Musk considered pulling plug on Ukraine’s Starlink after ‘great talk with Putin’ | Hacker News Reader

Musk considered pulling plug on Ukraine’s Starlink after ‘great talk with Putin’

telegraph.co.uk

28 pointsxpl22 comments

> Satellite terminals donated by Mr Musk's SpaceX, as well as the US government and private donors

To this day the number of terminals supposedly _donated_ by Musk, that means not paid for by State Dep, is unknown. We do have this tho https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietl...

As of October 2022 there were 18k Starlink terminals in Ukraine. At the time State Department (USAID) paid for ~2K units, Poland paid for >12K units - over half of all terminals came from one relatively poor EU country, curious how this is omitted by Telegram :)

December 2022 number rose to 22K. Apparently as of June 2023 there are >40K terminals in use, with USAID share rising to at least ~5K.

This is worth highlighting as it is often omitted in the news and even in official UA communication - Starlik was enabled in Ukraine by Musk, but around 20-40k terminals were purchased and monthly feels are continuously being paid by donor countries, mainly Poland with over 20k units.

There is no free lunch.

And sometimes you pay part of your bill

There were dishes in Ukraine in February though

This guy needs to be crushed by the national security apparatus. I think it will happen eventually given that the threat from great power wars is acute.

It was truly a mistake to entrust this guy with any power or means.

The rich aren't entrusted, they're entrenched. Despite their PR, they're an artifact of a glitchy system, they're not any more deserving or dedicated or dependable than anyone else. Very often they're much less.

Amen. Each billionaire is a policy failure and represents an excess concentration of power because they're allowed to buy the loyalties of politicians with "free $peech" who, in turn, loosen the regulations on them and make it easier for them to acquire even more treasure. As Sen. John McCain discovered, unrestrained corruption cannot be solved within a system that refuses to either admit it is a problem and when the participants refuse to act with a shred of integrity. There isn't any workable solution but nonviolent mass resistance from outside of it.

Progress and leadership on addressing existential threats including antibiotic resistance, the global greenhouse emergency, and a functional single payer health and mental healthcare system can only be achieved when the billionaires lose their unjust grip on power. Attempting to address any issue that doesn't align with profiteering or the whims of the billionaires will be thwarted and diluted into futility.

I would view each billionaire as being good at one thing. Nobody needs to be as good as basketball as Lebron James. Nobody needs to be as good at Baseball as Babe Ruth. The existence of these outliers doesn't diminish anyone else. They merely show what is possible. It's only because we are so used to it that we even suggest redistribution for the money of billionaires. Nobody is suggesting we redistribute the point achievements of the top 10% athletes to the bottom 20%. Nobody suggests redistributing the grades of the top of the class to those failing at the bottom of the class. After all nobody needs 100% on an exam, if you lower their grade to 80% and redistribute those grade points suddenly more people are graduating. Why is redistributing money right, but redistributing credit for grades games and culture wrong?

There is no such thing as a good billionaire. Skill can only take you so far, and it's not to the billionaire level. This is money, not skill, not grades. The billionaires aren't skilled, they're exploiting a broken system.

Messi, Beckham etc. All labor rather than capital

Are you entrusted with your means?

I am. I'm only kept around so long as my work feels I am worth it.

At SpaceX in particular, Musk is a resident owner. Not an employee. You don't entrust someone with ownership of something they've always owned. This isn't some inheritance.

And a job isn't your means. Especially not in this case.

According to Cersei in game of thrones, power is power. The government has power and they know how to exercise it.

> "My inference was that he was getting nervous that Starlink's involvement was increasingly seen in Russia as enabling the Ukrainian war effort, and was looking for a way to placate Russian concerns," the former US official added.

> Satellite terminals donated by Mr Musk's SpaceX, as well as the US government and private donors, have become vital to Ukrainian military communications.

Talk about having one foot in both pools.

> Aides to Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky have previously attempted to ease Mr Musk's concerns by telling him the system is "about defence, advancement, and survival", a source told The Telegraph.

Sorries me that this even needs explanation.

> Talk about having one foot in both pools.

I honestly don't get it either. Why does he even care about Russia at this point? They can't directly attack the satellites, as that would be an act of war against the United States and Russia isn't that stupid. They're heavily sanctioned and basically a dead market now that the Ruble has crashed. So there shouldn't be any business considerations.

Not to mention ITAR, which the entire constellation falls under.

I'm just dumbfounded why he gives them the time of day. Does he not know that he can ignore their emails or something?

The reason for Musk's behavior is that he has decided to Fight the Establishment. As a reminder, the Establishment is that poorly defined group of people and interests, centered on the left and right coasts of the US, that exists to promote the success of the American experiment. For a number of reasons, over the past few years, Musk has grown dissatisfied with it, and actively uses propaganda to weaken it. Musk admires Putin because he's an unapologetic power-leader and Musk wishes he could be, too. In Musk's mind, if we just put a small number of really bright people in charge, we'd be able to solve some hard problems like multi-homing humanity to deal with existential risks.

We should all be thankful that Elon is taking his money and burning it, because in doing so, he reduces the likelihood that he can have a significant negative effect on the stability that the Establishment brings.

If the Establishment exists to promote the success of the American Experiment, why did the American Experiment do better between January 20th 2017 and January 19, 2021 than it has since under the control of the establishment?

You think 2017 to 2021 was a better span than, say, 1990 to 1995 or 1950 to 1955? That's beyond preposterous, bordering on mental illness. I also don't recall the "establishment" ceding control at any point. Most of Congress and the judiciary existed before that short presidency and continued to wield power after it.

I'm not sure what you are saying, can you ask a less loaded question?

It's the same stupidity that has Trump boasting that he's 'the apple of Putin's eye'. There is a belief in an ideological affinity. It's absurd, because if Putin could wipe out the US without any consequences he would do it in a heartbeat, he wouldn't even think twice about doing so. He has a truly profound hatred for the United States that is layered with feelings of humiliation over Russia in the 1990s.

> “This was, like, three minutes before he said, ‘well, I had this great conversation with Putin’,” Mr Kahl said.

Extremely Trumpesque.

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