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Of all the ways to stroke the egos of billionaires, this is by far more socially valuable than buying yachts and doing all the other things that billionaires sp

Of all the ways to stroke the egos of billionaires, this is by far more socially valuable than buying yachts and doing all the other things that billionaires spend their money on.

nightski 5y ago
When billionaires spend their wealth it is far more beneficial than if they lock it up in stock. When they buy a yacht it feeds that entire supply chain. not to mention all the other things along the way like docking fees, maintenance, insurance, etc... Holding significant amounts of Amazon stock for example only benefits the billionaire, whereas if they sold the stock it could democratize ownership and allow many more to benefit from Amazon's growth.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  There's a scene in the Digha Nikaya where the Buddha says there's nothing particularly wrong with having a lot of money, as long as you spend it. The more lavishly, the better. If you spend it, that circulates the wealth and creates jobs. Potentially exciting jobs doing fun, fulfilling things that wouldn't be possible any other way. A couple thousand years ago that was making beautiful things, but making rockets is perhaps not so different? By contrast, if you just hoard it, Warren Buffett style, none of that wealth is doing anybody any good.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  This doesn't disagree with the statement that space travel research is more useful to society than buying a personal yacht.
hristov 5y ago
No it isn't. This is incredibly polluting. Yachts are also very polluting. I am not sure what is worse. But there other much more socially valuable ways for billionaires to spend money. Charity, building parks, funding research, giving out scholarships, are all ways of stocking rich peoples egos that are also beneficial to society. Even if you look at adrenaline pumping adventures, you can do helium balloons, sailing yachts, or submarine voyages to the deep ocean. These do not create much pollution.
JohnFen 5y ago
> this is by far more socially valuable than buying yachts and doing all the other things that billionaires spend their money on. Perhaps, but I'm not really seeing it. This looks to me like it's about equally valuable, but comes with the downside of further increasing the number of launches -- and launches are pretty terrible, environmentally speaking. In any case, here's hoping that the future will prove me wrong, since it's pretty clear that we have no choice. This is the path we're going, regardless of whether it turns out to be good or the opposite of good overall.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  The technology advancements from the development of space are very significant and have big impacts for everyone back on the surface. I haven't looked into it, but I'd guess those from yachts and the like are far less substantial. > launches are pretty terrible, environmentally speaking Individual launches are quite bad when compared to things like a single car. But on a macro scale, my understanding is that they are a rounding error on a rounding error. I've heard the statistic that each orbital launch is the equivalent to the emissions of the cars of a few hundred people. There are currently about 100 orbital launches per year across the world. So even if we increased the number of launches by 100-fold (which would be absolutely bonkers -- feasible, but bonkers), it would a very small fraction of all non-commercial auto emissions in the US alone, for example. Of course, this is only looking at greenhouse gas emissions, which I think is the most pressing issue. I'm less familiar with broader potential environmental issues with launches, so perhaps I'm missing something important there. Edit: Fix a math error and cleaned up the comment in general.
  - JohnFen 5y ago
    > The technology advancements from the development of space are very significant and have big impacts for everyone back on the surface. This is true, and I'm not arguing that there's no value in space exploration. I'm arguing that making going into space something that is common is a highly questionable goal, and isn't necessary in order to get the technological advancements that come with learning how to operate in space. And, more to the point of the topic at hand, there is no value to sending business executives into space at all. > I've heard the statistic that each orbital launch is the equivalent to the emissions of the cars of a few hundred people. That may be -- but an orbital launch can't carry anywhere near as many people as a few hundred cars, even if there's one driver per car. The proper way to measure this isn't to compare # of launches with # of cars, but the amount of pollution and fuel use per a standard unit mass of payload. And cars (as well as airplanes) are actually good examples of why the increase in space launches concerns me. Both planes and cars are very harsh on the environment. But that wasn't a real issue until using them became possible to untold millions of people.

Of all the ways to stroke the egos of billionaires, this is by far more socially valuable than buying yachts and doing all the other things that billionaires spend their money on.

nightski 5y ago

When billionaires spend their wealth it is far more beneficial than if they lock it up in stock. When they buy a yacht it feeds that entire supply chain. not to mention all the other things along the way like docking fees, maintenance, insurance, etc... Holding significant amounts of Amazon stock for example only benefits the billionaire, whereas if they sold the stock it could democratize ownership and allow many more to benefit from Amazon's growth.

mumblemumble 5y ago
There's a scene in the Digha Nikaya where the Buddha says there's nothing particularly wrong with having a lot of money, as long as you spend it. The more lavishly, the better. If you spend it, that circulates the wealth and creates jobs. Potentially exciting jobs doing fun, fulfilling things that wouldn't be possible any other way. A couple thousand years ago that was making beautiful things, but making rockets is perhaps not so different? By contrast, if you just hoard it, Warren Buffett style, none of that wealth is doing anybody any good.
maximus-decimus 5y ago
This doesn't disagree with the statement that space travel research is more useful to society than buying a personal yacht.

hristov 5y ago

No it isn't. This is incredibly polluting. Yachts are also very polluting. I am not sure what is worse. But there other much more socially valuable ways for billionaires to spend money. Charity, building parks, funding research, giving out scholarships, are all ways of stocking rich peoples egos that are also beneficial to society. Even if you look at adrenaline pumping adventures, you can do helium balloons, sailing yachts, or submarine voyages to the deep ocean. These do not create much pollution.

JohnFen 5y ago

> this is by far more socially valuable than buying yachts and doing all the other things that billionaires spend their money on. Perhaps, but I'm not really seeing it. This looks to me like it's about equally valuable, but comes with the downside of further increasing the number of launches -- and launches are pretty terrible, environmentally speaking. In any case, here's hoping that the future will prove me wrong, since it's pretty clear that we have no choice. This is the path we're going, regardless of whether it turns out to be good or the opposite of good overall.

dwaltrip 5y ago
The technology advancements from the development of space are very significant and have big impacts for everyone back on the surface. I haven't looked into it, but I'd guess those from yachts and the like are far less substantial. > launches are pretty terrible, environmentally speaking Individual launches are quite bad when compared to things like a single car. But on a macro scale, my understanding is that they are a rounding error on a rounding error. I've heard the statistic that each orbital launch is the equivalent to the emissions of the cars of a few hundred people. There are currently about 100 orbital launches per year across the world. So even if we increased the number of launches by 100-fold (which would be absolutely bonkers -- feasible, but bonkers), it would a very small fraction of all non-commercial auto emissions in the US alone, for example. Of course, this is only looking at greenhouse gas emissions, which I think is the most pressing issue. I'm less familiar with broader potential environmental issues with launches, so perhaps I'm missing something important there. Edit: Fix a math error and cleaned up the comment in general.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > The technology advancements from the development of space are very significant and have big impacts for everyone back on the surface. This is true, and I'm not arguing that there's no value in space exploration. I'm arguing that making going into space something that is common is a highly questionable goal, and isn't necessary in order to get the technological advancements that come with learning how to operate in space. And, more to the point of the topic at hand, there is no value to sending business executives into space at all. > I've heard the statistic that each orbital launch is the equivalent to the emissions of the cars of a few hundred people. That may be -- but an orbital launch can't carry anywhere near as many people as a few hundred cars, even if there's one driver per car. The proper way to measure this isn't to compare # of launches with # of cars, but the amount of pollution and fuel use per a standard unit mass of payload. And cars (as well as airplanes) are actually good examples of why the increase in space launches concerns me. Both planes and cars are very harsh on the environment. But that wasn't a real issue until using them became possible to untold millions of people.