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Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

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Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#141

Post by dagw »

ben_w wrote: post #130
luffapi wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries. They’re also not very good at spending money on consumer goods when they don’t have any, which Amazon absolutely needs. (Tesla needs a lot of people above average income, given their cheapest offering). And these two giants aren’t the only places people can work. (Not enough by itself, but still a massive improvement compared to the situation leadi…

Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries.

Surely not. Starving people are desperate people, and desperate people are always dangerous.

Fed People with most of their basic needs met and a few luxuries make the least effective revolutionaries since they have little to gain and are terrified of losing the little they have.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#142

Post by sschueller »

chasd00 wrote: post #109
peteretep wrote: post #13

An Elon / Jeff space willy-waving contest about who gets to be Space Bro Alpha seems like a net win for humanity

“Willy waving contest” is long over and, ironically, SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell is the winner. She’s a super hero in my book. Musk had the dream but she’s turning it into reality which is the hard part.

I am sorry but some of the stuff she has said is quite nuts. Point to point travel with Starship is never going to happen the way she describes it. A rocket that big makes so much noise you can not launch it at half to ports they listed. If you would launch a Starship on Zürich lake you will blow out every window in the city.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#144

Post by mmmBacon »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I’m wondering if Amazon wouldn’t let him do this while he was at the helm. It sounds quite dangerous. Your first manned flight and it has the world’s richest man and owner in it? I don’t keep up with Blue Origin, have they demonstrated the ability to do this safely?

They've done 14 successful launches. It's probably considerably safer than mountain climbing etc. On the other hand, Blue Origin's competitor Virgin Galactic isn't automated and looks a lot more dangerous.

Not sure where everyone is getting their numbers but the failure rate for manned launches over the last 20 years is 0.8%. The percentage chance of death while climbing Everest is around 1%. SpaceX’s Falcon has ~2% failure rate. Unmanned flight failure rates are considerably higher. So risks of manned flight look comparable to climbing Everest.

Sources: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html

Everest: https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/08/26/mount-everest-sum...

SpaceX: https://spacex-info.com/stats/

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#145

Post by chinathrow »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #140
sschueller wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The facial bloating could be from medication such as corticosteroids or ACE inhibitors. Taking the flight this early before more testing may also indicate that he is not well. It might also explain him leaving Amazon.

Or he's just been craving some greasy burgers recently. Jumping immediately to health issues is a bit much IMO

You see his outline a bit later in the video, still looking fit. I actually thought the same when watching the video. I saw similar features in the faces of multiple friends who needed regular cortisone intake.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#146

Post by dalbasal »

tmountain wrote: post #135
dalbasal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what makes an oligarch? The way I use it, oligarch implies political power. You could, in theory, be a poor oligarch.

As you said, oligarch implies power, and with power one typically controls resources in a way that wealth can be generated for selfish purposes. The strict definition is something like "ruling by few", but I've always thought of it as rule by the extremely wealthy since that's how it typically seems to play out.

Sure, they are pretty closely related in pratice. The Senatorial oligarchy of Rome were pretty much also the wealthy of Rome, and often those with military power.

Still, the term implies politics... not just money. I would also hazard that it implies hereditary power. You could argue that dynastic politicians are oligarch. I'm not really disputing, just pondering.

Ultimately, for both Russians and Americans, oligarch is a (usually derogatory) analogy. It's not a formal oligarchy. We could also say aristocrats, which is more appealing to me.

Also, there's an idea that all governments, or systems of power are oligarchies. No matter what the formal system of government, some group of powerful people wield a lot of power. Rich people, religious leaders, senators, backscene power brokers, generals...

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#147

Post by ben_w »

luffapi wrote: post #137
ben_w wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries. They’re also not very good at spending money on consumer goods when they don’t have any, which Amazon absolutely needs. (Tesla needs a lot of people above average income, given their cheapest offering). And these two giants aren’t the only places people can work. (Not enough by itself, but still a massive improvement compared to the situation leadi…

> Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries. This is clearly historically incorrect. > Super-rich as a class exists because we let them exist, but there is a reason we let them exist… What reason is that? They exist because they are powerful, thus hard to topple. That the SEC and FTC are so ineffective (and ridiculously small pieces of the puzzle) is evidence of that.

> This is clearly historically incorrect.

> What reason is that?

How long do you have?

https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs in particular from 13:30 onwards, though the whole thing and the follow up video are both worth watching.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#148

Post by ben_w »

dagw wrote: post #141
ben_w wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries. They’re also not very good at spending money on consumer goods when they don’t have any, which Amazon absolutely needs. (Tesla needs a lot of people above average income, given their cheapest offering). And these two giants aren’t the only places people can work. (Not enough by itself, but still a massive improvement compared to the situation leadi…

Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries. Surely not. Starving people are desperate people, and desperate people are always dangerous. Fed People with most of their basic needs met and a few luxuries make the least effective revolutionaries since they have little to gain and are terrified of losing the little they have.

If that was true, nobody would’ve revolted in Europe since the potato famine (the former Stasi HQ is a short trip from me), and the potato famine would’ve triggered an immediate war for independence in Ireland rather than set one off a generation later.

Edit: before anyone suggests food shortages in DDR, based on what I saw in the DDR museum the shortages were of fancy food like coffee rather than staples like bread and potatoes.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#149

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

mmmBacon wrote: post #144
bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've done 14 successful launches. It's probably considerably safer than mountain climbing etc. On the other hand, Blue Origin's competitor Virgin Galactic isn't automated and looks a lot more dangerous.

Not sure where everyone is getting their numbers but the failure rate for manned launches over the last 20 years is 0.8%. The percentage chance of death while climbing Everest is around 1%. SpaceX’s Falcon has ~2% failure rate. Unmanned flight failure rates are considerably higher. So risks of manned flight look comparable to climbing Everest. Sources: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logyear.html Everest: https://ww…

Can you extrapolate all manned flight numbers (which are done by people with much more experience at it) to Blue Origin which has apparently only done 14 flights of New Shepard ever?

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#150

Post by luffapi »

ben_w wrote: post #147
luffapi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries. This is clearly historically incorrect. > Super-rich as a class exists because we let them exist, but there is a reason we let them exist… What reason is that? They exist because they are powerful, thus hard to topple. That the SEC and FTC are so ineffective (and ridiculously small pieces of the puzzle) is evidence of that.

> This is clearly historically incorrect. > What reason is that? How long do you have? https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs in particular from 13:30 onwards, though the whole thing and the follow up video are both worth watching.

If you actually study history (not YouTube, history books) you’ll find starving people and human rights violations to be a common cause for revolution.
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