Ontario premier ripping up contract with Starlink in response to tariffs | Hacker News Reader

Ontario premier ripping up contract with Starlink in response to tariffs

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31 pointspseudolus33 comments

The right thing to do. Ford, the PM of Ontario, is also barring contracts with US companies while the tariffs are in place.

This seems very escalatory. I do worry that retaliatory cycle could lead to some in the US saying that Canada's retaliations are a "casus belli" for war.

Regarding your last point, I feel like the modern direction of the world is smart people trying to protect dumb people from themselves.

It just makes me tired and if that chain of events leads to some stupid war (they all are, really) then so be it, we're outnumbered 10:1.

War with Canada would end up with nukes, French ones, blowing up in US.

> War with Canada would end up with nukes, French ones, blowing up in US.

The future is hard to predict but I will call this out. There is no reason why France risk itself to save Canada. Or the UK or Germany. No European power is going to nuke or threaten to nuke the US over a Canadian invasion.

It won't start with nukes, but as a member of NATO, France would have to have to respond in some way militarily.

> It won't start with nukes, but as a member of NATO, France would have to have to respond in some way militarily.

Why ? NATO is for defending against non-NATO enemies.

A decision will have to be made at that point. The whole purpose of NATO is to defend NATO members from aggressors, especially larger aggressors. They had the Soviets in mind when the alliance was formed, but if that larger aggressor ends up being America, and NATO fails to defend Canada, then the alliance is de facto done. There's no point.

At this time it's pretty clear Trump doesn't even want America to be a part of NATO, and wants to destroy the alliance. So the alliance can either fulfill its original duty by coming to Canada's aid, or it can completely disband much to Putin's joy. But the one thing it can't do is leave Canada out to dry and then continue existing as if it's a defense agreement with any teeth.

Afaik there's nothing specifying exceptions for countries within NATO.

> War with Canada would end up with nukes, French ones, blowing up in US.

I know a good joke when i see one. Maybe with another Charles, but Emanuel seems happy to dance as the White house sings.

Not Emanuel, Marine.

Yeah, this is delusional. I want to assume that you have seen maps and are aware of the size of France vs the U.S. This is kind of an absurd thought experiment but now apparently the French have a mightier military and a much more powerful nuclear arsenal than the U.S., perhaps you don't think the U.S. has nuclear weapons, maybe you even think the Earth is flat, I don't know. But, this is crazy-talk.

What if, even if so? The US is the country that was defeated in one day of fighting against Hezbollah, and that has invaded Canada... four times and lost? I forget.

I dare say that sane people at the Pentagon will stop war.

> The US is the country that was defeated in one day of fighting against Hezbollah, and that has invaded Canada... four times and lost? I forget.

With regards to Hezbollah, there wasn't really a strategic reason to actually fight Hezbollah.

The war of 1812 was actually between the UK and the US and their troop numbers were comparable. Very unlike the situation today and the UK is not likely to get involved at this point.

>The war of 1812 was actually between the UK and the US

Yeah, lots of people say this, but the folks who fought the war were the people who lived in Upper and Lower Canada. The Boston Tea Party is considered by many historians to be an important turning point in American history, and is viewed as an American protest against taxation without representation. In much the same way, Canadians tend to consider the war of 1812 one of the watershed moments leading to the formation of the Dominion of Canada (even though that didn't happen for another 55 years).

Without British North America fighting back against American expansionism (among other things) that lead to the war of 1812, Canada would not have existed as it did then, and the borders have stayed mostly consistent (modulo some small disputes around Alaska and coastal islands) since 1818.

Why do people on the left say such strange things that have no relation to reality? You think the U.S. military could not handle to "win" a war against Hezbollah or Canada? I see this all over in this thread and throughout HN as if the U.S. is has the weakest military in the world; it's so absurd, it's as if the left has actually gone mad. I would gather that most of HN probably thinks Luxemburg could easily dispense with the U.S. military. To the extent that the U.S. "loses" any war against an insurgency is precisely because it is not as evil as the left believes and is unwilling to do what is in its capability simply to "win". Regardless, the fact that the left takes the idea of the U.S. going to war with Canada because "Trump says things" seriously just shows how far removed from reality and unhinged they are about the current president.

I’m confused so when the president says something I’m supposed to not take it seriously? So when he said he would pardon all J6 defendants, and all his sycophants including his VP said - well of course not the violent ones - we should or should not take him at his word? Is there some sort of magic decoder ring I’m missing?

The US military did try against Hezbollah, and after about 300 casualties the US military decided that maybe the goal wasn't worth it.

I think the US military absolutely could win, unless winning requires casualties. All the US military needs to win is an enemy that cannot choose where/howto fight. If the enemy chooses a way where fighting involves casualties, the US military will retreat into its bases, send some long-range bombers, maybe make a photo of the president saying "mission accomplished" on an air base, and finally retreat.

> could lead to some in the US saying that Canada's retaliations are a "casus belli" for war

War ? Canada already has the capital city in Washington D.C. /s

Sucks to be the residents that now have no good solutions for high-speed Internet.

starlink latency sucks anyway

Starlink's latency for me is consistently under 25ms, with extremely low jitter. Better than what I can achieve with LTE or VDSL2.

My fiber latency is ~3ms

Which is cool I guess, if you live in one of the relatively small number of places in the world where that exists, in which case you wouldn't use Starlink anyway.

Many of Starlink's customers would otherwise be on VSAT, with 600ms+ RTT to geostationary birds.

just invest in local infrastructure instead of throwing money at a nazi

There it is, the real reason you’re dunking on Starlink, you don’t like Elon.

It's secondary, the fact is that starlink is objectively 8x worse than what is currently considered the default. And there's no sense dealing with nazis to get something 8x worse.

> currently considered the default

By whom?

So? 25ms hardly sucks

it's more than 8x slower? sure it would have been fine >10 years ago

It’s still perfectly fine.

25ms is fine for the vast majority of people except maybe hardcore gamers.

3ms at the speed of light is 500 miles. Much of what your accessing will be physically further than that anyway.

Reminds me of: 4mb of memory is more than you will ever need!!!

Also, ever heard of CDNs?

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