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Tech Thread

Like with all things Elon, there's a catch. Or multiple catches. On the surface Starlink sounds great, but in classic Elon fashion he makes all of the externalities, well, fucking externalities

- By the time the network is fully fleshed out, it will require 8400 replacement satelites per year to keep up with the 8400 that will fall out of the sky annually. This isn't a set it and forget it thing. Every starlink satelite in orbit only lasts 4-5 years. There is already a small but growing problem with decaying satelites re entering the atmosphere leeching aluminum oxides into said atmosphere, which is a risk to the health of the ozone layer. Which is something I'm pretty sure I remember hearing about in the 80's.

- Not all of the satelite burns up either. The FAA is projecting 28,000 pieces of debris to strike the earth annually with an average death count of 1 person per year struck by falling debris.

All in all, Starlink is the greatest Kessler Syndrome risk in human history and as usual, Elon will collect all of the wealth and the rest of us will pick up the tab for the costs.
 
Oh, I agree. Musk's wanting to put 1 million satellites in space is nuts. Damn thing works, though. But as usual, he cares about nothing but himself.
 
It's a pretty simple hype cycle at it's core. CEO's and corporate "thought leaders" got caught up in the hype of LLM AI. Largely because as soon as one company in your industry starts using it and evangelising about how revolutionary it's going to be for their business (causing a subsequent bump in stock price), the investors in every company in your industry start insisting on it's implementation in yours. The cost is secondary because just announcing it's implementation has caused a significant bump in your stock price, so no one cares if you're losing money on it because something something revolutionary. This can go on for a while, with companies losing money while trying to jam AI into all sorts of processes that don't need it to justify the spend. But as soon as there is a significant bump in the road (either internal, or external that impacts outlook) the former evangelists are either replaced or repent to save their jobs. We're just now starting to see some of these significant bumps in the road and companies react to them.
 
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