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This is very concerning. Ultimately, money provides such global power now that it has effectively escaped sovereign jurisdiction. There are barriers on where na

This is very concerning. Ultimately, money provides such global power now that it has effectively escaped sovereign jurisdiction. There are barriers on where national power ends, but effectively none on where money can move or what it can do (comparatively). This article could have had the headline “How Today’s Mega Powerful Plan To Improve The World”. This relates to the idea of putting Central Banks outside the scope of most legislatures, it was supposed to insulate them from “greedy democracies”, but instead it created something worse. All of this is the culmination of the migration of the State from governments to Financiers. A replacement of democratic justice with “market justice”. NOTE: I still like Elon Musk. But he’s the exception, and it could be argued that NASA would have done all of this already if their budget hadn’t been frozen for the last 50 years. FYI the budget in 1967 for NASA was, even BEFORE being adjusted to inflation, greater than it was today. Astounding.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Money is not the same thing as power, although power usually makes money abundant. Billionaires have in many ways much less power than even a relatively minor government official or regulator. Zuckerberg learned this the hard way when he spaffed $100 million on New York schools and ended up with zero measurable difference in outcomes. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerbergs-100-million-donation-155608055.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerbergs-100-million-... $100 million down the drain, largely because - guess what - the politics of Newark were totally unaffected by all this money. Zuck wanted a new teachers contract that linked pay to performance to be a part of the reform, and $50m of the $100m was devoted to achieving this outcome. It was meant to be used for teacher bonuses and so on. But only the state legislature could make real change there, and they didn't. Instead the contract was renegotiated with seniority protections intact because the union refused to budge on it, and the local government rolled over. The district also spent huge sums of money on "consultants" making $1000/day - $20m of it went down that rabbit hole. In the end Zuck discovered that you can't solve political problems with money, no matter how much you throw around. Trump beat Clinton despite spending 50% as much, even though Obama had been warning after Citizens United that it represented a "serious harm to democracy". People tend to over-estimate the impact money can have on society.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 9y ago
  Kind of surprising that the teachers won that one, but good on them. Performance-related pay in education is an absolute minefield, because it's not widget-making or even something as rigourously scientifically subject to assessment as software development(+). Outcomes in education are hugely susceptible to wider social conditions such as whether the parents can afford to feed the kids breakfast. If a system isn't really carefully designed, it ends up creating incentives to dump the hardest to teach kids somewhere. (+) sarcasm - everyone claims that 10x developers exist, and they might be right, but there's no reliable scheme for identifying performance.
- jondubois 9y ago
  The biggest problems in society are mental ones: - People place way too much value on social connections over hard work. - People have a greatly exaggerated view when it comes to the correlation between status/popularity and skill. - The motto 'people over products' has been taken to such an extreme that products and tangible results seem to have been completely removed from the equation. - Those who have the money to make a difference don't lead, instead, they follow trends. If we solved these problems, society would be much, much better. Unfortunately solving these problems goes against the interests of wealthy people.
dantheman 9y ago
SpaceX cost about 1 billion dollars over 10 years. NASA provided ~500 million as part of launch contracts. NASA's budget is ~18 billion a year. So out of 180 billion dollars they would have needed to devote ~500 million and then just fund it themselves. So it's not really a money issue.
- asaph 9y ago
  This comment ignores the fact that SpaceX built on a foundation NASA helped create. SpaceX stands on the shoulders of giants.
  - ballooney 9y ago
    Also it’s remit is much wider than launchers. It is still hampered by the politic imperative to do all the things that make projects late and slow - spreading all the work around as many states, companies and people as possible. Having a ton of process and paperwork to try and manage it all.
  - melling 9y ago
    “You didn’t build that” - meme http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/you-didnt-build-that http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/you-didnt-build-that
  - DennisP 9y ago
    Everybody stands on the shoulders of giants.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    You can find dozens of videos of Elon or Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX COO) saying how helpful NASA has been to SpaceX.
DennisP 9y ago
SpaceX spent less than a billion dollars developing the Falcon Heavy. NASA has been spending a couple billion a year on the SLS, a disposable rocket using Space Shuttle engines that will cost over a billion dollars per launch. It's not lack of money that's keeping NASA from doing what SpaceX has done. (SLS is bigger than the Falcon Heavy, but it's smaller than the BFR. There's a good chance the BFR will fly before the SLS.)

peoplewindow 9y ago

Money is not the same thing as power, although power usually makes money abundant. Billionaires have in many ways much less power than even a relatively minor government official or regulator. Zuckerberg learned this the hard way when he spaffed $100 million on New York schools and ended up with zero measurable difference in outcomes. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerbergs-100-million-donation-155608055.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerbergs-100-million-... $100 million down the drain, largely because - guess what - the politics of Newark were totally unaffected by all this money. Zuck wanted a new teachers contract that linked pay to performance to be a part of the reform, and $50m of the $100m was devoted to achieving this outcome. It was meant to be used for teacher bonuses and so on. But only the state legislature could make real change there, and they didn't. Instead the contract was renegotiated with seniority protections intact because the union refused to budge on it, and the local government rolled over. The district also spent huge sums of money on "consultants" making $1000/day - $20m of it went down that rabbit hole. In the end Zuck discovered that you can't solve political problems with money, no matter how much you throw around. Trump beat Clinton despite spending 50% as much, even though Obama had been warning after Citizens United that it represented a "serious harm to democracy". People tend to over-estimate the impact money can have on society.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 9y ago
Kind of surprising that the teachers won that one, but good on them. Performance-related pay in education is an absolute minefield, because it's not widget-making or even something as rigourously scientifically subject to assessment as software development(+). Outcomes in education are hugely susceptible to wider social conditions such as whether the parents can afford to feed the kids breakfast. If a system isn't really carefully designed, it ends up creating incentives to dump the hardest to teach kids somewhere. (+) sarcasm - everyone claims that 10x developers exist, and they might be right, but there's no reliable scheme for identifying performance.
jondubois 9y ago
The biggest problems in society are mental ones: - People place way too much value on social connections over hard work. - People have a greatly exaggerated view when it comes to the correlation between status/popularity and skill. - The motto 'people over products' has been taken to such an extreme that products and tangible results seem to have been completely removed from the equation. - Those who have the money to make a difference don't lead, instead, they follow trends. If we solved these problems, society would be much, much better. Unfortunately solving these problems goes against the interests of wealthy people.

dantheman 9y ago

SpaceX cost about 1 billion dollars over 10 years. NASA provided ~500 million as part of launch contracts. NASA's budget is ~18 billion a year. So out of 180 billion dollars they would have needed to devote ~500 million and then just fund it themselves. So it's not really a money issue.

asaph 9y ago
This comment ignores the fact that SpaceX built on a foundation NASA helped create. SpaceX stands on the shoulders of giants.
- ballooney 9y ago
  Also it’s remit is much wider than launchers. It is still hampered by the politic imperative to do all the things that make projects late and slow - spreading all the work around as many states, companies and people as possible. Having a ton of process and paperwork to try and manage it all.
- melling 9y ago
  “You didn’t build that” - meme http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/you-didnt-build-that http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/you-didnt-build-that
- DennisP 9y ago
  Everybody stands on the shoulders of giants.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  You can find dozens of videos of Elon or Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX COO) saying how helpful NASA has been to SpaceX.

DennisP 9y ago

SpaceX spent less than a billion dollars developing the Falcon Heavy. NASA has been spending a couple billion a year on the SLS, a disposable rocket using Space Shuttle engines that will cost over a billion dollars per launch. It's not lack of money that's keeping NASA from doing what SpaceX has done. (SLS is bigger than the Falcon Heavy, but it's smaller than the BFR. There's a good chance the BFR will fly before the SLS.)