> "Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky... But not in dreams."
892 mbar / 185 mph (295 kph) winds—tied as 3rd strongest Atlantic cyclone by minimum pressure, and (I assume) tied as 1st strongest at landfall (tied with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane),
> "Somalia is the first country to apply to Gavi for new funding to give children diphtheria boosters — shots delivered to children in their second year of life, then between 4 and 7 years old and 9 to 15 years old — in areas where the outbreak has seemed most severe."
RFK Jr. was personally responsible for ending US' involvement in Gavi, due to his insane view that the diphtheria vaccine is unsafe:
I'm struggling to come to terms with the depth of anti-modernity sentiment in the West, that it's considered normal (and not mortifying) to read a BBC piece praising a twenty-hour rail journey as a thing of "lyrical beauty", quoting authorities like a "philosophy researcher". Who elevated this flowery nonsense over the common sense of the masses of sane people, with lives and goals and needs and places to be?
We just took the train to get from Berlin to Sicily for our holiday and will take it back on Sunday. There’s no one forcing you to take the train - there’s plenty of airports around here. But night trains are - at least for some - a great way to travel. You boards the train a 8pm in Milano, and by the time you had breakfast, you’re almost in Messina. Now, I wish that they’d refurbish the rolling stock and make the train run faster on the last legs, but that’s fundamentally a maintenance and upkeep issue. The technology is perfectly fine.
Technology is fine, but this night train is dangerous between Rome and Messina. I got robbed twice. Once you are over in Sicily everything is fine again. We left our luggage in a small Sicilian town center for some hours, and nothing got stolen. Near Napoli it would be gone in 10m.
The experience was okay, I would take it again. We went all the way from the start in Milano to Messina. The train left Milano on time and pretty much remained on time except for a minor delay in Rome (15 minutes).
We had a 3 person sleeper cabin for ourselves. They do serve a little breakfast - espresso, shrink-wrapped croissants, some biscuits with Marmelade and some salty crackers. Not a great meal, but good enough. If you’re going beyond Messina to Syracuse or Palermo, you should bring food along - or pick something up on the ferry.
The rolling stock is old - as in the toilets are still the kind where you can see the tracks, not a closed system. So they close the toilets a while before you get on the ferry.
Still, the ride was comfortable enough to actually sleep, even though the top bunk is a bit short for people of my size (1,85) - but neither wife nor kid could be convinced to climb up there.
Going to bed in Milano and waking up with a view of the coast was amazing. The beds fold up and you have a proper 3 seat cabin for the rest of the ride.
The ride was amazingly cheap - we paid 160 EUR for two adults and one 8year old, one way, so 330 in total.
Not the parent but took this train (Rome -> Palermo) in 2019 and had a middling experience. Based on previous excellent night train experiences (in France) I'd recommended the sleeper train as a great way to get our family down to Sicily. With 3- and 6-year-olds the idea of travelling while sleeping had much appeal.
Unfortunately I should have factored Trenitalia (Italian train operator) into the mix. The train departed an hour late - not such a big deal you'd think for an overnight sleeper train - but it arrived late at Roma Centrale so we couldn't board it and get comfortable. Two small kids at 10pm on a train platform in a big city is not much fun.
The sleeper car was tired, but clean enough. Unfortunately, we'd been mis-advised and there were no buffet/restaurant facilities on the train. We'd assumed that breakfast (either delivered or in said car) was provided, and all we had were a few snacks.
Once the train started moving, the gentle rock-you-to-sleep I remembered from previous night trains was notably absent; rather it was a violent side-to-side pitching that increased concerningly when the train got up to full speed. As the bunks in our compartment were transverse to the direction of travel, in my upper bunk this ended up feeling like lying on a see-saw.
Unsettling accompanying grinding noises pointed to a lack of maintenance, and sure enough, at ARGH o'clock, a frantic banging on the compartment door and some italo-english gesturing from a Trenitalia attendant made it clear that we were being ejected from our broken car. We had to pack up all our stuff which we'd exploded all over the compartment, plus wake up two sleeping kids, and pajama-clad, move onto the 3am platform of Who-knows-where while new compartments were found for all the unlucky residents of our little cocktail-shaker.
Our new digs were much more stable and the overnight ferry crossing passed so smoothly that none of us even woke for more than a second or two when there were some bumps and clanks. I second the request for more speed on the Sicily side though; when you've got a hungry family with no breakfast available, you just wanna get there ASAP. Pretty nice scenery though. Needless to say we demolished everything we could find at Palermo station on arrival though!
"I'd prefer to spend time with my family at the end of this rail journey rather than spend that time contemplating the history-rich aesthetics of the rail carriage" isn't a "grindset".
Transport is a *tool* for most people—a means, not an end, as it is for a tiny subset of travel reporters (overrepresented in print). It dehumanizes people to delegitimatize their subjective valuation of their own lives' priorities. Wanting to go fast, deprioritizing transport as a mere tool, doesn't make them defective people.
High-speed rail is an awesome thing and it weirds me out to have been shamed and mocked for advocating for it.
Please consider that your original post could also be seen as shaming people who appreciate the beauty of train journeys.
Some of the best quality time I've spent with my son has been during train journeys. Like many two-year olds he loves the whole experience. Watching out of the window while the train is moved onto a ferry would blow his mind. I agree that high-speed trains are marvellous; I'm sad that their introduction deprives us of some rich cultural experiences.
As the article states, they’re planning to build a bridge. You can have an efficient option and a scenic/nostalgic option on the same route. This is just a bit of sentimentality about a cool train journey that might be replaced, not “anti-modernity sentiment.”
Is spending life time in a train your goal? I like trains. To get quickly, safe and comfortable from A to B. Changing to a ferry is ... what I would consider a one time experience, but I rather would have the option to go by fast train straight to sicily whenever I feel like.
As of now, flying remains way cheaper, despite being worse ecological. But this won't change like that.
The time you spend on a night trains is spent sleeping. They deliberately don’t run full pace - no one wants to arrive at 5 in the morning. So they slow-roll on a long stretch to make arrival times reasonable.
Very often you can make an earlier arrival at a destination via night train than you can via plane - unless you fly in the evening before.
There are often distances I like to travel, far longer than one night. I really don't see the point in making it harder on purpose. There are plenty of places where getting there is an adventure. I like adventures. But not when just visiting family or alike.
Nobody is making anything harder on purpose. You can take a plane. But for a lot of European distances, night trains are perfectly good. I would love if they’d resurrect the night train that went to my parents place - I would board it on Friday 10pm to go home, be there Saturday for breakfast, board the train back at midnight on Sunday and roll into the Berlin main station in time to make it to work. Not a single lost minute for the trip, maximize time at the destination.
I know. But my ecological consciousness has a problem with that. So yes, I also like night trains. And I also like bridges in general for better connection. I did not run the numbers to see if it makes sense here or just for the Mafiosi (I heard that complaint a lot). I am arguing against the romanticed point above, keeping the ferry because some think it is romantic.
Yes, I have. As I wrote in the sibling comments the last time just a week ago, the actual train that’s being discussed here. I’ll be again on Friday, for the return. I’ve taken multiple other night train connections before and in my experience, the quality depends to a large extend on the operator and the rolling stock. Older stock makes for less comfort, especially if not well maintained.
In my experience sleeping on the train also takes a bit of getting used to. Then again, maybe it’s really not for you - that’s ok.
> "...we had to abruptly go out to sea because we couldn’t let the (minimal) fallout contaminate the reactor spaces and make it impossible to monitor the reactor itself properly."
There are numerous anecdotes from the USS Reagan that contradict that prosaic interpretation (of the reason it was abruptly moved),
"He was issued iodine tablets—which are used to block radioactive iodine, a common byproduct of uranium fission, from being absorbed by the thyroid gland—and fitted for an NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) suit. He was also told not to drink water from the ship’s desalination system. [...] Torres, the senior petty officer, recounted, “One of the scariest things I’ve heard in my career was when the commanding officer came over the loudspeaker, and she said, ‘We’ve detected high levels of radiation in the drinking water; I’m securing all the water.’” That included making showers off limits."
It's interesting that the mathematical theory of knots was initially developed in response to Kelvin's proposal (i.e. Tait's work), because people were motivated trying to work out its implications for atomic theory. A branch of mathematics created by wrong physics.
> "Many are. This one is not. The President has sweeping pardon powers."
I understand it's debatably possible to prosecute the public corruption that motivated a pardon, even though the pardon act itself is unreviewable. I.e., the DoJ attempted a criminal bribery investigation of Bill Clinton's pardon of the donor Marc Rich,
> "Some lawyers have said that proving such a case could be exceedingly difficult because bribery cases usually required the cooperation of one of the parties. Moreover, contributions to political parties or to Mr. Clinton's library foundation are legal, and the president's pardon authority is unreviewable."
I assume similar logic might apply to World Liberty Financial and Trump's CZ pardon.
> "Since Trump’s election, Binance has also been a key supporter of his family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture, a business that has driven a huge leap in the president’s personal wealth."
The title is underselling the nuance—there's the entire Myanmar civil war hiding behind the word "allegedly". The group in power claims a group trying to overthrow them is operating scam centers (they deny it); this SpaceX intervention cuts off communications on a large scale, presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way.
> "“Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, charged in a statement Monday night that the top leaders of the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic organization opposed to army rule, were involved in the scam projects at KK Park,” the AP wrote. The Karen National Union is “part of the larger armed resistance movement in Myanmar’s civil war” and “deny any involvement in the scams.”"
I don't think the nuance you believe exists actually exists.
The scam centers at KK Park and Shwe Kokko employ forced laborers numbering in the thousands - they literally kidnap people from neighboring countries, imprison them, confiscate their passports, and force them to conduct scam operations for 17 hours a day, torturing them if they fail to comply.
The KNU is undoubtedly in on this, allowing it to happen within their area of control and almost certainly profiting financially from it.
The stuff going on there is evil of the highest degree. It's evil on a level that many Hacker News users probably did not even realize exists in the world.
Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar! The operators of the scam centers acquired the terminals through their criminal connections.
Yes the Tatmadaw is also evil. It doesn't really matter though. This is a pretty black and white scenario. What's going on is dark beyond belief and any action which curtails it is positive.
If this is the case, what is the justification for allowing them at all? If the receiver's location is not in an authorized service area, why allow it to connect? In fact, I'm surprised that's not automated. I can't access websites due to geofencing, yet Starlink can't figure out the location of the dish accessing their network? I'm not buying that at all.
> If the receiver's location is not in an authorized service area, why allow it to connect?
Money and other KPIs. Money is an obvious KPI - 2500 terminals at 100 $ a month each, 250k a month in income, nothing to sneeze at. The more important KPI however is satellite utilization.
And it's not like either the legitimate Myanmari government nor the various oppositional factions have any interest, much less ability, in trying to curtail Starlink.
In light of this game of cat and mouse, the age of direct satellite-to-handset telecommunications is a harbinger of a more disquieting capability: dirtboxes in orbit.
> A dirtbox (or DRT box) is a cell site simulator, a phone device mimicking a cell phone tower, that creates a signal strong enough to cause nearby dormant mobile phones to switch to it.
Do you have a link/information supporting this?
This sounds on the crazy side but considering Dubai and China are reported doing similar things I could believe it.
The Wikipedia articles on both of those compounds should have sources. I first learned about it by reading Thai media. Abductions of both tourists and Thai nationals in Thailand has become an issue.
The truth is more likely that both the junta and local militias have ties to different scam centres. The Myanmar government never does anything for its people, it's motivated by power and money and they were profiting heavily from scam centres until China's patience broke, due to large numbers of Chinese being trafficked and imprisoned at these scam compounds. The junta needs China's support in order to survive. As the junta lost control of the border regions the local militias stepped in to either profit from scams or close them to please China, depending upon what they thought would benefit them most.
i haven’t seen any good evidence tying the Tatmadaw to these large-scale scam operations, while I have seen a fair bit of evidence tying a few of the regional militias.
Many of those regional militias are or were integrated into the Tatmadaw as Border Guard Forces to hold territory against other militias. E.g. the scam centers in Laukkai were run by the local BGF until 2023 when the Tatmadaw lost control to the MNDAA, who then shut them down, presumably as part of a deal with China. The Tatmadaw doesn't control many towns on the eastern border anymore, but they do control Muse near the border with China, where scam centers were operating unimpeded until after that offensive, when the Tatmadaw began to target them with arrests and deportations https://shwepheemyay.org/english-edition/junta-raids-muse-sc... probably to get back on China's good side.
Again, this is often the case in civil conflicts (factional fighting). But the subjects of this action are undeniably bad actors. Are the authorities bad actors as well, yes, very likely. But the regional players want the targeted subject's abilities degraded and their options strangled regardless of what the local authority wants. I think the rest of the world is simply lining up behind the regional players. Which was inevitable really.
If they are shooting irrelevant and innocent civilians (with the goal of introducing broader fear in the population to somehow change their minds), then definitely terrorists.
If they are shooting only govt/regime military/police/enforcers or officials, much more like an opposing power.
I'm going to hard disagree here. You're part of this whole sliding of the word terrorism from its classic meaning of using organized violence to inflict fear for political gains to its insidious fascist interpretation as using violence against the current political status quo.
Using violence to overthrow the Myanmar government is not automatically terrorism at all. Groups throughout history have used organized violence without resorting to inflicting fear to achieve their goals.
>from its classic meaning of using organized violence to inflict fear for political gains to its insidious fascist interpretation as using violence against the current political status quo.
What's the difference between the two, besides the latter lacking a just cause? If that's the only difference, then that just proves my and OP's point that "one man's freedom fighter is another one's terrorist"
Are you voluntarily dismissing the issue of fear. Rising up, taking weapons, and fighting for a cause does not automatically come with the dispersal of fear on civilian populations. That’s the difference: the choice of not dealing in fear.
Nowadays talking about independence would be considered "Terrorism" This word is a new "Catch all" for everything you don't like (immigrants, antifa, any protest...)
To be fair, Antifa is objectively a terrorist organization, given that they employ violence on innocents to cause fear in the populace to achieve political goals. That's literally the definition of terrorism.
What word, terrorism? In my head the term was much older, but looking it up shows it's a late 18th century French word. TIL, lucky 10k I guess. Then I realized I was confusing it with assassin.
I think the commenter only meant that there is such a thing as RF engineering. But that to be effective, RF engineering would require the local authorities to have some level of control over the region they want to shut down.
Thus, the authorities must not have that control.
I agree with the commenter from a technical perspective. It's extremely easy to cut off SpaceX terminals in some area if you control that area.
I just don't think that's relevant. It's not the local authorities the rest of the world is lining up behind, it's the regional players around Myanmar. The regional players can countenance the local authorities only slightly more than the warlords and gang leaders. What the local authorities want is almost completely irrelevant to the regional players.
The precedent seems to be that anyone can broadcast anything without caring what territories can receive your broadcast (see Voice of America broadcasts during the Cold War or GPS jamming in the Baltic nowadays). This seems to be extendable to broadcasting from space.
The nominal group in power may ban/jam _receiving_ equipment on their territory though.
US law prohibits Starlink from transmitting into countries that don't permit it, with exceptions as directed by the US Government. If this was not the case, Starlink would have made its product available globally instead of having to seek permission from every country they want to service (called "landing rights")
it's not hard to understand. people simply not liking queers doesn't mean they deserve to be bombed. also there are queers in Palestine and they are getting bombed too by Israel
Pretty sure that's not enough evidence for 'actively hunting down and murdering on a consistent basis'.
On the other hand, Israel had probably killed tens if not hundreds or thousands of queers in Gaza as of now. That surely count for 'murdering on a consistent basis'.
You ignored the "actively hunting down" part for Israel. Killing gays without realizing they're gay doesn't count. It should be obvious to you that the problem with killing gays isn't that they're more deserving of life than straights but that specifically targeting them puts each gay person in greater danger.
> Killing gays without realizing they're gay doesn't count.
One of the more deranged things I've read today. Then again it's unsurprising coming from an extremist that defends hospital bombings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45211554
There aren’t many people out of the closet in repressive regimes, no, but it’s estimated that 5-10% of people will be somewhere on the gay spectrum if allowed (with substantial cultural variation on how they identify themselves and describe their sexuality, of course). It’s exceedingly unlikely that the people in Gaza are freak outliers in this regard, and the population is more than large enough for 5% to mean thousands of people.
That doesn't undermine their statement at all. They wrote hundreds or thousands, perhaps you misread it as hundreds of thousands? 67,000 killed per your link, assuming only 1% were LGBTQ, means around 670 LGBTQ people killed, which falls well within the standard definition of "hundreds". Even if they only make up 0.5% of the population, it's still hundreds. And to hit "tens" they only need to be about 0.1% of the Gazan population.
On a broader scale, the marriage of far left and islam are not from some love of shared values. Its from the love of shared enemy, capitalism and western civilization.
I think the biggest reason is that leftists favor weak groups. Muslims are poor and relatively powerless globally so leftists see them as oppressed and deserving sympathy. Combine that with Jews being the polar opposite and it's clear why leftists would favor Palestinians in that war. But yes, anti-Westernism is probably a factor too.
I don't understand why leftists are so ravenous about Palestine, but NOT batting any eye about the [actual] genocide of Christians in Nigeria. I think their empathy comes from a good place, at least in their minds, but it's so selective.
I'm not saying, I'm better, I'm pretty apathetic. But I don't get it.
Because Christians are powerful in America, so as a group, they appear to Americans to be privileged, not oppressed. It's groups that matter, not individuals.
Feels more like a psy-op than anything else. Some on the left can't resist protesting war crimes despite understanding the nuance and that is used to call them the "enemy of western civilization."
It comes from a need to support slaves, or weak powerless people.
Slaves as a term isn't as relevant today as it was centuries ago, but still it captures the idea of a class of "oppressed and powerless" people well.
In an extreme twist of irony however, both Christianity and Judaism are religions born from slaves, hence the emphasis on classic liberal values (love thy neighbor as thyself). Islam however is not a slave religion, and was born from power, on the other end of the spectrum (kill non-believers who don't convert)
Yes, this exactly. And IMO, mainstream liberals have drifted so far left on some issues, that these views are just... commonplace. Saying this as a disaffected registered democrat.
It isn't at all, this is the dumbest "gotcha" ever.
You can absolutely support someone who doesn't support you back. Queers for Palestine isn't saying "Free Palestine so I can move there and live my life", it's saying "Palestinians should be free even if they don't like me, because freedom is imperative"
The ACLU did the same fucking thing with literal nazi marches decades ago and nobody made this kind of dumb claim, and a shocking number of people who make this "gotcha" about queers for Palestine get upset that the ACLU now says they shouldn't support the right of Nazis.
I support the freedom of religion for people who practice religions that say I am the devil or need to be saved or I should be oppressed. I do NOT support those religions enacting such oppression, or modifying my government for stupid things they believe in, but that doesn't mean they should not have the right to practice their own beliefs that don't affect other people.
I want Palestinians to have a country that does not oppress women and outlaw birth control (That's why most of Palestine is children by the way; oppression), and murder random people in the town square, but that still requires they get "freedom" of some kind. I would argue that freedom also requires the Palestinians are made free from Hamas, but there is an awkward chance that Palestinians right now would choose Hamas given a free choice. I don't have a solution for that.
Regardless, the solution to any of that is still not fairly indiscriminate bombing with high accepted collateral casualties.
I'm not saying I don't understand having empathy for any type of civilians in a war zone. But there are plenty of worse massacres over the last 10 years, and the far left folks aren't up in arms over it. They only care about certain power dynamics.
It's a leap even without being bombed. Asking for gay or women's rights is asking for reform or elimination of Islam. Leftists never seem to want that, I think because they see Muslims as an oppressed group that should be supported, not have their identity taken away from them.
Yes, if they are operating within that region, then they should be following local laws. Allowing companies to break laws they don't agree with is a bad precedent to set.
Whether or not you like it, that's how international relations works.
The US famously has gripes with Cuba, Iran, HK, Afghanistan and others, that affect those countries unfairly. If another country decides to side with Iran, they'll find themselves on the US sanction list. So is it more just to deny the people of your country access to trade and interaction with the US?
Depends if your country claims to be free or not, or what your own morals and values are - if you believe in "might makes right", then sure, the ones in power get to suppress freedom of information to the rest of the country. If you believe in a free democracy, then information and communication should be free (think freedom of speech, press, information, etc).
The nominal group in power in Myanmar depends on where you are standing and changes with time. The official government has no authority in most of the country.
They can. They can have laws and try to enforce them. International Law and Companies should not be in the business of doing jackbooted thugs work for them.
The same apply for other stuff like chat cryptography. No, we shouldn't fuck everyone's right to privacy because your fat policemen are unable to conduct an investigation on meatspace and prefer to just have a digital panopticon.
obs: I upvoted you because while I consider your position absolutely abhorrent, I believe you're entitled to it and we should not downvote comments just because we don't agree with them.
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 commiting crimes against humanity, systemic extermination[0] of ethnic minorities.
> But the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't...
Should everyone else be allowed to do anything they want in a country as long as it's from a distance because "your laws don't apply to me"? Is it fine when Russian, Chinese, or NK hackers are operating against the US?
If a country is good enough to sell to and provide a service there, it's good enough to obey its laws.
It's not fine I think, and I'm honestly surprised that years of continued cyberattacks haven't led to an escalation outside of the internet yet. Can't be economic sanctions because the US already doesn't deal with NK for example. I am not aware of the victims of state sponsored cyberattacks doing any cyber-counter-attacks either, but that's likely down to a lack of reporting.
That is, cyberattacks are seen as a victimless or economic only thing, not unlike economic sanctions.
> Should everyone else be allowed to do anything they want in a country as long as it's from a distance because "your laws don't apply to me"? Is it fine when Russian, Chinese, or NK hackers are operating against the US?
Yes absolutely, see the ridiculous censorship the British government is trying to establish against us companies.
Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there or there is a government to government contract that regulates how commerce should be done between those countries. Now, Myanmar or the british or whoever can block, deny payment services or make it illegal to use such services for their locals but it is ludicrous to accept the laws of foreign countries just because.
> Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there
What happens when they send signals in that country, like Starlink is explicitly doing? What if companies in Mexico or Canada started blasting signals on frequencies used in the US for critical communication, would that fall under "they should comply with US law"? What if Russia does the same with boats on the border?
First, consider separating state actors from companies. Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war like russia is doing with GPS Signals. It's not a matter of legal or illegal but a matter of are you willing and able to either sanction or bomb the country into changing their behavior.
As for what companies are doing: If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit. Doubly so for space based assets.
This is where inter country contracts come into play. If your country and my country have a contract that designates some signals for public use and others not, than local law can be changed to comply with those contracts. Everything else is just a matter of tragedy of the commons or questionable encroachments into another countries sovereignity.
> First, consider separating state actors from companies
Can you? Ok, "definitely private company who doesn't operate at the behest of the state". That's a loophole you can fly a country through.
> Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war
> If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit.
So is it "an act of war" or a "don't give a shit" situation?
> Can you? Ok, "definitely private company who doesn't operate at the behest of the state". That's a loophole you can fly a country through.
Yeah, no one is making money sabotaging GPS Signals. The reality is that there are numerous agreements that regulate the use of frequencies. If a country tolerates misuse that actively interferes with another countries critical infrastructure that's pretty blatant. And again, you as the country being interfered with can do everything from tariffs, sanctions to destroying boats to make the other country interested in enforcing their laws and stop you from interfering.
> So is it "an act of war" or a "don't give a shit" situation?
This isn't as hard as you try to make it. If country a allows commercial use of a frequency band, any company in that country wouldn't have to give a shit about using it. If you as a country deliberately chose a frequency band for commerical use that just so happens to interfer with your neighbours police signals, enjoy the sanctions, diplomacy or war that follows.
But trying to make companies in country a follow the laws in country b is not going to happen by fiat just because. Imagine Saudi Arabias anti atheism laws being enforced in the USA because they might be able to receive your website. Ridicolous.
As a point of law, when Russia interferes with GPS signals in some third country (like Ukraine or whatever) that wouldn't be considered an act of war against the USA. An act of war would be something like a direct kinetic or cyber attack against our Navstar satellites.
It gets more complicated with international relationships though. If two countries have any kind of relationship, e.g. trade, then a conflict between a company and a government can escalate and bleed out to other relationships.
In this case, the Myanmar government could tell the US that "hey buddy, SpaceX isn't playing ball, make them or we'll kick out your embassy, tourists, and trade relationships". I don't know if they have any of that, but take that as an example.
Sure, but given that the USA isn't a dictatorship on paper, there would have to be some law forbidding SpaceX from doing what they are doing or at least some incentive like the lucrative government contracts. But that's just diplomacy between nations. Consider a country that the USA doesn't give a shit about complaining. They wouldn't stop SpaceX they would tacitly encourage them in fact.
Allowed, no, but there's also no direct consequences. Indirect consequences though, like counterattacks, sanctions, export restrictions, etc are a thing. But a country like NK doesn't care about relationships with the US or Europe, since they benefit more from their relationship with China and Russia, their close neighbours (physically and culturally).
Anyway, it's like free speech, I can say anything I want on the internet because what are you going to do, huh? But it'll also mean that if I were to contact you for a job later on you'd be like "nu uh you insulted my mother". Plus I'd get banned from HN.
Sold in, not sold to. The GP meant: if you consider it legitimate to sell your product in Myanmar, you should obey the laws of Myanmar. If you consider the government is illegitimate, don't do business there.
Starlink has the precise terminal location and gets paid for the subscription for that terminal. They know where it is and who pays for it. From the article they say that they were selling a service there and stopped in order to comply with local laws:
> SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
I think the point (which you seem to have missed) is: How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report (The Economist recently had an excellent series of articles about these call 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?
> How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report.
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
What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?
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.
> What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?
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.
> 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.
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.
>> 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.
> 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.
Agreed. I think I have an explanation (a partial one, at best). The tech world is so adept at abstraction that we have made it one of our primary tools in the box. Everything gets abstracted away until we have a nice, clean, uniform representation of the underlying item. Whether that item is people, vehicles, road accident data or private communications doesn't really matter any more once it is abstracted. Then it's just another record.
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.
> What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide
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.
I think you'll find this is not 'at the request' of any government but part of a much wider policy being implemented.
Eg, Cambodia just had $15B in crypto confiscated (ostensibly illegal proceeds of the 'Prince' group, but IMHO they are just a front for the state), and is facing a financial blacklisting.
China were pressuring the area to crack down on this stuff early this year, but it's quite possible the trigger for the west to get more involved was the Cambodia/Thai conflict, which was a simple personal feud over this business, provoked by the Cambodian leader, but which risked spreading into a much wider conflict.
Hard no. Communications is a human right. I’d say routing communications as a private company is a privilege that can be extended or denied, but this perspective is poison IMO.
But they can fly a plane that detects Starlink signals (...I presume, I don't actually know how it works) and target the areas that have them.
But that's an escalation, it's better to talk about it first with the party in question, if they don't answer there can be further legal recourse. International law and -lawsuits are a thing.
But this comment thread sounds like reason and legal systems aren't working, and suppression and military action are the only recourse left. I mean to a point I agree, but at the same time we (as humanity) are not (or should not be) savages.
Starlink are quite directional. They are easily detected even from a standard vehicle.
> International law and -lawsuits are a thing
No, it's not a thing. International laws operate on exactly the same principle "Or what?".
> but at the same time we (as humanity) are not (or should not be) savages.
Part of not being a savage is the ability to not give a f.ck about what the savages have written on their papers, which we call laws. Or to give a f.ck depending on what is most convenient for us, the non-savages, from the standpoint of the "or what?" principle.
Didn’t Musk ask Brazil the same “or what” question and had to back down? Musk and Starlink do legitimate business in Myanmar, why put it all at risk just to protect those 2500 subscriptions?
Why is everyone with a keyboard so adamant to “fight” when compliance was obviously the better business decision?
I'm thinking the same. But there's probably plenty of illegitimate business, non-scammy terminals in the country which generate revenue.
Complying was the best option for Musk even if he doesn't care about Myanmar local law. It's a bad look to have your brand associated with supporting scam centers that defraud Americans as it was pointed out by the top US senator investigating the use of Starlink in the scam operations. This hits closer to home.
I can denounce Nazis while admitting an objective point made by Schmitt. Churchill himself was a ghoul who considered Indians, Africans, etc. inferior and while he denounced the Nazis' tactics, he had no problem using similar ones to suppress colonized natives.
In other words, Churchill might have hated the Nazis (because they threatened his beloved England), but he believed in the state of exception they promoted. He believed he wasn't obligated to obey basic decency when dealing with non-European natives because, like Schmitt would say, "sovereign is he who determines the exception."
9/11 was perpetrated by people who couldn't have knocked out Starlink or anything else in space but still found a way to harm their enemies. Simply not being a superpower doesn't make one entirely harmless. Starlink has assets, soft and hard, all over the globe, in easy to destroy places. No one even needs to claim responsibility for the damage. It just needs to be understood that it was the result of ignoring the threat of retaliation by those being imposed upon. Whether or not that imposition is moral in a particular set of eyes doesn't change the reality of what happens when those imposed upon decide to lash out.
I agree with the parent comment, each country should control the communications in its own airspace. Surely this is how it works? Starlink cant just start selling internet in countries it has no jurisdiction or communications license in?
If the country can't control it, what power do they have? GPS and sattelite TV can also be received anywhere, as long as you can somehow get a receiver for it there's little that can be done about it except maybe jamming. (I don't actually know if systems like GPS can be turned off on a per country basis)
That said, Starlink can be turned off on a per country basis, so the government can ask (or demand) that to be done. If they refuse, there may be consequences that can be escalated to a political level.
Control vs want. If you don't have power in outer space, you simply don't control what happens. You can hope that whoever has power respects your desires.
Why not? Isn't the entire point of the internet to make access to communication of information equal?
We're playing around with the word "should" here, but from a moral standpoint, I disagree with any opinion that a sovereign power should(morally) be able to control communication at all - short of immediate threats to public safety (yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater).
Theres a difference between people in different countries talking freely, and people selling internet connections to residents in another country where they have no company registration.
The scam centers are real and there has been extensive reporting on them. Look up “Operation Shamrock” and particularly the work by Erin West for some of the work busting them (she even toured a scam center Thea had been recruiting busted and took video and photographic evidence).
Workers from many countries have been lured through Thailand, kidnapped and trafficked across the border forced to work behind bars and under threat of torture.
It's a very well proven fact that the scam centers are operated by Chinese given that before covid they were all Chinese casinos that transitioned to online scams because no Chinese could leave China to spend their money there.
If it's a very well proven fact, can you link to some objective sources to your strongly worded claims? Given that clearly this is a very politically sensitive subject, I'm not going to trust a commenter on the internet on their own.
It won't be the first time that Starlink takes a side in a military conflict somewhere in the world. Somewhere they do it openly and boast proudly about it, somewhere they just keep it quiet.
They may well deny it, but there's plenty of international documentation showing it is indeed a thing, and presumably starlink have even more evidence.
It's important to know that anything Elon or Tesla or SpaceX says about freedom of speech or libertarianism, is subject to either the US government or President Trump or Elon's personal beliefs about freedom of speech.
Which so far have been "I support complete freedom of speech. (for myself, and censorship for others)"
They aren't going to sell a product that could be used against them. Our allies are reasonably asking if the high-tech F-35 fighters have kill switches too
Right - shutdown the scam centers. Why is this so hard? If one group is using the scam center to power their resistance ... that resistance is built on a really bad foundation.
I get that if you are shutting down comms for an an org thats different - but if its a known scam center not a tough decision here.
> "Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky... But not in dreams."
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