Reason, absolutely yes, but capability, no.
Arianespace has been for decades an extension of the French government, which needed at max several launches per year and didn't give a damn about its market share. As a result, it is seriously behind in reusable rocket development. The space port in Kourou may be the most underused space port in the world, even though its location is unbeatable.
I am not sure if this gap can be closed. Maybe some of the smaller startups like Isar Aerospace can do it, but the giants are ossified Molochs. Not that Boeing is any better, ever since absorbing MacDonnell Douglas and its pathological management structure.
Nonwithstanding the incompetence, maintaining the French Guyana so far away from France costs much than maintaining Cape Canaveral in the homeland. I wonder whether salaries aren't be cheaper on our aircraft carrier than in this remote land, where everything needs to be subsidized to maintain legitimacy for the rocket launchpad.
If capability is intellecutal capability, then no. If you mean systematic capability, then yes, exactly. There are enough smart europeans to build anything. But it is rather - a lack of risk taking (i.e., culture), - a lack of incentivizes (i.e., if you take a risk, and it plays out, you benefit rather than everyone complaining how you can be rich at the expense of others), - a lack of funding risky ventures, - a lack of allowing risky ventures (i.e., politics don't allow you to do stuff because any kind of rare bat might live in close proximity). These rules make it way tougher than necessary, take longer, more compley, costly you name it...
That is the reason why europe is falling behind. System. Not people.
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-europe-doesnt-have-a-te...
Reminds me of this article. Everyone knows that Europeans could compete, and the world stage would welcome it, but they have put themselves into a bind where taking back any social service or loosening regulation and allowing markets to operate would take their air of superiority over stupid Americans and they would rather kill off any chance at becoming world technology players than that. Also it is just political and cultural suicide, ask Paris right now.
So if they don't let corporations trample all over people then their society will obviously collapse?
It's genuinely disturbing to see how many here apparently favour GDP over human development indices and quality of life metrics.
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Who expressed favoritism? This is just a description of life as it is. I suspect that most people will favor whatever society they were raised in, and many who don't will move. Silicon valley is full of immigrants, who apparently hate life?
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The above said that the markets in Europe don't operate. A sibling post refers to Europe as the laughing stock of the world. Multiple people are saying it would be impossible for Europe to build alternatives to foreign services because they have consumer protections.
Europe is full of immigrants too, are they all rushing to live in a stagnant society on the verge of collapse, knowing their families abroad are just laughing in astonishment at their decisions?
I'm not sure it comes down to where you were raised. I was in a car with a Texan and a Californian at the weekend, driving up to Amsterdam, and they were laughing all the way about how safe the roads were, how friendly the police were and how considerate the other drivers were. Like, "they actually tell you where the speed traps are!? The cops aren't out to get me!?"
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Well, on this website you are being exposed to people who didn't choose to be in Amsterdam.
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Indeed, hence my comments above.
It’s also disappointing how people make the assertion that the two are adversarial to each other with no proof at all. Says who?
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Not me anyway, but many people in this thread have asserted that Europe will never be able to compete because of things like consumer protection regulations. I'd encourage you to take it up with them.
If USA growth was 1% lower per year over the past 50 years, we'd be as poor as Tunisia.
GDP growth is very very important.
Stopping the stiffling of innovation does not mean trampling over people. Europe has outsourced defense to the US, and in return theyve gotten nothing but a slowly crumbling relevance in the world stage. As a person that believes in Europe and is incredibly thankful for the historic contribution to the western intellectual canon, it saddens me.
No, this article gets its core premise wrong: labor laws are not the main issue. The issue is that if I wanted to found a new company, I'd be confronted with lots very strict regulations with lots of implications and induced overhead. The list is too long for a HN comment.
It's not impossible to overcome, but it is an added commitment for any new company. Founding is not very attractive and that's why we don't get that many crazy wild bets here (Tesla was one initially too).
Are labor laws not a regulation?
I will accept your argument that there are additional onerous regulations on top of that. But that seems like the same "core premise".
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No, labor laws are fine exactly as they are. Not importing US style at will hire and fire culture is an asset. That's all budgetable and relatively minor. If you are seeing a need to downsize your company early on, the fundamental mistakes already happened way earlier by choosing a path that was unsustainable. Such a company doesn't usually have a future.
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If European style labor practices were advantageous in a competitive market then there wouldn't need to be regulations.
>The issue is that if I wanted to found a new company, I'd be confronted with lots very strict regulations with lots of implications and induced overhead
Yes, like for example you have to actually pay your employees for the time they work, and give them a certain amount of paid annual leave
This is something anathemic to USian companies, who see skilled workers as essentially disposable single-use devices.
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Is what I wrote confusing? I have nothing against labor laws in the EU. It's that there are a lot of other well meaning regulations that bog down young businesses. They are mostly justified, but they are also pretty daunting chores for founders.
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Can you give specifics there? Which laws "bog down" businesses?
Yes regulatory burden is my best bet as to why Europe has produced almost nothing of worth aside copying uber and doordash. Skype was cool for a moment there.
>Relative to income, it costs large companies four times more to lay off Germans and French than American workers
Yep, so saying Europe can build software is pretty much like Western factories trying to compete with slave or child labor in some developing part of the world.
I mean most Americans probably don't want to open their own sweatshop garment factories. But it does mean that if we start ww3 that shirts may be harder to come by. I think it's probably a good thing that the entire world is too interdependent to want to start shooting at each other? (G10 at least)
Cost of layoff is wrong measure of competitiveness, to start with.
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Production of innovative technology pushing the frontier of whats possible is the measure. Cost of laying off is one possible non exhaustive diagnosis as to why it might not exist in Europe.
As a software developer in an at will arrangement, i dont quite see the comparison with sweatshops. Look, the US isnt perfect by any means, and Europe has the brainpower. Were waiting for a European Tesla, that should have been your domain. Yet here we are, Skype and Angry Birds being the last big hits. Maybe Lovable is a current exception. Your Nordic countries really doing heavy lifting.
I would call this theory "No tech leadership without enshitification."
Or maybe, just hear me out, that's an American delusion, promoted to justify the oligarchy here.
Well we don't really have a counterexample yet
Let's just assume your claim is true, and it is impossible to build software in Europe.
European companies can still build software in different countries. Nothing stops them from building their software in an US subsidiary they fully control. A lot of good software developers are currently looking for a job.
Nobody is going to build any software in US when nearshore is 2-3 times cheaper. American engineers are overpriced and not competitive on the global market.
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If you want dirt cheap contractors who largely accomplish nothing, the US is indeed the wrong place.
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You are of too high opinion about Americans thinking that there’s no comparable talent elsewhere.
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Didn’t say that
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Nobody wants “dirt cheap contractors who accomplish nothing” literally. That’s the figure of speech that has only one meaning in the context of conversation: that you supposedly think that outside of USA, people have lower qualifications. If you intended to say something different, feel free to elaborate.
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That’s not how logic works
>Nobody wants “dirt cheap contractors who accomplish nothing” literally
Yes they do. This is why cognizant, Accenture, wipro, etc. exist
My claim is never about lack of brainpower in the EU. Clearly theres talent. Its a bit cultural, yes, but mostly its part of a framework that does not reward innovation. For a place with the best car manufacturing in the world and such a drive towards renewables, youd think Tesla should have come from EU. Or even should be replicated there. Why wont it?
The only problem of course it is that it costs a lot of money to do so.
Money they probably don't have.
Are you saying EU with its 450M people is lacking "money" and needs 350M US to do it for us? Because somehow "money" is what makes stuff to happen. Not labor.
>Because somehow "money" is what makes stuff to happen. Not labor.
With us 1.5B Indians, we can concur money is a big factor if not the biggest.
I mean I hear people clamoring for a paycheck without work. I've never heard someone ask to work without a paycheck. So yes money seems like an important ingredient.
Europes slice of global GDP has gone from ~30% (1980's) to ~17% (2020's), America's has remained at ~25%, and China has been on the rise, tbd if they can pass the US
Population wise, 7%, 5%, and 16%
Another statistic, the EU accounts for almost 50% of global social spending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMjDmYqykNI (Stephen Kotkin - World on Fire?) (There are more than 100 armed conflicts going on right now, the most since the 1940s)
instead of 'money', the more precise term would be 'risk capital'. And yes, Europe has a stark shortage of that, which is why Euro startups raise in the US and when they go public, they go public on the US exchange.
SpaceX and Tesla are together worth more than all companies on the entire German stock market put together.
Lotta "Europe could never build this!" points in here, missing that Telesat (Canadian) is already building this, planning to launch in Q1 2028, and will happily sell to Europe.
Replacing dependency on one foreign power with another foreign power is better how?
When it's not likely that Canada is going to betray you, I would argue it's better than depending on the US.
For one, Canada's been getting much closer to the EU recently: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwyzrr9d3dko
And Canada is a lot more stable than the US lately.
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What makes you think they aren’t one election away from a US style shit show too?
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I'm Canadian and I follow our politics.
USA was also close to the EU until it wasn't. Outsourcing critical parts of national security infrastructure to any country is idiotic, friendly or not.
Buying German submarines as one example, joint with Norway to defend the Arctic.
Canada is becoming a lot less foreign to Europe than US on the current trajectory.
Wasn't there news of Canada kinda, sorta but not really getting into being part of the EU recently? To begin with, the EU is just a bunch of independent countries getting cozy with each other.
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There are discussions of "associate membership" but since this is not a thing that exists yet speculation on the matter has ranged from "this is just an economic partnership" to "we are going to become de-facto EU members".
We'll see the details when this becomes a bit more concrete but I imagine it's mostly going to be an economic partnership via trade agreements, maybe aligning some regulations to facilitate trade, etc.
It's certainly wise to diversify as much as possible, a healthy mix of sovereign home-made tech plus US and Chinese tech and from all other countries where it seems fit. The problem right now is the extreme dependence on US tech, such a dependence is always a bad idea no matter what country the tech comes from.
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I think the other thing that is not being discussed is jointly developed tech, and jointly controlled systems - if its not controlled by any one party the dependency problem does not exist.
I just replaced a dependency that that fucked all its users with an open source alternative that can not do that in the future. Sometimes what you're replacing it with does make a difference.
If the goal is to replace US technology, replacing it with Canadian technology does, in fact, accomplish that goal.
The US is becoming to Canada what North Korea is to South Korea.
Yes, hyperbole, but funny/sad.
Also, have you heard Mark Carney speak, and contrasted it with how Trump speaks. It's like The Freeze versus randomly chosen baseball fan (https://youtu.be/WxXypNqiS5A).
Canada is not a huge world power, so it realizes it needs friends. European countries are all in the same boat.
I wouldn't trust any country where the citizens somehow think they are bigger, better and stronger than anyone else.
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Well, bigger they are. Horizontally at least.
ICEYE from Finland is valued at 12 billion USD
Lotta "Europe is already working on it!" points in here, missing the fact that it's been in the work for a long time, and maybe let's wait until it's actually deployed to count the cows. Over the past decades a lot of things have been "in the work" in Europe and never really went anywhere. It's very easy to "put things in the work".
The ending of the original article" was:
"Going forward a U.S. founder selling into European defense or government now needs an answer to “who holds the switch” before the first meeting; and European founders just got sovereignty as a sellable feature.
What was done in a fit of pique will cost the U.S. both leadership and jobs."
Do you agree or disagree with that?
Telesat launches are still on SpaceX Falcon 9s. So the non American alternative still depends on American launch capacity to get there.
Don't forget that US can always strong arm Canada and make it bend to its will. We are too dependent on them. It's nearly impossible to disassociate with United States due to our proximity.
The timeline has changed before, like the ASIC issues pushed full service into 2028. Also scale and capability obviously differ, but it could be a good starting point.
Regardless, I think Europe is better served focusing on its own tech like IRIS and Eutelsat.
There is a Canadian company developing launch capability[1].
There was some awareness that relying on American launch capability was a problem after the Radarsat-2 kerfuffle. The Americans deemed that satellite a threat to U.S. national security, so it had to be launched by Russia. Now Russia's off the table too.
If Nordspace pans out, Canada will finally have domestic launch capability and won't have to worry about a foreign country refusing to launch satellites.
______________
[1]https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/nordspace-signs-20-m...
Telesat is a different product than StarLink. My understanding is that Telestat is for telecom operators and large network providers which cannot run fibre cables to their cell towers.
I think Galileo is an example of how the EU with ESA can create an alternative to a critical US capability. At the same time it is also an example how difficult it is, on a financial, political and commercial level.
The US wasn’t happy with it and tried to put pressure not to proceed. In hindsight , It’s good that it did got into orbit.
ESA tends to favour French, Italian and German big state owned corporations rather than small start ups. So it will always be a political thing and slow.
There just isn’t a company in the EU that can operate like Elon Musk. Even if there was imagine a European company ceo holding that power. How would they use it, can they be coerced by EU countries? Should such a capability be in private hands at all?
Why would you rely on another nation for defense infrastructure? It makes zero sense for Europe to rely on starshield in the first place.
Most countries are roughly the size of a US state. How many US states could be entirely self-sufficient on defense infrastructure?
All the ones that were doing so, before they started relying on the America. Believe it or not, the world still span before the USA.
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I think you misread the question I asked.
Nonetheless, even today, the vast majority of countries are not self-sufficient on defense infrastructure, and this has been true for most of the modern era. The most obvious deficiency is in naval terms: the number of countries who have enough of a navy that they can do something about "my shipping is being attacked by pirates" without help from other people is plausibly at most five (US, UK, France, Russia, China), and I have my doubts about half of those.
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I think it's more than that, the UK for instance, but I agree it's shocking how few. What I meant though, was that they were militarily independent before, and could be again.
All of them as long as they didn't keep spending money on bombing poor people.
Europe itself a collection of nations. The US was traditionally an ally and for the better part of a century we've been comfortably building out a host of projects together, from military to science to cultural goods. That the US has apparently stepped away from working cooperatively is genuinely surprising and disappointing, but we shouldn't let it normalise the idea that we can only ever trust others of our own nation. Especially in Europe where you obviously have countries like Belgium that aren't nation states to begin with.
Belgium absolutely is a nation state. They're as sovereign as the United States is. In some ways more sovereign.
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If we're being pedantic, the US is not a nation-state (because the US doesn't really have a coherent "nation"), and I suspect for similar reasons you could claim that Belgium is not a coherent nation either, given the Flemish/Walloon divisions in the state.
That said, a lot of people use nation state as a synonym for sovereign state, and Belgium is as much a sovereign state as the US is.
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Belgium actually obeys their constitution, they're capable of reigning in excesses. Yes, the four (not two) language areas (Vlaanderen, Wallonia, the German area and the twin language area of Bruxelles) of the country are a massive complication, but I actually really like how they manage to get along in spite of it.
There are many other countries in Europe (and outside of it) that are multi-lingual and for the most part having a single language is not a core requirement for being a nation state.
Belgium is a state, and not a nation. "Nation state" has a specific meaning, separate from "state". Belgium has two major cultural groups (Walloon and Flemish) who tend to be at odds with each other, hence is not a nation. Contrast Kurdistan, which is a nation but not a state.
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If you want to get really pedantic then Belgium is a 'multinational state'.
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This isn't about pedantry, it's about not using a phrase incorrectly and through doing so giving misinformation. Pedantry might be pointing out that "foot pedal" is redundant - all pedals are foot-operated by definition. That wouldn't matter because the meaning is unaltered by the redundancy. However saying that Belgium (or the USA) is a nation state is simply incorrect.
I never questioned Belgium's sovereignty.
>Especially in Europe where you obviously have countries like Belgium that aren't nation states to begin with.
Belgium has been independent for almost 200 years, and is one of the founding members of the the UN. In what possible way is it not a nation state?
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Belgium has no clear majority nation. It's a multinational state.
Because until a certain orangutang broke it, the new world order was doing rather nicely.
Powerful people got together and decided the world would be a nice place if everyone worked together. Their solution for ensuring that happened whilst taking human behaviours into account was global capitalism.
Despite its downsides (some of which we're only starting to see the consequences of) you have to admit that it was doing its job. Countries were cooperating because it was in their best interest. It was always a delicate thing though, and the orangutang broke the trust it relied on.
It might seem naive now, but "bro, of _course_ you can rely on us for service X, why are you even asking?" was an believable response before the orange.
Not just infrastructure. Europe has depended on the US for its entire defense apparatus for decades. Everyone loves to scoff at the billions America throws away on fighter jets until Putin rolls out of bed and invades your nextdoor neighbor.
Europe has been forced to depend on the US. The UK particularly had a world-leading civil and military aviation industry until the US "suggested" this was unwelcome.
The UK signed an agreement with the US to supply research for the Manhattan Project, in the naive belief the results would be shared.
The US said "Nuh uh - that's classified" and the UK had to develop its own program from scratch.
Then the US lobbied to have that thrown away so the UK would be locked into Polaris and then Trident.
And so on. NATO has very much been a showroom for US arms sales, and competition has been discouraged - not always effectively, but the implied pressure has always been there.
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>Germany reached the NATO baseline target of 2% of GDP in 2024 for the first time since 1991.
>Europe has been forced to depend on the US.
It's been more carrots than the (non-zero) sticks.
I think it's under selling Europe's agency to characterise the relationship as 'forced'.
And now that the US is increasingly seen as unreliable, Europe is (slowly?) decoupling - which is what you'd expect as a mutually beneficial relationship sours.
Only if you ignore the last 100 years of geopolitics. But, fair point.
One infinitely sad purported reason was that Starshield has "unparalleled end-to-end user data encryption".......
Because, yes, you get E2EE by having the operator do the encryption :facepalm:
It might have given a reason, but it’s not like that will actually create anything in Europe.
The only thing they can do these days is imposing new regulations of bottle caps. They turned themselves into the laughing stock of the all world: willingly.
>It might have given a reason, but it’s not like that will actually create anything in Europe.
Oh we absolutely are building replacement stuff for a lot of American things. IRIS2 for example is our Starlink alternative. OVH, Hetzner and a bunch of other smaller players can provide hosting. Mistral is our AI model. Cars, trucks and farm equipment can be/are made in Europe. We have our own nuclear weapons, warplanes, navy, tanks, satellite based surveillance, and sooner rather than later (via Ukraine) viable replacements even for missile defense. That is the last thing we truly are depending on the US, but eh, after Trump wasted the entire US stockpile on the Iran clustercuck they again left us no choice, and the Ukrainians are busy by necessity developing something useful.
A lot of the major players in software are Europe-based too. SuSE, GnuPG, KDE, LibreOffice and I think also Samba are German. VLC is French. MariaDB is at least partially based in Finland. Spotify is Swedish.
The only thing we do lack is a fully integrated hardware and software manufacturer similar to Apple, but I think we could set up something based off of the open source parts of Framework and Raspberry Pi should the need arise.
>The only thing they can do these days is imposing new regulations of bottle caps.
Have you walked alongside the Isar river at least once in your life? I personally am happy to no longer see plastic bottle caps littered around, and the magnetic ones can be picked up easy enough with a magnet. I don't see the problem.
>They turned themselves into the laughing stock of the all world: willingly.
The laughing stock of the world is the US President who regularly shits himself in his diapers.
Sure looks a lot better than the US or China or really where else though, doesn't it?
It only looks better than the USA to delusional individuals.
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That crazy delusional United Nations with their wacky metrics eh?
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index
https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2025_HDR/HDR25_Stat...
In a normal world, this would be treason by an illegal immigrant to the US. In today's world it's a blip in news. Sad state of affairs :(
Europe will absolutely build alternatives. They'll bicker for some time, but in the end, they build. To Americans it looks like they don't but they do. Quality of life, life expectancy, and many factors have outpaced US in the last few years. The tech industry in the US is still important, but the importance will start waning soon.
We’re also fighting a war for another country and the president’s son in law is brokering deals with foreign nations for personal gain. I don’t think treason is being prosecuted anymore.
It is for you and I, not for those in power.
>Strictly speaking, according to the Constitution, we aren’t officially at war because only Congress has the power to declare war. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/i...
He's following Putin I think, it's a special military thingy.
>In a normal world, this would be treason by an illegal immigrant to the US.
Not a lawyer, but wouldn't an illegal immigrant owe no allegiance to breach and therefore couldn't commit treason?
Not after naturalization
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If they were illegal immigrants, isn't naturalization void?
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I will laugh a great deal if the Democrats regain power, apply this logic to Musk, and successfully remove his American citizenship.
Same for Melania, but doing it to Musk would be much funnier.
In a just world, Musk would get the Ilhan Omar treatment - and he actually broke US immigration law, a breach for which thousands of people are being deported by the current administration.
Not necessarily. Under current US federal law, naturalization can be revoked for a variety of reasons. But entering the country illegally or over staying a visa don't automatically void naturalization.
Naturalized immigrants are legal by definition
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Citizenship can be lost via revocation of naturalization, with the main reason being that it was obtained illegally or fraudulently. If you break immigration law and the government is not aware of this during naturalization, then they can definitely take it back.
Tell that to ICE.
I'm pro Ukraine but treason has a specific definition in the us Constitution, so until Congress declares Russia an "enemy" and not just an "adversary" it's not treason. Would be very strange to have ISS missions and rideshare agreements with an "enemy".
I guess they're not trying too hard to find proof that Russia is supplying Iran with intelligence and Shahed drones.
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>I guess they're not trying too hard to find proof that Russia is supplying Iran with intelligence and Shahed drones.
You mean Iran supplying Russia with drones.
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Lately the drones have been flowing the other direction, from Russian factories to Iran.
Iran has also supplied ballistic missiles to Russia. Ukraine attacked a Caspian ship of Iran's that was allegedly carrying arms over the summer.
Assistance has been mutual, though lately the flow has been more from Russia to Iran. Drone improvements, targeting intelligence and missile tactics to avoid Patriot interception.
OK but that's not an act of war any more than supplying Ukraine with intelligence and drones is an act of war against Russia. Words mean things, especially and most of all in legal settings.
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It pains me to say this but one of the best possible strategies for the US from a realpolitik standpoint is to pretend to be friends with Russia (to avoid nuclear war), and quietly hand over intel and resources to Ukraine, and maximize meaningless digs at Ukraine, and periodically "claw back" support possibly substituting other forms of support in some cases. If this were happening, this would would on its face be indistinguishable from what we see now. I also don't think Trump is that smart, so to whatever degree that is happening, I think it's by accident
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You almost had me in the first half ... yeah it's plain old 2D checkers with this administration.
America isn't in a legally declared war with Iran either. Hasn't been in one since WW2. No treason convictions since then have occurred.
As far as I'm aware, the US hasn't declared war on Iran either.
The ally of a special military operation adversary surely cannot be my enemy. /s
If he's doing this at an urging of an enemy of the US, Putin, how could that not be treason?
He put American lives in direct risk in Kyiv, at the bidding of a foreign enemy, while having control of massive amount of crucial infrastructure.
I'm not sure how you can see that as anything except treason. Any plebe employee doing it would be up for treason, especially an employee that had been in direct contact with Putin or other foreign agents, like Musk has been.
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Common use != legal use. We can regard it as treason without the law doing so, because we can regard Putin as an enemy of the US without the law doing so.
That said, I'm not saying what position the law supports. I never studied law, let alone American law.
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US federal law is quite clear on this point: for better or worse, Russia isn't legally classified as an "enemy" and thus it would be impossible to convict anyone of treason for aiding them. (I'm not claiming that's a good state of affairs, just explaining the legal situation.)
The US economy, the side of it that serves the plebs, runs on trucking, which run on diesel. If you ask these same plebs, people who don't read Vanity Fair, who they think their nation's enemies are or what people or groups they feel threatened by, you might be severely disappointed who isn't near the top of the list.
The diesel shortage has been staved off, in part by temporarily forgiving use of forms of diesel that are normally illegal.
It's not a good time for America to have Zelensky's guys drone-bombing Russia's petroleum and diesel ports/terminals.
I overheard a colleague say the other day that if Zelensky's guys attack another petroleum/diesel port, that Trump should bomb Zelensky. From what I'm reading and hearing, the middle tier of the "line go up plz" crowd don't find that unreasonable.
At this point, this shit show architected by Victoria Noodleman, and implemented in part by players like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, is just a huge waste of resources.
The only thing that has come out of this is removing the bulk of the Ukrainian population from Ukraine. Twenty years from now, a completely different people will occupy that land.
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>Lindsey Graham
He was famously pro Ukraine.
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Yeah. You may remember the video of him speaking to a group of Ukranian soldiers, a good while before Russia's "special military operation", saying to them "your fight is our fight". He had good intentions, from his own perspective, for sure. Whether the outcome we have now is a good outcome is a tad subjective.
If you look into the history of Victoria's family it's clear why she did what she did.
"enemy"
Why are we sending enemy astronauts up to the ISS? Why do we trust an enemy country to safely take our astronauts up to the ISS?
Sure, letter of the law vs. spirit of the law.
That's just what he's brazen enough to do in public.
I'm convinced that if Elon were actually investigated, we'd see enough for him to hang, side by side with the rest of his cohort (POTUS included).
But absolutely, let's assert that the public knowledge that we currently possess isn't quite sufficient to prosecute Elon for treason as defined in the US Constitution, a famously immutable document, which, among other things, captures the nuances of hybrid warfare in perfect clarity.
This is a very reasonable rebuttal to the statement that. if things were normal, Elon would hang for treason.
Now if you think about it, it's almost as if Russia deliberately acts just below the threshold of what constitutes an act of war in any particular state to allow their assets to be, say, hanged for treason. Almost as if Russia's top general, Gerasimov, published a widely cited paper over a decade ago where blurring the line between war and peace was specifically outlined as the modern way of waging war[1], which Russia has successfully been applying since 2014 at the very least.
But let that not cloud our judgment.
Our 250 year old document has a specific definition which means, alas, that our hands (but not Elon's) are tied, and whatever he does is, plainly and simply, NOT treason.
[1] https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/military-review/ar...
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It would be almost certainly lethal injection, not hanging
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I thought it was a firing squad execution, televised for everyone to see and enjoy.
Random anecdote, accurate as of about 20 years ago?
My father worked for the Sheriff's Office in Melbourne, Australia.
The Sheriff's Office isn't like it is in the US. More something akin to bailiff meets US Marshal (enforcement of court orders, often time fines).
Anyway, being that Australia was still in the Commonwealth and such, his boss, the Sheriff, was still technically the executioner of record for capital crimes in Australia. Australia hasn't hung anyone since 1967, but technically still will/can for two crimes: high treason and piracy on the high seas.
His boss told him 1) that he was required to keep a noose or rope for it in his office, and 2) that to him, in the event of anyone even being charged with one of those crimes, the very next thing he would do would be: resign.
>It would be almost certainly lethal injection, not hanging
You probably didn't mean it that way, but "almost certainly lethal injection" is indeed what we use today.
In a normal world, lethal injections almost certainly would not be used[1].
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/christa-pike-tenne...
Not really. If the US suddenly declared Russia as an enemy it would not be good for the world. And not just because the ISS collab would end.
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What would Russia do about it? They're not going to start a nuclear war and can't fight a conventional one against NATO given the stalemate in Ukraine.
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You're treating them like a rational actor. And yet the war which realistically can't be won at this point and only destroys both countries more every day is still ongoing...
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They are a rational actor in a world of skewed premises.
>And yet the war which realistically can't be won
...is being fought on many battlefields, including the elections in the US.
And I am not so sure Russia isn't winning that one.
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It looks like currently Russia just decides how much it gets hurt in return. There's barely any real change for months in terms of progress, but instead the scope of strikes in its territory expands. I mean, we're at the stage of energy infrastructure and large warehouses being a valid target, with some regional persistent blackouts. If pressed harder, I'm not sure Ukraine will stop itself from hitting utilities and energy infra in winter. Whatever the outcome looks like in terms of land ownership, Russia can't "win" for the current generation - it's already got many years worth of rebuilding and bringing some balance to the population to do. I literally can't imagine how anyone in Ukraine or Russia in the next decade or more could be better off in life, compared to immediate withdrawal.
Fundamentally political systems like you find in Russia are the enemy of the world.
In the same way Ukraine isn't actually involved in a war with Russia, it is merely a "special military operation".
Musk could be tried under espionage acts, Logan act and foreign agents act. Trump presumably is immune thanks to Roberts.
Europe would have to not only build the satellites, but launch them, which rocket program do you think exists in Europe that could do that? The pace of Ariane launches could not accelerate quickly enough
Ariane can't, but then again neither could any non-SpaceX American launch provider.
What's the total funding needed to get a Falcon 9 equivalent, given it's demonstrably possible? Likely about the same as SpaceX actually spent in time and money?
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Is it actually possible for Europeans to build a company capable of deploying capital as efficiently as SpaceX? Due to cultural and regulatory factors I suspect they would need 2-3 times as much funding to accomplish the same thing. Where would that capital come from? Private EU capital markets are still too thin. Are governments willing to step up?
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European markets could fund it if they wanted to, and so could several governments; the question, as is always the case at this scale, is what else could they invest in instead?
Looking at capital markets, one common thing in the EU is how often our investments go to businesses outside our market, while the current issue with the US is all the money is flowing to anything with "AI" in the prospectus.
When it comes to "yes, but what else could we spend this money on?", I think EU governments may be interested in rockets to the extent they're dual-use military assets, but not much beyond that. We do, after all, also want to rapidly shift a few hundred gigawatts of power supply (mostly for heating and transport, but also electricity) away from fossil fuels and towards something less prone to global geopolitical nonsense like Hormuz.
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>We do, after all, also want to rapidly shift a few hundred gigawatts of power supply (mostly for heating and transport, but also electricity) away from fossil fuels and towards something less prone to global geopolitical nonsense like Hormuz.
If this was the case, electricity wouldn't be taxed much higher than gas and phasing out coal wouldn't be the number one priority. You describe China's energy policy, not Europe's.
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Arguments about the effectiveness of the policy are independent of noting what goals the EU (and member states) have.
That said, I'm giving a rank ordering here, that energy policy is more important than rocket policy, not saying what's on top in general, e.g. for most politicians the economy is the core issue because it generates the tax revenue to spend on all the things that make the public want to reelect them, raise taxes on things people currently use too much/too fast you put brakes on whole economy rather than encouraging transition.
Also, EU policy explicitly regards energy security, decarbonisation and affordability as connected objectives: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/repowereu-phase-out-rus...
Also also, phasing out coal isn't inherently at odds with energy security, the stuff is a limited resource. Nuclear power would be a better example to question here, but again, that energy security is more important than rockets doesn't change the fact that in e.g. Germany nuclear power has a very strong political taboo.
It was the case maybe 50 years ago, but there are no systemic factors that support strong building/innovation/ entrepreneurial processes anymore. Maybe with some occasional exceptions.
Have you seen what crap cars even german manufacturers produce lately?
This is the case throughout the West, including the US. A generation ago the powers at be decided they would invest in China for this.
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No. America has major, yet temporary problems that follow global trends mostly (i.e. ~ same shit happens everywhere).
But Europe uniquely eradicates systemic innovation process regardless of current downturn. By completely ignoring its needs and diving deeper and deeper into their weird mix of socialism and government/old money controlled monopolism.
German car quality is a mark of how optimised manufacturers have got for building cars that work within 2 terms of 4 year finance plans.
You'd be foolish to think it correlates to any sense of innovation or entrepreneurialism.
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OK, so why are German auto manufacturers no longer capable of building globally competitive products? They seem to have just given up and are now following a managed decline process with no plan for growth.
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China mostly. They got undercut.
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Right, but why don't the Germans respond? I understand that they have some structural cost disadvantages but they seem to have been caught by surprise and just gave up.
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I think what happened is Merc and VW wanted to sell into China. Part of the deal was they had to build factories in China and allow Chinese imports the other direction. It was very profitable for a while but is now causing issues.
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That impacts market share but it doesn't explain why the Germans keep building shitty cars. Why are they so lazy and incompetent? Blocking Chinese imports wouldn't fix that fundamental problem.
Their problems are created by the government mostly, so they can't do anything about them.
• Expensive energy (German government believes there is a climate crisis)
• Expensive labour (German government believes in prioritizing workers over companies)
• Expensive regulations (you get the picture)
They can't solve any of these problems because they are left wing imperatives, and the left would rather the German car industry die than give up on any of them. So all they can do is wait for the end, and/or hope the AfD somehow obtain a majority.
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Fair enough, but the German government doesn't force them to design shitty cars. That's 100% a management choice.
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It forces them to do lots of things that lead to that outcome, for example it is hard to fire people.
Volkswagen could’ve bought Tesla for the cost of the dieselgate fines, at the time of fining
Just for your information, the AfD doesn't want to have cheap energy either. Nobody in Germany does, and that's the problem.
While the AfD wants to keep German lignite (half as cheap as any imported gas), it also wants gas. The point of coal is eliminating gas. Otherwise you're just polluting for no gain.
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The point of coal is to make electricity and making sure it's cheap means using every resource you have. So I don't quite see how supporting the reopening of coal plants is not the AfD supporting cheap energy.
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As I said, coal makes electricity cheaper if it can eliminate gas, like in China and India. Poland uses a lot of coal, but it doesn't help because it also uses a lot of gas nowadays.
Of course, there are geopolitical considerations. Germany thought that it could cut military spending by buying Russian gas, and Poland believes that it needs to buy American gas for protection. But none of them can compete with China.
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Energy is expensive in Germany not because of gas itself but because of the Energiewende combined with reliance on Russian gas. This comes largely from Europe's refusal to use fracking and insistence on lots of wind and solar, which are expensive and unreliable. The UK has gas deposits it could frack, for instance, but refuses to do so because they believe (wrongly in my view) that this would end the world.
Of course they can compete with China. China is rather resource poor for such a big country and has to import lots of its fuel. Energy is cheap(ish) in China because it is willing to use all available energy sources without net zero ideology.
Undercut? I believe the word you're looking for is "outcompeted".
There is already the European Eutelsat alternative to Starlink, with 600 satellites currently deployed (vs Starlink's 6000). They provide satellite internet, and video, both for consumer, business and military/government use.
Apparently Ukraine does use already use Eutelsat in addition to Starlink, but it's utility is limited due to number of satellites and bandwidth, as well as the current weight of terminals (presumably an issue for weapons-borne receivers).
Starlink has over 10000 satellites. The goal of Eutelsat is 1000 by 2030. Starlink launched 3000 satellites in 2025 alone. Whether one satellite from Eutelsat provide the same service as one from Starlink, I don't know but it would be relevant.
I wish Eutelsat success, but the scale of funding is completely different.
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Ukraine and even Europe don't need global coverage though. The Russian system that they're testing at the moment is geostationary satellites over Ukraine.
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Latency to geo isn't going to work for man controlled drones though
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Sure, but autonomous control systems for cruise missiles and attack drones are improving rapidly. They aren't quite as good as remote human pilots but adequate for most missions except interdiction or close air support. So higher latency might not be a problem if satcomm is only needed for strike coordination.
The more significant technical problem with geostationary satellites is you need a much higher gain antenna. Tough to incorporate that into a small drone design. The Starlink/ Starshield terminal is a marvel of compact efficiency.
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I used to use a Thuraya phone and those are fairly small and light and use geostationary. Not much bandwidth though.
Getting hung up on numbers isn't really correct. Much more goes into it - altitudes, satellite capabilities, target customers, etc. Large numbers is one approach but it is not the only one.
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Go online and try to get one.
Ignore the cost and you'll figure it all out.
This comment reminded me yet again to always wait for HN comments to settle down after several hours because the first sentence is immediately wrong in multiple ways as people have pointed out such that I'm not sure why one would bother to believe the rest, even though I do have thoughts on how exactly Europe would build, or not.
>They'll bicker for some time, but in the end, they build. To Americans it looks like they don't but they do
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face. And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat. The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate; And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow. Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout...
There's also the revised version of that poem that explains that while Casey was at the bat, his uncle Arnold was in the stands taking bets ...
It's not treason if it was a White House decision. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
That article is 9 days old.
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It's currently relevant.
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I see it being contradicted (and the contradiction contradicted almost daily).
Baffled by this framing and that of the article, where Europe is sitting on its hands not building a copy of starlink because it’s easier to just use Elon’s.
The reality is nobody had that vision and built the rocket company first to make it happen. Even after seeing the trick done it isn’t likely to be replicated by Europe or a European company within 30 years.
Iceye and Nokia are building a European replacement, going live in 2028. https://www.reuters.com/business/nokia-iceye-make-satellite-...
>In a normal world, this would be treason by an illegal immigrant to the US.
As other comments have stated, this is not treason. However, a private individual/citizen should not have the ability to dictate national security policy:
* https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/its-time-to-take-starlink...
"This is not treason" is a false statement.
The true statement is: "This is not considered treason in the current legal framework of the US".
Which is exactly the point the OP is making: it is not normal.
What Russia is waging against the US is war according to their own doctrinal documents[1].
If we're stupid enough to accept this as peace while they make one gain after another, it's not a basis for saying that Elon's meddling isn't treason.
This should be a wake-up call.
The world has changed. War has changed. And Russia was brazen enough to publish the new rules.
I hope at least people here have the clarity of mind to read them and understand the implications, beyond "the Constitution uses a particular wording to define treason".
[1] https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/military-review/ar...
Would you say the same thing about Anthropic defining the terms of use of its technology to the military?
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If Anthropic's business was as important to national security then it should be nationalized. As should SpaceX.
>Would you say the same thing about Anthropic defining the terms of use of its technology to the military?
No. With Anthropic (AIUI) the terms of use were agreed to beforehand. With Starlink things were changed suddenly on a whim.
If Starlink doesn't want to be involved with military operations, then put that in the ToS, and Ukraine cannot / will not use it for that.
But Starlink agreed to the use — especially with defence-only operations which were part of the agreement, and what was being done — and suddenly yanking capabilities basically means aiding the murder of civilians.
The article is wrong, Elon didn't make the decision to limit Starshield. The US government did.
As to Europe "outpacing the US", that is a major LOL. Europe is facing many serious challenges (see the civil unrest in France and the UK for instance), and is also economically far behind.
We'll see how things unfold with the tech industry... ;-)
Europe can send long range strike weapons already. Ukraine has been begging them on week 1.
Also could stop sending $250b to Russia.
Trump and Musk are both pointing the finger at each other over this. Maybe they were both for it before they found out how bad it would play with (potentially) Republican voters right before the midterms. Now they're both against it and it's the other guy's fault, as per usual with these two.
What matters is that the U.S. has a leader who is behaving as though he's a Russian agent and allows military assets like Starlink to be controlled by private citizens with zero oversight. If either of these guys can turn off an asset like Starlink on a completely undocumented whim, there's a problem.
As a American Centrist/Independent , I have always believed that the Pentagon/DoD would always remain in control and be the decision makers when it comes to everything from Intelligence to comms to equipment and ordinance. But after what this Administration has done, I can no longer trust that they will act in the interests of the American people and Americas allies. This Administration has shown the world that America can never be trusted again and any safety mechanisms that were in place to stop foreign adversary control over the Presidency has failed (Republican house and senate). I am sure I am not alone in my feelings and I would encourage Europe to separate its Defense Industry, Economy/Financial institutions, trade, etc as quickly as humanly possible. Trump and the Republicans have shown that there is no friend in America and that with a group as dumb/mentally disabled/uneducated as MAGA, future American Administrations should never be trusted again. As Mark Carney(Canadian PM) has said, "We have recognized from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship" It will be one of the most difficult things Europe will face but it will guarantee your survival and protection from American Hegemony.
That’s also great reason to start investing in Europe during next economical cycle
>during next economical cycle
what and when is the the "next" economic cycle?
I think there's a lot of economic uncertainty right now about the looming French bailout. Maybe the "next" cycle is whatever happens after that?
Once their fertility picks up and they reduce regulations.
europe has had a free ride at the rest of the world's expense, whether through security provided by the us, resources stolen from africa, or cheap energy from russia, when others don't give europeans what they want, they complain, and that's about it, replacing starlink? good luck
ah yes, the security provided by the US lmao, as in the endless wars that destabalized the middle east completely and cause countless issues for europe since forever, not to mention that as soon as security is actually needed in ukraine the us actually doesnt provide any
and cheap energy from russia ?? lmao
the only true thing in this is the stolen resources from africa
americans live straigth up in some fantasy land while they are quite litteraly the ones that got the free ride on the cost the rest of the world. Pollution, Wars, debt fueld by dollar as reserve currency, stolen labor from aborad (which europe does aswell tbf).. the list is endless
Let me guess, you get your news from Fox?
we don't have Fox in Africa
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With YouTube, it's everywhere.
Europe should start by reducing the amount of legal paperwork required in running a business, because that is the main reason why founders flee to places such as the US
Absolutely. That and the lack of accessible and agile VC funding in Europe. No idea why someone would downvote the above comment, it's spot on.
That's why the famously over regulated California doesn't have any sort of tech scene. All the best big startups usually start somewhere more business friendly like Mississippi or Tennessee
Is there an inverse relationship between "places people would like to live" and "places that are business friendly"?
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Not really.
The level of regulation between California and Germany is much wider than between California and Tennessee. Ever tried to incorporate a GMBH?
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And yet many parts of Germany have a much more thriving tech scene than Tennessee...
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Because the friction of moving from Tennessee to California is very low. The valley is full of founders and developers from middle America. Marc Andreesen is from a town of 800 in Indiana. Low regulation is a necessary but not sufficient criteria for a thriving entrepreneurial economy.
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Low regulation is completely orthogonal to entrepreneurial economy, it matters what regulations exist. The idea that if we just had laissez-faire things would be perfect isnt really true. Because, keep in mind, all of our pro-competition practices are also regulation. A free market needs to be maintained, it’s not just a default state.
Imagine how much harder it would be to be a successful entrepreneur if all the big boys could merge into mega monopolies and that’s your competition. Or if they could straight up lie in advertising. Or if they could threaten and blackmail you.
When I read "I don't want to follow safety regulations", I always think "WOW that dude must really have some great product I must get!" -_-'
Most of the regulations in question are not safety. More stuff like not being able to fire people.
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I think ideally they try to make the labor market fairer as it’s so obviously extremely leveraged in favor of employers.
Which does matter, because if it sucks to be labor then people leave and you don’t have talent. We see this pretty clearly in the US. We have a lot of states where companies can pretty much do whatever they want with their labor.
And… well… how are those states doing economically? Not good. The big companies are in California and New York State. Inside those “laissez-faire” states the economy is weak, and in the few places it isn’t, it’s where the city itself leans a certain way.
What would you like to see less "legal paperwork" about? What regulations would you want rid of?
Do you think you would stand even the tiniest chance of hiring European tech workers into a company run the way they are in the US?
Lot's of low hanging fruit. How about when creating a corporate legal entity not requiring public notaries to spend several hours reading the entire corporate charter out loud to all signatories before signing.
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That's not something that's required in 'Europe'. It would be a much better discussion if people could point to specific countries and regulations rather than talking as if the whole of Europe had a single regulatory regime for business.
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You're right, it's only required in the largest European economy, I should have been more specific.
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I mean, yeah? If you're talking about a particular country and a particular problematic national regulation, then name the country and regulation, so we can have a proper discussion about it. Otherwise this thread is just going to be generic moaning about how 'Europe' is over-regulated, which everyone has already heard a thousand times before.
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How much self-flagellation do you want from me brother
But the bendy bananas!
What sort of entity is that? Creating a simple limited company (aksjeselskap) in Norway takes a few minutes of work and is done entirely online. You fill in a few simple forms, create a simple memorandum of association, set up a specific type of account with your bank and deposit at least 30 kNOK (3 kUSD). Get the bank to confirm the deposit to the registry. The registry will send you electronic documents that all board members must sign electronically and that's pretty much it. Takes a couple of weeks of elapsed time, or less.
Can you give specifics of that? When have you ever had to do that? Which country?
Elon and Trump have effectively destroyed America’s soft power which was probably the goal because somehow that makes them richer who knows. Either way the world is no longer going to trust US companies. Europes VC scene is comparatively weak but if I were European I would be investing heavily right now as the local demand for homegrown services will surely skyrocket. This was a huge mistake for American Businesses as the European market will be significantly more difficult to earn now.
There's a rule of thumb that a mature tech business in the US will earn at least half of its revenue outside the US. If that stops being true, it halves the early stage value of tech companies in the US.
Something something Anthropic IPO already down 25% of original expected value, and still a fair bit of volatile water (cough midterms cough) to go under the bridge before it goes ahead.
I'm thinking America (and Europe) was buying soft power at a price it could not sustainably afford. A correction was necessary. Trump took it too far though.
If trump's goal was to destroy American prosperity and global power he couldn't behave much differently than he has been. Shameful many Americans don't see that, it is plain as day.
1. EU was slowly doing this in some tech industries and its really going to pick up speed
2. They don't have to replace a lot of US tech before the economic impact compounds to effect the US.
The problem is the EU is still suffering startup drain to USA entirely because of market and regulatory burdens. We just saw this most recently with Heart Aerospace. They warned EU regulators repeatedly that it was very difficult to develop frontier technology in Europe. And then they eventually just relocated to California completely.
https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relo...
These are political and societal issues that are very difficult to solve. Not to mention that energy insecurity and cost makes Europe non-competitive from the outset.
This particular example is hardly representative. The market they work on is difficult. They may have an ambition to become Tesla of airplanes, but it did not take a long time before traditional manufacturers learned from Tesla’s success and took over. VW builds more electric cars, and number one globally is a Chinese company. With airplanes, becoming an independent manufacturer is a long and risky path. In the end, their main choice is between being acquired by Boeing or Airbus if they are successful, or being outcompeted by incumbents or Chinese. I do not think this reflects the investment climate in Europe in general. There are fields where startups can do well, and fields where starting something new in Europe is generally a bad idea. I’m not sure that’s always because of regulations.
All the money is in Silicon Valley, that's why they move there.
If this was a US vs EU thing, I would love to hear a US tech giant that isn't in Silicon Valley or Seattle.
Fact is, even in US, no other city was able to replicate that success. For example, there would be no point to move your startup from EU to New York for example.
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Micron was founded in Boise Idaho and is still headquartered there. Cymer, which makes the EUV light source in ASML machines, was founded in San Diego, and is still there.
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And likewise Europe has a fair number of unicorns as well. But nothing like silicon valley.
Just to name a few:
---------------------
Cisco — Research Triangle Park (Raleigh), NC
Dell — Round Rock, Texas
Epic Games — Cary, NC
HP — Houston, Texas
IBM — Armonk, New York
Lenovo — Morrisville, NC
Oracle — Austin, Texas
Redhat — Raleigh, NC
SAS Institute — Cary, NC
Tesla — Austin, Texas
Lots and lots of US tech giants are not in Silicon Valley or Seattle. In fact, Texas, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, and Virginia have huge hubs of tech giants - especially the Research Triangle Park in NC.
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Those are the size of European tech companies. I mean, HP is about 10 times smaller than Siemens. So your list basically proves nothing.
Tesla clearly is a "tech giant", and it started in Silicon Valley by the way.
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My list exactly addresses your point: "If this was a US vs EU thing, I would love to hear a US tech giant that isn't in Silicon Valley or Seattle". I have shown you at least 10 US tech giants that are not in Silicon Valley. I also did not include many others such as Network Appliance, Texas Instruments, Pfizer, Micron Technologies, Akamai, etc. Regardless of their size vs Siemens, they are huge in the industry. But, keep moving the goalposts if that makes you feel better.
And, no, we are not ignorant to the fact Europe does not have tech companies. No one said that, but you seem to have a real axe to grind against the US. I suggest you step outside and touch some grass.
BTW: I have traveled all over the EU and one thing holds true: folks there are the most arrogant and condescending people I have ever met. And your remarks proves the point once again. They are truly unapproachable. They do not smile and they refuse to acknowledge each other when grocery shopping, walking on the sidewalks, riding on the bus/train - essentially in any public space. It must be absolutely depressing to live in such a culture all the time.
Edit: I see you removed your nasty comment: "Are Americans really that ignorant that they think Europeans don't have tech companies the size of Redhat". Why?
I agree with the general premise that US tech isn't exclusively in Silicon Valley or Seattle. But those regions clearly still play an enormously outsized role in the US tech industry, to the point where it seems unlikely US tech would be as globally dominant without them.
Notably several entries on your list are companies that were founded and grew successful before moving to the locations you listed, often for tax breaks and/or to fit the politics of the company executives. Aside from Dell, all the companies you listed as being located in Texas became successful elsewhere first. Texas has proved it can lure in already successful companies more than it has demonstrated it can grow them.
Which is itself a legitimate achievement, but if the question is how you grow new successful tech companies, it's not a super useful data point especially if we're taking about different countries. There are relatively few barriers for a company that grew up and became successful in the environment of Silicon Valley to move to Austin with the promise of lower taxes, but Europe can't quite replicate that same migratory model to grown their own tech industry.
Instead, Europe will add more regulation, suffocating its ability to replace technology with its own.
'Another' reason, it's most definitely not the first reason. Musk is a small cherry on a large cake.
After sanctions for the ICC members, Europe should be getting off services that allow the US to perform the sanctions. It's very difficult though, with any organizations that continue to offer services to sanctioned individuals risking cutting themselves off from the lucrative US market.
Ironically, Europe might need to learn a few things from Russia.
Either way, everyone loses from this kind of behavior. International cooperation is generally the most efficient way of operating. Looks like that's done for until the new world order is settled, and the US is going to flail wildly for a good decade or two to prevent that from happening (despite the current administration accelerating it, under the impression they can win everything, which is now demonstrably categorically false).
Revenue, not profit.
I hope Europe all the best but there is a reason why only US companies dominating those space.
US companies can operate in lost for many years, because they have deep pocket, and also because they have many way to earn profit.
There's definitely a difference there, though we will have to wait and see if the American AI industry didn't make those losing pockets too deep.
US companies dominated in part because everybody thought they could be trusted. That seems to be falling by the wayside.
I don't understand why so many Europeans believed Trump in the Whitehouse wouldn't affect them.
90-95% of the european friends I have were scared shitless on the first term, the second one was closer to depression.
ICEYE and Nokia are already working on a replacement for starlink: https://www.iceye.com/newsroom/press-releases/iceye-and-noki...
Isar is working hard on commercial launch capabilities: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/06/german-star...
Until they can match Falcon 9 launch costs (the internal ones, not what SpaceX sells it for) it will be very difficult to compete with Starlink.
If they make it Europe only maybe they can do with less satellites?
They don't have to "compete" with Starlink. They just have to provide similar capabilities.
And Ariane used to be the dominant commercial launch vehicle, beating the US alternatives by a mile.
Cost is not the only factor when we are talking about military solutions.
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It's a particular issue here.
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You’d be unlikely to switch off a service you needed if you owned it and ran it.
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Like I said it's a particular issue here.
Ukraine has access to other solutions.
Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS. Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2110445577184133456
Well there you have it. Elon is so good at his word. Totally trustworthy nothing to see here /s
why is this downvoted.
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Because /s is stupid and it’s low effort otherwise
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>Because /s is stupid […]
It's the best 'defence' against Poe's law that we have:
What's great about this is the are 2 ways to read this:
1. Ukraine is in an offensive position
2. Ukraine is in a defensive position and thus it was indeed Musk
To me these are both very dumb stances. Lose lose statement
I read it as being more specific than one overarching "position". Long-range strike drones are arguably "offensive action" even in a clearly defensive war, interceptor drones are clearly "defensive action". Midrange strike against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory are a bit of a grey area.
Of course, Starlink/Starshield is already unavailable for long-range strike due to geofencing, and the speed limit was clobbering interceptors right when they needed that speed to cope with the new jet-powered Gerans, so it's still a daft stance overall.
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>Midrange strike against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory are a bit of a grey area.
Nothing grey about destroying invading army on your own territory.
>speed limit was clobbering interceptors
That version never passed the smell test, interceptors dont use Starlink.
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Ukraine's position has been that starlink is used exclusively for drone defense, i.e., interceptors. That is sensible because that's within the contracted terms. However, there is intentional obfuscation of starlink and starshield in all of this. Ukraine also claims that it doesn't use star-anything for offensive drone attacks, which is kind of unbelievable. The contention started when the White House told Ukraine that refineries were off limits, and then Ukraine struck refineries anyway. It seems clear to me that 1) they are using the technology, however it is branded, to reach and possibly cross the border, and 2) this was a signal to abide by the temporary restrictions, as the tri-lateral talks are being negotiated.
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Refineries are hundreds to thousands kilometers from the border, Starlink doesnt work there.
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Starshield does
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Starshield never worked in russia.
The white house agreed to terms with Russia without involving Ukraine. Russia bombed ukraines energy infrastructure literally within hours of Trump saying that the ceasefire was effective and Ukraine waited three days before bombing energy infrastructure in Russia again.
Trump and Musk are being petty because they can't control a foreign nation with a fake agreement that's in the middle of a war. Tried to twist Ukraine's arm. Disgusting shameful behavior. I hope they rot in jail.
Musk constantly LIES, a tweet from him means literally nothing
Is it still lying if he's high as a kite?
It’s somewhat meaningful, in that you know he’s lying so the journalists reporting the opposite have good sources.
He and Trump both, so hard to pick who's lying between them.
Wall Street Journal has reported this was ordered by Musk directly:
https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...
Not sure why so many people here are defending him as though his word is authoritative. The guy's as big a liar as Donald Trump.
It obviously came from Trump via Musk.
Ukraine has been striking Russian refineries, reducing global diesel supply which is already being squeezed by the stupid war in Iran.
Musk gains nothing from disabling Starlink for strike missions inside of Russia. Trump absolutely does benefit from them since his admin is bearing the blame of invading Iran and it’s killing him in the midterms.
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Sorry, how is it “obvious” ?
How do we know they didn’t collaborate ?
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A. Look at incentives, Musk gets massive blowback from this, gains literally nothing from it. Trump does gain from this, and does have control over Starshield and specifically how Starlink is used in Ukraine.
B. There's plenty of reporting that the White House gave the order:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
>Order to limit Starshield for Ukraine came from inside White House, sources say
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Sounds like Musk has admitting it was him.
Hilarious that you believe words that come out of Musk’s mouth. How embarrassing.
Well, even the worst people say true things from time to time. In this case, it seems true. The US dictates how US tech is used, and this particular technology is of military significance, so I’m inclined to believe it.
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I’ll reply, rather than edit: here’s an update from Zelenskyy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50221788
Political pressure seems to have worked.
The complicating factor is that whilst it's certainly true that Starshield answers to the US chain of command, not to Elon and highly unlikely he is authorised to exercise any direct control of it, the claims that Elon personally spoke to the guy at the top of the US chain of command and persuaded him that this would be a good idea are pretty credible (and whether credible or not, US officials have been trying to place the blame on Elon rather than their own chain of command). Plus of course Ukraine absolutely does use regular Starlink, and Elon doesn't actually have magic ability to tell which terminals are being used for offensive operations and which for defensive
His statement is all generalities. "Decisions are made by POTUS". Not "This decision was made by POTUS"--that part you're supposed to infer from the previous. He's being quite careful not to address this instance.
Someone needs to ask Musk how much the Roadster car shell weighed during the flying demo. Then ask for an estimate when they will do a genuine demo with a 2000lb battery.
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The math for the weight and fly time check out. It’s very unlikely it was a shell
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Humor me
>The decision of the U.S. to shut off intelligence and throttle the military version of Starlink called Starshield to Ukraine.
Ukraine does not use Starshield, only Starlink. Take this article with a grain of salt.
The rumor [0][1] is that both Ukraine and Russia install GPS spoofers as a workaround for geofencing. Another rumor is that Starlink recently updated their software to detect and block such attempts that is based on rapid satellite switch detection by the Starlink terminal that happened if the terminal was moving faster than 160km/h.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/12/starlink-rus...
When Ukrainian officials say they use Starshield, they probably use Starshield.
They don't. They're mistaken.
Is your claim that the governments cannot lie, or that the Ukrainian government cannot lie?
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Even Elon Musk made the difference between the two. He's in control of Starlink, US government in control of Starshield. Ukraine claims both were affected.
How hard can it be to reason about this? Maybe ask ChatGPT, and it will says it's both.
But sure, they all lie and you are right, Ukraine only has Starlink. Not a problem for me at all, and the world can be flat too, no issue with that. Have a fun day.
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Citations are needed and not your emotional speculation, Koen.
I mean there are like a million reasons to replace American technology since .. well you know when...
But honestly, even well before that.
When did Doctorow coin enshittification?
When did Zuck call his users stupid fucks?
When did Amazon start comingling counterfeits with originals?
When did Google buy DoubleClick?
When did Google start reading your Gmail?
When did Boeing start skimping on safety?
This is a decades long trend. Don't be giving Trump credit he doesn't deserve, otherwise the lessons of history will not be learned. Blaming Trump is yet another easy answer that allows for all of the other things to be swept under the rug.
Yeah but as a European those things are livable with FB/Google/Amazon/Boeing all provided decent service if annoying at times.
But siding with Russia invading Europe is a different category.
Yes, I see your point, but for me it gets a new dimension when it is happening on the government level.
Yes, a company can fuck you up but you can find a new provider. But if the government of the country can control allmost all the providers prohibits them to sell their services to you, that is more serious.
The truth is, if they could they would, and they should. But they can't, not yet.
Read these articles with a grain of salt. Media has tremendous bias against Elon because:
He threatens their power and politics.
He stopped being their green-tech hero the moment he bought Twitter, cut the censorship they liked, and backed Trump. Left-leaning newsrooms treat that as betrayal. X lets ordinary people bypass them. “You are the media now” is an existential threat to outlets whose business depends on controlling the narrative.
He hammers their credibility daily (calling them propaganda, highlighting their collapsed trust ratings). They retaliate with wall-to-wall negative framing.
Studies show it: ~96% negative coverage on major network evening news in 2025—worse than Trump. Same events get friendly treatment on the right.
Europe threatening the US with a good time? Imagine a world where all of our best companies didn't have to contort themselves to adhere to the random patchwork of regulations the EU throws at it to justify endless rent extraction through fines? Oh no! They might have to innovate for themselves using checks notes US AI software to reverse engineer US SaaS? What a joke of an article.
Yeah, because US companies are forced to offer their services in the EU, right? And they definitely don’t do so because it’s incredibly profitable. Plus, the US definitely hates that the EU depends on them for so many things, giving them huge power and leverage.
What a great point you’re making here!
Comments here somehow missing the fact that EU alternative to Starlink has already been work in progress for a while with several competitors in the game and billions € of investment. The replacement goes on, the smell of money in the air is felt quite well, digital and technology sovereignty is a popular topic on startup events.
So... the free market is fixing this. lul
This isn't the first wake-up call.. remember Trump putting a certain ICC judge on a newly created black list that required MS to disable their O365 email services?
https://sota.io/blog/icc-microsoft-opendesk-migration-cloud-...
Many EU agencies, member governments, NGOs, etc. moving to open source alternatives since then.
>Elon Musk Just Gave Europe *Another* Reason to Replace American Technology
Fixed that for you
Another reason.
The story here is clearly that Trump wants Ukraine to stop blowing up refineries so that domestically the price of diesel goes down. If you don’t agree with that fine but I’m not sure why we’re blaming Elon Musk. (that was hyperbole I know exactly why you’re blaming him.)
Well, it’ll take years to bring capacity back online, so that ship has sailed.
I agree it's probably more a Trump+Putin thing.
Sigh. Steve Blank is probably right about this:
> In the years ahead, this may cost American companies tens if not hundreds of billions of lost revenue.
The question is, if European governments and businesses conclude they cannot trust non-European software and hardware, what can they do about it?
On the software side, it seems to me the only realistic alternative they have is to build upon existing open-source projects.
On the hardware side, their options seem more limited to me, but I'm not an expert on the subject.
It'll never happen unfortunately.
The next president will get elected, and then we'll go back to being best buddies with the US, including using their tech.
Maybe, but I think the likelier outcome is that they will also be working on alternatives in the background.
I’d be surprised if an investor lawsuit doesn’t come out of this in order to get depositions from Musk under oath. I would certainly sign on, being an investor in SpaceX whose investment was put at risk by these antics, regardless of who ordered or didn’t. If it was because of government order, I have no problem because the company had no choice, if it is because he decided to invoke his personal views this way, I got a big problem as that puts at risk every lucrative government contract.
Come Democrat control of the house in a couple of week, subpoenas are going to be flying.
"the U.S. is an unreliable security and technology partner willing to throw any partner under the bus, at any time, for any reason."
This isn't new. The US has been doing this for decades.
Indeed. Ukrainians should have talked to the Kurds before relying on the US
“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”
Welcome to the party.
Fuck that obnoxious wanker.
What stuns me most is the utter lack of imagination, or even the ability to run through what scenarios are possible — the fact it required some idiot like Musk to actually do it for the politicians to want to act on it just stuns me.
The same is true of Chinese technology, and if anyone thinks China isn't already embedding those kinds of capabilities in consumer goods & infrastructure hardware as well as mil hardware, I'd like to talk to you about some oceanfront property in Kansas I might have for sale.
And to all those who would immediately comment "that's a nonsense accusation, they would never do that" or "that's a biased/racist/nationalist accusation": NO, just look at the reality of what has already been found, I'm not accusing only China - everyone does it, and mostly, you are EXACTLY the same people who didn't understand the threat from US tech companies until Elon actually pulled the switch.
As in the cryptocoin "Not your keys, not your coins", this is:
"Not your tech stack, not your sovereignty"
The EU REALLY needs to step up and build their own tech stack.
Looks like it is starting to happen, and Elon just gave them the most solid reason. This will cost US tech and mil giants $$trillions. Or, they will have to go back to building systems that verifiably have no external control.
A lot of the war developments have been unexpected and would have been difficult to plan for. I mean
1 - Putin was thinking of invading. I thought US/Biden would say no or well attack you but it was more I'd prefer you didn't but won't do anything so invasion.
2 - People thought Ukraine would collapse but no
3 - Tanks and artillery - people thought that would be the thing but no
4 - Drones render tanks almost useless
5 - Starlink becomes a thing on naval drones. Also not expected
6 - Become used on things like the Hornet AI drone made by Eric Schmidt - not expected
7 - Musk/Trump recent flip not wholly expected
And many more
All true.
But having full control over your weapons system stack makes every one of those less of a problem.
And watch what happens when China decides it is time to use its backdoors.
"An American company operating critical military infrastructure was able to degrade the capability of an American partner in the middle of a war."
Is Ukraine an "American partner" ???
Used to be. Zelenskyy was basically hand picked by the US
So, Ukrainian people have no agency to respond to their citizen protesters being shot by snipers at the behest of the previous, Moscow-aligned president? They just got assigned a new president by the USA, and sat there sucking their thumbs? Is that what you really think?
Yes please Europe - decouple from America. We are rooting for you!
Make sure you guys also make your own European-only version of the internet, too, so the rest of us (us as in the rest of the world) can stop seeing European-centric virtue signalling spam that none of us cares about. And make sure you pass bloc-wide legislation limiting all Europeans to using only that European version of the internet (this part is important).
Sincerely,
-a non-American
I am not an expert, so I'm retelling what I myself read.
A Starlink terminal has a detail that reports its location. There is a restriction on location, so if a terminal reports a restricted location, it gets blocked. A terminal may get blocked either because it actually got off the territory or if it the GPS signal was somehow distorted. So all terminals that go into Ukraine are hacked: they get a chip that reports a fixed location. This allows both to fight the distortions and to ignore the restrictions. (For some time this hack allowed use of Starlink on either side; then a white list of terminals came into effect.)
Ukraine never used (maybe didn't have access to) neither the military subsystem, nor the high-speed tariffs (which are way more expensive). The tariffs they use limit the moving speed of a terminal to 100 mph (160 kmph). For some time the limit was not enforced so drones just flew at any speed.
Around the end of 2025 the limit started to get enforced. But initially the technology relied on the data of a GPS chip. Since the terminal was hacked, the GPS chip reported the same data and thus appeared static. The enforcement thus did not work for these terminals. So although the limit was always there and has been technically enforced for a good part of a year everything was quiet as things simply continued to work as they always did.
But it is possible to detect the hack if one checks how frequently a terminal changes the satellite it connects to. This improvement was made recently and rendered the hack unusable on high-speed targets. This is the point we are at.
Ukraine uses Starshield, which is paid by Germany (with current contract ending in April 2027). What you describe in regards to chip hacking so it reports location as static, it is how nazi invaders got it working in a small chunk of time during 2025, before whitelisting was introduced for the terminals.
I guess that makes it OK then.
The fact is that there are only two real potential competitors to Starlink:
- Amazon LEO (US)
- Qianfan (China)
The European (IRIS) and Canadian (Telesat) satellite systems are relatively small and more specialized.
It is futile to discuss this before the midterms. Before the midterms we have:
1) Rubio saying that the Iran war was basically won.
2) Thiel saying that the US should not have started the Iran war!
3) Musk being tough on Ukraine yet again.
4) Trump saying that Ukraine won't get Patriots (of which there is actually a shortage anyway).
This is all election rhetoric so MAGA goes to the voting booths. It is literally the same theater as before the 2024 presidential elections. Watch what happens after the elections.
Hobbling starlink, dropping Russian oil sanctions, blocking patriot delivery etc. isn't rhetoric.
Follow the money: European wealth is concentrated in a smaller number of centralized institutions that are more conservative investors compared to U.S.
Pension funds: - U.S. has over 5,000 independent municipal, state, and corporate pension systems that invest aggressively. - EU pension capital is in national funds.
University Endowments: - U.S. has over 800 active endowments (with 130+ exceeding $1 billion) - EU universities are state funded, with little or no endowment funds
Corporate Financing: - U.S. businesses get > 70% of funding from VC, PE, mutual funds - EU companies favor banks
Family Offices: - U.S. system has created over 10,000 single-family offices that invest aggressively - EU has ~2,000
State investment: - U.S. moves .16% of GDP into small business with no equity ownership -- free market VC takes equity - EU moves < .08% of GDP into small business with full equity ownership.
Exactly. Deep and sophisticated capital markets are the #1 advantage that US tech companies have over their EU competitors. The difference in cost of capital is huge, especially for something as capital intensive as SpaceX.
Maybe generalize and be thoughtful about all dependencies across the board.
blaming Musk for doing musk thing is barking at the wrong tree.
LEO satellites could've been deployed by other satellite providers but they wanted to gouge regular customers and live off of large gvt / telecom contracts till starlink disrupted their model via innovator's dilemma.
Europe etc could easily deploy their own constellation of LEO satellites.
We've had plenty of reasons to "replace American technology" for at least 50 years. Did we? Not one bit.
There is a nuanced technology explanation here https://x.com/RSA_Observer/status/2113578319023083695
Not sure what to think of it.
Load of horse shit. Politicised post and not cited.
When I scroll down the thread, I see the source they're citing is the New York Times. I don't find the New York Times trustworthy at all either, but they're still citing at least something.
https://flasharmy.com.ua/en/vneshnij-gps-dlya-starlink is definitely not a device Starlink's ToS allows the use of. When Musk says Ukraine were hacking Starlink to override its policies, a change implemented by the engineering department to enforce those policies server side would easily explain the apparent confusion amongst all parties who seem to think nothing happened. From Starlink's perspective there was no change in policy, just a change in how it is enforced, and there's no specific reason Musk or POTUS would be immediately aware of that.
Finally. An intelligent response in this thread. Thank you.
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Not that the leftie HN voters appreciate it, of course, sigh.
You'd think it'd be obvious why the owner of a highly vulnerable yet massively redundant satellite constellation wouldn't want his assets used in a war anyway. Ukraine should thank their lucky stars that Starlink can be used by them at all. Given the risk of space war triggering Kessler Syndrome, it would be entirely within the bounds of reason to just deny both sides use of it entirely.
The United States of America has been asking European and NATO countries to contribute more money to defense for years. Good for them for finally recognizing they need to step up
Yes, they have increased defense spending but your thread topic says they "just gave them a reason to".
Crying about Musk and declaring what you are going to do on an internet forum may feel good, but it doesn't make it reality.
Who, or what, are you replying to? He is American, it's a blog, and Musk is not really the point..
Also, as a sidenote, why do we keep measuring defence strength on money spent? It's the results that count.
It seems to me you are calling trump "The United States of America"
Everyome, including elon, would think this is a good thing. He is likely tired of everyone else sucking so bad that he looks amazing for achieving like he has. Less sucking from everybody else would be awesome. Push that production possibilities frontier forward baby!
This reads so much like Elon posting from an alt-account.
Go check my history. I am not elon. I am just fed up with all the hate for that guy when he has started atleast ! Companies on premises that have seemed incredibly stupid that then went on to revolutionize an industry. It is unwise to discount his opinion
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It was a silly comment, for that I apologize.
As for the hate: I don't think anyone denies his accolades in business. This is about him personally intervening in an active war - sabotaging a countries ability to defend its civilian population. And then lying about it.
If you think unrelated success in business ventures absolves an individual of any responsibility, even when we are talking about war crimes, then that is the aspect about Elon where you and everyone else disagree on. Not about whether flying cars or landing rockets are cool. We all think those are cool.
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I think there are a couple kinds of business success and the kind that Elon has had (driving technology decades forward in years to make stupid ideas highly profitable) across multiple different businesses should make every person highly critical of their own internal models when they disagree with his. This doesn't resolve him of responsibility but I would question responsibility for what exactly? He doesn't like killing people and he doesn't like a bunch of corrupt wankers enriching themselves by siphoning off funds earmarked for the war. He translated that into thinking the war should stop, which ends up being pro russian. I disagree with him. I think we should fund the Ukrainians for as long as they are willing to fight and hope that ends with Ukrainian marching in the streets of Moscow to end that threat to the western world for good. That doesnt' make him a criminal, it does loook like he did a few crappy things hiding behind his terms of service and lies, which just makes him more human.
A useful follow-up would be comparing Elon against the simpler baseline.
This is not the first reason. Since the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act in 2018 the Europeans should have replaced all American cloud products, because they violate the GDPR. Nothing happened.
Elon has replied to all this nonsense on X.
Ukraine does not have access to starshield. They have starlink and they cannot be used for offensive striked. Ukraine hacked the terminals, SpaceX issued a patch.
The entire premise of this article is based on fake news. You can safely ignore the article.
Starshield != Starlink. One is controlled by the US government, one is controlled by SpaceX/Elon.
Should be "Elon Musk Just Gave Europe yet another Reason to Replace American Technology"