The most interesting data running through Starlink is Ukrainian and Russian military comms (including feeds from drones). I wonder if Musk actually plans to tap into that.

I’m going to assume that they are encrypted especially for military purposes so unless they can crack the encryption it’s useless.

"Good luck" [in Russian accent]

Bots can authenticate just as well as human users. Both bots and trolls are completely different set of issues that cannot easily be solved, regardless of your approach.

Bots can have private keys that are only issued to humans?

You will need to implement some very invasive issuing mechanism to ensure that only those with a pulse can procure new keys. Even then, keys will still be bought or stolen - as was the case with pre-Elon Twitter checkmarks.

In Europe some countries have ID cards which have a private key on it. If you report it stolen it goes into the revocation list and they issue a new ID card to you.

USA is not Russia. I don't think an order could ever be made to level a "rebellious" city, and even if it were, it would never be followed.

> How doable is it with vanilla css?

Under all of the framework complexity that specific look is still achieved with CSS. In fact, you could rip out the CSS they use with very little modification and pair it with a ~five-line React component that doesn't require any third-party imports.

Most of Ukraine doesn't need to do it. The internet infrastructure is largely intact and very decentralised. The biggest challenge is the lengthy power outages, but mobile networks keeps running thanks to generators.

I think that there are more apps that are better off as web apps (cross platform and sandboxed) than not.

From a purely moral standpoint, my answer would be "yes, absolutely." Unfortunately, most of these interventions are not practically possible. Taking out a dictator in US's backyard is so much easier (and easier to do bloodlessly) than any of these examples.

I'd just call the police, since they're more powerful than your average robber.

Maduro's remaining cronies could call on Russia for help since they just signed a military alliance. However, that's not likely to work.

> maybe slightly further cementing that the US will not come to Taiwan's aid

Isn't that the opposite? The US just demonstrated that it can still conduct military operations, and the presence of Chinese envoys in the country does not deter it in any way. As of now, China has one fewer source of oil it can rely on in case of an invasion.

Maybe you're right, but I view it more as: China can now be confident that the US doesn't care much at all about the sovereignty of weaker nations or coming to the aid of allies. "Might makes right", and if China asserts itself with strength (as in a full blockade/invasion instead of a few envoys present) Trump will most likely back off.

How does the US invading one country imply they won’t defend another country?

I get that military resources devoted to one theatre can’t be used in another and for that reason the US might be less able to defend Taiwan, but that may not make them less willing.

A more reasonable read is that the aircraft carriers and other naval assets in the Gulf of Mexico are more effective there than they could be in the Pacific. Venezuela doesn’t have hypersonic anti-ship missiles. China does.

The difference is that Russia's goal is the annexation of most or all Ukrainian territory, the looting of the country and the erasure of its national identity. Without western support, Ukraine would be in a much worse state than it is now.

Whatever US goals are, it seems they are not pushing forward after snatching Maduro.

> Without western support, Ukraine would be in a much worse state than it is now.

No, that doesn't seem to be true.