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by loeg 263 days ago
Personally, I've never suffered from satellite plasma or light pollution from satellites, or spectrum allocation. I suspect most of the 100% are like me.
2 comments

Scientific advancement has suffered from the light pollution and that advancement is a driving force behind your modern life. So you have (or will) suffer indirectly over time.
> Scientific advancement has suffered from the light pollution

Has it?

Destroying the Amazon destroys information. Light pollution simply raises the cost of our accessing it. I suppose one could model this out to some effect on deep-space astronomy's productivity. But if that effect is real--and I've seen zero evidence it is--the solution is a tax on satellite launches to fund more observatories.

Your response is not in good faith - this is very easy to google.
> this is very easy to google

Then it should be easy to cite. Astronomers have complained. But I haven't seen anyone link that to output, including the complaining astronomers.

Search term: "low earth orbit satellite effects on astronomy" first result:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01904-2

OP said "scientific advancement has suffered from the light pollution," past tense. Your source explores a "potentially large rise in global sky brightness," and an "expected...rapid rise in night sky brightness."

These are not risks to be ignored. But we haven't even observed or quantified them, which is the first step to weighing mitigation options. (Which could be physical, e.g. lowering satellite reflectivity. Or geographic, putting more observatories are higher latitudes. Or even statistical, by launching space-based calibration telescopes, or building more array-based observatories.)

I think your attempted connection between astronomy and modern technological conveniences is pretty thin.
Does your phone have a camera on it?
Unless you don't breathe air, you can't make the first statement with absolute certainty.

"Workin' in these coal mines ain't hurt me none no-how."