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Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a f

Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, suddenly the moon would have holiday resorts.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Nicely put. Though this is not caused by the religious aspects of modern capitalism, but by its core mechanism of work - people are forced to work on what earns them and protects their short-term profit (poor people to eat, rich people to not become poor people). There seem to be only few people on the planet with simultaneously enough wealth and focused will to tell the market where to go, as opposed to being directed by the market - I'm thinking about people like Gates and Musk. Fortunately, one of them is hell-bent on getting to Mars; without that forcing function, we'd probably be talking about scrapping ISS by now. (I don't feel like you can blame situation in NASA purely on capitalism though, at least not directly. They don't play the capitalism game. But they are controlled by politicians, and politicians play the capitalism game.)
- drdeca 9y ago
  Politicians play the politics game. This game involves people acting with self interest, and relates in some ways to access to/control of resources. This is the case regardless of economic system. "Capitalism is moloch, yes, but government is also moloch. Anarchy is also moloch."
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That's why I wrote "indirectly". Politicians play the politics game, but the particulars of that game is in big way determined by the economic system of a country. In the US, politicians try to game the election process, and that involves allocating resources in a way that ensures their electability. The end result is things like turning NASA's space efforts into a giant jobs program. Politicians under a (hypothetical) different economic system would face different pressures, maybe even aligned with pursuing longer-term projects.
closeparen 9y ago
If there were a price on even medium-term future events, we would all be living in condo towers and taking public transit. We can’t even manage to shift the balance of ground transportation in response to a planetary crisis, there’s no way it would take us to space.
nickik 9y ago
I'm sorry but that is a bunch of nonsense. > Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Yes, going to the moon had to do with geopolitics but all this stuff about the 'reference system' is nonsense. Any geopolitical opponent could have led to the same result. > Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. You are again trying to shoehorn your larged philiosophy about 'modern capitalism' into the argument. First of all it is absolutly clear to anybody with idioligical glasses on that NASA started to perfom less well long before it was clear to most people that the Soviet system was going to collapse. NASA was young, flexible had lots of budget and thanks to a set of luck circumstances. The reality is that NASA has been burocratiesed and and largly been controlled by congress and presidents trying to use NASA for anything but space exploration. Non of that has anything to do with the Soviet Union and some problem with 'capitalism'. > There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, suddenly the moon would have holiday resorts. Just like in democracy things only happen if large numbers of people can support it, neither capitalism nor democracy has done mutch to defend against meteors. And nowdays it is actually capitalism that is driving the push towards people living of planet.
dang 9y ago
Would you please not post ideological boilerplate to Hacker News, regardless of which ideology? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Nicely put. Though this is not caused by the religious aspects of modern capitalism, but by its core mechanism of work - people are forced to work on what earns them and protects their short-term profit (poor people to eat, rich people to not become poor people). There seem to be only few people on the planet with simultaneously enough wealth and focused will to tell the market where to go, as opposed to being directed by the market - I'm thinking about people like Gates and Musk. Fortunately, one of them is hell-bent on getting to Mars; without that forcing function, we'd probably be talking about scrapping ISS by now. (I don't feel like you can blame situation in NASA purely on capitalism though, at least not directly. They don't play the capitalism game. But they are controlled by politicians, and politicians play the capitalism game.)

drdeca 9y ago
Politicians play the politics game. This game involves people acting with self interest, and relates in some ways to access to/control of resources. This is the case regardless of economic system. "Capitalism is moloch, yes, but government is also moloch. Anarchy is also moloch."
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That's why I wrote "indirectly". Politicians play the politics game, but the particulars of that game is in big way determined by the economic system of a country. In the US, politicians try to game the election process, and that involves allocating resources in a way that ensures their electability. The end result is things like turning NASA's space efforts into a giant jobs program. Politicians under a (hypothetical) different economic system would face different pressures, maybe even aligned with pursuing longer-term projects.

closeparen 9y ago

If there were a price on even medium-term future events, we would all be living in condo towers and taking public transit. We can’t even manage to shift the balance of ground transportation in response to a planetary crisis, there’s no way it would take us to space.

nickik 9y ago

I'm sorry but that is a bunch of nonsense. > Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Yes, going to the moon had to do with geopolitics but all this stuff about the 'reference system' is nonsense. Any geopolitical opponent could have led to the same result. > Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. You are again trying to shoehorn your larged philiosophy about 'modern capitalism' into the argument. First of all it is absolutly clear to anybody with idioligical glasses on that NASA started to perfom less well long before it was clear to most people that the Soviet system was going to collapse. NASA was young, flexible had lots of budget and thanks to a set of luck circumstances. The reality is that NASA has been burocratiesed and and largly been controlled by congress and presidents trying to use NASA for anything but space exploration. Non of that has anything to do with the Soviet Union and some problem with 'capitalism'. > There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, suddenly the moon would have holiday resorts. Just like in democracy things only happen if large numbers of people can support it, neither capitalism nor democracy has done mutch to defend against meteors. And nowdays it is actually capitalism that is driving the push towards people living of planet.

dang 9y ago

Would you please not post ideological boilerplate to Hacker News, regardless of which ideology? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html