Ronan Farrow writes in New Yorker that U.S. govt so reliant on #ElonMusk whose mobile Internet terminals #Starlink are vital to #Ukrainian military that it is now struggling "to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice". There is little precedent for the dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk from the future of #energy and #transportation to the #exploration of #space. #SpaceX is currently sole means by which #NASA transports crew from US soil into #space https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
@bespacific Just nationalize Starlink and have NASA run it. Reality check for the Musker
Given NASA's record, that sounds like the setup for a reality check for the rest of us and a great lesson on why nationalizing things has so frequently gone so poorly throughout history.
Why would we have faith in a political appointee being capable of running a Starlink in that bloated federal bureaucracy, that to emphasize the point, is subject to the brinksmanship and caprice of Congress?
At least Musk has his own skin in the game.
@kimhoar @bespacific
What did you report them for, disagreeing with you?
@volkris @kimhoar @bespacific Musk is literally a Nazi. Also blocked and reported!!
That sort of comment always comes across as showing that the commenter knows neither the definition of literally nor Nazi.
Not that the person making such comments particularly seems to care...
@volkris @kimhoar @bespacific Musk is the poster boy for caprice and brinkmanship.
Indeed, though through legal agreements that can be held in check.
It's a bit harder to hold in check those who are actually making the laws in the first place.
Like I said, for all his faults, at least Musk puts his own skin in the game.
@volkris @kimhoar @bespacific oh but he doesn’t. He throws money around and puts other peoples skin in the game.
Whose money does he throw around? And how does he get that money without trading skin for it?
That doesn't really make sense unless he is putting on a mask and robbing banks.
@volkris @kimhoar @bespacific do take a moment to look into how much government money he receives.
I go the other way around with that: it's how much money the people we've elected give him.
And once our officials hand him money, it's his money, no longer government money.
So it goes back to him throwing around his own money, even if it was a boneheaded thing for us to elect people who would give it to him.
@volkris @kimhoar @bespacific just out curiosity, how is NASA’s track record so bad?
Well to put a point on it, NASA failed to create a StarLink type communications network that the US apparently really needs :)
But more seriously, NASA operationally might be fulfilling its mandates just fine, but the problem is that it's subject to political whims since it's part of a political organization.
It's in a really tough spot having to change mission every time Congresses and presidents change their minds, and it has to face the overhead of pleasing all of those different politicians to maintain its funding.
Maybe #NASA is doing the best that can be expected of it, but we keep electing people who drive the ship in ineffective directions.
@volkris @bespacific blocked and eeported