US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink • Hacker News Board

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#411

Post by tedivm » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:40 PM UTC

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #390

delecti wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ (linked in the GGP to your comment) links to this tweet from Jan 23, 2017 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768 When asked the question "At what point will "Full Self-Driving Capability" features noticeably depart from "Enhanced Autopilot" features?" Elon responded "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely" Also, lots of examples of "this year" stated in various January…

This question was not asking about when FSD was going to work but when Enhanced Autopilot would noticeably depart from FSD. No where in there did it say "FSD will be working completely in 6 months". They did in fact diverge, no where was that a statement that FSD would be complete by then. It's ironic you are calling him a liar when your response seems to either be completely dishonest itself or you are not aware of…

In October of 2016-

> By the end of next year, said Musk, Tesla would demonstrate a fully autonomous drive from, say, a home in L.A., to Times Square ... without the need for a single touch, including the charging.

So you're technically right- he said three months, not six.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/driverless-tesla-will...

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#412

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #406

cycomanic wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue even waymo is still far away from FSD. Driverless cars on a restricted set of roads with a remote operator monitoring things (and the ability to quickly resolve issues), is nowhere close to what I (and the general public I would argue) understands as fully self driving.

Sure, if you set the goalposts in a place that's unachievable we'll never reach them. - even human drivers cannot safely operate in all locations/conditions - all self-driving cars will need a mechanism for cops to talk to a human

[deleted]

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#413

Post by mulmen » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

zbyte64 wrote: post #386

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experts are wrong all the time. The experts said that solar prices would come down but were off by nearly an order of magnitude in how long it took. With something this hard it's extremely tough to tell for sure when it will happen and often progress goes in chunks where it seems like it's going to happen but then doesnt.

I agree with all of this, but if the problem is too hard for the expert, why would I listen to a billionaire/CEO?

Experts have a narrow, deep view while CEOs have a wide, shallow view.

If the expert works in a lab developing new experimental solar panels they probably don’t see a clear path to mass production.

The CEO might know another manufacturing expert that does see a path to production and have enough high level understanding to know the methods are compatible.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#414

Post by kelnos » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #406

cycomanic wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue even waymo is still far away from FSD. Driverless cars on a restricted set of roads with a remote operator monitoring things (and the ability to quickly resolve issues), is nowhere close to what I (and the general public I would argue) understands as fully self driving.

Sure, if you set the goalposts in a place that's unachievable we'll never reach them. - even human drivers cannot safely operate in all locations/conditions - all self-driving cars will need a mechanism for cops to talk to a human

The goal is to replace a human driver in every situation where a human driver could or would drive, with an equivalent or (ideally) better safety record.

Are you suggesting that Waymo is there? I don't think the evidence would support that. Even if we relax that goal a bit so the self-driving car can disengage and refuse to drive in, say, the most difficult 20% of situations, I don't think we can say Waymo is there, either.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#415

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #357

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never did Musk say "We'll have it done in six months".

This: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ (linked in the GGP to your comment) links to this tweet from Jan 23, 2017 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768 When asked the question "At what point will "Full Self-Driving Capability" features noticeably depart from "Enhanced Autopilot" features?" Elon responded "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely" Also, lots of examples of "this year" stated in various January…

> I suspect his statements are carefully made to not technically meet the legal definition for fraud, but colloquially he's absolutely a liar.

They're probably not carefully made, but fraud requires knowledge of falsity, and short of an internal report saying "this feature won't be ready before XYZ," it is going to be extremely difficult to prove Tesla knew the claims were false.

The other thing you'll run into is reasonability of reliance--at this point, with so many deadlines repeatedly blown through, it would be hard to demonstrate that a reasonable person could rely on a representation that a promised deadline would be met.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#416

Post by kelnos » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #344

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a panel discussion on self driving cars in 2015 with several legit experts in the technology (I believe Sebastian Thrun was one of them). There were also some CEOs. The experts all said there’s no way the tech would deploy before 2025, potentially later. The CEOs were saying 2018 or 2019. The experts had a clear view way back then, the CEOs just don’t want to listen.

Experts are wrong all the time. The experts said that solar prices would come down but were off by nearly an order of magnitude in how long it took. With something this hard it's extremely tough to tell for sure when it will happen and often progress goes in chunks where it seems like it's going to happen but then doesnt.

Sure, but I'd trust experts in a field over a bunch of CEOs who have a vested interest in claiming something will be ready sooner rather than later.

Even CEOs who are an experts are by their very nature too biased to take at face value.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#417

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:51 PM UTC

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #339

mikestew wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not being fair, that's making excuses. If the problem is that hard, don't be running your mouth about you'll have it done in six months, and charge people money while you work out the bugs.

Never did Musk say "We'll have it done in six months".

[deleted]

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#418

Post by lxgr » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

Shawnecy wrote: post #345

WheatMillington wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just roll out fiber As if this were a trivial task

This is in comparison to launching satellites into space. I think most people would agree it's probably more along the lines of "trivial" when compared to that.

Neither are trivial, the two just scale very differently.

I do see the benefit in resilience of building out fiber even to moderately unprofitable (from a unit economics point of view) regions, just like we also build roads to communities that will never "pay the investment back" in taxes. But there are cases where it just can't be justified.

But it's also not a simple either-or: There are other technologies than fiber and satellite; there can be more than one high-throughput LEO provider; we can have a few GEO satellites for redundancy (although with significantly worse latency) etc.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#419

Post by mannykannot » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #406

cycomanic wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue even waymo is still far away from FSD. Driverless cars on a restricted set of roads with a remote operator monitoring things (and the ability to quickly resolve issues), is nowhere close to what I (and the general public I would argue) understands as fully self driving.

Sure, if you set the goalposts in a place that's unachievable we'll never reach them. - even human drivers cannot safely operate in all locations/conditions - all self-driving cars will need a mechanism for cops to talk to a human

You just moved the goalposts in order to set up a straw-man argument!

One can quite reasonably point out that level 5 autonomy has not yet been achieved without moving the level 5 goalposts.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#420

Post by alsodumb » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #358

alsodumb wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are obviously giving very biased answers without any substantial proof.

The proof is everywhere when you look at products manufactured by Musk companies They are all based on re-inventing the wheel (quite literally) for political purposes and government money extraction. You'll never find the guy developing something that customers really want such as self-checkout system that doesn't suck, because there is no Government money to be extracted from it.

Let's see, Tesla is reinventing the wheel for extracting government money extraction? They make a solid profit on each car they sell. You gonna bring up the loan. But that loan was repaid in full by Tesla, ahead of time, where as Ford and other who also got similar loans defaulted on it. You going to bring up EV subsidies - but that's open to every automaker and Tesla is probably the only company that can make a margin on their car even without EV subsidy.

Now let's talk SpaceX - people who are not familiar with the space industry don't realize how much SpaceX fundamentally changed the industry - before SpaceX it was like two players in the space launch area, and they used to charge government a shit ton of money for each launch, often using Russian engines. SpaceX made it so cheap that it was hard for anyone to compete, and their offerings are so cheap when compared to anyone else (and sometimes they are the only launch option US) that even competitors are compelled to use SpaceX. You being a Musk hater would argue that all the government launch contracts to SpaceX are 'subsidies' but nope, they launches were gonna happen whether SpaceX existed or not. SpaceX only saved government tens of billions of dollars by reducing the launch costs.

I can keep going on but it wouldn't matter to you. Customers really wanted SpaceX. Everyone who uses Starlink really wants it, go talk to actual users. Just because the products the guy is developing doesn't align with your notion of what customers really want doesn't mean if it's something useful.

Starlink would exist without this subsidy from the government. That doesn't mean that Starlink should not try to get a share of the subsidy that government offered to all the players in this market. If you have a problem with the subsidy complain about the government, not one of the many beneficiaries just because you hate the guy that owns the company.