After some thinking, I've concluded that I'd actually like if there was a large collision that resulted in a chain reaction and took out most of the military and commercial satellites. It's obviously needed, in order for people to reassess their priorities, and whether additional garbage will be left with every mission.
(if we're imagining, without damage to ISS and scientific projects, of course)
Maybe we shouldn't wish widespread harm on society to force them to "reassess their priorities" and engage in civilized dialogue instead.
If you find yourself rooting for the system to burn, it’s usually a sign the analysis stopped one layer too soon.
It’s tempting to think a big crash would finally wake people up, but that’s not how it works. When things fall apart, folks just rebuild the same broken setup, only shakier. Look at the Internet. It was supposed to change everything. And it did! Except we just ended up mostly reinventing the same old power structures we had before, just with different players. (There are some really good exceptions tho!)
The real move is to figure out what makes people change and get them to do to, before it all goes up in flames.
What priorities do you have in mind here? Let's say all commercial satellites explode: A bunch of people have to change internet or TV provider and a few percent of them are stuck without for a while. It gets harder to make calls in certain areas. Our maps update somewhat less often. What does that accomplish? What's being reassessed at the large scale?