4 ms·

This comment makes me wonder, why don't those rich people make space telescopes just for fun? That's definitely what I would do. Besides, it must be a way funni

This comment makes me wonder, why don't those rich people make space telescopes just for fun? That's definitely what I would do. Besides, it must be a way funnier than buying Twitter.

AngryData 1y ago
Anyone who has billions of dollars to spend is obviously treating their wealth like some sort of highscore and don't give a shit about anybody or anything else, otherwise they would have been spending their money once they were already in the 100 million dollar level because they are already so far beyond any needs or material desires for them or their next 6 generations of family.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  The more you have, the more you can invest. Investing is a form of helping. Also, you can use the profits from your investments to give direct aid and donations, as well as create nonprofit organizations to fund. All of this can be gamed for appearances’ sake as well. It’s a hall of mirrors. If everything is politics, what they do is as suspect as what they don’t do. You can’t pour from an empty cup. The more you have, the more you have to work with, and the more you can help others. This is what the parable of the talents is meant to demonstrate, for example.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- TwoFerMaggie 1y ago
  > obviously treating their wealth like some sort of highscore yep. see > Caleb will later recall, in an interview with D Magazine, asking his dad why he works so hard. > “It’s a game,” Randy explains to his son. > “How do you know who wins?” the boy asks. > “Whoever dies with the most money.” [1] not even exaggerating [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-global-capital-killing-americas-newspapers/620171/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-g...
vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
I often wonder about this too. Fund nuclear fusion to a level that it can succeed. Or fund newspapers that do truly independent journalism. It seems a lot of these things would be perfectly in reach for quite a few billionaires. Musk could probably pay for a Mars mission out of his own pocket.
- Gud 1y ago
  Fusion is already well funded by our oligarchs.
  - vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
    As far as I know these aren't non profits for the benefit of the world.
atoav 1y ago
Because people that rich usually are sociopaths and if they are not they spend their money directly on humanity like Bill Gates.
tayo42 1y ago
Do they have real money to spend or is it all stock valuations that would destroy the value if they converted it to cash?
- griffzhowl 1y ago
  They take loans using the stock as collateral
jay_kyburz 1y ago
If I had to guess, I would say they _are_ building space telescopes and other big projects, but they just aren't telling us all about it.
somenameforme 1y ago
Both Bezos and Musk have grand visions for space and humanity which they're pursuing in their own way. The space based telescopes are useful and valuable projects that I think should be supported, but they also offer sharply diminishing returns paired with sharply rising costs. JWST is advancing humanity's knowledge far less than Hubble did at twice the cost (comparing at-launch to at-launch), and the successor to JWST will advance our knowledge far less than the JWST is at probably again some multiple of cost of JWST. By contrast Musk seeks to make humanity a multiplanetary species, and Bezos wants to create an industrial ecosystem in space, not to just exploit resources in space but to move e.g. highly polluting industries into space. These are visions that will, sooner or later, come to fruition - and will completely reshape humanity. In our economic and political system, I also think this is the more logical way forward. Government is no longer particularly good at long term projects and these sort of visions may come to fruition in a decade, or it may take a century. Left to government, the programs would 100% end up getting scrapped sooner or later. Either by fiscal rhetoric claiming they're wasting money, or by emotional appeal rhetoric claiming that it's unreasonable to indulge in space fantasies when a kid is starving in Africa.
- biorach 1y ago
  > JWST is advancing humanity's knowledge far less than Hubble did Strong claim. How are you quantifying this? > These are visions that will, sooner or later, come to fruition - and will completely reshape humanity. Another strong claim.
  - jimmydorry 1y ago
    >Strong claim. How are you quantifying this? We could start with the article [1]: >"Hubble... produced a record 1,073 peer-reviewed publications last year... JWST is performing better than NASA expected, has produced around 1,200 papers since beginning operations in 2022... Last I checked, 1000 paper a year is more than 1200 papers in 3 years. It will take JWST many years to catch up to Hubble, and Hubble still has atleast another 8 years left in it. If you divide the cost of each telescope by the number of papers tied to it, the cost of the knowledge Hubble advanced humanity by will be many times cheaper than JWST, and that doesn't look like it will change given JWST may operate for 10-20 years. [1] https://www.astronomy.com/science/james-webb-hubble-space-telescopes-face-reduction-in-operations-over-funding-shortfalls/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/james-webb-hubble-space-te...
perihelions 1y ago
> "why don't those rich people make space telescopes just for fun?" They do! You can look up why the Simonyi Telescope, or the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, bear those names. (Two examples from memory; there's many others). (edit: Or the Allen Array, for Microsoft fans) The world's largest telescope of the mid (20th) century was a Rockefeller donation. Several of its peers were Carnegie's. Observational astronomy was, for much of history, a useless hobby for kings and idle rich. It's a very recent thing that democratic societies decide to fund this kind of no-applications research through public institutions—and to do so on the megaproject scale. There are no precedents in human history for JWST.

This comment makes me wonder, why don't those rich people make space telescopes just for fun? That's definitely what I would do. Besides, it must be a way funnier than buying Twitter.

AngryData 1y ago

Anyone who has billions of dollars to spend is obviously treating their wealth like some sort of highscore and don't give a shit about anybody or anything else, otherwise they would have been spending their money once they were already in the 100 million dollar level because they are already so far beyond any needs or material desires for them or their next 6 generations of family.

aspenmayer 1y ago
The more you have, the more you can invest. Investing is a form of helping. Also, you can use the profits from your investments to give direct aid and donations, as well as create nonprofit organizations to fund. All of this can be gamed for appearances’ sake as well. It’s a hall of mirrors. If everything is politics, what they do is as suspect as what they don’t do. You can’t pour from an empty cup. The more you have, the more you have to work with, and the more you can help others. This is what the parable of the talents is meant to demonstrate, for example.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
TwoFerMaggie 1y ago
> obviously treating their wealth like some sort of highscore yep. see > Caleb will later recall, in an interview with D Magazine, asking his dad why he works so hard. > “It’s a game,” Randy explains to his son. > “How do you know who wins?” the boy asks. > “Whoever dies with the most money.” [1] not even exaggerating [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-global-capital-killing-americas-newspapers/620171/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-g...

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago

I often wonder about this too. Fund nuclear fusion to a level that it can succeed. Or fund newspapers that do truly independent journalism. It seems a lot of these things would be perfectly in reach for quite a few billionaires. Musk could probably pay for a Mars mission out of his own pocket.

Gud 1y ago
Fusion is already well funded by our oligarchs.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
  As far as I know these aren't non profits for the benefit of the world.

atoav 1y ago

Because people that rich usually are sociopaths and if they are not they spend their money directly on humanity like Bill Gates.

tayo42 1y ago

Do they have real money to spend or is it all stock valuations that would destroy the value if they converted it to cash?

griffzhowl 1y ago
They take loans using the stock as collateral

jay_kyburz 1y ago

If I had to guess, I would say they _are_ building space telescopes and other big projects, but they just aren't telling us all about it.

somenameforme 1y ago

Both Bezos and Musk have grand visions for space and humanity which they're pursuing in their own way. The space based telescopes are useful and valuable projects that I think should be supported, but they also offer sharply diminishing returns paired with sharply rising costs. JWST is advancing humanity's knowledge far less than Hubble did at twice the cost (comparing at-launch to at-launch), and the successor to JWST will advance our knowledge far less than the JWST is at probably again some multiple of cost of JWST. By contrast Musk seeks to make humanity a multiplanetary species, and Bezos wants to create an industrial ecosystem in space, not to just exploit resources in space but to move e.g. highly polluting industries into space. These are visions that will, sooner or later, come to fruition - and will completely reshape humanity. In our economic and political system, I also think this is the more logical way forward. Government is no longer particularly good at long term projects and these sort of visions may come to fruition in a decade, or it may take a century. Left to government, the programs would 100% end up getting scrapped sooner or later. Either by fiscal rhetoric claiming they're wasting money, or by emotional appeal rhetoric claiming that it's unreasonable to indulge in space fantasies when a kid is starving in Africa.

biorach 1y ago
> JWST is advancing humanity's knowledge far less than Hubble did Strong claim. How are you quantifying this? > These are visions that will, sooner or later, come to fruition - and will completely reshape humanity. Another strong claim.
- jimmydorry 1y ago
  >Strong claim. How are you quantifying this? We could start with the article [1]: >"Hubble... produced a record 1,073 peer-reviewed publications last year... JWST is performing better than NASA expected, has produced around 1,200 papers since beginning operations in 2022... Last I checked, 1000 paper a year is more than 1200 papers in 3 years. It will take JWST many years to catch up to Hubble, and Hubble still has atleast another 8 years left in it. If you divide the cost of each telescope by the number of papers tied to it, the cost of the knowledge Hubble advanced humanity by will be many times cheaper than JWST, and that doesn't look like it will change given JWST may operate for 10-20 years. [1] https://www.astronomy.com/science/james-webb-hubble-space-telescopes-face-reduction-in-operations-over-funding-shortfalls/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/james-webb-hubble-space-te...

perihelions 1y ago

> "why don't those rich people make space telescopes just for fun?" They do! You can look up why the Simonyi Telescope, or the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, bear those names. (Two examples from memory; there's many others). (edit: Or the Allen Array, for Microsoft fans) The world's largest telescope of the mid (20th) century was a Rockefeller donation. Several of its peers were Carnegie's. Observational astronomy was, for much of history, a useless hobby for kings and idle rich. It's a very recent thing that democratic societies decide to fund this kind of no-applications research through public institutions—and to do so on the megaproject scale. There are no precedents in human history for JWST.