was technically in control, and it got priority over all other interests since the company went private with special financing.
It’s certainly different than other nationalized industries, but it was also much more than a regular bailout.
Quite ironic from people constantly accusing their political adversaries to be communists…
Errr… am I mistaken? This is the first time I’m hearing about nationalizing SpaceX and it’s from Jacobin…
Does Jacobin make a habit of calling people communists? Pretty sure they advocate for socialist positions usually…
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/6329f43a-9bcc-4bc7-80c2-777435bc5238.jpeg">
big spiderman pointing at spiderman vibes if true
.
Jacobin is a late 18th early 19th political spectrum. It is not relevant to this situation.
Friend, the magazine this article is from is named Jacobin, after that political movement.
It is a US-based magazine, and it’s not very popular, so it’s understandable that you haven’t heard of it. But it does pay to read the article before commenting.
Jacobin (magazine, wikipedia link)
Well that’s not really the case. Conservatives will accuse progressive of being communists, and claim any social services are examples of communism. But it’s mostly those progressives here on Lemmy suggesting communist ideas.
So it’s not really ironic, just unsurprising I guess.
Yeah. Let’s give Trump that power.
Lets reach a compromise. Impeach Trump (successfully) and then take away SpaceX from Elon. That way things would be fair.
I honestly don’t care about Elon, just get Trump out.
For whatever reasons Musk has found himself as ceo of some wildly successful visionary companies. It has not changed that they are finally bringing the future to the present, disrupting old technologies in favor of newer and better, for a better world. And the musk from before his breakdown deserves a lot of credit.
At this point I no longer care about musk either, but SpaceX and Tesla are critical. Or at least SpaceX is. Tesla has not yet finished disrupting vehicle manufacturing , but if we’re content to let Chinese companies go ahead, they’re ready and willing. Legacy manufacturers have been slapped up the side of the face, but if they’re still not awake at this point it’s on them
I’m sorry, but credit for what? For being born privileged and buying talent? If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em, right?
Yeah, I guess he deserves praise for being a good liar and basically selling pipe dreams?
Tesla was started by a handful of really smart people with a great idea. Musk was ceo as it grew from an idea into the first new major automaker in almost a century. As it grew from a dismissed toy that no one would buy, into an industry-wide paradigm shift. Most of that time musk preached the gospel. You can’t disregard that influence, you can’t claim the guy in charge had nothing to do with it. You might decide his skill was more manipulative than visionary, but you can’t deny that him being the front man was part of the success. You might decide any engineering or problem solving ability was not real, but he was the guy in charge, he did make decisions, and Tesla has generally been a huge success (until recently).
We just need some drug rehab and find a way to reset the god complex ….
Sure, I mean technically paypal was a rather innovative idea for its time, but again, the guy basically associated himself with smart people that had bright ideas.
Yes, he does have a knack for growing businesses to a larger scale, but most millionaires/ billionaires do, cause they outsource brain matter and decision making to a select few.
I’m not sure if I ever liked the guy or his largely exaggerated marketing, but being a POS nazi isn’t helping either, so i’m biased towards nazi hate I guess. Either way, he will need a paradigm shift for people to accept him back into the decent human beings club. I do hope he will find a way, but doubt it really.
I mostly hope that his companies make it back into the “disruptive technology” club, regardless of him.
Sure, he gets credit for building hype and getting investors on board. He’s a decent salesman, and probably decent at business in general.
I don’t care if he’s rich or not, he’s relatively harmless when it comes to things I care about. Trump, on the other hand, is dangerous because he seems to work off vibes and compliments, and that’s scary.
Trump has been impeached successfully. Twice. What I assume you mean is that he hasn’t been removed from office. That could be the consequence of an impeachment, but not necessarily.
This is what happens when you meddle in politics
Just having such wealth and thus power in hands of singular humans is risk to all of humanity. With musk you are but big enough drug fueled temper tantrum away from pretty important infrastructure coming crashing down.
Do that, so that when the US Gov. falls SpaceX and Starlink does too.
Pedo-nation
We? No. USA can if it wants that shit.
American exceptionalism is so fucking annoying. Their country is failing to a point hopefully this first person shit rightfully corrects to third person.
It’s worse here than on Reddit, IMO.
American exceptionalism definitely sucks, but this is not an example of American exceptionalism. The source is an article from an American magazine, published for an American audience.
I’m referring to how the post title shared here is in first person as if everyone is American. If that’s unrelated to exceptionalism then oops.
You never clicked on the link, did you?
The post title starts with “we”, which means everyone, it doesn’t limit those involved to one country.
Yes, and the post title is just the title of the article 🤦
I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to make things clear when posting the article link to a global website.
Agreed. But also commies believe that when the state takes something, “we” will get it (and they fail to see why states sponsor their useful idiocy)
The point of communism is that things are state owned.
Global communities reveal the disgusting chauvinism of the nationalist “we”. It’s cult speech.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
Has anyone considered funding NASA?
They made rockets that didn’t explode with duct tape and a TI-83 calculator.
They didn’t, because someone got paid to write this article!
Shouldn’t be incompatible with nationalizing SpaceX and Starlink. Just give it all to NASA, actually.
Sure, that’s the ideal.
Is it likely? Ehhhh
From this admin? Nah. It’ll be stolen and given to, idk, Thiel or Vance or whoever, but not nationalized, just reprivatized.
Where’s the grift tho? What’s the angle? How will this enrich an uber-privileged pale bro?
Looks like we found someone who believed it was financially necessary for the manufacture of the shuttle to be spread across the country.
If that was actually their expenditure I don’t think they’d have their budget cut.
What “they made” 50 years ago is of little value now. Expertise matters, and it’s lost with time passing.
Still - yes. Nationalization is a bad solution because it gives the state power to nationalize. Seems a truism.
Just let NASA work in its normal role. Instead of replacing that with SpaceX contracts.
Starlink should not just be nationalized but internationalized.
It is internet for everyone on earth, not everyone in the USA.
Every larger nation deploying their own constellation would be a pointless waste of resources, and every smaller nation having to find reliable partner-nations to tap into for that internet access would inevitably lead to people ending up without access due to political games.
Low orbit satellite constellations are the perfect candidate for sharing, they would literally sit unused over most of their orbits otherwise.
I think every larger nation deploying their own constellation would reduce people losing access due to political games.
If there’s only one network with the same topology as Starlink, then the USA, China, or Russia will end up making a bunch of rules on everyone else just like Elon does today. Look how the USA abuses centralized internet infrastructure already. Multiple overlapping systems would be wastefully redundant, but reduces the risk of censorship.
We can’t get along and can’t have nice things.
You want a truly multinational organization responsible for it, nothing that can be controlled by a single nation, even one as (ex)influential as the us.
Something based on the UN perhaps.
Combine that with making internet access a human right, to stop denying connectivity outright.
Ideally then you could’t enforce meaningful censorship, but more realistically you would route regions to their respective governments servers so they could censor as before on their territory.
That would not guarantee free access to the internet to everyone, but should be an acceptable compromise to basically all nations.
After that, other doubting nations could still pull their own constellation, nothing is stopping that.
I would love if the internet program was uncensored, but that probably needs personal circumvention same as now, if such a program wants any degree of success.
It sounds like we don’t disagree that much, I just think other doubting nations is extremely likely.
Edit: but gosh darn that is nice to imagine. Everyone, everywhere, having free internet.
Yeah.
The maintenance of these conatellations is pricy, so perhaps if such an international program does prove itself trustworthy you’d see other national alternatives get retired.
I mean it’s not like the US would do it anyway as things stand, more likely for such a program to get started independently and to end up outcompeting starlink down the line.
Yeah, let’s give the trump administration the power to seize companies it doesn’t like, that is a great idea that def won’t be abused all the time
We no longer live in a world where our biggest fear would be the government controlling high level corporations and their operators.
We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology. Right now it’s mostly tourism rockets and satellites, but now we see Skum weaponizing that technology, and/or using it as a bargaining chip. He has cut off Starlink in a war zone to benefit the county who defers to him, but is openly hostile to the US, and now he’s threatening to cut off our access to the space station. He is using tech that WE PAY FOR with government contracts and grants, to pursue his own diplomacy, for his own benefit, and against our interests.
Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn’t step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
We paid for Skum’s technology, and he gets to control it as a courtesy. Just the threat of using it against us should be enough reason to declare him a national security threat, confiscate his American-taxpayer financed businesses, and imprison him.
Bruh this has already happened over and over again. Nobody stops them because the most violence empire on the planet is leading the way. AFAIK the USA is the only state to have actually nuked people.
See also the zio regime. Imperial allies supreme.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
First of all, America is not “the most violent empire on the planet.” America has the capability of being the most violent nation, but at the moment, our potential for violence is being eclipsed by other nations who are actively employing the same levels of violence that we are capable of. Nothing we are currently doing comes close to the violence that Russia and Israel are employing.
And yes, America is the only nation to have deployed nuclear weapons against human targets, but that was 80 years ago, and ended the worst war in human history. After demonstrating its power, just the presence of nuclear weapons in a nation’s arsenal has been enough to keep the most powerful, well-armed, violent nations (including America) from going too far.
People have lived in that world for most/all of human history. Assuming you come from the west, you’re coming from a place where for the last couple of hundred years it’s been more cost effective to just buy the government instead. Is that better? Maybe, it’s a little more stable. I dunno if it’s good though.
It’s hilarious seeing all these “anti oligarch” people come out of the woodwork now that it’s a catchphrase of their political party, despite that party being run by oligarchs.
Like you said, this is how the world has been essentially forever. People are only against it now that their teams oligarchs are upset that they aren’t in as much control as usual.
The author probably forgot who runs the nation of usa.
putin
We are already fucked. The choices given are siding with Trump, and end up like Russia, or side with Elon, and end up like Cyberpunk 2077
…or organize, start/join unions, get involved with your local community and build up some real resistance that isn’t based off obscene wealth, lawfare or media brainwashing. Once you have experienced something real, it’s quite hard to understand how or why anyone would fall for the alternative.
Only useless people side with those two.
Stop being useless.
Congress has always had this power. I’m personally for nationalizing telecomm companies.
Health; education; energy production; food production & distribution; water; housing; mass transit and telecommunications should all be classified as essential services and nationalised. Everything else can be whatever.
The problem would be that nationalising them in this day and age would mean prices would get even worse for everyone, as the government having a monopoly on these things would mean they can charge whatever they want.
As we all know, private corporations don’t charge whatever they want, and don’t jack up the prices because of a “Fuck you, why not?” fee and bill.
Did you stop reading after the first part of my sentence?
No.
Your comment says yes.
Maybe… But never going to happen. Privitization and capitalism work the other way in the imperial core.
I don’t think the majority of Americans understand what that means. They’ll just scream “commies!” And raise their maga flag.
But the idea of a starlink-like business owned by UN would be nice, and not an American corporation owned by a nepobaby Elmo.
In the USA space-x gets away with a lot. A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
If your want proof that the wealthy live by a different set of laws, look no further than the time Elon Musk, ceo of SpaceX, went on a podcast and smoked weed.
SpaceX has DOD contracts for launches, and somehow him blatantly violating federal law had no impact on the contracts his company fulfilled for the government.
Do I think weed should be classified like it is? No.
Do I think that everyone should be held to the same standard? Yes. And if anyone else had been involved in government projects while going on podcasts and smoking weed, they’d at the very least be fired.
How long back was that? I genuinely didn’t hear about that, but I believe that would happen. I tried googling “space x faa” but I’m getting results of FAA investigating rocket issues and approvals of rocket models.
Not sure if they followed thru but this was 4 years ago I remember reading about it.
You should familiarize yourself with Telsat Canada’s LEO plans. Should be complete in less than 2 years.
Telsat Lightspeed
They say this is for enterprise and government, and they talk about “terminals”. This seems more like a Hughes network, and let me tell you, if it’s that bad, you want nothing to do with it.
Can you imagine who would run those companies if they were government owned?
Yeah. A gov; be it the UN or a country.
Having worked and then contracted to regional and Muni govs, and worked for dotcoms, I can tell you one of them follows way, WAY more of the regs than the other.
It’s like transpo & highways vs private roads and rail: one of them is way better-maintained when there is a comparison.
What even is this comment?
Not the person you commented on, but think about the reason why people are wanting SpaceX to be nationalised when NASA exists and is already Government owned.
SpaceX is light years, pardon the pun, ahead of NASA. If SpaceX was taken over by the government, SpaceX would likely end up like NASA as it would be taken over by the same people and have mountains more red tape in order to do anything. It would destroy SpaceX and put space exploration back decades.
SpaceX is getting the government funding NASA doesn’t anymore.
.
Then the UN should start their own starlink-like company. Nothing is stopping them.
In an ideal world, starlink should be internationalized by the U.N.
We don’t need half a dozen companies in every developed nation putting their own garbage in orbit just to provide rural internet for a minority of a minority of the planet. Those systems are in orbit, they can provide internet to the overwhelming majority of humans.
But instead we’re gonna fuck up our ability to use a load of space telescopes needed to help see potentially dangerous asteroids, and all these satellites burning up in orbit are gonna fuck up the atmosphere, opening up the hole in the ozone layer even more.
If we do, we’ll definitely reach mars. I can imagine it now! Its 3055 and everything is totally fine now that we can escape to Mars in an inflatable city. A whole 4000 square feet of freedom soaring thru the sky with the last of us aboard ready for a whole new life and a good 7 in inflated cities for our children to live. She changes her name to Mother Gaia and His name is now Adam. One day in the distant future perhaps a large meteor would come roaring and reshaping our planet into livable space again.
Step one Musk needs to be arrested and sent to El Salvador.
No thanks. We need to shut down all U.S. affiliation with prisons outside the U.S. Release those prisoners or transfer them back to the U.S. and have proper trials. Trump needs to stand trial for the fake electors and for every unconstitutional measure he has done before/since as an unconstitutional act that the Supreme Court deems unconstitutional should not be considered an official act. The President should be suspended from all duties until Congress performs an investigation draws up the articles of impeachment and it is tried by the Senate.
Musk should be tried for election interference and any other laws he may have broken but it should be done right here in the U.S. If anything freeze all of his accounts and require him to step down from any/all roles within his companies as part of his required bale terms, or otherwise he would be choosing to spend the time awaiting trial in jail.
These actions would ensure they aren’t trying to drag court cases out for years, they would want the court cases to move along faster.
Would Trump get convicted by the Senate, unlikely. That’s on us for voting terrible people into the legislative branch. But we can’t complain about those who break the law if we think it’s fine to break the law when it fits our wants. We need to update those laws legally or tear the whole thing down and say Musk and Trump didn’t break any laws because we didn’t think those laws mattered as well.
No thanks, demolish Leon Hitler’s space program and bury it. NASA should be the US leader for space missions and not a South African neo-Nazi sack of shit.
imagine how many more rockets we could reuse if the NASA subdivision formerly known as SpaceX did literally any of the standard, rigorous fault-checks.
NOW they complain about giving Musk money?
Most of the 38 billion was given by Biden.
We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.
SpaceX has loads of capable engineers. If NASA gets a massive budget increase, they need to draw from that pool of talent.
NASA hasn’t take the slightest risk since Challenger. They wouldn’t have accomplished 1/20th of the launch capability SpaceX has developed in the last 5 years.
Generally NASA doesn’t “develop” rockets per se, they commission rockets to specification.
It’s the specification process that’s the thing, nobody there would have gone out on a limb the way SpaceX has with their recovery systems. Look where they are on a shuttle replacement: the Apollo capsule with more room.
SpaceX and Starlink basically have no competition, and if they did, said competitor would also need to be heavily subsidized.
These last few years they’ve had very little successes, but the point is it should stay competitive and not be automatically handed to these doofuses. Even the USSR maintained a competitive rocketry sector.
SpaceX and starlink have had very little success the last few years? What have you been smoking?!
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
You say “failed”, engineers say “ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?”. These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn’t a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
They are years behind schedule and obscenely over budget on this testing. They’re not even making new technology here, they are just cheaping out on the builds to funnel money into their own pockets.
You have any links to support that it’s just cheap materials causing the failures?
How has spacex had very few successes? Their Falcon 9 rocket is basically operating like clockwork. They launch more rockets than the rest of the world combined.
The starship failures are higher profile but even those failures are typical when testing new vehicles, especially one as experimental and complex.
They weren’t as typical with previous SpaceX models, Starship is easily their least successful project.
Since SpaceX is launching large quantities of commercial satellites, big whoop, do you also celebrate when companies buy back stocks?
Why would I celebrate stock buybacks?
Also spacex lost like 20 or so Falcons before their first successful mission. Maybe they will explode as many Starships, but they have hit that number yet.
It’s ok to hate Elon, and there are many valid criticisms to make regarding spacex, but they’re the best in the world right now and it isn’t even close.
The biggest issue with Spacex is that Elon needs to be removed before he ruins it like he ruined Tesla.
The oligarchs wouldn’t like that precedent but they might go for purchasing SpaceX since it is owned by a foreigner. Kind of like with TikTok…
When’s the last time the US nationalised something?
Racism. 1776.
Tiktok?
LOL You can’t nationalise foreign companies.
You can do so to the local subsidiary
Tencent would never allow it.
Besides it’s software, that has no subsidiaries.
If it were cars like BYD or Geely then maybe.
In this case there is nothing to steal.
The US has a sale-or-ban order in force right now, it is not up to Tencent, but the Taco King right now.
You must mean assets. I’m talking about the legal entity, that’s what subsidiary means, a local US sub-company owned by the Chinese parent company. US Tiktok operations are owned by the local US subsidiary Tiktok Inc, incorporated in California, owned by Bytedance. That ownership relation is entirely regulated by US law.
$10 billion in US revenue, the market share and the cultural, societal and political impact of the platform is there for the taking.
Whatever you say, I want to see them try.
There will be consequences.
I think during world war 2. But things were worse then 15% unemployment and people still had massive economic leverage. I don’t think the US government is nationalizing anything anytime soon now. Neither party will participate in it because they are in the pockets of the oligarchs.
The automotive manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler were partially nationalized in the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis as were several banks… these were less a full government takeover and more of a government guided restructuring, but the government owned large stakes in these companies. Before that, the only full nationalization of anything substantial was the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad and subsequent establishment of Consolidated Rail (branded as ConRail) the US’s only national freight rail company.
Conrail was later privatized into what is now the private companies CSX and Norfolk Southern. The collapse of Penn Central was the largest bankruptcy in history until Enron in the 1990’s. Amtrak, our national passenger rail corporation, is also a nationalized entity created around the same time as ConRail, for similar reasons, and is still nationalized (although the Trump admin wants to privatize it).
Didn’t know about Amtrak. Interesting. Thanks
Conrail?
I’ve been saying this for years. the footprint that spaceX represents in national launch authority is out of whack to say the least.
The only reason SpaceX exists is because Boeing and Lockheed managed to compete so badly the only solution was to merge their launch businesses.
So we had one launch company, then spaceX made it two providers, now its back to one because B-mart is using antiquated launch systems (single use).
this isn’t incorrect. ULA is a fucking pork barrel of hideous proportions. doesn’t mean we shouldn’t nationalize spacex.
You don’t nationalise a company (SpaceX) just because the existing government owned company (NASA) is significantly worse. What do you think would happen to SpaceX if they did nationalise it? Lol. It would go to hell, like NASA.
The government should not be responsible for things like this. The government should provide services for necessities for human rights and general standards of living, but they shouldn’t take over successful companies just because they couldn’t do it themselves.
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You haven’t put your eggs in any basket. SpaceX are a private company. The government owns NASA, they can pour money into that and hire people to do what SpaceX are doing. Hell, they could poach people from SpaceX!
Why do you think they haven’t already done this? Because the government don’t care about it. If someone else will do it they can use them to provide their services via ludicrously expensive contracts, and give them massive subsidies, as is the Government way.
The government taking over SpaceX is not something anyone with even half a brain should be wanting. It makes ZERO sense. It doesn’t matter who owns it privately, just not the government because they will fuck it up and/or neglect it - like they did with NASA and most of their other projects.
$38 billion in government funding. huh.
what reality do you live in?
That’s not putting eggs in a basket, that’s just wasteful government as always. The same government that you guys want to take control of SpaceX lol.
ok freedumb, I get it, you’re not reading, just responding. gonna block you now
NASA was pretty damn efficient with the budget they used to have.
The wasteful NASA storyline is tiresome and busted.
And why do you think they have zero budget? The government lol. You think if the same government takes over SpaceX they’ll all of a sudden give them the huge budget that they need?
We shot a space telescope half way to the sun and are observing the dawn of the entire universe.
And you just wanna see a bigger penis rocket🌈
Sending something one way into space isn’t hard. Having it come back is. Having it, and all the parts that it took to get it there and back, be safely returned to earth and able to be reused is stupidly hard.
Oh, I know, man I’ve been following the SpaceX project for the last 12 years. I’m a huge fan of outer space. But now that they’re slashing my science budgets for weapons budgets it makes me sad. And a bit mad.
Like I said, I value the space telescopes more than the Rockets that take them into space. I like the Mars Rovers more than the penis rockets.
To compete even worse
The precedent that will set and the implications… No… We should not do this.
Health insurance, ISP, Oil Cos, and utilities should also be nationalized. The US is a weird place where everything is a business. A shithole capitalist hellscape
Tankies live in alternate reality where they think that nationalization is extremely common and is a magical solution to all of societies problems… even though this view is entirely delusional.
For example, only 3 countries have nationalized the entire ISP industry, and those are Cuba, Turkmenistan, and North Korea. All three of which are horrid tyrannical dictatorships with horrible internet. We should NOT be like them. Even when it comes to health insurance, except for 3 countries I just mentioned, every single country allows private health insurance, even if their system is public. Clearly nationalization is not what you think it is.
Tankie your ass. You don’t have to have a shitty dictatorship to have nationalized services. Clearly you don’t know as much as you think you do.
Most countries have public options for services and private alternatives as either competitors, backups, or complimentary pieces. It’s very rare for countries to completely nationalize sectors, and it’s especially rare for them to national that many sectors.
Yep that’s my point. Not everything needs be a business.
Allowing government to compete with business creates better outcomes in both. There is certainly something to be said about a more involved government. It’s really silly to allow big business or the government to have a monopoly on critical services.
My point is that this can be and is often done without nationalizing entire sectors of the economy
boy howdy you’ve got the entire strawman army mustered in this thread.
It seems like you don’t know what that term means
Sure thing sport. I must be a tankie lol. You toolbag
A strawman is when somebody mischaracterize an argument, calling someone a tankie is not that.
sure thing bud. I’m not going to waste my afternoon going through your shitstream to point out how you’re wrong, I simply have better things to do with my life. in fact, gonna block you now, QOL plus
Please do. I would very much not see a clown on my feed who accuses others of things they don’t even understand.
<img alt="" src="https://endlesstalk.org/pictrs/image/e7417130-e965-447f-a482-df504ace403c.jpeg">
And this is relevant how?
You’re the tankie
LOL “We should NOT be like them.”
And then starts talking about health insurance. What health insurance?
You can only dream of being like Cuba.
But your shithole country keeps licking the boots and are good little servants of the oligarch ruling class.
And that’s great, you deserve all you get, all you do is comlain and cry about it online anyway.
Cuba is a shithole by every definition of the word. The only people in the world who think Cuba is decent are brainless Marxists online. Even Cubans don’t agree with your delusions.
I hate tankies, but not as much as I hate Nazis. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We’re losing 100 years of social advancement. But here you are telling us to protect the fucking corporations that are sucking them up.
This is a false dichotomy. We don’t have to accept either Nazis Marxists. Fuck them both, there other options out that are much better.
Those are different to taking over private companies. The government should, imo, compete against private enterprise in those areas, in turn bringing prices down and making it better for the taxpayers.
NASA is government owned. Look at the state of it. Do you think the government taking over SpaceX would really be a good thing?
Nice 30-year-old Fox News talking points you got there. Time to go to bed, grandpa.
What points are you talking about exactly?
You think the state of NASA isn’t caused by privately funded politicians?
So you think those privately funded politicians should be in charge of the state of SpaceX?
No, the private funding of politicians, which nowhere in the world happens as thoroughly or blatantly as in the US, is another issue to solve. It’s companies pushing for privatization of services that they sabotage first to show that the government doesn’t do well with them. It’s like the postal service headed by that Trump appointee that was a big cheese in a transport firma. I forgot his name.
So they were sabotaging nasa for all those years before SpaceX was a thing for what reason?
Nationalization is the opposite of privatization, it’s how the US’s bureaucratic state was really built, we should absolutely do this and right now is the time
No, this is just pure ignorance. The US never nationalized any sector. The US has only used nationalization as a means to stabilize certain sectors from collapse temporarily, and even this happens very rarely.
Nationalization stable, growing industries would have devastating impacts on the economy. These companies are running just fine, and they’re providing their services reliably and at competitive prices, what would be the justification to nationalize them? If the government feels like it needs more control on these companies they can pass regulations, and if they want total control then they should launch their own public alternatives.
Gotcha. So fascism it is then. How’s that working out for y’all? Lmao
Your comment doesn’t make sense. You say the US never nationalized and in the next sentence you say that they have. Remember after the 2008 collapse when the automotive industry was nationalized for a while and the government made a profit? Maybe you need to check your own ignorance.
This is going to be shocking for you, but there’s more to politics than fascism and marxism
My point was that the US never nationalized any sector permanently for the sake of making it public. It also temporarily nationalized portions of some sectors to stabilize them before making them private again.
Omg you really think you’re smarter than everyone. Of course there’s in-between. Lmao glad you were able to clear it up for yourself.
I’m not smarter than everyone, but you are dumb enough to think Marxism and Fascism are economic opposites otherwise you wouldn’t have said what you did earlier.
and what precedent is there for dealing with the executive of your country’s entire space launch infrastructure when they become dependent on horse drugs?
No really, what’s the precedent here, I want to know. Because if we set a precedent by ignoring it until the problem is impossible to ignore, that’s gonna be a far more expensive fix.
So yeah, yeah we should consider this very strongly.
If the government actually nationalized SpaceX, the precedent would be insane. You’d be telling every private company working in defense, infrastructure, or tech that if they become too essential, the government might just take it. Doesn’t matter how much risk or capital they fronted.
SpaceX isn’t just launching rockets for fun—it’s practically a branch of the U.S. space program at this point. GPS, Starlink for military comms, launching classified payloads, putting astronauts in orbit. If we nationalize that over a political pissing match between Trump and Musk, we’re basically saying innovation is conditional on obedience.
And let’s be honest—once you do this to SpaceX, you open the door to doing it to AWS, Tesla’s energy grid systems, Google’s AI infrastructure. Any private company that gets too important suddenly becomes “too critical to stay private.” That’s a fast track to killing private innovation in sectors where we need it most.
If Trump’s threatening funding, and Musk is threatening to walk, and the public’s response is “just take the company,” then we’ve officially politicized the tech-industrial base. That’s not governance, that’s dysfunction.
Nationalizing SpaceX would be a Cold War move in a modern economy. It might feel good in the moment, but long-term, it’s a terrible idea.
how can you be so casually apathetic about saddling our soldiers sailors airmen and spaceforce with the products of a horse drug addled asshole?
nytimes.com/…/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html
What kind of prick tells these people VOLUNTEERING TO DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY “hey man, the ketamine kid is the only way!” - how are you comfortable or confident in the products produced when he’s tripping balls in the oval office?
meh. this is a pointless argument, I’m never going to convince these elon fanboys their hero is a prick
I’m sorry were you talking to me? Because nothing in your response had anything to do with what I actually said.
I never claimed to like Elon. I don’t. I never expressed support for this administration’s policies. I don’t.
My argument is about the moral, ethical, and historically dangerous precedent of nationalizing a private company.
That drug-addled sycophant stood before the most powerful political body on Earth wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt while the Vice President of the United States told President Zelensky to put on a suit.
Unbelievable.
Where the hell do you get off making wild, baseless assumptions about things you barely understand? What exactly prevents you from engaging in civil discourse like an adult, instead of spouting off like you did in that comment?
Fine if we’re slinging assumptions now, here’s mine: You strike me as a fedora-wearing, vape-huffing, woman-hating neckbeard. Am I wrong? Don’t care. That’s the image your words paint.
you just defend his right to run spaceX on specialK.
mmkay bud.
I don’t give two flying fucks who runs space x. Once again. I’m not defending Elon in anyway.
I am expressing my concern about the United States government nationalizing a private company. You’re still making bassless assumptions. Pull your head out of your own ass and actually think about what I’m saying before spouting off at the mouth.
then defend his drug use. defend doge. come on, make rational arguments for the bullshit, oh, you can’t, that’s why you’re down to insults.
look fuckwit, you couldn’t find your point with a flashlight and a map, and you’re telling me to remove my rectum from MY CRANIUM? You want a man addled on horse tranq to run the only company producing orbital launch for the US.
I think it’s your head that’s rectum-fied. In fact, this entire discourse is dragging me down to your level. Gonna block you, should have done it before. Enjoy your ketamine kid, hope when he’s responsible for killing astronauts you pause and reflect.
pfft
Absolute moron. You absolute moron. Once again my argument is about nationalizing a private company.
Is there anything that you’d like to talk about concerning that!
Is not the US “the land of the free” ?
Obviously he has the right to run SpaceX, like you have the right to try to build another one.
But obviously you seems to not understand what are the implication of setting this kind of precedent and all the implications that will arise. But that’s ok, after all the only important thing is to hate Musk.
ffs have better standards in your selection of contractors. or perhaps you’re on too much horse tranq too.
Yeah, and obviously, you only have a passing familiarity with the english language.
One way to get businesses to move their factories back to the US due to tarrifs: Start nationalizing them.
/s
I mean if they’re utilities, we shouldn’t let a board decide what should rightfully be in the hands of the voting public. Really they should welcome a stable (OK maybe not so stable in the US atm, but generally…) owner as the government.
Just because something is a “utility” it doesn’t mean that the government should own and run it lol.
By your logic spaceX should stop taking gov $ then.
Just because something is private doesn’t mean they should get public funding.
It’s not up to SpaceX to stop taking government handouts - it’s up to the government to stop giving handouts.
I agree with you - they shouldn’t get public funding. IMO anything the government funds they should own instead, but this doesn’t mean they should take ownership of the things that they fund - they should instead use that funding to start their own taxpayer owned competitor.
I’m completely against government handouts for private business and NGOs btw.
Take the /s off the ruskies might believe you and run with it
Arrest Musk on violation of controlled substances acts, file immigration violation charges, invalidate his ownership shares due to securities fraud, as he falsified education and naturalization forms.
Or just emminent domain the shit. The Law is just made up right now.
Such an effort would be likely to fail AND take longer than the current administration is likely to exist.
Agreed. These are things that should be of the people.
These things only exist and are as good as they are because they’re not government owned and run.
Look at NASA compared to SpaceX to see why this would be an absolutely terrible move. Government is where projects like these go to die, while making every politician and contractor involved filthy rich.
It dying is better than it being in the hands of a billionaire fascist.
So how come NASA was doing all these things before SpaceX even existed? SpaceX never put anyone on the moon. NASA did.
And NASA hasn’t put anyone on the moon in how long? Did NASA make a re-usable booster? Were they even trying to? Were nasa planning to send people to Mars?
NASA has gone down the drain over the last say 30 years, would you agree?
I think that’s a complicated question. It’s both yes and no. Yes, we should nationalize them. No, nationalizing them should not be by tRump. That sets the precedent, or at least reinforces, the concept that the architecture of industry can be nationalized as payback for petty political squabbling. They should be nationalized, however, because fElon has proven himself to be unstable, reckless, petty, and a risk to the nation.
Not so much because Elon is the way he is, but because the company is vital to the national interest.
That too
remember the halcyon days when NASA could do something and the president might not like it, but they were all FUCKING ADULTS and the grift was well distributed amongst the congresscreatures, so it never devolved into adolescent twitter whining?
goddamn those were better than whatever this shit is
No, they’re fine remaining as private companies. If the government wants to better control over the companies then they can pass regulation and if they want total control then they can build their own alternatives. Nationalization of companies should never be used as a political weapon.
Nah fuck the shareholders, if they do something we depend on and pay for it with tax dollars then we should own them.
Yeah, we’re not going to nationalize the entire economy because that’s really stupid. Our tax dollars reach every nook and carny of the economy, but that’s fine. Tax dollars are meant to be used in a way that makes the country operate safely, smoothly, and reliably. A lot of this is done by putting the money back into the economy in the form of subsidies, welfare, wages, and government contracts. It’s fine for the government to pay a business to provide as long as the business is offering fair market prices and they’re delivering an acceptable product or service. The tax money that goes into such a business doesn’t just go to the shareholders, it also goes to everybody else as well.
That being said, shareholders can be scumbags, I’m with you there. If they are clearly conducting unethical behavior or illegal behavior then they should be immediately cut off. This includes things like delivering unacceptable products and services by cutting too many corners or committing fraud to take more tax money than they should or trying to scheme to monopolize and so on. These types of shareholders should’ve receive bailouts or awarded government contracts, they should be thrown in jail. But we shouldn’t nationalize the economy because some shareholders are crooks.
Yes, that’s why no one in this entire thread suggested anything even remotely close to this. it’s stupid, and a stupid strawman.
Nationalizing spaceX temporarily in order to restore confidence in it’s largest, most important customer, after that customer’s trust has been repeatedly violated by the executive and the board that keeps him in power, is NOT NATIONALIZING THE ENTIRE ECONOMY nor would it be untoward if Boeing or Lockheed’s CEO was dumb enough to engage in this bullshit.
The guy that I replied said that we should nationalize any company that receives tax dollars if we depend on it… Buts that case for virtually the entire economy. Everything is touch by our tax dollars and everything in our economy is intertwined. It is a ridiculous suggestion.
The government doesn’t nationalize on the behalf of companies, it only temporarily nationalizes when to protect the American economy at large. For example, in 2008 the government took hold of a bunch of auto companies to prevent a collapse of this sector. This is not happening here for SpaceX so it doesn’t make sense to do it.
The thing is you would actually have a really good case to temporarily nationalize Boeing because it is basically our entire commercial plane manufacturing sector, and it’s quickly heading towards collapse. This is a case where it makes sense. Starlink and SpaceX don’t fall under this umbrella.
you genuinely don’t care that critical national infrastructure - literally our ability to put stuff into orbit - is compromised by this penny ante shitbird. I get it, fanboys don’t use logic.
I don’t like Elon, fuck him. My point is that what you’re asking for is setting a precedent we never had. We’ve always had complimentary system between the private and public sectors, most countries are like this as well. Nationalizing companies without a genuine justification is going to cause shock waves throughout the economy. Why would investors spend capital in the country if the government can snatch up their business the moment they’re deemed important? If that’s the only thing needed to nationalize companies, what’s stopping idiots in government like Trump from just weaponizing it by nationalizing any company that competes with his own businesses, political opponents, or his crony friends? Not to mention, where is confidence that our incompetent government is going to manage these companies better than they can manage themselves? These are all really big questions.
There’s a reason why nationalization is left as a temporary last resort measure to rescue economic sectors from collapse. You could make an argument that this would apply for a publicly traded company like Boeing that’s quickly heading towards collapse. Considering how they’re only commercial plane manufacturer, that means they’re our entire industry. The company’s stability is a matter of national security. But SpaceX? None of this applies.
SpaceX is a private business that’s stable, reliable, and competitive. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to. It’s easy to say that we should just nationalize companies without thinking about the consequences. I’m in favor of things like universal healthcare, public transit systems, and more power to our research agencies. But these things have to come to fruition through stronger regulations and government alternatives, not nationalization. If there are cases where a company has to be nationalized and there are no alternatives, then they should be bought out.
I don’t think what I’m saying is controversial.
no, it’s simply business as usual, nothing ever changes, nothing ever improves, and fuck you america, that’s the way it has to be because reasons.
I strongly suspect NASA can manage spaceX better than the ketamine kid. Why don’t you give a fuck about those astronauts who have to put their faith in his hardware? why don’t you give a fuck about the kids who are growing up in an age where that drug addled prick is put up as an icon of success?
Do you really think soldiers sailors and airmen (and spacemonkeys) should have to rely on that HORSE DRUG ADDICTED PRICK for their mission critical infrastructure?
If you do, fuck right off, you’re either a musk fanboy or stockholder.
Either way, get bent.
Are you sure you’re not on drugs? Because this is quite the unhinged rant
ROTFL, SpaceX managed 259 launch in 2024, show me how many launch managed NASA, if they are more than maybe you are right, else…
You think my dislike of Musk is all of spaceX. I don’t want him ruining spaceX. Musk is responsible for the launch cadence that keeps exploding, if you’d like to make comparisons.
Wait a minute. It is not that NASA when developed the rocket that culminated with the Apollo V did not even had a rocket exploding, they had their fair share of failures (and some even letal).
But the main difference is that SpaceX and NASA have different approaches: NASA cannot, for various polical reasons, tolerate a rocket exploding during a test, SpaceX can.
I would argue that NASA, in its current incarnation and political situation, would never be able to design, build and manage something like the Falcon 9.
So Musk is not ruining SpaceX with the Starship failures in my opinion, since it is inherent to SpaceX that way to work.
Then that Musk is sometime a little too borderline is true, but I suppose that now he cannot really ruin any of his companies, for whatever you can think about him I really doubt that he is that stupid.
dude english, wtf is this sentence even supposed to say? are you an LLM?
fucking hell.
again with the word salad. english better be your third or 4th language.
if you doubt his stupidity, then evaluate the logic of doing large amounts OF HORSE TRANQUALIZER WHILE MANAGING MULTIPLE COMPANIES AND LAUNCHING ROCKETS.
Come on, make that one make sense word salad llm
Nope, just a regular guy that do not speak English as first language.
But let me rephrase it, even if i am sure you understand what I mean.
When NASA was developing the rocket to go to the moon (the Apollo V) they had their large shares of failures, exactly like SpaceX is having now while developing Starship (and before it, the Falcon 9) which is even more complex and bigger than the Apollo V.
You are right. But again, I am sure you understand what I mean, but ok, let me rephrase also this.
Musk is sometime too borderline but I suppose that actually he really don’t want to ruin his companies because, for bad as you can think about him, I think is not that stupid.
Wait, do you really think that Musk is the one that is doing all the jobs at Tesla and SpaceX ?
Again, you can think what you want about Musk himself, but the track record for SpaceX (over 250 launch in 2024) and Tesla (it demostrated something that every other car manufacturer deemed impossible) does not seems too bad.
And I would like to have an estimate about the “large amounts”
But feel free to attack my grammar and hate Musk.
this is a specious comparison. NASA was racing the soviets using 1950 and 60’s tech, and it cost lives, but there was a driving motivation for the tempo (kennedy’s goal of humans on the moon first). There’s no contemporary equivalent. And no NASA director was EVER ON HORSE DRUGS. Period.
Nor did any NASA director ever try to manage multiple fortune 500 companies WHILE on ketamine while DANCING AROUND WITH A CHAINSAW and fucking with our government.
Your comparison is invalid.
No, I think he’s distorting the work of thousands of talented people (Shotwell down) for EGO. If he truly cared he’d step down.
None of this is complex. I’m glad you speak english well enough to reorder your thoughts in a comprehensible manner, but the premise remains unchanged. Musk represents a larger threat to SpaceX and NASA and the US than any potential benefit to those same parties.
I will feel free to attack musk, didn’t need your permission but thanks!
Only if you could link the fact that Musk is on horse drugs with the fact that Starship explodes.
The starting point was that I dismissed the point that Musk is ruining SpaceX (since Starship’s test are not that good) and the fact that he is on drugs.
I don’t see the problem: NASA was a state agency, SpaceX is private.
What I can see from here is that Musk is doing the right thing (trying to make the government more efficient and cheaper) using a completely wrong method, to which I agree.
I don’t think it could do it anymore, at least not to the level you think.
I am not sure. What I think from here (Europe) is that, as I said, Musk is doing the right thing in the wrong (very wrong) way if we speak about DOGE. If we speak about SpaceX and Tesla, well, it don’t seems to do that bad after all.
lives are literally at stake, grow the fuck up.
Elon Musk decided to wreck USAID. The death toll is ghoulish. This dickwad said “the fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy”.
haha tesla is cratering in the EU and that cybertruck sure is a winner. pfft
cbsnews.com/…/tesla-sales-europe-plunge-backlash-…
futurism.com/cybertruck-sales-bad
You are so detached from reality it’s disgusting. This discussion has been absolutely pointless.
And incidentally SpaceX is the only US entity to have a ship certified for human flight. Where is the Dragon’s equivalent of NASA ? Or any other company/state agency.
An agency created in the 1960’s to fight URSS influence. Maybe it is time to let it go and start with something else, don’t you think ?
Or maybe it is time that US start to think that without everyone else it is nothing and begin to be an reliable ally and not one that can change idea every 2 years.
To be honest, empathy is something you should be aware of after a certain point.
But whatever…
Would you support forcing Musk out of his roles in these companies due to his drug useage?
Yes
Nobody thinks about that, just about hitting the people they don’t like. They don’t think of consequences, they don’t think that nationalization means humongous companies and wealth in fact changing hands in favor of people who already control the government.
That’s every fascist regime in history BTW - make your natural opponents hang themselves. Like in Russia in 1999 groups people most hurt by Yeltsin’s regime were deceived into voting for Putin, because he managed to create that “Soviet intelligence agent” image, despite being continuation of said regime. Or again in 2004, when he managed to take credit for growing oil prices, which meant that said groups of people feared literal starvation less, and the factor they’ve grown by compared to 1998 was so huge, that Russia’s level of life really didn’t catch up, but that was enough. Hold people in misery, throw them bones, they’ll be grateful.
Also why most Russians gloated over Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, other oligarchs being beaten by Putin.
Cause the oligarchs seemed the face of that regime, except Putin was its soul materialized. They somehow thought that when he hurts all the oligarchs enough, things will be good.
This is a very valid point. Nationalization essentially means transferring control of these companies to either Trump or congress as well giving them power to use nationalization as a tool. Not only are they horrendously incompetent but they’re also sure to weaponize it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump went on a spree nationalizing “liberal Democrat” companies or nationalizing companies that compete with his businesses.
I agreed with this sentiment six months ago, but now I like public hangings and nationalizing companies
Nationalizing companies is not going to fix the accountability issue we have in the country. The same problems are going to happen, just under new management.
Very true. It seems like the most greedy destructive people inevitably rise to the top.
.
Nasa with less risk aversion. If a Nasa rocket blows up that’s big news. If a Space X rocket blows up, that’s a Tuesday.
yeah but if SpaceX becomes NASA then what
Learn from SpaceX progress. Return to NASA risk aversion. Trial new designs in 20 years, repeat.
Which is the advantage of SpaceX. As it is people are looking to cut money for NASA. Still, NASA has always subcontracted out, so absorbing SpaceX does not seem like it might change much (outside of public opinion)
That would literally be the worse thing that could happen with regards to them, because they only exist and thrived because they are private enterprise. If the government were capable of doing what those companies do and doing it well, SpaceX and Starlink wouldn’t exist in the first place.
Can you even imagine just how much money would be wasted and misused and unaccounted for, while nothing actually got done?
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is delusional
Please. They only exist because of government funding. If NASA had as many rockets explode as SpaceX has, people like you would be screaming about the waste of taxpayer dollars.
Also, it’s only a matter of time before starlink satellites crash into each other and start a chain reaction. You can kiss space travel goodbye after that.
isn’t it amazing how much private companies can do when given hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal teat?
wow. that private enterprise just rocketing up out of the atmosphere by yanking on it’s bootstraps so hard.
just, you know, after a few more hundred million, burp. ahem. just a few more.
And isn’t it amazing how little government entities can do despite being given the same or more taxpayer dollars from the federal teat?
Private enterprise gets shit done because if they don’t they go out of business and people lose their jobs, money, and livelihood. Government departments don’t get shit done because they’ll all keep their jobs and their pensions and their benefits no matter what. Again - NASA vs SpaceX.
The point of the launches that have ended in explosion were to test various parts of the systems and hardware, and to learn if/when a “disaster” does happen. That’s how you improve things, make them better and safer. Would you prefer when we finally send people to the moon or to Mars that it’s the first time we’ve launched that rocket? Those explosions weren’t bad things.
Are you for real? Can you guess how many Saturn V rockets ended up exploding throughout the first mission to put man on the moon? Trick question, the answer was ZERO.
The Saturn V program had completed more successful milestones in 1 year than SpaceX has managed in 5 year.
SpaceX has been late on every single deliverable to NASA. They were supposed to show they can reliably perform the propellant transfer for the NASA contract, and instead Musk focused on testing the deployment of starlink satellites, which of course failed. And now they lost one more on the pad getting fueled up.
It’s complete incompetence, which is the one thing Musk can guarantee
How many of those Saturn V rockets landed themselves back on the launch pad?
NASAs milestones were not the same as, nor anywhere near as hard as, SpaceX’s.
Your incompetence line shows you’re not capable of being impartial in this so there’s no real point continuing. You’re saying the guy responsible for the EV market we have no, the almost fully self driving cars we have now, the satellite internet network we have now, and the reusable spaceship booster rockets we have now is “incompetent”. You’re not here to actually have a discussion.
Again someone who thinks that public policies are natural laws…
NASA could do and did do what SpaceX is doing now, but they are beholden to the government and if the government says “we don’t do that for ideologigal reasons” then it doesn’t matter what can be done.
Ideological reasons? You think nasa hasn’t made reusable self landing rockets and boosters because of ideological reasons?
And the international customers, what about them? The ground stations, POPs, and terminals in other countries, hmmmm?
SpaceX’s largest customer is the US government; once that relationship has been repaired I’m ambivalent about private/public ownership.
HMmmmM?
because let’s be honest, without tons of US GOV’T SUPPORT, SpaceX wouldn’t have ever been able to provide all those POPs, terminals and services. Funny thing that.
Dude… nationalize just means the US takes ownership of the company. They keep all the employees they keep all the customers. It runs like normal under new ownership. The taxpayers now own it. it’s a great idea.
You see too long we have been using public funding and allowing rich people to privatize the gains. It’s time to privatize those games and take back what we invested in as US citizens. We will still offer you eurocucks Internet since apparently it is more important than having a moral fiber in your body
I didn’t say it was a bad thing, I wanted to know about some of the broader implications, e.g. govt ownership doesn’t remove legal obligations. I doubt the govt could continue to offer service under the previous T&C, some sections would need revision. And Starlink’s T&C are slightly different in some countries, as are the operating conditions. Some countries who are nominally friendly with Starlink/SpaceX to allow ground stations, POPs, etc, might not be so keen on the US govt controlling things.
These are just some of the things that popped into my head when I read the article.
Usually the US government would take over an important business, replace the leadership, stabilize the business and return it to the public sector.
Elon was tampering with connections in Ukraine during live combat. I’m surprised anyone would trust or want to support one of his businesses. He should’ve been thrown in a black site after that incident.
Seriously this comment doesn’t make any sense. It’s like you do not understand what you are commenting on and yet here you are with four up votes and now have my down vote and go forth and use a dictionary before you comment next time
If not Musk should be forced from his roles in these companies. You cannot be a defense contractor and do ketamine.
how can you trust a board that trusts such incompetence, for DOD projects no less?
failure up and down.
DOD is also responsible for what they accept.
Exactly. SpaceX was sunder scrutiny when he smoked doobie on a podcast. Now he is on drugs and nothing happens.
Any political take from Jacobin can be safely ignored.
Don’t give bail-outs to billionaires.
Then don’t reimburse him.
The nationalization of SpaceX will mean a slowdown in development, like in the case of NASA.
sounds good who gives a shit
Ignoring the lack of evidence or argument presented here for that, I’d rather take a slowdown than Musk get a single new dollar.
Because American politicians would rather spend the money on engaging international wars. NASA will only get the funding it desperately needs if one of US’ rivals one up them, like how the launch of Sputnik spurred the race to the moon.
What? Why?
.he wants to create a 3rd party, let him.
Best time would’ve been when he pulled that stunt in Ukraine, second best time is now
Now when a Putin simp is leading the country?
Throw Musk in prison for his many documented crimes, but don’t support this kind of dictator shit.
I wouldn’t nationalize anything long as the orange could possibly profit off it
You have NASA FFS. Just fund it.
NASA is too beholden to politics… You can’t do 7 year builds and missions when the Senate flips every 4 years and has to kill everything the other side did on principle that it has a D or R attached to it. Everything is political.
<.< Legitimate question, what was the last thing each party killed that was put in place by the other party?
It is usually due to “budget cuts” as the easiest way to kill a project is to defend it.
Juno Jupiter flyby
Maven mission to mars
New horizons kbo flyby
Terra mission-earth science satellite
Aqua mission -earth science satellite
DSCOVR
SLS-which may actually be a bad program but is a good example of the political issues with NASA vs senate.
But Juno went to Jupiter?
These programs require continuous funding. The probe went to Jupiter. The scientist and listening stations back on earth still have to run to receive the data.
No, we already have NASA
Then make it work.
Stop cutting their funding and saying the earth is flat and that global warming is a myth.
Stop electing stupid people and maybe you will get something.
Stop treating every opinion as worth of discussion even if it is clearly stupid.
Start to propose some reasonable solutions and start to pass over the NIMBY syndrome.
(and no, only stopping to use ICE cars or fossil fuel is not a reasonable solution until you propose a sustainable alternative solution)
Starlink should be globalized. A planet only needs one low-altitude orbiting communications network. Better to standardize the technology and platform and let them contribute to one system than to have a dozen identical competing systems crashing into each other and fucking things up for everyone.
There is no such thing as something being “globalized” The UN for instance is a debating club where the majority of the seats represent individual dictators who dominate but do not speak for their countries citizens.
The idea of 50 countries collectively providing 0% of the funds should determine the mission is somewhat laughable. Also no country on earth has a process by which foreign dictators can seize or direct a company run out of their nation.
Ah. My Kessler syndrome is acting up again.
There’s already NASA which gets piss poor funding iirc
No, we should regain control of our nation from fascists (this does not mean just replace the President), then nationalize SpaceX and Starlink, and make telecoms public utilities.
No I would not like taxpayer dollars to buy out Elons shit shows.
Hard pass. Thanks no thanks jacobin
A lot of people are calling this a bailout for Elon, but in reality it would be a seizure. Elon doesn’t want to let go of Starlink and the US likely wouldn’t pay him what it’s worth to take it over.
What people seem to be missing is the precedent this would set. It’s all well and good when we empower the office of the president to seize a private company we don’t like, but after we give them that power what’s to stop them from seizing other businesses?
XYZ company refuses to get rid of their DEI policy because the shareholders voted to keep it? Well now the orange man can seize it.
Let’s not forget that previously it took 2/3rd majority to confirm presidential appointments, but the Senate under Obama decided to change that rule to 50% to get past Republican objections. The result of this is all these shit appointments Trump has passed with 51% of the Senate, none of them would have gotten by if the Democrats hadn’t made a precedent for changing the rules.
The problem they don’t see is that once a precedent is set, also the other party can do it. What you point out is valid also like “XYZ company refuses to establish a DEI policy because the shareholders voted agains ? Well not the democratic president can seize it”.
Tipical case of not looking beyond one’s nose
I disagree.
You already have a government space agency. Maybe give them more funding so they don’t have to rely on space-x to get their stuff into orbit?
There’s a national telecom network already in place. It at least has the potential to be faster and more reliable, if it isn’t already… At least compared to low earth orbit satellite coverage.
There’s no good reason to continue providing Elon or his companies with any government handouts. Pull that funding and give it to… I dunno, students who have more debt than homeowners with a mortgage… NASA… Literally anything that helps people?
I am not saying that I don’t agree with you. But this country is still not even close to considering nationalizing its own telecommunication infrastructure. Much less a privately held space company and a service of communication satellites. A large chunk of America believes that a for-profit business model for every good and service possible in life is the best course of action.
Yes it’s the right long term goal, but the US is nowhere near ready for strong nationalised enterprises, they would just stop getting funding and die. There is a requirement for strong, positive minded government and a shared understanding of the benefits of having nationalised societal services before it can work.
Don’t buy into the grifts. Dismantle them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
we should probably invest in making sure people have affordable housing, food, and healthcare before worrying about militarising space.