Also StarLink has a responsibility to its employees. Your Raytheon and Lockheed employees who have insider knowledge about military systems are going to be somewhat protected. They’re not going to advertise their detailed positions on LinkedIn. But StarLink employees may have advertised on LinkedIn that they’re the “Head of Network Operations for Eastern Europe”, etc. They can become a target for exploitation (or worse).
You have a pretty optimistic view of what people disclose on LinkedIn. You can find plenty of things that shouldn’t be on there, let alone at the level you suggest would be dangerous.
I mean, I could bet you could find all sorts of people responsible for HIMARS or javelins, etc.
i’m imagining the CEOs at lockheed or raytheon hitting the remote kill switch when one of their products is airborne over afghanistan, saying “sorry, we aren’t really comfortable with this particular use of our tech.”
Those are explicitly military contractors, though, with military contractor culture. StarLink is Silicon Valley culture. There are other examples, like employees from Microsoft, Apple, and Google being activists against lethal military use of technologies from those companies.
I’m not defending Musk, I haven’t read the details yet. Just pointing out there is precedent to Silicon Valley antipathy towards lethal use of tech.
The StarLink “disruption” is like many things “Silicon Valley” just making the stuff easy to use. The DoD and others have plenty of other satellite comms stuff, including in civilian bands (ViaSat). The StarLink ease-of-use and speed is just a great combo. I’ve seen U.S. warfighters using it for silly stuff like online training (with VPN) because StarLink is easier to use than hardwired military internet access.
possibly. honestly i think it’s equally fair to say it’s an example of the combination of big doses of hubris and naivete common in silicon valley. being a great tech entrepreneur or software engineer doesn’t also make you great at understanding geopolitics or running a media company. facebook has had the same problem, where they blunder into something complicated and then step back and claim neutrality. they’re too arrogant and too ignorant to recognize that the minute they entered the situation they had already picked a side and any action they took would have a long tail of consequences.