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On the other hand, considering that the surface of the moon has already been visited by space probes carrying instruments and by manned spacecraft, while many b

On the other hand, considering that the surface of the moon has already been visited by space probes carrying instruments and by manned spacecraft, while many billions of possible combinations of human beings having conversations here on earth have never happened, there is probably a lot more undiscovered return on investment to be had from investing in WhatsApp than from investing in the Google Lunar XPRIZE. Both are arguably good things to spend money on, but investment flows sometimes attempt to follow where the big returns are likely to be.

kordless 13y ago
Short term gains for centralized pools of power != long term gains for humanity. They are going to mine the data in WhatsApp so they can optimize the way they sell to you. What we need to be doing is mining the Moon for power. We're going to need it for all the advertising servers.
- benihana 13y ago
  >What we need to be doing is mining the Moon for power This meme of we should mine Helium-3 from the moon needs to die already. This kind of thinking is so backwards it's astounding to me that anyone can come up with it. Why would we mine the moon for power that we can't yet use? No one is going to go to the moon to energy for a fuel source that might be in use in the future. It's like spending billions marketing to people in sub-saharan Africa before you have a product designed, much less built.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    We'll need to tap the Moon-He3 when we want to fuel manned interstellar missions. So probably not this year.
polymatter 13y ago
I'm not sure WhatsApp is tackling the "many billions of possible combinations of human beings having conversations here on earth have never happened" problem. WhatsApp tackles the 'outrageously high SMS and MMS fees' problem. Besides, the value in WhatsApp is mining the data for value. Eg. to target ads better, identify the key trend setters for special offers, discover what is trending, brand perception etc.

kordless 13y ago

Short term gains for centralized pools of power != long term gains for humanity. They are going to mine the data in WhatsApp so they can optimize the way they sell to you. What we need to be doing is mining the Moon for power. We're going to need it for all the advertising servers.

benihana 13y ago
>What we need to be doing is mining the Moon for power This meme of we should mine Helium-3 from the moon needs to die already. This kind of thinking is so backwards it's astounding to me that anyone can come up with it. Why would we mine the moon for power that we can't yet use? No one is going to go to the moon to energy for a fuel source that might be in use in the future. It's like spending billions marketing to people in sub-saharan Africa before you have a product designed, much less built.
- sentenza 13y ago
  We'll need to tap the Moon-He3 when we want to fuel manned interstellar missions. So probably not this year.

polymatter 13y ago

I'm not sure WhatsApp is tackling the "many billions of possible combinations of human beings having conversations here on earth have never happened" problem. WhatsApp tackles the 'outrageously high SMS and MMS fees' problem. Besides, the value in WhatsApp is mining the data for value. Eg. to target ads better, identify the key trend setters for special offers, discover what is trending, brand perception etc.