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Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

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Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#21

Post by alfalfasprout »

minikites wrote: post #16
Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

>I personally don't care that these billionaires are spending their money on vacations to orbit. It's how we get to the moon and Mars and how we survive as a species. Really? Which billionaires personally funded the Apollo program? The progress of our species shouldn't have to rely on the fickle preferences of one person, their enormous wealth should be taxed and the money should be used for programs like NASA and it…

But the reality is that competition really does drive innovation.

In the past few years we've seen SpaceX get reusable boosters working, a mission to the ISS, etc. Though people like to diminish blue origin's accomplishments due to not hitting orbit they were able to land their reusable booster on the first try too.

In a short amount of time we've seen tremendous progress in bringing down the costs of launching. It's frankly inconceivable NASA would do the same.

I have a few friends that have spent years at JPL and the amount of bureaucracy, waste, and red tape they had to deal with all went away when they started working at SpaceX and then Blue Origin.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#22

Post by kmnc »

Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

I mean, when you take your inspiration from television and sci-fi movies it does seem like rich people doing vanity ego projects is the best way for us to survive as a species. Assuming you mean mean the "rich" when you say species, because unless you are watching different movies then me the non rich don't survive or are turned into a slave class. The Earth...well its prospects are even grimmer.

It is stupid to be cynical of rich people spending money on productive ventures, yet I don't buy the idea that spending on getting the hell off of Earth is the best way to save the species. It might be...which is pretty damned depressing in my opinion.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#23

Post by alfalfasprout »

tills13 wrote: post #19
dataminer wrote: post #15

Great donations, we need more bridges among different groups of people, and we should all work to make hunger a problem of the past, around 800 million people sleep hungry every day. https://www.who.int/news/item/15-07-2019-world-hunger-is-sti...

The issue imo is that it shouldn't require philanthropy from a billionaire to fund these programs, it should be built into the support system provided by a functioning and compassionate society.

Problem is a lot of people aren't compassionate. And many of those that are-- when they finally make a fair bit of money-- instantly cease to be so. So this is nothing more than a delusional pipe dream.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#24

Post by weare138 »

Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

>It's how we get to the moon

We already did that. Why not just support NASA?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#25

Post by avalys »

tills13 wrote: post #20
balozi wrote: post #3

Bezos isn't known for being dumb with his money. So, I am curious about his motivation in this case. What is the deep reptilian part of his tycoon brain telling him? Is he buying positive press after yesterday's show? Does he care about the cause? Or is he buying a 1990 Cutlass Supreme from Jones on the down-low?

It's a tax write-off.

What do you imagine that means exactly?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#26

Post by andreilys »

minikites wrote: post #16
Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

>I personally don't care that these billionaires are spending their money on vacations to orbit. It's how we get to the moon and Mars and how we survive as a species. Really? Which billionaires personally funded the Apollo program? The progress of our species shouldn't have to rely on the fickle preferences of one person, their enormous wealth should be taxed and the money should be used for programs like NASA and it…

You would be surprised to learn that history is littered with examples of the fickle preferences of one person impacting the trajectory of the human species.

Also I'm curious why you think that a government is better suited at spending money. From what I've seen this leads to lobbyists doing all they can to curry favor and secure contracts despite the fact that they deliver a sub-par product.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#27

Post by mmastrac »

chroem- wrote: post #12
masterphilo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'm too confused to be even cynical about it. I don't know anything about Van Jones other than what I see on TV, but that by itself cannot explain why Bezos felt he deserved the "award".

Previously he's been known for being openly communist (i.e. not just a regular socialist). As an aside, I still find it odd how we've rightfully shunned other totalitarian and mass murdering political ideologies, but we've completely whitewashed communism. I couldn't imagine another newscaster openly identifying as a nazi.

Are you sure you haven't just been taken by a talk radio conspiracy theory? The only thing I could find on this was that Glenn Beck was harping on it ten years ago. That guy is not well known for being a fountain of truth. [0]

[0] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2009/sep/08/glenn-beck...

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#28

Post by krallja »

courtf wrote: post #18
Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

Getting to the moon and Mars won't save the human race, Earth is where life can be sustained. Humans cannot reproduce in space, on the moon or on Mars because gravity has a strong and vital role in gestation in mammals. Beyond that, these other locations are quite inhospitable (radiation, temperature, pressure, etc), more inhospitable than pretty much anywhere on Earth. If we can't make it work here and end up destro…

FYI, there’s actually gravity on the Moon and Mars. We haven’t done studies to determine if it’s enough G for successful propagation of the species.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#29

Post by minikites »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #21
minikites wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I personally don't care that these billionaires are spending their money on vacations to orbit. It's how we get to the moon and Mars and how we survive as a species. Really? Which billionaires personally funded the Apollo program? The progress of our species shouldn't have to rely on the fickle preferences of one person, their enormous wealth should be taxed and the money should be used for programs like NASA and it…

But the reality is that competition really does drive innovation. In the past few years we've seen SpaceX get reusable boosters working, a mission to the ISS, etc. Though people like to diminish blue origin's accomplishments due to not hitting orbit they were able to land their reusable booster on the first try too. In a short amount of time we've seen tremendous progress in bringing down the costs of launching. It's…

>It's frankly inconceivable NASA would do the same.

It's only inconceivable because we refuse to fully fund NASA.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#30

Post by jhgb »

weare138 wrote: post #24
Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

>It's how we get to the moon We already did that. Why not just support NASA?

Sadly NASA didn't do what people in the Age of Exploration did, namely settling there.
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