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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

#581

Post by mdorazio »

dmz73 wrote: post #550
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…

The problem is not that billionaires are spending their money on space exploration. The problem is that we have many billionaires and millions (billions world wide) are barely surviving. Do you want our species to expand to other planets with this kind of society? We will all end up being slaves if this keeps going on, not in 19th century sense but modern kind - forced to work endless hours just to scrape enough mone…

The issue with this line of reasoning is that money is generally not going to solve the problem of people barely surviving. In the vast majority of cases, sociopolitical issues are the root cause and throwing money at things doesn't really help. If you don't believe me, look at the history of aid to sub-saharan Africa. So there's no reason we can't both spend billionaires' money on space development and fix terrestrial problems with social and political reform.

And if you want to argue that billionaires only became so wealthy by exploiting people... well, yes, and? Their wealth already exists so the options are 1) they spend it on stupid stuff like more yachts and mansions, 2) they spend it on humanity-advancing things like space exploration (Musk/Bezos) and philanthropy (Gates), or 3) we have bloody revolutions to claw it back and hope for the best.

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

#582

Post by darawk »

dmz73 wrote: post #550
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…

The problem is not that billionaires are spending their money on space exploration. The problem is that we have many billionaires and millions (billions world wide) are barely surviving. Do you want our species to expand to other planets with this kind of society? We will all end up being slaves if this keeps going on, not in 19th century sense but modern kind - forced to work endless hours just to scrape enough mone…

You could say this about basically all progress anywhere in human history, though. Leonardo Da Vinci's patrons were spending their money on art and research when they could have been feeding their peasants better. The same with Isaac Newton's patrons and countless others.

We fund science and technology research because it improves expected outcomes in the future, for everyone. The idea that we can't fund research until everyone is fed is an oxymoron, we would never be able to get there without funding research.

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

#583

Post by Uhhrrr »

mdorazio wrote: post #581
dmz73 wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that billionaires are spending their money on space exploration. The problem is that we have many billionaires and millions (billions world wide) are barely surviving. Do you want our species to expand to other planets with this kind of society? We will all end up being slaves if this keeps going on, not in 19th century sense but modern kind - forced to work endless hours just to scrape enough mone…

The issue with this line of reasoning is that money is generally not going to solve the problem of people barely surviving. In the vast majority of cases, sociopolitical issues are the root cause and throwing money at things doesn't really help. If you don't believe me, look at the history of aid to sub-saharan Africa. So there's no reason we can't both spend billionaires' money on space development and fix terrestri…

No, I think he's got something here. Surely Bezos could also spend some of his billions overthrowing African kleptocracies.

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

#584

Post by pb7 »

andrepd wrote: post #523
pb7 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You elected Senators that don't care about your opinion. Maybe you should be more mad at them and less mad at Amazon who provides millions of people with exactly the goods and services they promise.

Such a lazy deflection. When corruption happens you can be mad at both the corrupter and the corruptee.

What’s lazy is not holding the people who are supposed to represent your interests accountable.

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

#585

Post by [deleted] »

dmz73 wrote: post #550
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…

The problem is not that billionaires are spending their money on space exploration. The problem is that we have many billionaires and millions (billions world wide) are barely surviving. Do you want our species to expand to other planets with this kind of society? We will all end up being slaves if this keeps going on, not in 19th century sense but modern kind - forced to work endless hours just to scrape enough mone…

[deleted]

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

#586

Post by erik_seaberg »

soperj wrote: post #474
fbelzile wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, Blue Origin at least was thoughtful enough to use fuel that doesn't emit CO2. Branson is more likable but does seem like he's just trying to defend his title of being the eccentric billionaire, rather than thinking too hard about the future.

Where do you think the H2 comes from?

They could always electrolyze seawater. We need to deter large-scale greenhouse gas venting, not energy uses of all kinds.

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

#587

Post by 34679 »

ironrabbit wrote: post #156
okintheory wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my current understanding: Basically, once you're this rich, you can take hundreds of millions or billions of dollars worth of loans to cover anything you'd like to spend. Now, you can make sure that you're actually "losing" money in any given year by having (almost) no realized income. Then, at the end, you die, having never paid taxes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/briefing/tax-jeff-bezos-w... https://w…

Interesting, but how do you pay off these loans except by later selling stock (and paying capital gains tax)?

More loans.

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

#590

Post by dane-pgp »

pb7 wrote: post #572
andrepd wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and perhaps that might be a problem, don't you think?

No. I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable. The people that are successful in doing so will reap rewards many orders of magnitude more than their employees that did not take on any risk and whose output is measured by “productivity”.

Do you think people would no longer be incentivized if there were, for example, a cap on how much money/wealth they could own? Let's say the limit was $1 billion, to start with.

The only counter-argument I can think of is that SpaceX might have run out of money if Elon "only" had $1 billion to pour into it, but I believe he started the company with just a $100 million investment of his own money.

I'd also accept people being able to funnel billions into non-profit foundations which they control, as long as those foundations have goals which vaguely benefit society, such as "making humans a multi-planetary species".

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