Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 216 posts

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

#201

Post by luffapi »

ben_w wrote: post #198
luffapi wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not books like that. History books (not pop trash). Books like this: https://www.amazon.com/French-Revolution-Enlightenment-Tyran... Also, cf Japanese rice warehouses in early Tokyo and why they exist.

“Pop trash” sounds like you’re dismissing it out of hand because you don’t like the conclusion. I mean, it might be, but as I’m not even claiming to be a domain expert I have to (argument from authority fallacy notwithstanding) rely on the author biographies as a proxy for how much they know. Now, would you like to give me a brief summary of how, biologically speaking, you recon being malnourished fails to put a bunc…

I’m saying you need to read actual history as you seem to think that starving a population won’t lead to a revolution.

> Now, would you like to give me a brief summary of how, biologically speaking, you recon being malnourished fails to put a bunch of revolutionaries at a relative disadvantage to a non-malnourished bunch of revolutionaries?

People revolt because they have nothing left to lose, not because it’s strategically a good idea. “Biologically” speaking when you outnumber your foe 100 to 1, you have at least an advantage in numbers, but again that’s not why people revolt.

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

#203

Post by reissbaker »

cholantesh wrote: post #152
reissbaker wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redundancy for NASA funded projects makes sense, and it's how we regained the ability to launch human crewed rockets from US soil: Boeing wanted to be the sole contract, and has bungled their launch projects, and it was due to NASA also contracting SpaceX that we've had any successful launches. When SpaceX was recently awarded a sole contract, plenty of people — including here on HN — howled that NASA was letting Spa…

'neutrality' is a mirage, but WaPo isn't known for it, either, and in this context it's an especially egregious choice

Okay, here's CBS saying the same thing: NASA always wanted two contracts, and was forced to give up on redundancy on the lunar lander due to their budget getting slashed. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-wins-2-9-billion-contrac...

"Agency managers originally hoped to award follow-on HLS contracts to two of the companies to encourage competition and protect against the possibility of major problems or delays that might affect one company but not the other.

But Congress only allocated $850 million in NASA's fiscal 2021 budget for lander development, about one quarter of the amount the agency said it needed to have a new vehicle ready by 2024.

Given the available money and projected future spending, NASA "down selected" to a single contractor — SpaceX — deciding the California rocket builder offered the most attractive combination of cost, technology and management expertise."

Neutrality may always have some element of manufacture, but that doesn't mean it's equivalent to intentionally trying to generate partisan outrage. This isn't a "bailout fund for Jeff Bezos" — word-for-word quote from the headline of the Intercept article! — it's just NASA continuing to try to get budget for the projects it wanted all along, so it can have redundant contractors like it did with the commercial crew program and avoid getting stuck with monopolist pricing (and monopolist poor performance) like it nearly did with Boeing.

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

#204

Post by Black101 »

_Microft wrote: post #23

I was a bit shocked how Jeff Bezos looked in the video [0] in which he invited his brother to go with him. He does not look healthy, even a bit bloated. Does anyone know if he is having health issues? [0] https://www.instagram.com/p/CP0MSOqnYEo/

Here's a Youtube link for what I think is the same video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgZA2SzCc78

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

#205

Post by h0l0cube »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #188
h0l0cube wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would this be distinguished from people simply having the desire to orgasm which unintentionally causes reproduction? That's reverse causality. Evolutionary fitness is a strong driver of human behavior. There's plenty of incidental behaviour, but in terms of baby making it's clear cut. > so there need not be any biological imperative to stop at one mate. It's more efficient when you consider humans have a long…

> That's reverse causality. Evolutionary fitness is a strong driver of human behavior. There's plenty of incidental behaviour, but in terms of baby making it's clear cut. That does not seem to be consistent with declining birthrates in developed countries. By and large, the more freedom and self sufficiency women have, the lower the birth rate (not a scientific conclusion, but what I see so take it with a boulder of…

> That does not seem to be consistent with declining birthrates in developed countries. By and large, the more freedom and self sufficiency women have, the lower the birth rate

I have read this before and I think it's an accurate phenomenon. There's some amount of 'evolutionary warfare' between sexes. I think the biological mechanism for it is called 'imprinting'. Also women have preference for someone who will help with the cost of pregnancy (which can be fatal) and rearing, as for men, they might not include this in their calculus.

> I would also guess tribes that prioritize monogamous relationships with multiple generations cooperating with each other outlast tribes that do not.

The picture is, of course, complicated. Societies/tribes have varied between polygamy and monogamy, and a number of factors are involved, including culture. All better explained by that lecture series. Though keep in mind is over a decade old

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

#206

Post by h0l0cube »

emerged wrote: post #191
h0l0cube wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. We are machines that work to attract mates, reproduce, and rear young. Once one has achieved the goal of attracting a mate, there's little need to devote energy to courtship displays - though perhaps more need to reserve energy in case of hardship. I might be being a little reductive though :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology

Being fit serves many goals other than attracting a mate. I wouldn’t personally even put it in the top 3, although admittedly most people probably would.

Keeping fit permits a longer lifespan, which can be important for the evolutionary fitness of grand kids. Also, I'm being a bit facetious, I don't believe all our behavior neatly fits into evolutionary motivations, and the science doesn't claim such rigidity. It does, however, have startling explanatory power about a bunch of things we do. I'd suggest watching the lecture series in the sibling thread

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

#207

Post by peteretep »

Tepix wrote: post #177
e17 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has he used that newspaper to exert political control over the US?

Would you like a list of stories they decided not to run?

…yes? I’ve seen articles openly critical of Bezos in the WashPo and ones supportive of Amazon workers unionising.

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

#208

Post by peteretep »

cma wrote: post #197
Isinlor wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they intentionally deceive. When you promise something without intention of delivering. In case of SpaceX and Tesla they claim outrageous things with every intention to deliver. Sometimes they are right, sometimes not. It's up to investors to know the difference.

The TED interview gives out strong Elizabeth Holmes signals.

Right, except SpaceX has put humans in the ISS.

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

#209

Post by peteretep »

gameswithgo wrote: post #15
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

American Oligarchs are certainly up to more interesting things than Russian ones at the moment!

I suspect the Russian ones are up to plenty that's "interesting", but not in a particularly positive way.
Post reply on HN