The Fault In Our Stars
Starlink is a masterstroke of one individual, Elon Musk. So far, he has placed in the sky about 3,500 of 40,000 planned satellites to make up a full constellation of them that will enable us all to be connected to one another via his network, from space.
Starlink is great. It is helping the people of Ukraine and other people around the world who would otherwise have no internet to be connected to the world wide web. It is saving lives.
It is also causing increased risk of high speed collisions in space, and resultant cascading debris that could take out everything, and, on the ground it is polluting light for astronomers that gaze the skies. So it is a form of pollution.
But on a measure of 'benefit versus problem', most people would agree it falls on the side of a 'benefit' for mankind.
Unfortunately, however, we live in a world where Europe, China and Russia all now feel obliged to develop their own Starlink equivalents to keep dominant, keep secure and keep up with the Joneses - or the Musks, in this case.
What a ginormous waste of resources!! Everything the EU, Russia and China are spending on their identical projects, right now, could be used to clean up the world below, instead of further polluting the sky above.
Question - In what kind of a world would we need four lots of starlinks where one is enough - simply because we don't trust each other?
Answer - The present world.
Question - How do we avoid this kind of cluster-intercourse in the future?
Answer - Global governance. This starts at the top: The five permanent members of the Security Council need to:
1. Respect the rule of law, so that the population of the world knows that it is living in a world with boundaries on the conduct of others;
2. They also need to start developing and implementing a succession plan to cede power to a more democratic institution to uphold global order, given the present structure has demonstrably failed completely to work as an institution for the security of mankind. An example would be one in which each section of the world is represented on the permanent membership the Security Council; the power of veto is replaced by a two thirds rule or similar; and the majority of the world also agree the UN charter extends their power from the ability to make resolutions to a mandate to make enforceable regulation; and
3. The new structure would oversee actual regulation, instead of non-binding resolutions, including, for example, to ensure the existing Starlink is shared and used appropriately, in exchange for having permission to pollute our common skies.
Maybe I am just star gazing. Or was that a satellite. I can't tell anymore.
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