I think we're slowly witnessing the next phase of societal evolution right now. No watershed moment yet though.

With the likes of Bitcoin and Starlink a picture is starting to emerge that, while this tech is all still it's infancy, there does seem to exist the remote possibility that one day the tables will turn such that the dynamics that enable totalitarian regimes will be removed or seriously undermined.

The industrial revolution changed the previous set of dynamics in that there became a class of independently wealthy, and hence powerful/influential, business owners with a vested interest in how the state operated. It wasn't that they had power and influence over other people, but rather that they recognised that their peers had the same interests they did and they could band together to form a coalition against the rulers of the day and eventually out of that government emerged.

Wish I could read the history books from the year 2500!

Geo-fencing is kind of inherent to Starlink since it's based on spot beams.

I also wonder if people really want to see "Starlink customers in Myanmar executed for treason" headlines.

I can imagine a boots on the ground approach searching door to door to find and execute people using it.

When no one will stop you doing something, you can go as far as you want.

WEIRD people see this type of situation as very catastrophic, strange, and alien, but when you crack open the history books present day Myanmar is a regular day at the office on planet earth and it's all the WEIRD people who are actually the anomaly.

This thinking goes both ways. There is no reason someone would have to use starlink at their home. That is the entire point. You could hide a setup in the middle of nowhere.

Take a 3 hour drive every weekend to go watch cat videos, see what shenanigans Trump's up to these days, and jerk off to midget porn.

Good times.

Plenty of countries already ban certain things from coming into their countries like sat phones, CB radios and weapons.

The Starlink dish will just be on that same list of "prohibited from import" items for totalitarian governments.

Uh-huh, but when you're in a country ruled by a totalitarian government you really, REALLY don't want to be caught with equipment on the banned list.

I drove through 35 African countries a couple of years ago, and I was warned repeatedly not to have a sat phone or drone, lest the governments get VERY upset with me.

Oh, it's going to be very simple. Tracking satellite receivers is a common military problem, they will purchase electronic warfare aircraft (often with the help of the US government), then locate the emitters and shoot those people.

Alternatively, they can threaten SpaceX's satellites to either comply or be shot down or jammed with highly powerful directional jammer pointed at the satellite.

No, but I assume Starlink will implement geofencing for subscribers to please content-providers.

Starlink already is geofenced to where you live (you can't even move the dish within your own country).

I'm pretty sure they will only provide the service legally.

I'm not thrilled about the further expansion of US influence on worldwide telecommunications.

StarLink is a "solution", involving ruining raw data collection from any amateur or professional space telescopes fir decades only because the corrupt US government and private internet ecosystem doesn't allow for accessible internet connections, that the whole world has to suffer for. A shitty solution to an artificial problem in a country that tries to police the world.

Totalitarian governments will jam Starlink frequencies or arrest and shoot people who use its receivers. They won't be beaten by some crazy billionaire with an internet space ISP. You'd be a fool if you thought China would ever allow something like StarLink to exist in their airspace without exerting major control over the company.

No, most likely, StarLink will just be unavailable to totalitarian countries until their dictators stop doing what the US government wants them to do. If there's no way to block it, it'll become just another tool in the deep toolbox for insurrection. After all, dropping StarLink receivers is a lot easier than handling "rebels" guns when the time calls for it, like in most major conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa for at least the last decade.