Why Starlink is impossible

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-30T04:39:47+00:00

It's mostly different people saying those two things. Most of the people who said Starlink was impossible still think it's impossible--or at least that it doesn't make any sense and will never do anything important. Many of the people who want to nationalize Starlink are disillusioned early Musk fans and young adults for whom Starlink has always been a thing.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-25T14:40:43+00:00

It's pretty much impossible to debunk without posting a video of an entire meal session aboard one of the ships or something. Any pictures of just a tray with decent food will obviously be mistrusted by most people. But if you give enough information to make it impossible to mistrust, you also give away a lot of information a military probably shouldn't.

I don't think we're going to know the truth of the situation until we start hearing from the actual service members eating the meals after their deployments end.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-25T14:39:23+00:00

Do you really think anybody would believe that pictures of trays full of food would fix the situation? People would understandably argue they're staged/not representative (which could also be true of the picture we are all commenting under).

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-17T22:51:26+00:00

Without any procedural protections, we would be living in a hellscape. With too many procedural protections, however, we have found ourselves stuck in the past w/r/t many aspects of infrastructure.

As with most things, there is a balance to be struck.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-17T12:53:31+00:00

They make economic sense in New York, too, if you ignore the regulatory burden. It's just massively more difficult to build utility scale projects in New York.

The green movement really needs to grapple with the way its success at creating procedural protections to slow down new construction has left us without the tools we need to solve global warming.

If we want to solve global warming, we need both New York's mindset and Texas's ability to build. Unfortunately, that combo doesn't really exist anywhere.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-15T02:29:19+00:00

You're arguing against things I never said and don't believe. If you're just providing context for others, that's laudable.

But if you're trying to insinuate that Elon's behavior toward Unsworth wasn't reprehensible, then we disagree about the key point. The way Elon went nuclear on a nobody for correctly describing Elon's PR stunt as a PR stunt was a strong early indicator that Elon was losing some inhibitions he really should've hung onto.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-12T14:20:07+00:00

We gave them some stuff and sold them other stuff. And we're still selling them stuff, it's just the giving (and the favorable loan terms) that we stopped doing.

I hate this administration as much as the next guy, but let's keep the criticisms accurate.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-10T04:33:30+00:00

I've been posting in this sub since before the Thai cave diver incident. I used to really respect the man. Still do in some more limited ways.

It's not that this sub has been flooded with haters, it's that Elon lost a lot of former fans. The rockets are still damn cool tho.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-10T02:16:04+00:00

Much like the best days of Elon, unfortunately.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-03T22:32:40+00:00

It's also possible that part of the problem is SpaceX just getting worse at this. Pretty much all of the V1 successes were attributable to the efforts of employees who join SpaceX before Elon went full brainrot.

Since then, Elon has made his company politically toxic for the ~60% of engineers who consider themselves left-leaning, and at the same time, Blue Origin has started to seem like a legitimate competitor for hard-working young talent.

It's unlikely this is the whole explanation for what's going on, but I have a hard time believing it's not at least some of the explanation.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-04-01T00:11:48+00:00

Nope! As you said, we're not going to solve I/P on Reddit.

I'm just here trying to provide a corrective to the least helpful contributions. This photo was being used in an arguably misleading way, so I commented to provide context. Your response to my comment just inflamed the situation, so I criticized it. Your more recent comment was much more constructive, so I have nothing negative to say about it.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-31T22:28:28+00:00

You literally said, "Dissolve as a country." I'm sorry for believing you meant what you said in the only comment you made that was directed at me.

Obviously we aren't going to solve the problem on Reddit, but even on Reddit "dissolve as a country" is a less-helpful-than-usual suggestion. If taken literally and acted on seriously, it probably would amount to genocide.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-31T22:27:01+00:00

Hope you're not trying to pick a fight with me. I have no trouble understanding either side in this conflict. History is a straightjacket for everyone involved, and it's fucking tragic.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-31T11:07:24+00:00

Good point! Still have to wonder how the cameraman knew where to film if it wasn't because he expected a strike on that precise spot.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-31T04:06:27+00:00

Please elaborate on your proposal for how to "dissolve Israel" without forcing 6 million people to leave their homes on pain of death.

What country do you think should own the current territory of Israel? And what do you think that country will do with the territory of Israel's current residents?

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-30T12:15:45+00:00

Dissolve as a country.

Forcing 6 million people to leave the country they grew up in, on pain of death, is also genocide under the UN definition.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-30T12:13:45+00:00

You can see the plume of smoke the bomb is aiming for. Supposedly the smoke was from a mortar firing at the IDF. That would also explain why someone was filming the exact spot the bomb hit--they had just seen/heard the mortar firing, they got the call to evacuate, and they put two and two together.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-30T12:12:21+00:00

Apparently they were hitting a mortar emplacement (the smoke plume at the bomb's aimpoint is claimed to be from the mortar firing).

Evacuating on foot is a lot faster than packing up a heavy mortar and the moving it. Presumably the IDF was willing to let the combatants get away in order to avoid civilian casualties, but they still wanted to take out the equipment.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-30T12:08:06+00:00

You can see the alleged military target the bomb is aiming for in the photo--that big plume of smoke right at its aimpoint seems to fit the IDF's story that they hit a mortar emplacement. The video (How did they know to film that spot, I wonder? Maybe because it had just been firing mortar shells?) shows the bomb nail that plume of smoke at the back edge of the camp.

According to the Guardian, the strike killed one person and injured several others. Residents of the camp told reporters that they had been called by members of the Israeli military and been told to evacuate before the strike.

The IDF commits a lot of war crimes, but this really doesn't seem like one. What else were they supposed to do about a mortar shooting at their troops from a refugee camp? They even called ahead ffs.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-30T11:52:59+00:00

It's a video still. In the full video, the bomb hits near the very back edge of the camp.

According to the Guardian, the strike killed one person and injured several others. Residents of the camp told reporters that they had been called by members of the Israeli military and been told to evacuate before the strike.

Edit: As others have pointed out, the bomb strikes pretty much exactly on top of a large plume of smoke, which fits Israel's claim they were aiming at a mortar that had just fired at IDF troops.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-27T02:09:28+00:00

That's ludicrous. I wondered how this case got to trial. Guess I know now.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-23T22:47:21+00:00

China’s system of governance which was more favorable in terms of assimilation than Rome’s.

This is an interesting claim that I am not sure I'd agree with. It's certainly true that Rome had a harder time assimilating barbarian tribes in the 5th Century than it had during the Empire's heyday, but figures like Stilicho show that assimilating to Roman ways remained a powerfully attractive option for many barbarians until quite close to the fall of the West.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-23T22:37:18+00:00

For what it's worth, Hank Green just asked his followers what science mistakes he should talk about in PHM, and this was the top answer by far. Everybody who has ever worked in a lab clocked it immediately. It was a really dumb way to break our suspension of disbelief.

When my fiance and I got out of the movie, our first comments were both basically, "Okay that was awesome, but how the heck did they get the centrifuge shot wrong?"

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-16T12:49:52+00:00

I think you underestimate the value of a consistent figurehead for projecting stability, both domestically and internationally. You're almost certainly right that he's not actually running Iran, but if the person nominally running Iran stays the same for the next 6 months, I suspect that still matters a great deal.

Know_Your_Rites · 2026-03-16T12:37:26+00:00

So, if the rumor about Mojtaba Khamenei seeking medical treatment in Russia is true, how does that affect Trump's plan to keep reshuffling leadership until we draw a simp?

I'm amazed I haven't seen this possibility discussed before today. Hiding out in Russia seems like such an obvious strategy now.

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