• CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Meanwhile SpaceX spends billions launching thousands of satellites into space and wreck the environment just so people can doomscroll their slop. When all we need are governments building some basic infrastructure like fiber internet for a fraction of the money.

    • hope@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      My prior city ran a survey on whether they should build out fiber to the homes around the city, since they were building their own fiber infrastructure anyway. Despite the city saying it would be cheaper and faster than the existing 0 or 1 options people had, my fellow residents cried communism and the city government scrapped the idea. Infuriating.

      • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        “ran a survey”, this was the only clue I needed to realize that they never planned to do it in the first place. Surveys are so easy to manipulate that if someone tells you they made a decision based on a survey, that you can immediately assume that what they are really saying is that they made a decision that they knew would be unpopular, obviously biased, or otherwise disastrous, but they wanted to blame the decision on “other people”.

      • Zorque@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Don’t worry, even if they welcomed it international telecom companies would sue to block it anyway.

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
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      17 days ago

      I agree fiber is better but starlink isn’t bad for the environment, it’s bad for astronomy though sadly.

      • frizop@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        starlink isn’t bad for the environment

        Umm, yes it is.

        https://www.science.org/content/article/burned-satellites-are-polluting-atmosphere

        In 2023, Murphy and colleagues reported the first direct evidence of how satellite re-entries are changing the composition of the stratosphere, based on data from a NASA WB-57 aircraft that flew from Alaska to altitudes of 19 kilometers. Using an onboard laser mass spectrometer, they found tiny droplets of sulfuric acid containing 20 different elements that likely came from satellites and rockets, as they were present in ratios that matched those of spacecraft alloys. The amounts of lithium, aluminum, copper, and lead all exceeded the estimated contributions from meteors.