Require by who and on what authority?
My point here was not to contest that but make the point that the cat is out of the bag and that it is indeed impacting SKA-Low EoR science and the people involved with that have to deal with that.
Getting the cat a little bit back in the bag via policy and other means is maybe worth trying (good luck) but I don't give it a very high chance of success.
I think you need to scope this approach when suggesting it though, since it's effectively "a policy has been broken by a company, but we can't undo it, so lets just accept it and let them get on with it" which doesn't seem like it'll lead to a better world.
I do agree with your point that the people who suffer from the policy breach have to be pragmatic in their handling. But ultimately, let's not let pragmatism and stoicism lead to businesses spectacularly breaking policies in hopes of being told "well the cats out the bag now, the victims can deal with it, you might has well continue".
I fully agree, and that's IMO the core-issue here: This strong-arm approach of just forcing the problem to be solved in your favor by scaling as fast as possible and then pleading how uneconomic it would be for you to change course, insisting that the other side should be pragmatic about this.
I don't remember this was a working strategy in the past (imagine a car-company just accelerating sales of a faulty car to scale THEIR issue and avoid having to do a recall), but nowadays it could even be turned into a geopolitical topic...
But such companies also failed already. Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom comes to mind. Even Blockbuster could be on that list...
This reasoning has some parallels to "everything that can't be explained by science must be god". It stays valid even when proven wrong...
It’s essentially a form of market extortion though, so perception of ‘survivable’ matters as much as actually survivable eh?
You're right though, it's crappy and merits a lot of geopolitical reflection. But I suspect it goes back millenia and is a manifestation of basic evolutionary biology with the business world, rather than anything that can be solved/fixed.
And we've gone full circle about the balance of working for/against humanity in the name of progress.
Today, environmental/privacy/safety laws are suddenly not that strict anymore, because now we naturally need to also take economic interests of the violating company into account.
So you might end up in a situation where an official body will officially rule that the harmed party may be right, but needs to be pragmatic about its needs just because of the increased inconvenience it would create for the opposing party if THEY would have to change their way.
In my experience, this was not the case 15 years ago.
Someone, if we stretch that metaphor, intentionally opened the bag for profit. We can and should hold them accountable.
> the people involved with that have to deal with that
Yep, and they should hold the people who caused this accountable.
> is maybe worth trying (good luck) but I don't give it a very high chance of success
You may be correct that it has a low chance of success. However, people who think like you are exactly the cause. People who value Musk's net worth more than science, people who fetishise "progress at all costs," regardless of whether or not the progress actually helps people or is what makes sense (municipal internet, folks!). Understanding physics is also critically important progress, but it doesn't make money next quarter so you don't care.
So you'll forgive me if I don't take your advice on the situation.