Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by ModernMech » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #267

mostdataisnice wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental problem is that NASA's funding is tied to politics and not a business model. Both Democrats and Republicans gutted NASA over the last 15 years and essentially killed any chance we had at even launching basic rockets. The SLS was the last serious project NASA tackled and it was shuttered. Private space exploration has brought us innovation at a pace NASA could have never delivered because it always had…

SpaceX raised about 6 billion in total, NASAs budget is 23 Billion/Year -- why did NASA lose the ability to get people to space? You can blame whatever you want, but at the end of the day - they're failing.

Didn't they just land a robot on mars? Maybe they aren't failing but have different priorities. People marvel that SpaceX docks with the ISS but the existence of the ISS and the people on it is taken for granted at this point. How did they get there before SpaceX?

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

#512

Post by geocrasher » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #397

geocrasher wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that, I realized I had more to say after I had posted the reply. Your point about expensive technology becoming more affordable in the long run- that makes a lot of sense, and I totally get it. At first, basic air travel was such a thing, as was travel by rail. Or fancy carriage. So yes. That much is true. And I think if they'd sent up other billionaires instead, it would have made no difference. The trut…

> The truth is that a lot of people are hurting badly, and to watch others do extravagant things that don't make a difference for the bettering of humanity now just pours salt on the 'wound' of poverty. For many people, it's visible proof of the gaps getting wider and wider. I hear you there, but I don't understand why Musk gets a free pass then? He's just as rich as Bezos and just as out of touch with what the needs…

Because in a lot of people's eyes all Branson and Bezos have done is show up late to the game with inferior technology and thrown themselves a party for it.

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

#513

Post by ModernMech » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #466

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who calls bullshit on this? Let's say Elon pulls off going to Mars and establishing a permanent colony within the next 50 years. What plausible doomsday scenarios are there where everyone on Earth dies, but the people on Mars survive and are completely self-sustainable and able to grow their population exponentially? I mean, even if 99.99% of all humans on Earth are killed, there will be several ord…

It's seems pretty unlikely now. But what about once the Mar's colony has been established and growing for 300 years+ ?

What makes you so sure that within 300 years, the Mars colony won't become an existential threat with interplanetary nuclear weapons pointed our way? They may even take to calling themselves "Martians" as generations live and die on Mars with little connection to Earth. Like any civilization they'll have their own language, culture, and values.

The British colonized America in 1607 and 170 years later those colonists were calling themselves "Americans" and waged war for independence. What's it going to be like when that happens on an interplanetary scale?

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

#514

Post by pwdisswordfish0 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #127

cassac wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

> pay his employees more Doesn’t Amazon pay highest in its industry? I suppose people always want more, but it seems like they are already among the best. Of course pay varies by location and what’s good in one state is good in another. But it seems the average warehouse worker pay is $12.61 [0] with states ranging from $9.66 for North Carolina (holy cow) to $14.84 in Washington [1]. Amazon pays $16/hour [2] so that’…

> Doesn’t Amazon pay highest in its industry?

Absolutely not. On the tail of the recession, I moved back near my family and got a warehouse job doing the same thing that Amazon workers do. It was shit work under even shittier superiors, but by no means was it worse than what Amazon pays. And that's even being generous to Amazon, comparing it under conditions that totally stacked in Amazon's favor: it's almost like comparing apples to oranges, given that it's now 10 years hence, not to mention that the reference point is the recession. What's the bastion of magnanimity that we're comparing it to, by the way? None other than Walmart.

When I learned how little Amazon workers made, at the time around five years after my experience at Walmart, where you're essentially guaranteed a 50 cent raise every year (or more when the company does well, which is, again, essentially guaranteed), I was floored.

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

#515

Post by brobdingnagians » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #503

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…

So much about your comments strikes me the wrong way. The meaningingless faux-inspirational second paragraph first of all. The empty platitudes about "exploration". You say "It's how we survive as a species. It's what's next.". No!! We are facing massive problems due to overindustrialisation, overproduction, misalignment of incentives basically. We should focus on the (comparatively easy, but still very hard) task of…

Government protected monopolies and intervention to centralise corporations has created these megacorporations ruled by some of the most ruthless in our society. What we really need is de-centralisation, artisan ingenuity, and more free-spirited independent-thinkers who make decisions based on their ethics. Large corporations can make decisions where no one really feels responsible for the negative results. Small corporations would make people feel more invested in he end results, community, ecological results, etc.

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

#516

Post by peteretep » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #455

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…

> 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 fr…

> nation-states

You mean "countries", right, or are you trying to make some point about nationalism?

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

#517

Post by andrepd » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

Salgat wrote: post #77

TechBro8615 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also caused me exactly zero suffering. In fact, they actually helped me since I was able to order from Amazon throughout the lockdown.

Who pays for the roads that Amazon depends on for deliveries and employee commutes? Who pays for the k-12 educations and public universities that these employees used to become educated? Who pays for the entire social infrastructure that allows Amazon to even exist? That's what people mean when they say Amazon isn't paying their fair share. They depend on us and taxpayer benefits more than almost any other company in…

You're getting downvoted (sad that people can't engage in argument and resort to burying differing points of view) but this is the truth. THERE ARE NO SELF-MADE MEN! Everyone, Bezos included, owes their "success" to the sum of everyone that is living and has ever lived before them.

(i) Amazon wouldn't exist without all the technological and societal advances made in the past 4 millenia. It wouldn't exist without Aristotle, Plato, Jesus, John Locke, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, and thousands of other thinkers. It wouldn't exist without the Watt engine or the Caravel or Gunpowder or thousands of other technological breakthroughs. It wouldn't exist without the millions of workers who build roads throughout the world, who drained the swamps, who cultivated the lands. All of this is hidden, but it's there!

(ii) Amazon also wouldn't exist without the direct collaboration of 100,000s of people and the indirect collaboration of millions.

The things in (i) are the common heritage of all mankind, which no person can claim more than another. The things in (ii) should be fairly compensated, but they're not because of the coercive and violent system of capitalism which compels the workers to surrender most of the value they produce to the owners of capital (capitalism ≠ markets, cannot stress this enough).

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

#518

Post by shkkmo » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #397

geocrasher wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that, I realized I had more to say after I had posted the reply. Your point about expensive technology becoming more affordable in the long run- that makes a lot of sense, and I totally get it. At first, basic air travel was such a thing, as was travel by rail. Or fancy carriage. So yes. That much is true. And I think if they'd sent up other billionaires instead, it would have made no difference. The trut…

> The truth is that a lot of people are hurting badly, and to watch others do extravagant things that don't make a difference for the bettering of humanity now just pours salt on the 'wound' of poverty. For many people, it's visible proof of the gaps getting wider and wider. I hear you there, but I don't understand why Musk gets a free pass then? He's just as rich as Bezos and just as out of touch with what the needs…

SpaceX's ventures have generally served more utilitarian purposes. There are significant economic, scientific and military advantages to reducing the cost of getting things into orbit.

I don't think any of the three are bad, but I do think there is a gradient in terms of ambitions/successes that puts Musk well ahead of Bezos (at least until New Glen launches) and Bezo ahead of Branson.

While Bezos/Branson's priorities seems slightly backwards to me, it isn't wholey unreasonable to take that stance that making spaceflight available to more people will increase the level of interest in spaceflight (even if the timing seems a bit tone deaf for that goal.)

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

#519

Post by tootie » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #342

superfrank wrote: post #271

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…

Blue Origin is absolutely doing space exploration work as well. They have multiple contracts with NASA

https://www.nasa.gov/subject/5482/blue-origin/

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

#520

Post by andrepd » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #364

Salgat wrote: 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?

Uhm yes? Thanks for understanding my point.