The more I read HN the more I realize that I am more of an empiricist than a rationalist.

So many people here are opining as if they are correct. I have a large amount of doubt and I like the fact that the world is structured so that people can try things out and see if it works.

If the world was run by the naysayers in this thread, almost nothing would ever get done.

I have doubt but I don't believe in the idea of something like this being strictly impossible.

This is turning out just like everything else. We establish a certain conclusion that is preferred and then walk backward into whatever evidence supports that conclusion.

In this case, AI needs to fail for certain groups. It is an apparent loss of identity. The notion of it going to space where it's a lot harder to get at (protest/regulate/etc) must really bother these people. I don't need datacenters in orbit to succeed. Whether they do or do not doesn't bother me very much. The concept is interesting but not essential. The inverse is clearly not true with the counterparties. I really don't understand why you would go on the internet and be a total shitlord regarding how orbital datacenters are impossible and fuck you for even suggesting they might be.

Oh my god, it'd be way easier to, I don't know, build datacenters near Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where [0] is located. Here's your almost unlimited solar power, cheap land, and still better latency and easier cooling.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace_of_Uzbekistan