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It's not about living like a king, it's about changing the world. If it was just about consumption I would never work another day in my life even though I proba

It's not about living like a king, it's about changing the world. If it was just about consumption I would never work another day in my life even though I probably have at least 25 productive ones left. I haven't exploited anyone either, I created software with my own hands and sold it to people without employing anyone (I have a partner and we sometimes had short term contractors but not employees). We are not a monopoly and we have very smart competitors. The reason I will not stop working? With enough money I can change the world around me: open a racket sports club/gym, maybe my gf opens a kindergarten for autistic kids (she currently works at one), maybe I can influence local politics so we finally get rid of the biggest polluters from my town. If it wasn't possible to do those things with money it wouldn't be the game worth playing and that would be a loss for everyone involved: me, my customers and the government taxing me. I can only change the world at a very small local scale. Jeff Bezos can send rockets to another planet. Elon Musk can among other things build infrastructure to give everyone around the world internet access. Please let them, the governments have enough money already and they don't have a monopoly for good ideas how to spend it to put it mildly.

oblio 6y ago
That's not how this game is played. For every billionaire trying to make the world a better place, 10+ billionaires are just treating this whole thing as a game and abusing us, peons. And even for the folks working on those rockets, it's not so clear cut. Reading how their workers are treated, the whole thing is quite gray and murky.
andrepd 6y ago
The problem is other people are also trying to change the world: lobbying for more military spending, killing environmental legislation and Green New Deals, building media empires to undermine democracies, etc. The answer is more democracy and less rich people calling all the shots.
pydry 6y ago
>Jeff Bezos can send rockets to another planet. Elon Musk can among other things build infrastructure to give everyone around the world internet access. When taxes were ~90%NASA used to do the research and spend the money to send rockets into space. Several tax cuts later and we had to be reliant upon one billionaire out of 650 picking up the rocket research where they left off (literally). >Please let them, the governments have enough Not enough to build rockets these days. That's why it's outsourced. NASA's budget got converted into tax cuts. Also Bezos fucked up his program through his own hubris. >they don't have a monopoly for good ideas It wasn't Elons ideas that got SpaceX rockets worrking. It was NASA ideas + Elon cash.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  NASA being underfunded has nothing to do with lack of money. The governments spend way more than ever. They just spend it in a questionable way. Back then they thought competing with Soviet Union for space supremacy was important so NASA was funded. It has absolutely nothing to do with tax rates.

oblio 6y ago

That's not how this game is played. For every billionaire trying to make the world a better place, 10+ billionaires are just treating this whole thing as a game and abusing us, peons. And even for the folks working on those rockets, it's not so clear cut. Reading how their workers are treated, the whole thing is quite gray and murky.

andrepd 6y ago

The problem is other people are also trying to change the world: lobbying for more military spending, killing environmental legislation and Green New Deals, building media empires to undermine democracies, etc. The answer is more democracy and less rich people calling all the shots.

pydry 6y ago

>Jeff Bezos can send rockets to another planet. Elon Musk can among other things build infrastructure to give everyone around the world internet access. When taxes were ~90%NASA used to do the research and spend the money to send rockets into space. Several tax cuts later and we had to be reliant upon one billionaire out of 650 picking up the rocket research where they left off (literally). >Please let them, the governments have enough Not enough to build rockets these days. That's why it's outsourced. NASA's budget got converted into tax cuts. Also Bezos fucked up his program through his own hubris. >they don't have a monopoly for good ideas It wasn't Elons ideas that got SpaceX rockets worrking. It was NASA ideas + Elon cash.

bluecalm 6y ago
NASA being underfunded has nothing to do with lack of money. The governments spend way more than ever. They just spend it in a questionable way. Back then they thought competing with Soviet Union for space supremacy was important so NASA was funded. It has absolutely nothing to do with tax rates.