5 ms·

It's beautiful engineering (if real), but all I can think about is the number of people that could be fed, housed, and educated for that amount of money. The w

It's beautiful engineering (if real), but all I can think about is the number of people that could be fed, housed, and educated for that amount of money. The world could be made a permanently (slightly) better place instead of building this.

synack 3y ago
The people building it will be fed, housed, and their children educated with that amount of money. Jobs are what the world gets out of this sort of thing.
- stevenAthompson 3y ago
  Thank you for providing me with another perspective. I see your point. It does still feel like a poor use of the world's finite resources, but I completely understand how it's not the individuals place to allocate resources effectively.
- 1shooner 3y ago
  Feeding, housing, and educating people would also create jobs. Probably a lot more jobs.
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    [flagged]
- GolfPopper 3y ago
  Jobs are a cost. Production and education, material and intellectual wealth are what matters. How we get those involves work and thus (some) jobs, but please, let us not mistake the means for an end. And jobs are an opportunity cost - the people who would be working on this supervillain fantasy are not doing anything else. What could they, or would they be doing instead? If building a submersible superyacht adds to the world, then well and good. Personally, I find the opportunity cost to humanity of doing so highly suspect. But I don't think I, or anyone, has a perfect picture of all the knock-on effects from particular money flows. (I think this is why a free market can have benefits.) Jobs are not good because they are jobs, they are good because of what they accomplish, and should be measured by that yardstick.
oh_sigh 3y ago
Well, the world is a better place for all the shipbuilders who work on this project. And a better place for their families. And all the businesses that they spend money in. And the communities that collect tax from them, isn't it?
- tgijs 3y ago
  In the name of efficiency I'd say we should cut out the middleman here and set an appropriate tax rate for potential customers of the mega yacht submersible.
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    Yeah billionaires will never actually effectively spend all of their money. Rather than try to entice them into buying increasingly ridiculous things, we should just make being a multibillionaire financially unviable so that the money is distributed better to begin with. Perhaps if the tax rate truly rose to somewhere near 99% as individuals reach the billionaire mark, we'd see whether these folks truly are philanthropists or if they just play them on TV.
    - Sporktacular 3y ago
      Oh they'd be philanthropists, whether they like it or not.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
Money flows, it doesn't disappear, and if it isn't spent it might as well not exist -- but the spending affects the allocation of real resources, like steel, batteries, and shipbuilders' time. It's ok if there's an excess of materials and the shipbuilders have nothing better to do. More likely it will slightly drive up the prices of batteries, etc. And maybe the yacht builders would have otherwise gone to work making sailboats for normal-rich people, or gone into defense, driving down the price of labor there, and allowing taxpayers to get their next destroyer for a hair cheaper. Or, worst case, there'd be no demand for these shipbuilders, and they'd have to reskill as something else. Maybe they know how to do fiberglass layups and would try making surfboards, I don't know. In short, I don't worry so much about wasting money per-se, as about luring people and resources away from better uses. Kind of like VC's role for the last 20 years. "Greatest minds of my generation", etc.

synack 3y ago

The people building it will be fed, housed, and their children educated with that amount of money. Jobs are what the world gets out of this sort of thing.

stevenAthompson 3y ago
Thank you for providing me with another perspective. I see your point. It does still feel like a poor use of the world's finite resources, but I completely understand how it's not the individuals place to allocate resources effectively.
1shooner 3y ago
Feeding, housing, and educating people would also create jobs. Probably a lot more jobs.
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  [flagged]
GolfPopper 3y ago
Jobs are a cost. Production and education, material and intellectual wealth are what matters. How we get those involves work and thus (some) jobs, but please, let us not mistake the means for an end. And jobs are an opportunity cost - the people who would be working on this supervillain fantasy are not doing anything else. What could they, or would they be doing instead? If building a submersible superyacht adds to the world, then well and good. Personally, I find the opportunity cost to humanity of doing so highly suspect. But I don't think I, or anyone, has a perfect picture of all the knock-on effects from particular money flows. (I think this is why a free market can have benefits.) Jobs are not good because they are jobs, they are good because of what they accomplish, and should be measured by that yardstick.

oh_sigh 3y ago

Well, the world is a better place for all the shipbuilders who work on this project. And a better place for their families. And all the businesses that they spend money in. And the communities that collect tax from them, isn't it?

tgijs 3y ago
In the name of efficiency I'd say we should cut out the middleman here and set an appropriate tax rate for potential customers of the mega yacht submersible.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  Yeah billionaires will never actually effectively spend all of their money. Rather than try to entice them into buying increasingly ridiculous things, we should just make being a multibillionaire financially unviable so that the money is distributed better to begin with. Perhaps if the tax rate truly rose to somewhere near 99% as individuals reach the billionaire mark, we'd see whether these folks truly are philanthropists or if they just play them on TV.
  - Sporktacular 3y ago
    Oh they'd be philanthropists, whether they like it or not.

FooBarBizBazz 3y ago

Money flows, it doesn't disappear, and if it isn't spent it might as well not exist -- but the spending affects the allocation of real resources, like steel, batteries, and shipbuilders' time. It's ok if there's an excess of materials and the shipbuilders have nothing better to do. More likely it will slightly drive up the prices of batteries, etc. And maybe the yacht builders would have otherwise gone to work making sailboats for normal-rich people, or gone into defense, driving down the price of labor there, and allowing taxpayers to get their next destroyer for a hair cheaper. Or, worst case, there'd be no demand for these shipbuilders, and they'd have to reskill as something else. Maybe they know how to do fiberglass layups and would try making surfboards, I don't know. In short, I don't worry so much about wasting money per-se, as about luring people and resources away from better uses. Kind of like VC's role for the last 20 years. "Greatest minds of my generation", etc.