U.S. billionaire Elon Musk has agreed to sell a portion of Starlink assets to the U.S. Department of Defense, removing himself from decision-making regarding geofencing Ukraine’s access to the satellite internet service

    • NateNate60@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      In my opinion, all companies essential to national security should be nationalised. I mean the likes of Lockheed Martin as well. There should be no profit from war and we can’t afford companies to chase profits against the interests of national security if we end up needing it.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          Worked well enough for them to build 30-ish ghost cities the size of New York City, meanwhile we can’t even get a single high speed rail built, anywhere in the country.

          Regardless of the implications that might have on their economy all I can think is of the old proverb;

          A kingdom that doesn’t build doesn’t remain a kingdom for long.

        • ilikekeyboards@lemmy.world
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          That’s their secret on how a rice farmer nation got to be a superpower. Keep the power close to heart and you won’t get budged. Meanwhile USA privatised the whole army

          • cooljacob204@kbin.social
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            They aren’t a super power.

            They have also released a ton of sectors back to being private over the years which has enabled them to compete on the global field, fix their economy and raise their QOL.

            • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
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              1 year ago

              Released… more like re-leased.

              None of China’s big business truly own their assets. The government no matter what has complete unilateral decision making on any private company owned in China. It’s do what as your told, or fuck off. You only have autonomy so long as you go with the desires of the party. You step on their toes, that’s it, they will force you out or force you to co-operate.

              In fact the CCP has a large percentage of ownership in many “private” businesses, it’s just very well disguised. It’s why the communist Congress is full of rich fucks, they centralised the wealth and the power.

              We essentially have a 2 party system. The government has the power, the big business has the money. As a result there essentially ends up being a lot of trading money for power and vice versa, because we never properly imposed and enforced rules and laws to prevent that.

              • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Dude look at what youre saying. The CCP has part ownership in a ton of private businesses

                …in the comments…

                About an article of the DOD buying part of a private company.

                Capitalists scream bloody murder at communism/socialism/worker philosophy while they do the exact same fucking things.

                Imo, the beef with China is that China is doing all the things that we do and we aren’t used to sharing the court with the new kid.

      • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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        It’s so hard to get media to take off, I don’t see how someone takes a brand, a brand so well known its own language has become common (tweet, retweet) and decides the best thing to do is destroy all that effort.

        Especially with social media, where the people generate yr content for you, disadvantaging your volunteer labor force isn’t a sound strategy (looking at your dumb ass Spez).

        At least it’s right out in the open for everyone to see, that the idea we’re in any kind of a meritocracy is a colossal myth.

  • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Musk sure has a big fucking mouth. There most have been some sobering back door conversations for this to happen so quickly.

    • 50gp@kbin.social
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      i’d love to hear what they threatened him with as this doesnt read like he had any choice

  • Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
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    Hahahaha forced is more like it. We just nationalized a portion of Starlink. Nice going Elon, you fucking troglodyte.

    • HTTP_404_NotFound@lemmyonline.com
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      Don’t laugh too hard. We are the ones paying the bill for it.

      ie, Our taxes are now indirectly ended up directly in Elon’s pocket. And, I can promise he didn’t cut us a deal.

      • Gork@lemm.ee
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        It’s a small price to pay if it results in saving Ukrainian lives by having it in more capable, less idiotic hands.

        • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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          by having it in more capable, less idiotic hands.

          Whoa hey let’s not get too carried away. We are talking about the US government after all.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You never know. The threat of an extraordinary rendition to Ukraine might have kept the price down.

        • Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz
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          After hearing of the story I wondered if Elon could be charged under Ukrainian law as some sort of accomplice / aid to enemy operations and potentially detained and extradited by a country more actively supportive of anti-Russian operations should Elon go on vacation to such a country. (do I have to say Poland? Because I’m thinking Poland.)

      • AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Did Starlink and SpaceX not already receive a lot of government funding for their rockets etc? You could argue that the taxpayers should own x% because they paid the bill for it…

  • MrSpArkle
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    1 year ago

    Now tax him and get the money back.

  • avantgeared@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Noel Reports:

    A British Journalist asked Elon Musk:

    “Has your ignorance and ego cost Ukrainian lives? Putin calls you outstanding, how would you call Putin?”

    Musk refused to comment.

  • downpunxx@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Somebody had some REAL uncomfortable conversations over the past 7 days, richest man in the world got threatened so hard knocked his dick in the dirt, ahahahahahahaha

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    On the one hand, yay for nationalising utilities!

    On the other, not under the already most bloated military in the world who can’t even account for billions of their yearly funding ffs!!

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        I didn’t say they lost them, I said they couldn’t account for them: they were audited a bunch of times and failed by billions every time, probably for the reason you mentioned AND because they get so much money that they don’t feel a need to make an effort to track it all

        • tsuica@lemmy.world
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          I tend to agree with you, but I’m left wondering if the bureaucratic system would allow this hand-waving approach to budget tracking.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            Not usually, but due to decades of successful gaslighting and other propaganda, the military is a holy cow that gets ridiculous amounts of leeway compared to everyone else, especially the people who need government assistance the most.

    • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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      Probably going to spin this as a win and something he initiated. He is unable to be weak or at fault for something.

  • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    This is the way. Musk should never have had such responsibility. Then again, perhaps due to not being a government official, he got those things into Ukraine pretty fast (just 8 days after Russia started the invasion!), and they were successfully used in many places.

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    Agreed = forced. I bet the price was cheap to avoid court martial level problems 😅

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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      He can’t be court martialed, and he can’t be convicted of treason either. He isn’t a member of the military and Russia is not officially an enemy of America. To put it into perspective, even in the Cold War, when the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage for giving the Soviet Union information on radar, sonar, jet propulsion, and nuclear secrets, they still weren’t convicted of treason, because technically the USSR was not an enemy of America, which historically has been interpreted as “Congress has actually declared war on them” something we haven’t done since WW2. If you were to look up a list of people convicted of treason in America you will note it largely stops after 1945.

      And that is a very good thing, especially from the perspective that many nations still consider mild criticism of the head of state treason.

      He can, however, suddenly be subjected to much, much more scrutiny than even an actually innocent person would be comfortable with for interfering with American… “Interests.”

  • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world
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    Why doesn’t he trade them X for some of Starlink? The value of Twitter X is in the negatives now, right?

    Then maybe as a government run social media it can be stable and boring again.

        • Deadeyegai@lemmy.world
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          Never thought of it remotely even being possible like that. With some good support & security in place, it might even be a pleasant place!

        • ThuglasAtoms@lemmy.sdf.org
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          All of the bad faith arguments about free speech and the first amendment become real arguments about free speech and the first amendment if the government is operating the social media site. You couldn’t ban someone for offensive speech or delete their post.

          • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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            True, the thought has crossed my mind cause I thought of it before. Honestly I’m not sure how it would be handled. On the one hand, calls to violence would definitely be stamped out more thoroughly. On the other hand, I could see certain problematic speech run rampant because of the first amendment. But I think you can still have a certain idea of decorum, like they do in congress, where certain behavior is frowned upon if not completely banned. I think you can also get away with pseudobanning people kind of how it’s done with fact checking where certain posts are hidden behind a warning banner. Maybe also leave it up to the community like in lemmy where certain things are downvoted. It would still get spicy tho. My guess is that ultimately government run social media would be super stale and attract only the most boring conversations, like cspan.

          • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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            They could probably get around that by outsourcing the moderation to some public group overseen by some other public ethics group, etc, and otherwise the gov’t just provides the funding to keep it all employed, running and maintained.

            Not that I’m recommending it. It would have to be better than X though.

          • j4k3@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Go running up and down the street outside of wherever you are waving a gun and reading all of your social media posts as loud as possible so all your neighbors can here. I bet you won’t last an hour until the government shows up, shoots you, hauls you off, or tells you where to shove all of your rights and amendments.

      • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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        Eh the EU and some (or one) Euro country has started their own Mastodon/Fediverse instances—The idea isn’t terrible if your country isn’t shit.

        • static@kbin.social
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          Their instances just publish to the fediverse, they don’t allow civilian accounts on their server. This is usefull, any accounts from there are guaranteed to be official.

    • cooljacob204@kbin.social
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      It will be the opposite. The government will not be able to sensor or moderate anything but illegal stuff because of the first amendment.

    • Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz
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      The value of Twitter X is in the negatives now, right?

      It’s a private company and you can’t buy their stocks.

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
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      Because they want Starlink satellites for Ukraine probably (and other uses but now this at minimum). X doesn’t provide them with shit.

  • Hiccup@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Spill some more dirt on Twitter and let them take Twitter while they’re at it. Make it a 2 for 1 go away special.

  • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
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    I wonder how this is portioned out? To be completely hands free, Musk would need to sell a portion of his fleet and the control systems that operate it. This would also include relaunching replacement satellites. Since this is an orbiting system (not geostationary) he’d have to sell enough in a band around the earth to keep Ukraine covered.

    • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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      Maybe because it’s easier. There are probably quite a few steps before the US government can just take your shit. Don’t think the Americans are very huge fans of nationalisation and the government just taking from the rich.

        • Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com
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          Most of the drafters owned no slaves. Regardless of the source of the document, generally discussion of government focus around the law. I guess if we’re ignoring the law, sure a populist totalitarian government can do whatever you want. There’s not much to discuss then.

          Personally, I’m a fan of the rule of law. I guess even if there wasn’t a specific law, I would still want to respect unalienable human rights anyway though.

          • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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            Personally, I’m a fan of the rule of law. I guess even if there wasn’t a specific law, I would still want to respect unalienable human rights anyway though.

            We’re probably closer in opinion than you think, but I don’t think billionaires have an “inalienable right” to the stolen efforts of workers.

    • 520@kbin.social
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      Simply seizing his shit would trigger a hostile response from the world’s most powerful people, realising that the government could easily do the same to them.

        • 520@kbin.social
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          Don’t underestimate what they can do. We’ve already seen one particularly moronic specimen try to seize power in the Capitol Riots and almost succeed. Imagine if it was led by someone competent who could put armed mercenaries in the crowd

          • wanderingmagus@lemm.ee
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            Sounds like it’s time to “set condition 1SQ” on some civilians who think they can get away with that. Literally and unironically, I welcome the order to fucking launch. Or do it smaller scale and send a few flying razors through windows like with the Iranian general, except through penthouse windows and estates. Then keep going with all their relations and relatives and acquaintences. Hooyah. That’s one battle stations missile I wouldn’t mind rigging ship for.

            • 520@kbin.social
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              You do realise there are a million different approaches in between ‘total appeasement’ and ‘total seizure’, yes?

              We do with them what they do with the rest of the population; give them just about enough that it doesn’t look like a raw deal to people outside this deal, in exchange for taking away their power to destabilise countries. Meanwhile, set up an execution plan for if they step out of line.

              Individually, they can still be a danger (see Donald Trump) but you do not want to see these people coordinate.

              • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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                But I like ‘total seizure’. I don’t like these people and I want their stuff taken. Why should I compromise by giving them anything?