• ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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    4 months ago

    But none of this gets to the most jaw-dropping part of this. Musk and Thiel propose making this network of hundreds of surveillance and attack satellites into a subscription service that the Musk/Thiel/Luckey consortium would own and the Pentagon would subscribe to. Not only is this crazy and absurd but it goes without saying that in no normal time would anyone at the Pentagon be okay with the US not owning the hardware at the center of national defense. We’ve seen how this goes with Starlink, where Musk routinely threatens to turn the system on or off based on his whims and opens up separate lines of communications and perhaps deals with adversary leaders like Vladimir Putin.

    Of course Musk and Thiel and Palmer freaking Luckey would use this opportunity to not only get apparent no-bid contracts to build this unworkable mess, they’d get permanent parasitic access to government funds just to keep it going.

    No part of this makes any strategic sense.

    • Carmakazi
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      4 months ago

      Forget the grift. Letting degenerate corpos have full ownership and control of a global network of attack satellites sounds like a fast track to the Cyberpunk timeline. Why would they not turn it on their masters when they have outright stated they think they should rule the world?

    • Hegar@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      Once these fascists are in jail, it will be important to nationalize spacex, starlink, and this bullshit if it ever happens.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        4 months ago

        Once these fascists are in jail

        We’re in the dogshit timeline, we don’t get to have nice things like justice. :/

    • witnessbolt@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Makes no strategic sense for the government and for America!

      Makes perfect sense if you’re billionaires who want to cripple the government and make sure it can never actually stand against you ever again. 🤕

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeBanned from community
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      4 months ago

      he already has turned off starlink at the behest of putin once, he would do it every single time putin demands, like during ELECTIONS, WHICH some of the voter machine uses apparently.

    • RememberTheApollo_
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      4 months ago

      Subscription military service. Some really dystopian stuff I’ve only heard of when imagined in some pretty cynical sci-fi books.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer
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      4 months ago

      It’s already clearly established that profits come first. This would be a US Defense System… until someone pays more for it not to be.

    • bean
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      4 months ago

      How do YOU like subscription fees US Government? Shitty isn’t it? Then they raise prices on you later and further enshittify. Go ahead, come back in a decade when I told you so. I’ll wait. Or you can just strap Musk to the outside of one of those rockets and launch it. I prefer that much more.

    • weegee90
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      4 months ago

      Hey now. Some of us may get sick or die, but at least we’ll have an overpriced yet somehow super cheaply made satellite security system operated by a ketamine addict.

      Wait…

      • j0ester
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        4 months ago

        MAGA supporter: I see nothing wrong here.

  • adarza@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    the dude that can’t even keep four wheels on a fucking truck is gonna do wut?!?!

    • takeda@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      He is gonna leech tax money for a product that he will never deliver.

      • Ensign_CrabBanned from community
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        4 months ago

        Or a product that he will have built using tax money, and that he will instead use to hold the world ransom.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      Don’t worry, he’s also got the help of *checks notes… Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey!

      Don’t people feel good for supporting the original Oculus Rift now? I’m so glad the godfather of modern VR is an absolute pile of shit and always was!

  • Tetragrade@leminal.space
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    4 months ago

    Wannabe feudal lords come for military power, as they always have.

    Omg its just like Moonraker

  • KMAMURI
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    4 months ago

    So the pentagon is gonna bend over for the sunshine train too? You guys are really fucked if that happens and so are all of us.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    4 months ago

    One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”

    Following in the hallowed (retch) footsteps of Dick Cheney and Halliburton’s no-bid contracts to “rebuild” Iraq.

  • Rhoeri
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    4 months ago

    You mean to pay him to have someone else use it, right?

    Because he’s got the cerebral capacity of a cloud of fart particles, and half the personality.