Elon Musk says he refused to give Kyiv access to his Starlink communications network over Crimea to avoid complicity in a “major act of war”.
Kyiv had sent an emergency request to activate Starlink to Sevastopol, home to a major Russian navy port, he said.
His comments came after a book alleged he had switched off Starlink to thwart a drone attack on Russian ships.
A senior Ukrainian official says this enabled Russian attacks and accused him of “committing evil”.
Russian naval vessels had since taken part in deadly attacks on civilians, he said.
“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities,” he said.
“Why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?” he added.
The row follows the release of a biography of the billionaire by Walter Isaacson which alleges that Mr Musk switched off Ukraine’s access to Starlink because he feared that an ambush of Russia’s naval fleet in Crimea could provoke a nuclear response from the Kremlin.
Ukraine targeted Russian ships in Sevastopol with submarine drones carrying explosives but they lost connection to Starlink and “washed ashore harmlessly”, Mr Isaacson wrote.
Starlink terminals connect to SpaceX satellites in orbit and have been crucial for maintaining internet connectivity and communication in Ukraine as the conflict has disrupted the country infrastructure.
Nationalize Starlink and SpaceX
We already had a nationalized SpaceX. We defunded it and gave grants to private companies like uh… SpaceX.
While I agree that NASA shouldn’t have had any funding cut, supporting a privatized space industry isn’t a bad thing on its own.
But giving Elon Musk a defense contract was a fucking stupid idea.
deleted by creator
Bruh, Trump has been out of office for like 3 years now. Have you been living under a rock?
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
That “shiny metal detritus” is currently providing internet to Ukraine that allows them to fight in this war.
deleted by creator
@MattMastodon @SCB
It is not his data. He’s just transporter.
I’m quite comfortable with it.
If the government wants a private citizen’s data and resources, they can contract with them for it. I find it bizarre that you think the government should just be able to take whatever it wants from people.
If you give them that power, some day, the cause will not be noble.
deleted by creator
You asked if I was comfortable with that. I didn’t argue anything. I stated why I am comfortable.
Also are hashtags a unique thing on your instance or what’s up? Didn’t understand the point of that, or @ing me
deleted by creator
Didn’t NASA used to just have companies like Boeing or Lockheed manufacture things?
Private companies been US advantage during the moon race, and allowed them to win against the URSS
But that’s socialism /s
Nationalize? I could have sworn I heard ‘NationaSieze the Means of Production’
That’s how you get an SLS. Government bureaucracy and pleasing congress isn’t great at rocket development.
Nationalise.
It’s a Z in American English. Both spellings are correct.
Nope, it comes from Old French which used the same “s” as Latin whereas the “z” is greek. The French standardised to the “s” in the late 1600 which informed the English which had bounced between the Greek and Latin but formalised on “ise” not “ize”.
So, nationalise is the correct one here.
You’re entitled to your hill, but as linguistically correct as you may be, linguistics take a back seat to common usage and national variance.
Yeah what kind of linguistics dweeb doesn’t understand that language is fluid and shapes with time and location.
I’d love to see this tool be held to the spelling standards of old English. You know… to preserve the English language.
Butan hwi?
Literally the first thing you learn in linguistics is that the malleability in language is why linguistics exists.
Which is literally why “literally” and “figuratively” as practically interchangable due to misuse of ‘literally’ as hyperbole. Its figuratively killing me.
This is the hidden most based take in the thread.
Removed by mod
How is dismissing a correction with a blunt “nope” nice and tacking on etymology when we’re talking about modern use of the word?
Ah, the cruel barbs of irony. Your English is actually quite atrocious.
There wasn’t a proper sentence in that reply. There was hardly a coherent thought. Perhaps it is time to put your phone down, finish your drink, and go watch a sport.
FTFY.
Everyone should just report this idiot and move on. You can’t fix stupid.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalize
You thought you were smart to correct what you thought was a mistake. You were mistaken, because you’re less smart than you think you are, and not smart enough to know that you don’t know that much.
Rather than admit that you’re less smart than you think you are, you’ve doubled down and become rude about it.
Vanity, it’s the devil’s favourite sin.
Obviously, it’s pathetic. We’ve all been there, but you really should learn when to walk away rather than doubling down.
Wow, this really upset a bunch of the Lemmy toxic club didn’t jt. Honestly, Reddit may be crap but lemmy is doing it’s best to ape it’s toxicity.
You came up in here with your irrelevant pedantry and you call other people toxic.
Nobody gives a fuck how you spell nationalize you gobshite
Upvoting for gobshite
Jeez dude, can we all just chill out for a second?
Nope. OP is insisting on something despite being wrong and then saying people are toxic. Either they are a weak troll, or actually believe what they write. Either situation deserves the response they got
God damn just accept you’re wrong. You look like an absolute fool at this point.
Yes, for sure. You are indeed being toxic.
There’s obviously a lot of crossover between musk-dislikers and z-worshippers.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalize
Butbut… “gEt BeNt YoU bElLeNd” though
From https://www.etymonline.com/word/-ize#etymonline_v_25713 :
So in 1694 “-ise” was deemed correct in French, but English has always bounced around between the two spellings, both before and since then. American English has always favoured “-ize” spellings. It’s not really reasonable to try to impose the standards of French in 1694 on English globally in 2023.
Thank you for turning dickish pedantry into something actually interesting and worth reading.
And why, dare I ask, should the French form of the suffix be prioritized over the Greek? Latin actually used the Z when the suffix was borrowed from Greek. In French, the letter Z essentially didn’t exist, as even in Latin it was (nearly?) exclusively used for Greek loans. As French evolved from vulgar and unwritten Latin, the Z was replaced by S, which is pronounced as /z/ when between vowels anyway.
So again, why exactly must English hold the etymologically corrupted French form above the actual original one?
deleted by creator
It’s not about what must be done. It’s about what has been done. Language isn’t about how things should have been. One person rarely gets much of a say in how language will develop. If you try to hold language up to best possible practices, you will be disappointed by the actual outcome every time.
Well, in the spirit of what has been done, -ize has been standardized in American English, and so here we are.
What a worthless comment
I mean, the irony here is quite strong even you must sense it.
Nope. Everyone just thinks youre a joke worthy of a circus act.
Yep
People learn words in different fashions. In Jeopardy (an American quiz show) they accept written answers in the last round that are spelled incorrectly as long as it’s clear, phonetically, what they were trying for.
This is done in part because some people learn words by hearing them and not seeing them written, just like some people might have read a word but not know how to pronounce it.
Did you comment this to be superior or be helpful because it comes across as superior.
To add the same low level of information and discourse that all of these click bait, musk hate posts of late contribute to “news” and “technology”.
Did you comment to feel superior or were you feeling left out?
Neither. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that others didn’t and share something I learned that gave me a different perspective.
Just like I’m treating this question as genuine, though I suspect it’s snark.