Why don’t any governments get in that business then? They could distribute it locally but sell the vaccines and pharmaceuticals they develop to foreign countries and make a bunch of profit.
Lol. Because there's hardly any socialist government out there. Basically the same kind of guys that are running these corps are editing all these globalization and privatization international treaties.
No. It's because it's not economically worthwhile yet to do anything significant in Antarctica given the costs of doing something. Treaties will get renegotiated if there is enough economic value and in any case, treaties need to have millitary might ultimately to get enforced. The Budapest treaties never got enforced as an example and that's why we are where we are in Ukraine
I'm fairly certain there would be major mining, commercial fishing, and oil drilling operations in Antarctica today it weren't for the Antarctic Treaty. (Also, wars.) It's a geopolitical accident that everything worked out so well with the treaty. I doubt it will hold forever.
Perhaps you're forgetting that the initial detailed resource assessment (exploratory drilling etc.) is also prohibited, which stops investment from getting a foothold.
(I spent a lot of time down there)
Edit: thinking a bit more... Why do you say the treaty isn't enforced? I've been under federal investigation for what some people thought was a violation of the Antarctic Conservation Act (US law enforcing the treaty). I don't think anyone has ever been charged under that law so you could be right, but I was scared and I assure you people take the ACA seriously.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Yes indeed the treaties prevent "privateer" operations. They don't prevent major nation state level economic operations backed by millitary force it one decides it needs the resources. You can see some of this playing out in Ukraine, South China Sea etc. This is even true for large scale private organisations Vs smaller countries though setting aside Antarctic treaty will require more millitary might - see squid fishing off Chile or drug cartel control of central America as examples.
Your argument seems to be "treaties between nations are violated whenever it becomes expedient." This might be true in some cases, but I think a the Antarctic Treaty is a great counterexample.
Do you know about the overlapping territorial wedge claims in Antarctica and how they were suspended by the treaty? If not I think you would find it quite interesting.
While it looks like there are resources (oil, gas and coal being mentioned) it does not seem they have been mined before the current treaty cam into effect, most likely due to the 19/early 20 century technology.
But there certainly were substantial whaling stations in Antarctica for a while, with quite a lot of people & much more primitive technology compared to what we have now.
The Budapest Memorandum was specifically not a treaty. The US and UK did enforce the terms as written by raising Russia's invasion as an issue in the UN Security Council. The memorandum didn't require them to do anything more.
Given that there's laws and international treaties forbidding mining, resource extraction or resource exploration, of course it's not economically worthwhile.
The northernmost part of Canada is Ellesmere Island. Which is almost as large as Great Britain. There is no "you may not settle here" international treaty.
Wikipedia gives the entire island's population as 144 - all of them at a military base. [Edit: Vs. a population of ~61 million for Great Britain.]
Actual daily life in the high arctic/antarctic is nowhere near so desirable as many people want to believe.
I don't think that's true. What is the alleged treaty called? The Antarctic Treaty binds the contracting states to prohibit individuals from doing various things in Antarctica, the Outer Space Treaty doesn't really do that, and arguably does the opposite by prohibiting territorial claims. Regardless, I don't think any treaty should be taken very seriously. They will both be violated whenever it's expedient to violate them.
That's true, but it's defined (and kept up to date) in practice by COSPAR, who have a pretty elaborate set of definitions in place for Mars in particular.
COSPAR is (officially speaking) a private body, and as such their Planetary Protection Policy is not legally binding. They propose their policy as an interpretation of Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, but as a private body they lack the legal authority to make binding interpretations of an international treaty. The standard approach in international law would be to look at the intentions and understanding of the States Parties at the time the Treaty was originally concluded in order to interpret it - which would likely support a far weaker understanding of “harmful contamination” than what COSPAR proposes.
The rules for Mars aren't based in the treaty but instead on "planetary protection" an abstract policy coming from no law other than forms of regressive environmentalism that tries to limit contamination so that it's easier to find potential microbes. It's already actively harming site selection for Mars exploration by preventing sending of rovers that might discover life to actual areas that might have life.
To save the possibility of finding life we are preventing ourselves from finding life.
The treaty doesn't prevent Mars settlement. It just prevents claiming of territory. Antarctic treaty is actually significantly stricter than the outer space treaty in many ways.
How many malicious employees do you think would be left at this point? There have been massive layoffs, and anyone who didn't like Musk or the "extreme hardcore" could have taken the severance.
Right, but if you're still there because you can't leave, then you're not going to do something stupid to get yourself immediately fired, like going rogue and suspending Paul Graham's account.
Sure they could. They could have lined up a job or impulsively lashed out, or think enforcing the policy gives them cover. It’s the sort of thing I might do.
This is just a probability you may have a different weight on.
I keep hearing "maybe it was a rogue employee" or "maybe it was automation" about everything Twitter does lately... until Musk comes out and defends the thing. I don't know why the benefit of the doubt should be granted at this point.
It's just "enforcement", there's nothing malicious about it. Elon Musk is the CEO and policymaker of Twitter now, he's responsible for the actions his company takes.
I wouldn't be surprised if the employee who did this gets fired as a result of this. In fact, I'd be shocked if @paulg isn't reinstated within 48 hours (as they did with Taylor Lorenz a few hours ago.) All of Musk's previous interactions with Graham suggests that their relationship is friendly. And if there's one thing we've seen from Elon Musk's Twitter, it's that he's not hesitant to fire Twitter employees.
That'd be extremely unfair. It was extremely dangerous to Mr. Musk's estate that Paul Graham used his clout to entice people to switch to Mastodon. This was nothing but a display of unswerving loyalty and adherence to Mr. Musk's vision.
Malicious? Elon Musk wants employees to have utmost loyalty to him, what's malicious to risk taking the fall by clicking the ban button on the rich, famous and powerful to safeguard the vision of the visionary CEO? This was fulfillment of orders beyond the call of duty.
Graham was a threat to the Master, what's a loyal servant to do?
we don't know anything about the "stalker" other than what Musk said. Musk has been caught lying about his children in the past [1] to justify his Twitter policy swings. I'd like to think he wouldn't stoop so low as to use his kid like that, but the truth is we don't know.
Now journalists are being banned for copying word-for-word the police response stating that "no police report was filed" over the stalker incident.
That would be a loss for twitter IMO. I know it's being remade into ground zero for culture war discourse, but there's nowhere else online like Twitter when it comes to breaking news and developing situations. Journalists and reporters sharing information as it's verified real time.
When something was going down, you went to twitter.
Twitter was lost the day Musk carried that sink into the building. I agree that it was an important cultural institution, but I don't think there's anything that can be done to save it. The faster we let it fall, the faster we can develop alternatives.
Only the tiny minority of techies screaming about the 'fediverse' care. There is little interest with the majority of non-techies 200M+ that care to use it daily, let alone sign up; hence why they still use Twitter.
Federated social networks such as Mastodon are a solution in search of a problem, and it always has been like that for years.
I hear a lot of people talking about the Fediverse of many different technical backgrounds. It's true it would take a huge event to get non-technical people interested in the Fediverse - but that's exactly what I'm seeing.
They're not a solution in search of a problem. They're a solution a small, dedicated group of people have cared deeply about, but most people have ignored. But people have been unsatisfied with the centralized aspects of social media for a long time. They're not stupid; they see the way the algorithms are designed for engagement, and the toxicity that causes. They see how fragile it is that someone like Musk can just swoop in and sabotage the platform.
Network effects have made it difficult to adopt a decentralized solution. Well - lots of communities are looking for a home they won't have to leave for the same reason they did before. That's creating network effects in the opposite direction.
If you'd said this to me a few weeks ago I'd have been inclined to believe it. But things are in flux. Maybe the Fediverse won't take off, but it has a very really shot right now.
I simply don't get the problem with the "Fediverse". Mastodon works very much like Twitter and you can follow people on your server or another one with ease. You don't need to know anything about anything to do this.
I will tell you honestly, that I believe you are the one letting your smugness cloud your view of reality, not the other commenter (indeed, I read their tone as matter of fact, not smug). No one is obligated to share their mother's personal information in order to prove a point to you. When you say you're presuming good faith and then include a string of insults in the same breathe, it's pretty unconvincing. Were you not entrenched in your position and holding other people's views in contempt, I think these observations would have been obvious to you before you hit "submit".
I hope you'll consider taking a step back and reflecting on whether this is how you want to interact with people and what it is that brought you here.
I'm not sure what troubles our flagged dead commenter more, that there are female math professors in the world, or that they have children that might comment on HN.
FWiW:
To the assertion that there exists at least one Emeritus Professor on mathstodon.xyz -
https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao
To the request that "that guy" provide social media accounts of his mother, her friends, their nom de guerres, discussions, etc .. I'm altogether unsure of whom "that guy" might be.
Cheers for your response, I'd have gotten back sooner but <shrug> Timezones :-)
I am on Mastodon, and none of the people who follow me there or who I am following are techies - oh, except Cory Doctorow. All are refugees from Twitter.
Mastodon solves my problem, "How do I keep track of my friends without Twitter or Facebook" very well, and each day new friends of mine appear there.
I'm gonna be honest, you're coming off a bit delusional. No meaningful amount of people care about the issues you do to abandon twitter for an already dead network like mastodon. The idea of federation doesn't appeal to normies, it only confuses them.
This is a reflection on your perception, what you imagine to be possible, and how much respect you afford "normies", more than it is a reflection on me.
Well I was calling you delusional if you think your average person cares about Elon's shenanigans enough to jump ship to a platform no one uses. So it was solely a comment on you.
If you're perceiving it as in insult rather than taking a second to consider the possibility you may be drastically overstating the importance of certain things to the average person then, it's just you lacking self-awareness here friend.
Well this should be a good lesson in why not to trust something that supposedly is in the public interest to a private company that can easily be bought up by some billionaire with emotional problems.
Please explain how the car in question was found in the first place, at an airport the size of a small city. Flight-tracking data will have been of absolutely zero help in doing that, of course.
Can you point to some examples? Note that they have to be examples which only apply to one side (I'm going to assume you mean conservatives) and aren't standard violations of ToS.
> They suppressed Trump’s account before the election…
If by "suppressed" you mean "suspended for repeated violations of ToS even though they'd protected him for months by saying he was POTUS and therefore newsworthy and should be granted much more leeway than other accounts", sure.
The most important benefit of the public announcement is that showing successfully completed projects like this helps the defense industry with recruitment and encourages more students to become aeronautical and mechanical engineers.
Historically, yes, they’ve scheduled outdoor activity to avoid satellite overflight, if we’re not misled by books.
Maybe it’s not a strong factor here, because it was a few days before public announcement anyway. But you’d expect them to follow the same protocol or at least pick a more convenient time than 1:30am if they were not.
