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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

#451

Post by teawrecks »

eloff wrote: post #361
dahfizz wrote: post #326

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.

Give me a 10000 people and 100 billion dollars. I guarantee you I can squander it like a pro.

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

#452

Post by lazyeye »

edmundsauto wrote: post #299
lazyeye wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol

This is neither a constructive comment, nor the cleverly sarcastic wit that you think it is. Are you unable to add anything useful to the conversation?

[flagged]

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

#453

Post by this2shallPass »

akira2501 wrote: post #64
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10

The really interesting thing to me about this announcement is that it's the first time I think I've ever heard about such a large gift being given to individuals , instead of a foundation or non-profit. Curious if Bezos is just testing to see if this type of philanthropy has better results. I'm also interested in the logistics of a gift this large. I mean, Bezos would have to pay a large gift tax for gifts sent direc…

> is just testing to see if this type of philanthropy has better results. The idea of a billionaire spending time minmax-ing their donations seems highly unlikely.

Agreed. They generally hire teams of people to do it for them.

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

#454

Post by nebula8804 »

Causality1 wrote: post #394
hemloc_io wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's really fair to lump Bezos, Branson, and Musk into the same bucket. Musk, for all his flaws, started an actual rocket company with new and frankly insane tech. Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that wer…

Seconding this. Musk is a workaholic who happens to be a total jackass on Twitter but his employees are well paid and to the best of my knowledge aren't forced to piss in bottles at work.

I thought Tesla and SpaceX famously underpay and overwork compared to most of the big Tech firms?

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

#455

Post by kube-system »

hemloc_io wrote: post #138
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 think it's really fair to lump Bezos, Branson, and Musk into the same bucket. Musk, for all his flaws, started an actual rocket company with new and frankly insane tech. Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that wer…

> Lumping them all together feels like we're giving out participation trophies.

Like this?: https://kstp.com/kstpImages/repository/2021-07/richard-brans...

I honestly don't think it's something bad to praise when only a handful of organizations have ever done it. [0] Thousands of people have climbed Everest, but it is still a commendable achievement.

> Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that were accomplished in the Cold War?

Plenty of other nation-states have been working on spaceflight longer than that and accomplished less.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights#Sum...

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

#456

Post by asciimov »

kristjansson wrote: post #376
asciimov wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. The wealthy put up $-worth of shares as collateral to borrow $$$$-worth of money from the bank at low interest rates. The bank doesn't just sit on those shares, they use them to generate money for themselves. For example, say the Bank takes $250M in Amazon shares from Bezos and loans him $1B. If the bank projects that the price of Amazon is going down, they short that $250M in shares. If Bezos did ne…

It's the other way around? You borrow substantially fewer dollars than the value of the shares you pledged as collateral so that the bank doesn't call the loan if (when) the value of the shares changes.

For you and me, you are right, but those on the top get to play by different rules.

Also, while it's called a loan, think of it more like a credit line.

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

#457

Post by eloff »

teawrecks wrote: post #451
eloff wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Give me a 10000 people and 100 billion dollars. I guarantee you I can squander it like a pro.

That's not what's happening here though.

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

#458

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

kelnos wrote: post #393
qvrjuec wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main argument for colonizing planets is some kind of cataclysm destroying earth that we had nothing to do with, e.g. meteor or gamma ray burst. It doesn't make sense to set up shop somewhere else otherwise, as we could spend resources to make earth more habitable way more easily than other planets

Yes, I understand that, but I think the belief among some people is that, as long as we are being irresponsible stewards of Earth, we will be equally irresponsible with any other planet we colonize. And if life on Earth is destroyed by a meteor, that will still be the case. Some seem to believe that this is a reason to get a handle on our own destructive tendencies toward our environment before we try to colonize oth…

Because Mars doesn't have life to mess up....

Isn't the Terra-forming technology that we will have to develop to make Mars habitable, basically aligned with what we will have to learn to repair/manage our relationship with the Earth's environment?

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

#459

Post by 8note »

staunch wrote: post #226
hemloc_io wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's really fair to lump Bezos, Branson, and Musk into the same bucket. Musk, for all his flaws, started an actual rocket company with new and frankly insane tech. Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that wer…

There's no reason to get into comparisons, except to the extent that it helps push them to compete harder, and make more progress. A public space race of billionaires is exactly the kind of thing we should all be hoping for. They can leverage their relatively small funding to push much larger government funding in productive directions. They're better than most government administrators and don't have as many constra…

This "eventually" sounds like it's really "we get progress once we put them through guillotines and claw back all the tech we paid for"

The end state of these things is still government provided utilities: space equivalents to roads and busses

The main benefit of billionaires doing this is that republicans love giving as tax money to rich people, so it can actually be funded, and the funding is what really decides whether a thing will be done

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

#460

Post by viraptor »

superfrank wrote: post #403
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tesla's plan from the start was: luxury cars now to fund cheaper mass production later.
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