Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 879 posts

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

#31

Post by courtf »

krallja wrote: post #28
courtf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah of course there's gravity, there's gravity in space too. I'm saying it won't be enough.

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

#32

Post by chroem- »

mmastrac wrote: post #27
chroem- wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It says on his wikipedia page that he's a Leninist. It's not a conspiracy theory if he's open about it.

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

#33

Post by fighterpilot »

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?

Because something like VTOL rockets can only be innovated by a private company focused on unit economics and scale economies.

Government is good when the public externalities are large, the private benefit is small and there's an extremely large capital requirements.

This is not the case any longer for rocket tech, and so it makes zero sense to have the government do it. It'd be like asking the government to make smartphones, which is an obviously ridiculous proposition.

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

#34

Post by minikites »

andreilys wrote: post #26
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…

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.

"Great Man history" is a troublesome way to interpret the past and neglects many other forces that shape our society and planet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

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

#35

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

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?

Because NASA can't get funding unless the right Congresspeople can spread the pork around their districts.

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

#36

Post by tdfx »

kmnc wrote: post #22
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 c…

> I don't buy the idea that spending on getting the hell off of Earth is the best way to save the species

What are the alternatives? On a long enough timeline, it won't be possible for life to survive here. And even on shorter timelines, trusting in untested asteroid deflection plans seems pretty risky, as well. Seems that diversifying ourselves in multiple locations as soon as possible is the best way to guarantee survival of the species (or whatever derivative species we become).

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

#37

Post by lefrenchy »

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…

We literally got to the moon before any billionaires bought joy rides to lower orbit, so what you’re saying is proven false already by history?

It’s so insane to me that people honestly believe that we need billionaires to fund all their hedonic desires in order to achieve anything good and useful as a society. It’s provably false and frankly an absolutely pessimistic view of society and humanity.

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

#38

Post by peakaboo »

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 don't know how to put this in a polite way... Let's just say your brain seems to have gotten too much TV entertainment.

These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day. People can't get toilet breaks at amazon warehouse without being harassed.

This guy is a world class parasite. There is nothing "we" about what he is doing. We are not with him. He doesn't care about any of us.

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

#39

Post by woah »

avalys wrote: post #25
tills13 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tax write-off.

What do you imagine that means exactly?

Kramer: It's a write off for them.

Jerry: How is it a write off?

Kramer: They just write it off.

Jerry: Write it off of what?

Kramer: They just write it off!

Jerry: You don't even know what a write off is, do you?

Kramer: No. Do you?

Jerry: No I don't!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEL65gywwHQ

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

#40

Post by openforce »

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?

Privatization spurred tremendous increase in efficiencies. SpaceX rocket material is much more fuel efficient, significantly more re-usable. Even the blue origin rocket landed on it's feet yesterday.
Post reply on HN