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Q: There have been a chorus of critics saying that these flights to space are, you know, just joyrides for the wealthy, and that you should be spending your tim

by bko 5y ago

Q: There have been a chorus of critics saying that these flights to space are, you know, just joyrides for the wealthy, and that you should be spending your time and your money and energy trying to solve problems here on Earth. So what do you say to those critics? A: Well, I say they're largely right. We have to do both. You know, we have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We've always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both When did people begin to look to billionaires to solve problems on earth? I think a big problem is too much involvement in politics and policy by the wealthy.

harry8 5y ago
Whey they claimed their "benevolence" as a justification for paying less tax than a cashier is when people pointed out the overwhelming hypocrisy. I'm with you. We ditch their political influence entirely and tax them proportionately the same as everyone is supposed to be. Maybe ratchet up the rate some once you're beyond money that you can ever spend because you'll do something grossly moronic, rubbing everyone's faces in it like taking joy flights to space. Billionaires are a large-ish part of problems here on earth. Change my mind.
- simonh 5y ago
  A majority of billionairs globally are self made, having grown their wealth themselves. This mainly means building and growing companies that provide valuable goods and services, and employ lots of people doing productive work. Their wealth isn't in piles of cash, it's in their ownership and control of the enterprises they built. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-richest-people-are-self-made-says-new-report.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche... I'll ask you a question. Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises, and how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners? Is doing so really in the public interest? The exceptions I think we can agree are parasitic behaviours. Inherited wealth, rent seeking, corruption, however these are a minority of billionaires, and looking at the developed world a small minority.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    >having grown their wealth themselves. >and employ lots of people doing productive work. I think we may have different definitions of "themselves."
    - simonh 5y ago
      Sure, I just meant to distinguish them from those with inherited wealth.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    > Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises The employees of said companies, who have done the hard, sometimes back-breaking work to bring said company to such a valuation. Of course, current CEOs deserve a share of it too, proportional to the work they have put in. Just not simply because they had capital from mom and pop lending them a cool 500k like Bezos did. > how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners Force. > Is doing so really in the public interest? Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. There are no good billionaires. Every billionaire has become so upon the back of stealing wages, time and money from their employees. Every billionaire has death, sorrow and blood on their hands, as a result of their actions to greedily scrunge up money for their personal gain. Not even in a "well you could stop world hunger" way. No, in a "the work conditions you imposed led the people working 16 hours a day for you into deep mental issues, or the slave labour you knowingly used has caused people to die as a result of your actions." way.
    - simonh 5y ago
      >Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. My wife is Chinese, and her parents grew up under Mao. Because her father's family owned some land which they rented out to other farmers in their village, in Hebei, they were categorised as capitalist class enemies and persecuted. He was not allowed to go to school, was refused work and he grew up destitute. He still tears up when talking about that time. But hey, apparently it was in the public interest. Capitalism is based on three things. Freedom to own property and capital, freedom to buy the labour of others or sell your own labour, and freedom of association to form partnerships and companies. The reason Marxism always fails is because it is based on the elimination of those freedoms, putting power over these activities in the hands of functionaries. It takes away personal property; it coercively mandates and directs labour; it prohibits freedoms of association, organisation and communication. If you want to found an employee owned partnership there is nothing to stop you doing so. The freedoms granted under capitalism are entirely compatible with this. There are plenty of socialists in the world with large amounts of personal capital to seed such projects. Plenty of businesses are founded using loans. There's no law that says startups have to have individual founders, they could be formed as partnerships between the employees. In fact some such partnerships do exist, which shows that the reasons they are not more common are nothing to do with the regulatory environment. However such partnerships are extremely uncommon, why is this? The fact is most people choose not to take on the risks that owning and running a business entail. They don't want the responsibility in case it fails as most new businesses do, they prefer the owners and investors to take that risk and earn a regular pay packet instead. That's their choice. It's also the choice I have made throughout my career, but at least I'm prepared to take responsibility for it.
- mekal 5y ago
  What do you mean they claim benevolence? As in give to charities? If so that's a pretty good claim since its the law right? If you donate to charity, you don't have to pay taxes on that money. Are you saying that particular law needs to change?
anarticle 5y ago
Probably once people like this got involved in research decisions for politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire "Proxmire stated that; "it's the best argument yet for chopping NASA's funding to the bone .... I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy".[33]" I think we can look back and say that this was short sighted, NASA helped kickstart things like cordless power tools, among other now everyday techs. Would we have discovered innovations without them? Maybe, but seems unlikely.
user-the-name 5y ago
We are not looking to them to fix anything. We are looking to them not existing in the first place, to free up resources for people that actually need them.
- ben_w 5y ago
  What resources would be freed? Take Amazon into government ownership, and the near-zero profits (because they spend roughly everything they make on growth) makes exactly the same for the government as it did in private hands. This isn’t zero-sum, at least not in general. If the US federal government did that with SpaceX would be actively worse, because NASA and American aerospace industries are deliberately spread out over the USA, specifically to give every senator a clear interest in keeping funds high, which means they have absolutely no interest in lowering costs (lower costs mean less money for their state in the short term, even if you can guarantee the follow on effects would double their state’s tax revenue after just three election cycles).

by bko 5y ago

harry8 5y ago

Whey they claimed their "benevolence" as a justification for paying less tax than a cashier is when people pointed out the overwhelming hypocrisy. I'm with you. We ditch their political influence entirely and tax them proportionately the same as everyone is supposed to be. Maybe ratchet up the rate some once you're beyond money that you can ever spend because you'll do something grossly moronic, rubbing everyone's faces in it like taking joy flights to space. Billionaires are a large-ish part of problems here on earth. Change my mind.

simonh 5y ago
A majority of billionairs globally are self made, having grown their wealth themselves. This mainly means building and growing companies that provide valuable goods and services, and employ lots of people doing productive work. Their wealth isn't in piles of cash, it's in their ownership and control of the enterprises they built. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-richest-people-are-self-made-says-new-report.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche... I'll ask you a question. Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises, and how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners? Is doing so really in the public interest? The exceptions I think we can agree are parasitic behaviours. Inherited wealth, rent seeking, corruption, however these are a minority of billionaires, and looking at the developed world a small minority.
- Talanes 5y ago
  >having grown their wealth themselves. >and employ lots of people doing productive work. I think we may have different definitions of "themselves."
  - simonh 5y ago
    Sure, I just meant to distinguish them from those with inherited wealth.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  > Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises The employees of said companies, who have done the hard, sometimes back-breaking work to bring said company to such a valuation. Of course, current CEOs deserve a share of it too, proportional to the work they have put in. Just not simply because they had capital from mom and pop lending them a cool 500k like Bezos did. > how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners Force. > Is doing so really in the public interest? Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. There are no good billionaires. Every billionaire has become so upon the back of stealing wages, time and money from their employees. Every billionaire has death, sorrow and blood on their hands, as a result of their actions to greedily scrunge up money for their personal gain. Not even in a "well you could stop world hunger" way. No, in a "the work conditions you imposed led the people working 16 hours a day for you into deep mental issues, or the slave labour you knowingly used has caused people to die as a result of your actions." way.
  - simonh 5y ago
    >Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. My wife is Chinese, and her parents grew up under Mao. Because her father's family owned some land which they rented out to other farmers in their village, in Hebei, they were categorised as capitalist class enemies and persecuted. He was not allowed to go to school, was refused work and he grew up destitute. He still tears up when talking about that time. But hey, apparently it was in the public interest. Capitalism is based on three things. Freedom to own property and capital, freedom to buy the labour of others or sell your own labour, and freedom of association to form partnerships and companies. The reason Marxism always fails is because it is based on the elimination of those freedoms, putting power over these activities in the hands of functionaries. It takes away personal property; it coercively mandates and directs labour; it prohibits freedoms of association, organisation and communication. If you want to found an employee owned partnership there is nothing to stop you doing so. The freedoms granted under capitalism are entirely compatible with this. There are plenty of socialists in the world with large amounts of personal capital to seed such projects. Plenty of businesses are founded using loans. There's no law that says startups have to have individual founders, they could be formed as partnerships between the employees. In fact some such partnerships do exist, which shows that the reasons they are not more common are nothing to do with the regulatory environment. However such partnerships are extremely uncommon, why is this? The fact is most people choose not to take on the risks that owning and running a business entail. They don't want the responsibility in case it fails as most new businesses do, they prefer the owners and investors to take that risk and earn a regular pay packet instead. That's their choice. It's also the choice I have made throughout my career, but at least I'm prepared to take responsibility for it.
mekal 5y ago
What do you mean they claim benevolence? As in give to charities? If so that's a pretty good claim since its the law right? If you donate to charity, you don't have to pay taxes on that money. Are you saying that particular law needs to change?

anarticle 5y ago

Probably once people like this got involved in research decisions for politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire "Proxmire stated that; "it's the best argument yet for chopping NASA's funding to the bone .... I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy".[33]" I think we can look back and say that this was short sighted, NASA helped kickstart things like cordless power tools, among other now everyday techs. Would we have discovered innovations without them? Maybe, but seems unlikely.

user-the-name 5y ago

We are not looking to them to fix anything. We are looking to them not existing in the first place, to free up resources for people that actually need them.

ben_w 5y ago
What resources would be freed? Take Amazon into government ownership, and the near-zero profits (because they spend roughly everything they make on growth) makes exactly the same for the government as it did in private hands. This isn’t zero-sum, at least not in general. If the US federal government did that with SpaceX would be actively worse, because NASA and American aerospace industries are deliberately spread out over the USA, specifically to give every senator a clear interest in keeping funds high, which means they have absolutely no interest in lowering costs (lower costs mean less money for their state in the short term, even if you can guarantee the follow on effects would double their state’s tax revenue after just three election cycles).