• @pastabatman@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Net neutrality is about not favoring (or disfavoring) one type of traffic over another. Turning off the internet entirely doesn’t fit that definition. If he had specifically blocked traffic from the Ukrainian drones, that would be a net neutrality violation. It’s still bad for other reasons though.

      • jard
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        2 years ago

        That’s fair, and the article doesn’t explain exactly how Elon was able to “cut off connectivity” to the drones, but regardless I think his own stance on how Starlink should be used can be reasonably interpreted as him favoring one form of traffic (‘Netflix and chill’, ‘online school’, ‘good peaceful things’) over another (‘war’, ‘drone strikes’).

        • I don’t know if this is the same, but it’s been previously acknowledged that they shut off service at the contested borders.

          So Russia says they own this region now, all starlink would be down there.

          Not sure if that’s still the case

      • @criitz@reddthat.com
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        82 years ago

        Hm, I don’t think I’d agree. He chose to block this specific traffic. Even if he did it by turning off the internet in the region.

        • @Hobo@lemmy.world
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          22 years ago

          As far as I know Ukraine doesn’t have any net neutrality regulations. Since net neutrality is per country then I think it’s sort of a moot point. I also think you’d have a hard time arguing that pulling the plug violates net neutrality. You’re effectively treating all traffic the same in that there is no more traffic. I do think it would be interesting to see how that would play out though.

          Aside from that Ukraine would have to go after Musk for it. Which seems like a really bad idea if you want to remain in favor with the increasingly unstable power broker that controls the infrastructure you need.

            • @Hobo@lemmy.world
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              12 years ago

              I for sure agree that it goes against the spirit of Net Neutrality. I also think it would be interesting to hear what a court would say. I don’t think you’re outright wrong or anything. I just think it’s sitting on the knifes edge. The fact that Ukraine doesn’t have net neutrality means we’ll never really know (At least I hope something like this doesn’t happen again in our lifetimes or ever!)

              And yeah, I certainly think the Ukrainian people have every right to want to see keel hauled for this, but I also don’t think they have the luxury of makinng enemies at the current juncture. Musk is a giant piece of shit for cutting Star Link during a critical operation. He’s a giant piece of shit for a lot of other reasons too, but this one kind of takes a giant piece of the shit cake…

              I just think Ukraine is in a very tough spot with him. Even more awkward given that he’s a single crackpot that has shown to be ready and willing to throw a monkey wrench in their operations because he felt like it.

  • @majormoron@lemmy.world
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    412 years ago

    Traitor to Democracy, at it’s worst. I see he wants to join Lex Luthor at Amazon. What’s the closest villian comparison for someone like Elmo?

  • PeleSpirit
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    1632 years ago

    So another traitor, we’re becoming too used to this.

  • @expected_crayon@lemmy.world
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    3402 years ago

    Yet he’s taking DoD money for Starlink in Ukraine. At what point do his antics turn from the craziness of a billionaire to espionage and being deemed a Russian asset?

    • @demlet@lemmy.world
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      1372 years ago

      Musk openly stated that he spoke directly with Putin after the Ukraine invasion had started. The super wealthy have no loyalties and will sell anyone and anything to the highest bidder. I’ve said it before, every penny after $1 billion needs to be taxed at 100%. Time to reign in the oligarchs.

      • @Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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        72 years ago

        Is that just liquid assets, or do you also want to tax them on stock they own in companies?

        • @demlet@lemmy.world
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          92 years ago

          Honestly I don’t know. It’s really more the sentiment that I’m expressing. I’m aware that the wealthy are very good at playing shell games. No measures would catch everything.

        • @medgremlin@lemmy.sdf.org
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          62 years ago

          You can definitely tax the hell out of dividends and sales. They are free to hold as many imaginary value tokens as they like, but the second they try to convert those tokens into actual currency, that should be heavily taxed. This goes for stock as well as cryptocurrency/NFTs.

              • @anon_water@lemmy.ml
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                12 years ago

                There are lots of ways to sell assets in specific scenarios to reduce tax burden or eliminate the tax rate to 0%. For example, a billionaire can take a loan and pay the interest only for years. Then in a year with losses on investments then can sell some assets to pay off the loan and pay no taxes.

                • @medgremlin@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  22 years ago

                  Except if the money they are using to pay the interest and the money received from the sale of those assets is taxed appropriately. Interest on business loans should not be deductible, nor should investment losses. The government is not responsible for their poor business decisions. Of course, there can be delineations for investment loss write-offs based on total gross income from all sources. A small business owner or an individual that holds an investment account with an AGI under $1million or so would reasonably still have access to such write-offs or deductions, but anything over that $1million per year is free game, losses or not.

        • @cvozbosher@lemmy.ml
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          152 years ago

          Comments like these are not only unhelpful, they hurt progress moving forward. Do you also apply this logic to domestic abusers (wouldn’t wife beaters just beat places you can’t see or use sexual assault? ), or speeders (won’t people just speed when no law enforcement are around?), or regular joe tax evaders? I’m going to assume not. It would be absurd to just thow up our hands and say “you know what? We’re never going to stop pedophilia, so lets put no laws or regulations in place to punish pedophiles.”

          I’m not going to claim that the original commenter’s solution is perfect or even very effective, but if we do nothing (and comments like yours are encouraging doing nothing) then the percieved problem will gwt worse. We reward the bad behavior and the bad behavior continues and gets worse. Something needs to be done whether it’s perfect or not. If you’ve ever created anything, especially something to be used or enjoyed by others, you know your first draft of it is shit. There are so many things that you couldn’t see until you put the work into it or release it to others and that’s okay. You learn, you revise, you plug the holes, you scrap and implement something new, you continue the process. The “rule of thumb” didn’t stop abuse, but it was a step. We still haven’t stopped abuse, but a lot of us keep plugging along, trying to stop it in our own ways (at individual, local, national, and international levels).

          If you do care about this and want to contribute, but don’t like the presented solution, offer up your own or maybe point to resources of those advancing a cause from a different angle. If you’re here to shit on ideas because you don’t care or are trolling and want to actively hinder discussion, you can fuck right off. If you are trolling I’m okay with the offchance the overall message is recieved by someone else who needs it.

          • @whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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            12 years ago

            I provide no solutions that haven’t already been tried and continue to be tried. Have you tried actions outside of lemmy like actually voting and promoting people who want to fix this? I love that a glib comment on lemmy has drawn a novel of a response when everything we say here means jack shit. I’m in the real world doing what I can to change it for the better.

        • @lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          22 years ago

          We really need to rethink how ownership itself works. All assets should be in a public registry, and no country’s laws should recognize any claim of ownership not backed by the registry. For the sake of privacy, I’d make an exception for up to like $1 million in personal assets owned by an individual, but never for business assets and never for ownership of a company or shares of a company.

          • @whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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            12 years ago

            Suggestions have tried and failed numerous times. An easy example is closing loopholes in taxes. Another is reforming estate taxes and capital gains taxes.

            The problem is we have solutions already they’re not being done. Get off lemmy. Find representatives that fit your worldview and vote vote vote.

            The alternative which I feel is more likely is continue the slide to fascism everywhere until it reaches a head then on comes the bloodshed.

            We really need to do better teaching history in school because Jesus Christ online forums are full of people trying to reinvent the wheel and detached from the real world.

        • @stembolts@programming.dev
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          2 years ago

          Do not let perfect get in the way of good.

          Your reasoning here is irrational, and frequently repeated by many.

          “They will find another way, why even try! Gosh!”

          Okay, then we’ll block that way, and the next, and the next, and the next.

          This is iterative development and is how the whole world works. I cannot grasp why so many people have this defeatist attitude toward resolving problems.

          • @Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            32 years ago

            Because people are lazy and want a singular solution every time and if they don’t get it most quit.

            Laziness is honestly our largest inspirational force and it should be celebrated to let us do more interesting and fulfilling work but instead instant gratification has ruined us and made people lazy and shitty.

          • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            92 years ago

            Yeah any system that involves humans will require maintenance and adjustments by humans. Because humans always find a way to fuck things up. There’s this weird compulsion to demand a system that can’t be fucked up by humans. But it’s not possible. Also it’s not necessary… if a system involves humans it means there’s humans around to do the necessary maintenance and adjustments to that system.

      • @FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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        32 years ago

        Wealth taxes are fantastic in theory, but in practice have never worked. They’re too hard to implement. I agree with the spirit of what you’re saying, but I just don’t think a wealth tax is the answer.

        • @demlet@lemmy.world
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          72 years ago

          I mean, the truth is that we’ve never found a way to prevent some people from hoarding huge amounts of wealth. Probably not a great sign for the future of our species.

          • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            52 years ago

            There’s more good people than bad people. The only way the bad people win is by convincing the good people to give up.

            Yes shitty people will always be fucking up things for everyone else. But that doesn’t mean working to stop that is pointless. It’s more the opposite, it means we have to be continually working to stop the assholes from fucking things up for everyone.

          • @FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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            42 years ago

            It’s a seriously hard problem. The IRS already can’t keep up. In order to implement a wealth tax they would not only have to do what they do now, but also assess the value of every estate of every wealthy person. They would need experts in all sorts of things to even attempt to pull that off. Experts in fashion, jewelry, cars, planes, boats, art, etc… as soon as you let even one of those things slip through, that’s what becomes the new wealth sync. Previously it’s been attempted by they excluded art because that’s notoriously hard to assess the value of. So the wealthy bought and traded a bunch of art to hide their wealth.

            I got down voted for my previous comment, but it’s the truth. The concept is simple and if it worked I would be all on board. It’s the process for implementing it that is the hard part and has historically always caused a wealth tax to fail. It’s not a new concept, but there is a reason it isn’t used. I’m not saying we should do nothing, but that we should do something different. We could start with adding back some income tax brackets.

        • @agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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          22 years ago

          Maybe but we were doing better at it before Reagan came along.

          But it isn’t a silver bullet. If we want to deal with the root of today’s problems we need to focus on a number of solutions around anti-trust, pro-labor, wealth tax, lobbying, campaign finance, etc.

    • @thann@lemmy.world
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      912 years ago

      Imagine if Lockheed martin “shut off” a jet because it was “getting too close to China”

      What would be the response by the DOJ?

      I would think the military would call that an act of treason and imprison or disappear any executives they thought were involved

      • theodewere
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        172 years ago

        no he’s in some SERIOUS shit for this, and it was just a given he was gonna stick his little dick in there

    • Capt. Wolf
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      312 years ago

      I’ve said in the past that something was clearly wrong when he bought Twitter. His behavior was far too targeted. It’s all way too obvious.

      • Joker
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        92 years ago

        He’s my fun little conspiracy theory. If I could send the CIA to do my bidding, I would have punished him by manipulating him into buying twitter. You can’t nationalize SpaceX because it would signal the failure of privatized space exploration, but you can’t have that idiot out there as a walking national security disaster looking for a place to happen. The only option if he can’t be controlled is to get him out of the way until he retires or another private competitor can become the favorite. Twitter cost him a ton of money and his reputation, exposed him as a fool, and keeps him busy with unimportant bullshit. Everyone just shrugs it off as Elon being Elon. It’s really perfect.

    • DarkenLM
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      762 years ago

      It would be hilarious for the US and/or the EU freeze his assets and punch his market influence to the ground if they accuse him of espionage.

      • @Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Nationalizing the satellites that we paid for as a national security asset sure seems reasonable here, seeing as he likely broke a contract when he disabled them.

        Imagine if Lockheed disabled an allied F16’s targeting computer during a mission; there would be hell to pay.

      • theodewere
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        152 years ago

        it’s more like a violation of War Powers Act or something, but yeah… he’s probably fucked…

    • Buelldozer
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      102 years ago

      Yet he’s taking DoD money for Starlink in Ukraine.

      He is now but at the time this supposedly happened he wasn’t.

  • Heresy_generator
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    “How am I in this war?” Musk asks Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

    Musk, transparent as ever, makes sure to tell his biographer that it’s about peace, man, and has nothing to do with his love of authoritarian regimes.

    • @dirthawker0@lemmy.world
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      252 years ago

      Didn’t his company supply a bunch of Starlinks because of the war? Was he expecting Ukranians needed to watch more Netflix and do more school stuff while getting bombed out by the Ruzzians? What a crock

      • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        42 years ago

        Yeah, that was when he expected Russia to win easily. Probably figured he’d get a little bit of good PR, then Russia wins and then he could say “I tried to help, but I guess it just didn’t work out for Ukraine.” Just didn’t go the way he expected I guess.

        That and I don’t think he was quite so far down the fascist rabbit hole back then.

    • @Uniquitous@lemmy.one
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      162 years ago

      Maybe if he had any actual knowledge instead of just buying shit and slapping his name on it, he would know that the Internet was originally DARPAnet and was designed for expressly military purposes prior to being co-opted by capitalists.

    • @reverendsteveii@beehaw.org
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      192 years ago

      Once the killers have done all the killing they want, peace becomes paramount. Once they’ve stolen everything they can steal, then theft becomes a crime. A man with a gun kicks in your door, starts eating the food from your fridge and fucks your wife. He’s doing good peaceful things and if you resist you’re a warmonger.

      • Turun
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        2 years ago

        Only metadata, but that is enough. Who sends how much data from where to where.

          • @Fraeco@lemm.ee
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            22 years ago

            It’s not that easy as just checking a box that says “enable decryption”. Not saying they can’t decrypt traffic, but it’s not trivial if you don’t have the private keys.

        • @bouh@lemmy.world
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          22 years ago

          You don’t need to know what the message is about when you know where it comes from and where it’s going. A lot of security breaches come from that king of knowledge.

  • @Heisme@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    The spin at the end is just fluffy bullshit. Starlink, from the get go, has had bandwidth reserved for military operations albeit US military operation but military operations nonetheless. The real question here is how and why did he know that operation was happening and what other operations has he known about/thwarted/or knowingly or unknowingly passed along information about.

    • @jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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      432 years ago

      Maybe the same FSB agents that were driving his paranoia. Assuming they knew about the attack, they could get a bigger win by stopping it and removing Starlink from the equation at the same time, than by stopping the attack with military means.

      • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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        212 years ago

        Definitely. He used terms such as “Lenin’s mistake” when talking about Ukraine which is rather specific to Russian nationalist ideology. You don’t stumble across such a thing by accident.

    • @CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 years ago

      “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” Musk posted on X, the platform formally known as Twitter that he owns. Sevastopol is a port city in Crimea. “The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

  • @Wollang@sh.itjust.works
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    552 years ago

    Took longer than I thought it would for Musk to do this. Been waiting for it since he threw his little fit about starlink in Ukraine was costing him money.

    Then he said he’s talked to Putin directly.

    Seriously someone reign this dude in, somehow, before he really fucks shit up.

    • @Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      42 years ago

      So the article says this is from a year ago so I’m thinking this may have actually been from around that time and the complaints about money was a smoke screen to cover him being a little traitor and we just haven’t heard about it because this is coming from a book with someone once again waiting to blow the very important whistles until they can make money off of it.