And yet you used Africa as an example, instead of North America and Australia. Why?
EDIT: Wow, you guys are really bad at admitting your own blatantly obvious biases, aren't you?
EDIT: Wow, you guys are really bad at admitting your own blatantly obvious biases, aren't you?
There are equivalent places in central Australia, but even though I grew up here I haven't been more than a few hours drive away from the coasts.
I haven't been to North America. Russia didn't cross my mind, but I haven't been there either.
This isn't to say I don't have warped perspectives or prejudices about Africa. I didn't realize the population density is that high in the south, where I haven't been.
Western media only discusses African countries when things go wrong. The only people I know from there are three white families who left South Africa. If you asked me to draw a map of the countries it would be my worst continent.
The original post though really was just based on my personal experience with remoteness.
For what it's worth an initial rush of downvotes (or upvotes) is fairly common on HN; I'd ignore them for the first hour or so. After that you'll probably have a fair idea of the HN consensus (fickle as it is).
People that really care about an issue will sit there and refresh a thread constantly, so in the short term you're mostly knowing what they think about your comment. But they can't vote more than once.
My first comment in this tree was downvoted to -3 within two minutes of posting, but now sits at +40. I actually wasn't sure at first whether it was being downvoted by people for or against Starlink et al. Maybe both.