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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

> How do you balance human needs with pristine nature?

How about we set a limit on how many satellites? That’s exactly how to balance

And who decides which satellites are approved? Is there a quota per country? Per capita? If a country declines to participate, do we count their satellites?

Centralized control from a benevolent dictator sounds great as a first approximation but rarely survives diving into the details.

Who sets it, then? The people that can make money out of the satellites or use their services or the people that want clean skies?

And how do you enforce it? It's not like you can just go up there an repo the satellites.

Setting a limit on a number of satellites seems rather arbitrary and not very effective to actually achieve a specific result.

I would argue that setting a limit is the enforcement mechanism, not the balancing mechanism.

A scientific justification is the balancing mechanism that produces the number which is then enforced.

Let’s set a limit on the number of houses that can be built while we’re at it.

That's like saying "how about we set a limit on horses in 1899 to limit horse shit on streets".

Answer was: automobile.

A limit that India and China are totally going to ignore?

If only there was some way that countries could make international agreements on things...

They won't ignore it if Americans and Europeans agree to contribute their fair share to the well-being of all the people and stop hoarding all the world's wealth to themselves. A situation where the minimum wage in some regions of the US is over $15, while in parts of India have the median wage is less than 50 cents, is an unjust absurdity.

India having a wage of 50 cent is somehow America's fault? They failed to develop their infrastructure, and as a result their economy. That's their fault, nobody else's.

Look, I'm not suggesting we do anything bad to Americans and Europeans. Just let them pay their fair share to those they've driven into poverty.

Or do you enjoy the suffering of billions of people working for less than 50 cents? Americans and Europeans only need to share with them what is let say above $5, and then we can get almost $2 for EVERY worker on Earth.

It is necessary to at least slightly limit one’s greed and show compassion to other people who are in an extremely vulnerable position.

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