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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

#401
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this is all a massive dick measuring contest, I honestly couldn't care less. It's advancing space exploration and providing competition in the space. This is the crux of your argument, and it's the core disagreement. Blue origin does nothing to advance space exploration just by virtue of existing. They are not competitive.

I'm not sure that's true. Even if they are never competitive with SpaceX you can't employ that many people and spend that much money without advancing the industry. The benefits are just second order effects.

This. Every engineer employed at BO is one engineer not wasting their talents doing adtech at FAANG to pay the bills.

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

#402
post #18
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…

I don't believe the moon and Mars are end goals, just steps along the way.

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

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I'm not sure why people feel this need to draw this weird line in the sand and say that SpaceX is okay because Musk built a business, but Blue Origin and Virgin are bad because... reasons? Technology advances for all sorts of reasons. Lamborghinis exist because a farmer was…

I think one of the main reasons that a line gets drawn between Musk and the others is the focus of the business models. While Musk focuses of space station resupply and satellite launch, in addition to "Mars Missions", Branson and Bezos have fully stated that they are in the business of space tourism. Those are very real reasons to draw a line in the sand between SpaceX and Blue Origin and Virgin. As for the founders…

> While Musk focuses of space station resupply and satellite launch, in addition to "Mars Missions", Branson and Bezos have fully stated that they are in the business of space tourism.

That's kind of a silly argument in my mind. Tesla started out making electric sports cars that cost $100,000+ each. Just because a company focuses on high margin products for the super rich when they are starting off, doesn't mean they aren't making significant technological progress that can benefit the world.

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

#404
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

>These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? >These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day. No one makes minimum wage at Amazon. >People can't get toilet…

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything?

You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available. Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it.

A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many.

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

#405

I just think this money shoulda been paid in taxes so we could collectively solve problems instead of some guy hand picking a couple lottery winners.

Given current level of disfunction in the US government, I'll take Bezos just picking who he thinks can do the most good with the money.

It's a classic conservative strategy. Take over a government program, run it into the ground, use it as evidence that governments don't work, and then run for office on a platform of dismantling the broken government.

The essential problem with the idea of government is that it requires people to cooperate in good faith. People who say government doesn't work are essentially arguing that people cannot cooperate with each other.

Given our level of social and technological progress, you'd think people would give up on this idea but it persists. In a hunter gather society, yes, like one of the ten guys in the tribe could provide way more meat than the other nine combined. In a global society of billions, it requires cooperation, coordination and institutions. A single person is an angstrom of humanity.

Our personal vanity tempts us to ignore the hundreds if not tens of thousands of people that make great companies possible not even counting the public institutions and services. We like to believe a single person can be so important because that makes us feel like we can be important.

In reality, no person is important. Bezos isn't important, Musk isn't important neither you or I are important. How the billions of people work together is important. We should be focusing our efforts on improving how we work together. Our systems of cooperation (aka governments, companies, communities) are the only important thing.

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

#406
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given current level of disfunction in the US government, I'll take Bezos just picking who he thinks can do the most good with the money.

Well this is what has left me most confused by this decision. Are Van Jones and an incredibly successful celebrity chef really the best he could come up with? If I were Bezos I'd at least give the money to a person or organization that would help improve my PR. edit: And by this I meant things like paying for poor kids college tuition etc. I guarantee no one in the media will be talking about this story, and where Va…

I think he just hired CNN for that.

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

#407
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own link [0] shows they aren't even close to the highest (Sysco - $30.99). At $16/hr they don't make the top 25. And knowing people who work warehouse for Best Buy and Target ($19.33), the working conditions are so much better as to be incomparable to what Amazon does to warehouse workers. Ignoring the fact they get paid more.

So not the highest, but above average. It’s cool you know people who make $19.33 but I was referencing average pay. Target seems to pay $13.68/hour [0] and BestBuy $13.69 [1] so they pay substantially worse than Amazon. It’s hard to systematically understand working conditions though so hard to compare. But again, the claim that Amazon employees aren’t paid well seems unsubstantiated. [0] https://www.payscale.com/res…

Warehouse workers are average $17 Target and $15 Best Buy

Your link doesn't show Amazon, but found it here https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Amazon-Warehouse-Worker...

which puts in in the average of Target, Amazon, and Best Buy

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

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apollo program was about $120B in today's money all said and done. And that's with 1960's manufacturing processes. The complete Gemini program was about $10B. Blue Origin is up to ~$10B already and hasn't even gone orbital yet.

I googled "cost of Apollo program" and it comes to $257 billion in today's dollars. Also, the economy was considerably smaller in those days, and so the Apollo program took up a much larger share of it.

I've seen a lot of numbers, how about we go with Wiki's $156 and cut the difference?

And it doesn't matter what the rest of the economy was doing if we've converted it to today's numbers. The argument you were making was that government was intrinsically bloated, but from my view these private orgs are barely keeping up with 1960s .gov.

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

#409
post #364
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying he is evil or that he doesn't deserve his success, I'm addressing his point that Bezos isn't just a product of his own talents, but that of his situation and the opportunities he was provided by our society.

That's the case for literally everyone in our society. Can I take your money then, since you're a product of a society I contributed to?

If you make less money than the parent does, and live in the same country, than you essentially are taking their money, through their higher tax burden that pays for services (like roads and public schools and firefighters) that you almost certainly use or benefit from.

And that's a good thing! But I think higher earners should have more money taken than is currently the case. Wealth and income inequality are largely a result of luck and opportunity, not raw talent. An equitable society should find ways to mitigate those effects, which have only gotten worse in recent decades, not better.

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

#410
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"…

> These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day.

My nephew works at an Amazon warehouse. Makes like 15 bucks an hour for the first 40, and then 20 more at double the rate (his choice to take the extra hours). He's very happy, and nothing suggests he feels taken advantage of.

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