Comment by remote_phone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by remote_phone | Hacker News Reader

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That article was dated April 8th 2022 over a year ago. A more recent article says that the U.S. stopped paying for them in September and SpaceX picked up the costs. Then in December they got funding from European countries. If Musk were “anti-Ukraine” he would have simply stopped the service. SpaceX is the sole internet provider for a vast part of Ukraine.

A Ukrainian official said:

"Musk assured us he will continue to support Ukraine. When we had a powerful blackout, I messaged him on that day and he momentarily reacted and has already delivered some steps. He understands the situation."

Boy, that doesn’t sound very anti-Ukrainian to me.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/starlink-will-se...

Crimea belongs to Russia. Russia invaded in 2014 and no one, including Obama, did anything about it. The entire world stepped back and let it happen. No one lifted a finger. You can’t go back and retroactively show your disapproval over something almost 10 years later and say “hey that shouldn’t have happened!”. The outcome of war determines who owns land, regardless of what people may want to see. People may say what they want about Israel’s right to occupy the Holy Land but I dare them to try to take it away through war. Israel owns the land that it occupies.

> but I dare them to try to take it away through war.

Why don't you apply the same logic to the opposite side?

> You can’t go back and retroactively show your disapproval

"Might is right" is extremely bad principle for doing politics. It is actually an absence of principles at all.

> "Might is right" is extremely bad principle for doing politics. It is actually an absence of principles at all.

I mean, it's sort of true, but it's very weird to (as GP did) espouse might-makes-right as a determinant of moral ownership and then turn around and say "Russia owns Crimea" when there is literally a war happening in Ukraine right now and the Western war machine is straining at its leash to utterly annihilate the Russian presence in what it considers Ukrainian territory, held back only by Russia's semi-credible threat of nuclear escalation.

No, not moral ownership. De facto ownership. I never talked anything about morality. The fact is Russia took Crimea by force and is physically occupying it. The only way to get it back is by force. Until they Russia unquestionably owns Crimea. Saying “it’s not fair!” will not change the fact that Russia is currently owning Crimea.

> Saying “it’s not fair!”

What the hell?

I'm saying that Ukraine deserves Starlink access in Crimea. And you go off on tangents about irrelevant details. The only person who matters in this discussion is Elon Musk, who is refusing to enable Starlink access in Crimea.

But as I said in other posts: even if Mr. Musk enabled Starlink in Crimea, I don't know if the Ukrainian Commandos could trust it. We need to simply choose an entirely different satellite system to provide them... because Mr. Musk is seemingly compromised here. (And if Mr. Musk turns it off at a bad time, it could be even worse than his current inaction)

You don't need to "talk anything about morality" to make a statement about it. In fact you flatly dismissed any concept of ownership except the one in which I am the strongest and I own a thing because I took it by force and hold on to it by the same means, so that is your concept of a moral basis for ownership, whatever you want to call it.

If you would like to clarify your position, feel free to do so. But I'm afraid doing so may undermine the point you were trying to make.

> You can’t go back and retroactively show your disapproval over something almost 10 years later and say “hey that shouldn’t have happened!”.

Of course you can; it happens all the time. See the GOP's recent dismantling of Roe v. Wade as an unfortunate recent example.

Crimea's ownership is disputed within the international community and its ultimate disposition is far from settled.

You can’t go back and retroactively show your disapproval over something almost 10 years later and say “hey that shouldn’t have happened!”.

Actually you can and it happens all the time.

Crimea belongs to Russia.

Just as your car now belongs to me, every since I saw you left the keys in it and decided to take it out for a joy ride.

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