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It reduces the value of a human being? These billionaires are blowing money on their personal midlife crises when they could be raising worker wages and helping

It reduces the value of a human being? These billionaires are blowing money on their personal midlife crises when they could be raising worker wages and helping to end poverty with billions to spare. People were able to go into space before billionaires wanted to do it on a whim, you know.

gruez 5y ago
>It reduces the value of a human being? Why does it reduce the value of a human being? What's the difference between a billionaire employing 1000 people for his frivolous needs compared to a million people employing 0.001 people each for their frivolous needs? >These billionaires are blowing money on their personal midlife crises when they could be raising worker wages and helping to end poverty with billions to spare. And what about all the people living in 3bd room houses, driving luxury cars, buying electronics, when they can be saving a life for as little as $3000[1]? Are they bad people for spending $3000 on creature comforts when they can be literally saving lives with that money? > People were able to go into space before billionaires wanted to do it on a whim, you know. Ever since the cold war ended, "going into space" has moving ahead at a glacial pace. I for one welcome the increased funding. This funding chart[2] that gets passed along captures this dynamic perfectly. Would people want fusion power regardless of billionaires? Yes. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want billionaires funding fusion research to speed things up. [1] https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-... [2] https://external-preview.redd.it/LkKBNe1NW51Wh-8nLSTRdQtTha2sV1yY46vhUWcu_6g.png?auto=webp&s=1f89a143a488f2e4b5306a25a87e21282332e2ef https://external-preview.redd.it/LkKBNe1NW51Wh-8nLSTRdQtTha2...
- teslafire124 5y ago
  You're just making excuses for them. They made a lot of money so they deserve to sit on it and use it just for themselves. I'm not talking about other people, I'm talking about people who only focus on continually acquiring money so they can blow it all on themselves when there is plenty for the rest of the world.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    They created a lot of value in exchange for the money in the first place. Now they’re using that money to create further value (at least for SpaceX). They made a lot of money and, as far as I’m concerned, they can spend it on whatever the hell they want. I have a ton of ideas on how people who aren’t me should spend their money, but I think it’s none of my business what they choose to do with their wealth, just as it’s none of my business what you do with yours.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > They created a lot of value in exchange for the money in the first place. The companies they owned created a lot of value. Some of it went to the employees, and some of it went to the owners. If I say that more of that value should have gone to the employees, and less to owners, that's a different thing from butting in and telling people how to spend the money they earned.
      - teslafire124 5y ago
        Spending the money they earned by exploiting their workers. You don't acquire billions unless it's at the expense of many. Amazon workers are treated and paid like garbage so that Bezos can go fly in space. At the very least that money should go back towards the people on whose backs he built his empire. Of course, Bezos is not completely to blame here. The system in place here allows men like him to continually accrue wealth. But that doesn't mean that it is morally right. Hell, even the Carnegies and Rockefellers ended up donating a huge amount of money to the arts to try to clean up their reputations as capitalist monsters.
- crmd 5y ago
  It makes me sick that income inequality has gotten to the point that the top dogs can’t even flex against one another via jet aircraft and billion dollar super yachts anymore, so they are flexing with their own private NASAs, while our terrestrial infrastructure and healthcare system in the US is collapsing. It’s shameful.
- mopsi 5y ago
  > And what about all the people living in 3bd room houses, driving luxury cars, buying electronics, when they can be saving a life for as little as $3000[1]? Are they bad people for spending $3000 on creature comforts when they can be literally saving lives with that money? They aren't directly in charge of policies that cause so much misery to so many people.
  - gruez 5y ago
    Sounds like we veered away from "is jeff bezos a bad person for employing 1000 engineers for his personal project?" to "is bezos a bad person in general?".
ericd 5y ago
> People were able to go into space before billionaires wanted to do it on a whim, you know. Yes, albeit at extremely high cost, which has always limited its utility. Maybe you haven't been keeping a close eye on progress in space tech, but SpaceX is working towards reducing cost per kilogram by two orders of magnitude. 1/100th! Compared to the already relatively reasonably priced Falcon 9! And they're just about to do an orbital test of the system (Starship+Super Heavy Booster). This is after decades of government contractor launch providers like ULA happily milking the government with cost-plus contracts, where the costs only ever seemed to go the wrong way. Blue Origin is aiming to be competitive with them with New Glenn, also a massive cargo-carrying rocket. Certainly not there yet, but they don't seem to be aiming for the space tourism flights for the superrich as an endpoint. Virgin Galactic, shrug, but the sister company Virgin Orbit wing is doing interesting things with smallsat launches from a 747. These are not all useless vanity projects.
- teslafire124 5y ago
  The question is what is the end goal? Because you are right. It does cost an exorbitant amount of money and resources. How will it benefit anyone beyond billionaires and corporations? A few satellite launches is literally the only thing I see being a benefit. The only other thing I see is maybe space travel but it is going to be in the realm of novelty/space tourism for a long long time.
  - ericd 5y ago
    The benefits are mostly somewhat (or extremely) long term. Most immediately, there’s always the “internet for literally everyone” aspect, where even remote villages will be able to get access to the world’s information. Much longer term, if we don’t develop a comfort with working in and building in with space, and we don’t wipe ourselves out some other way, we will certainly be wiped out at some point by an asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruption, or some other major catastrophe. All of our eggs are in the Earth’s basket. Offworld mining wouldn’t pollute/despoil Earth, and elements that are rare here can be found in very high concentrations in asteroids. (A single asteroid could contain the same amount of platinum as has been mined in all of history). It potentially opens up the ability to do things like deploying massive, thin solar shades as a way to try to slow global warming. Large technical challenges spin off lots of new tech that get used elsewhere. The last one that comes to mind, though I’m sure there are many others, is that it’s a big achievement that humans can be proud of together. It makes it clear that we can do more than just squabble over little pieces of this planet, and help us look outward. I think that that kind of inspiration shouldn’t be discounted. And the point is that if SpaceX succeeds, it will no longer take exorbitant amounts of money and resources. It’ll become extremely routine and affordable even to regular people. I’d try not to view everything in terms of a power struggle with billionaires and corporations sucking up all the resources, that’s going to cast a dim pall on literally everything.
ekianjo 5y ago
ridiculous take. even if they blew all their billions on poverty aid it would not matter in the end. what reduces poverty is actual work and good economic policies, that much should be clear by now.
- teslafire124 5y ago
  There's no incentive to change the status quo. The people who profit off of said policies are the ones who influence politicians and policy makers to keep them in place. The system is very much rigged so that the ultra rich can continue to accumulate obscene wealth while keeping wages low despite increasing global inflation. Bezos especially is guilty of this

gruez 5y ago

>It reduces the value of a human being? Why does it reduce the value of a human being? What's the difference between a billionaire employing 1000 people for his frivolous needs compared to a million people employing 0.001 people each for their frivolous needs? >These billionaires are blowing money on their personal midlife crises when they could be raising worker wages and helping to end poverty with billions to spare. And what about all the people living in 3bd room houses, driving luxury cars, buying electronics, when they can be saving a life for as little as $3000[1]? Are they bad people for spending $3000 on creature comforts when they can be literally saving lives with that money? > People were able to go into space before billionaires wanted to do it on a whim, you know. Ever since the cold war ended, "going into space" has moving ahead at a glacial pace. I for one welcome the increased funding. This funding chart[2] that gets passed along captures this dynamic perfectly. Would people want fusion power regardless of billionaires? Yes. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want billionaires funding fusion research to speed things up. [1] https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-... [2] https://external-preview.redd.it/LkKBNe1NW51Wh-8nLSTRdQtTha2sV1yY46vhUWcu_6g.png?auto=webp&s=1f89a143a488f2e4b5306a25a87e21282332e2ef https://external-preview.redd.it/LkKBNe1NW51Wh-8nLSTRdQtTha2...

teslafire124 5y ago
You're just making excuses for them. They made a lot of money so they deserve to sit on it and use it just for themselves. I'm not talking about other people, I'm talking about people who only focus on continually acquiring money so they can blow it all on themselves when there is plenty for the rest of the world.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  They created a lot of value in exchange for the money in the first place. Now they’re using that money to create further value (at least for SpaceX). They made a lot of money and, as far as I’m concerned, they can spend it on whatever the hell they want. I have a ton of ideas on how people who aren’t me should spend their money, but I think it’s none of my business what they choose to do with their wealth, just as it’s none of my business what you do with yours.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > They created a lot of value in exchange for the money in the first place. The companies they owned created a lot of value. Some of it went to the employees, and some of it went to the owners. If I say that more of that value should have gone to the employees, and less to owners, that's a different thing from butting in and telling people how to spend the money they earned.
    - teslafire124 5y ago
      Spending the money they earned by exploiting their workers. You don't acquire billions unless it's at the expense of many. Amazon workers are treated and paid like garbage so that Bezos can go fly in space. At the very least that money should go back towards the people on whose backs he built his empire. Of course, Bezos is not completely to blame here. The system in place here allows men like him to continually accrue wealth. But that doesn't mean that it is morally right. Hell, even the Carnegies and Rockefellers ended up donating a huge amount of money to the arts to try to clean up their reputations as capitalist monsters.
crmd 5y ago
It makes me sick that income inequality has gotten to the point that the top dogs can’t even flex against one another via jet aircraft and billion dollar super yachts anymore, so they are flexing with their own private NASAs, while our terrestrial infrastructure and healthcare system in the US is collapsing. It’s shameful.
mopsi 5y ago
> And what about all the people living in 3bd room houses, driving luxury cars, buying electronics, when they can be saving a life for as little as $3000[1]? Are they bad people for spending $3000 on creature comforts when they can be literally saving lives with that money? They aren't directly in charge of policies that cause so much misery to so many people.
- gruez 5y ago
  Sounds like we veered away from "is jeff bezos a bad person for employing 1000 engineers for his personal project?" to "is bezos a bad person in general?".

ericd 5y ago

> People were able to go into space before billionaires wanted to do it on a whim, you know. Yes, albeit at extremely high cost, which has always limited its utility. Maybe you haven't been keeping a close eye on progress in space tech, but SpaceX is working towards reducing cost per kilogram by two orders of magnitude. 1/100th! Compared to the already relatively reasonably priced Falcon 9! And they're just about to do an orbital test of the system (Starship+Super Heavy Booster). This is after decades of government contractor launch providers like ULA happily milking the government with cost-plus contracts, where the costs only ever seemed to go the wrong way. Blue Origin is aiming to be competitive with them with New Glenn, also a massive cargo-carrying rocket. Certainly not there yet, but they don't seem to be aiming for the space tourism flights for the superrich as an endpoint. Virgin Galactic, shrug, but the sister company Virgin Orbit wing is doing interesting things with smallsat launches from a 747. These are not all useless vanity projects.

teslafire124 5y ago
The question is what is the end goal? Because you are right. It does cost an exorbitant amount of money and resources. How will it benefit anyone beyond billionaires and corporations? A few satellite launches is literally the only thing I see being a benefit. The only other thing I see is maybe space travel but it is going to be in the realm of novelty/space tourism for a long long time.
- ericd 5y ago
  The benefits are mostly somewhat (or extremely) long term. Most immediately, there’s always the “internet for literally everyone” aspect, where even remote villages will be able to get access to the world’s information. Much longer term, if we don’t develop a comfort with working in and building in with space, and we don’t wipe ourselves out some other way, we will certainly be wiped out at some point by an asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruption, or some other major catastrophe. All of our eggs are in the Earth’s basket. Offworld mining wouldn’t pollute/despoil Earth, and elements that are rare here can be found in very high concentrations in asteroids. (A single asteroid could contain the same amount of platinum as has been mined in all of history). It potentially opens up the ability to do things like deploying massive, thin solar shades as a way to try to slow global warming. Large technical challenges spin off lots of new tech that get used elsewhere. The last one that comes to mind, though I’m sure there are many others, is that it’s a big achievement that humans can be proud of together. It makes it clear that we can do more than just squabble over little pieces of this planet, and help us look outward. I think that that kind of inspiration shouldn’t be discounted. And the point is that if SpaceX succeeds, it will no longer take exorbitant amounts of money and resources. It’ll become extremely routine and affordable even to regular people. I’d try not to view everything in terms of a power struggle with billionaires and corporations sucking up all the resources, that’s going to cast a dim pall on literally everything.

ekianjo 5y ago

ridiculous take. even if they blew all their billions on poverty aid it would not matter in the end. what reduces poverty is actual work and good economic policies, that much should be clear by now.

teslafire124 5y ago
There's no incentive to change the status quo. The people who profit off of said policies are the ones who influence politicians and policy makers to keep them in place. The system is very much rigged so that the ultra rich can continue to accumulate obscene wealth while keeping wages low despite increasing global inflation. Bezos especially is guilty of this