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These vanity projects hold the potential to massively improve quality of life for people across the world. Look at the Starlink high-speed satellite internet ne

These vanity projects hold the potential to massively improve quality of life for people across the world. Look at the Starlink high-speed satellite internet network, and what that can do for internet access. Energy generation could also become massively cleaner and more affordable with advances in reusable rockets, as space-based solar power generation affordable.

bigfudge 6y ago
They could. But there are also large potential benefits from state funded basic science, which all of these startups depend on, incidentally. Musk, Bezos et al are doing cool stuff, but they are basically parasitic on a system which provides the people and conditions in which they can operate.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  That's unrelated to the fact that we are better off having these projects than not. As for being 'parasitic', that goes both ways. Taxes are not a voluntary system, and much of the resources extracted are wasted and/or used to enrich rent-seeking insiders who are close to the government.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Voluntary or not, at least anyone has a degree of control over what governments do... Though that has slipped way too much in places. Almost nobody has any control over billionaires, not even legislature apparently, much less taxpayers.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Consumers have total control over what market players do, and the public has total control over whether market players generate any negative externalities, as it constructs the law enforcement and judicial system. A once-in-every-four-year election, involving millions of poorly informed and easily manipulated voters, provides far less accountability than individuals making decisions every day on how efficiently their dollars/euros are being spent. As for wealthy interests, whether it's billionaires, or massive blocs of highly paid unionized civil servants, where do you think the malevolent ones can do more damage: in a rules-based free market, where consumers control their own money, or in a government controlled market where controlling the consumer is only a matter of gaining political clout and dictating to private citizens how their wealth will be spent? In a rules-based free market, it's irrelevant that Apple is worth $1.5 trillion. It can't force me to buy Apple products. Once the free-market ruleset is undermined, then Apple can, through taxing authorities and regulatory gatekeepers and the armed government agents that enforce their taxes and restrictions, force me to buy its products. The free market ruleset protects our most basic rights, and is the most important institution for protecting the weak from the strong. That you believe otherwise is a deliberate outcome by those who want to abolish those safeguards.

bigfudge 6y ago

They could. But there are also large potential benefits from state funded basic science, which all of these startups depend on, incidentally. Musk, Bezos et al are doing cool stuff, but they are basically parasitic on a system which provides the people and conditions in which they can operate.

CryptoPunk 6y ago
That's unrelated to the fact that we are better off having these projects than not. As for being 'parasitic', that goes both ways. Taxes are not a voluntary system, and much of the resources extracted are wasted and/or used to enrich rent-seeking insiders who are close to the government.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Voluntary or not, at least anyone has a degree of control over what governments do... Though that has slipped way too much in places. Almost nobody has any control over billionaires, not even legislature apparently, much less taxpayers.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Consumers have total control over what market players do, and the public has total control over whether market players generate any negative externalities, as it constructs the law enforcement and judicial system. A once-in-every-four-year election, involving millions of poorly informed and easily manipulated voters, provides far less accountability than individuals making decisions every day on how efficiently their dollars/euros are being spent. As for wealthy interests, whether it's billionaires, or massive blocs of highly paid unionized civil servants, where do you think the malevolent ones can do more damage: in a rules-based free market, where consumers control their own money, or in a government controlled market where controlling the consumer is only a matter of gaining political clout and dictating to private citizens how their wealth will be spent? In a rules-based free market, it's irrelevant that Apple is worth $1.5 trillion. It can't force me to buy Apple products. Once the free-market ruleset is undermined, then Apple can, through taxing authorities and regulatory gatekeepers and the armed government agents that enforce their taxes and restrictions, force me to buy its products. The free market ruleset protects our most basic rights, and is the most important institution for protecting the weak from the strong. That you believe otherwise is a deliberate outcome by those who want to abolish those safeguards.