Starlink isn't sold to Myanmar.
This thread baffles me, that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.
That's an interesting question, I'll say. I can't say yes or no but I can say that the answer should be consistent. You either support genocidal regimes, or you don't.
So you have Starlink operating in Israel and in Myanmar.
> that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.
Imagine the bafflement when some people stick to their tunnel vision while writing about other people's tunnel vision on the same exact topic.
Yes. The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.
Several international companies have divested or exited due to political risk, sanctions, or human rights concerns.
> people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians
To consider, the following countries, amongst others, retain embassies in Myanmar: Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, UK, USA.
Should embassy staff break the country's laws?
Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step.
> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.
Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.
> Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step.
>> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.
>Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.
My response was to this question: "Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?"
Nothing about the people of Myanmar.
My answer is different if you're a Myanmar person. But you still face the moral question of which laws you should disregard vs. which to follow.
Ethics and other moral angles no longer apply, after all, how could those apply to bits, that's for 'real' engineers. It's also at the core of the HN "'no politics', please." tenet.
I see a similar deficiency in the legal profession, they too tend to just focus on the words and the letters and don't actually care all that much about the people.
> SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Both have been transported to and used in the vicinity of the scam center. The difference is purely the intent of the person controlling the terminal. But you can't infer that intent from only the location where it was purchased and the precise location where it is being used.
> > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
Sure, because it's currently in the news and it's any easy way to say "we fixed the problem". Maybe some Economist journalist just lost internet access. Oh well. Guess they'll have to find their way out of Myanmar without internet. Sucks to be them, right?
You are told by the local law enforcement and legal system? Starlink's obligation is only to assist local authorities as per their law. Maybe the local authorities are corrupt but that doesn't give Starlink a free pass from obeying their law.
> Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar.
Does it matter? Starlink does business there, in Myanmar. They offer an internet service. They were asked by the authorities to disable some terminals, and because they want to keep offering the service to other paying customers, they complied. There's no legal grey area here, not even a moral conundrum for Musk. He follows the law of the land, gets to still do business and make more money.
Point being, as long as Starlink wants to keep offering a service and make money in Myanmar the company has to obey local laws. The statement below [0] that started the thread was a kneejerk reaction, keyboard warrior style. Musk "didn't give the time of day" to Brazilian authorities and he was squeezed into compliance. Why fight when there's an easy way to keep making money?
> But the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't give the time of day to the requests of a junta
This place is literally on the border, look: https://www.google.com/maps/place/KK+PARK/@16.7146829,98.479...
They likely allow some margin of error in the positioning so that people on the Thailand side of the border don't get accidentally blocked.
Although... I checked and they also apparently don't provide service in Thailand so I dunno what's going on there.