The Ukraine War, Drones, and Starlink || Feb. 17, 2026
We got our wires crossed a bit this morning. The correct title and description are now included with this video. Thank you for your understanding - Kyle (Marketing Guy).
Drones now account for the majority of casualties in the Ukraine War. One of the innovations that has allowed Russia to improve strike range is by mounting Starlink terminals to drones.
This highlights a broader evolution in warfare, in which private tech platforms can now control information flows and battlefield capabilities. Gone are the days of nation-states being the only big dogs at the table.
This new era shows that individuals and corporations can shape warfare, security, and media ecosystems at scale. This isn't going to sit well with most governments, so expect a large geopolitical shift as a result.
Comments (50)
By the way, PZ has a Starlink terminal & subscription so if he believes the company is responsible for murder, I guess that makes him an accomplice
Lol
The “right to lie” is literally only practiced by the right - at volume, while pretending they are being cancelled - and that same right also seeks to limit the right to tell the truth by journalists, or even entertainment television shows like The Late Show (eg the FCC demanded a recent interview of a minor Texas politician not be broadcast).
I think AOC contributed nicely in disproving your point at the recent Munich Security Conference.
A possibly simple solution to limit kids access to social media might be by limiting kids to flip phones till they're 14 or 16 or whatever. My wife insists on using a flip phone and she can't do shit with that thing. Short texts and actual phone calls (remember those) are about the extent of it.
As a libertarian, I would like to see the discussion center around individual liberty and responsibility. My initial reaction is that dependance on the tender mercies of government is the LAST port I would want in this storm. What actual harm is being done by misuse of Starlink, for example. In the case of drones, that is easy. In the case of child porn, not so much. I could even argue that children are being helped, not harmed, as long as the pedophile is dealing with an AI and not a human. That is a very similar situation as with illegal drugs. As long as no innocents are harmed, who cares?
As a former libertarian, I would point out that the position is rather paradoxical. Power can, has been, and will continue to be abused from wherever and whatever the source. The notion that a private citizen can abuse power and any attempt to stop said person is inherently tyrannical is a prima facie absurdity. While you did not expressly say this in your comment, I have heard it said by others. This is because this is a common logical conclusion of this position. I believe it is better to adopt an approach which seeks maximum liberty with equal protection under law. I’ll leave discussion of specific points alone at this time.
Wow! This is bananas! Will companies eventually just become their own nation states? They have their own economies (bigger than those of most countries) and their is talk about printing their own coins, and now they have infrastructre that is better than most countries? What do you think, Peter? Or maybe they'll become their own city states within a nation, like some of China's provinces?!?
Look up Prospera Honduras as an example of a pilot corporate city
"Save the children" is a rich notion. When they tried to "save" me from the Atari 2600, they created a phreaking hacker and I assume the kids will apply similar creativity in defeating any attempt to throttle their internet access.
We probably should just nationalize Elons assets. He has been an unreliable actor, keeps putting our national security at risk and is actively working on dividing the public. Given his Epstein correspondence he should probably be held under house arrest until the investigation are over as he is a massive flight risk.
While I agree, who do you give it to? ICE?
Good going, Kyle. 😁
Rough morning!
The title and description for this video got mixed up. That has since been updated, and the correct Japan Rare Earths video has also been released. - Kyle (Marketing Guy)
Restricting internet access to teenagers when the age of consent is 14-18 years old in Europe.
Interesting, but didn't hear "rare earths" or "Japan" mentioned
Starlink was found in Japanese mud?!
Okay that interesting now
When billionaires get to determine our national security.
United Airlines is testing top side externally mounted Starlink antennas to provide gate to gate high speed internet service. This is basically what the Russians did, but they merged it with flight controls for their killer drones. Musk is working with Kiev to neutralize the problem.
Great video. I did not know Russia was using Starlink like that. However, I need some help linking it to Rare Earths in Japan :)
Starlink was enabled in Ukraine but not Russia. However since Russia is invading Ukraine, they were able to activate Starlink terminals inside Ukraine. It took a while for Ukraine to provide Starlink with a white list of all approved terminals so that Starlink didn’t accidentally shut off legitimate Ukrainian terminals. That doesn’t fit into PZ anti-Musk narrative so you won’t hear much more than murder accusations when Starlink literally saved Ukraine 🇺🇦 in the beginning of the war.
Title aside, this was a great critique of the current situation of communications that are critical for societies. Musk has unbalanced amounts of power. I'm glad the Europeans, Australians, etc have decided it's unhealthy and time to regulate for kids. I hope the next step is that they will develop and provide alternatives with greater transparency, less manipulation through algorithms and provide an alternative choice. Hopefully one with less (or at least labelled) AI slop.
Peter Z is so persuasive that i listened to all of that and still believed it was about Japanese rare earth metals and i just hadnt understood it
Subject; drones and starlink.... nothing about Japan or rare earths.....
Peter doesn’t want the algorithm to trigger Musk’s Skynet. Hence the misdirection of the title.
One counterweight to "free speech" is "censorship". I think the rich elite should not have any more power of free speech OR censorship than anyone else.
I was starting to think that Starlink can somehow find rare earth minerals in Japan…
....kept waiting for the punchline that never came. Anyway, NBD.
I dislike governments trying to decide what should be true enough to be said, because I still remember all the lies of covid. Let us not forget that the virus coming from a lab was a disgusting conspiracy theory till it wasn't and was probably true. Nor should we forget that the idea of pedos investing government were the deranged rantings of Alex Jones until we found out that there were a lot of pedos in government.
Name one pedo in government (any proven pedo, not suspect.) Name one proven "lab leak theory" and explain furan cleavage site biomechanics. Name any lie about Covid. Hardmode: try not to say "Joe Biden", "mrna" or "Fauci Ouchie". Back up your points with quotes from Alex Jones that have been proven true.
Interesting discussion on "Finding Rare Earths in Japanese Mud" but had nothing to do with Mr. Musk. The Gods of IT deserve comeuppance in my opinion. Recall one of their mottos: "Move fast, break things". What they leave out is the purpose: "Get rich fast". It could be Mr. Musk and his ilk only seem invincible and untouchable. Lord Acton said it well, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
This proves my thesis since the invasion of Ukraine rethinking its history since the 1990’s, of Russia doubling down on its rogue pirate gangsta 1000 year history and cannot exist in the world anymore. It is unrestrained evil.
I wonder if anyone will point out the title is wrong..... :P
What does any of this have to do with Japan and rare earth minerals?
It'll come, chances are Musk will get there first if not at the same time, my view Pete, as he maps the stuff in the Asteroid Belt in space. Pandora is a real thing now to come. Fascinating. When exactly and how too for Gods Sakes and ours are we going to be able to get rid of these political crooks running our world? Putin goes and the Ruskie Mzfia just put up another prick and on and on it goes. We have to rout these Al Capone 30's styled Kremlin Mafias or it just goes on and on. A 300 year war!? The stated goal of yhe soviets after WW2 was Global Communism and it appears to me anyways that it still is? When is trmp going to wake up, alright hes damned ( deranged and mentally uneducateable that means, word of Catholic invention there for you ) and stupid, opposite of common sense, how DO we stabalise all this rot?
I expect a deep explanation of Japanese rare earths tomorrow under a headline about Elon musk and true info wars
Funny how all of this is complicated in the present and clear as day in retrospect. If there is an other side to these conflicts, I wonder where the chips will fall and which nooses around which necks. Metaphorically speaking
Elon is turning into a far less funny version of Dr. Evil.
Or a far dumber version of Tony Stark.
Did Musk do this 😳 ?
they got the transcript right. lol
Video doesn’t match description
Oops
hmmm thin the title is wrong on this one
But the video is about drones????
#RightToLie
They aren’t looking for rare earths PZ, they are looking for Kaiju! And the Kaiju wants… about $3.50
I’m halfway through and this has nothing to do with mud yet.