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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

#771

Post by raffraffraff »

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 keep seeing people make this wild assumption that we're going to somehow terraform Mars and make it habitable. If Earth becomes so uninhabitable that we literally need to find another planet to live in, the question I'd ask is, "why couldn't we save an already perfect planet where we and everything we rely upon evolved?". At what point does earth become so fucked up that we look at Mars and think "Hmm, that looks like an option"

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

#772

Post by ThomPete »

shkkmo wrote: post #544
ThomPete wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming we know all the problems we might encounter. We don't, in fact there are many ways the human species can go extinct that are not fault of our own. The best we can do is to create general knowledge which allow us to better combat future challenges. Climate change is a potential problem but not existential and not something we can't handle with our current technological understanding. The idea that hum…

> Climate change is a potential problem but not existential While I agree climate change is not "existential" (at least not for humans, possibly for many other species and societal structures) it is definitely more than a "potential" problem. > and not something we can't handle with our current technological understanding. I think the degree to which our current technology is able to "handle" the amount of warming we…

99.999% of all species ever existed was wiped out by the climate way before we arrived. That's always a danger as nature doesn't care about us.

The way we combat that is not to minimize our impact on the planet but maximize it by creating general knowledge which can be used to come up with even better solutions that we have today.

We have never been as safe from the climate as we are right now. The number of climate related deaths have plummeted the last 100% years.

This is done through the use of energy and technology which is responsible for saving many more lives than killing them. In fact most people wouldn't be around here today if it wasn't for our use of energy and impact on the planet.

So we could ask the same question back. How many current lives are those who want to stop our current impact on the planet ready to let die in return for speculative issues in the future where we would be much richer and have even better technologies to handle any issue.

I think far too many people haven't actually sat down and thought this through but are mostly caught in short term thinking while telling themselves they are telling long term.

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

#773

Post by delusional »

superfrank wrote: post #271
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…

> 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…

> dumped billions of dollars back into the economy.

And how did they do that? By wasting earthly resources and real human lives on pointless rocket launches.

The disgusting part isn't that they are going to space. The disgusting part is that ONLY they get to go to space. They are pushing the worst conditions here on earth (forcing shit hours and trash work conditions) so that they can go fly in a rocket.

It's pathetic.

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

#774

Post by birdyrooster »

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…

What if ending poverty was next, that would be cool, and then Mars?

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

#775

Post by thn-gap »

machinelearning wrote: post #735
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…

The truth is that there 100% isn't anything morally wrong with: 1. Building a rocket company 2. Being a billionaire 3. Going on a flight on a rocket your company built The issue stems from how the optics of these 3 lumped together appears to the masses. To the people who are struggling everyday to make a living, it says: "Hey look at how much of a baller I am, I just went to space and you didn't" Obviously, investing…

You give as truth that #2 is not 100% morally wrong. I am not so sure, and many other people would also disagree.

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

#776

Post by dumpsterdiver »

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…

A spaceship is only a vanity item until you actually need it. Who knows when you might need to spend a few years in orbit waiting out a nuclear winter?

I’d be interested to see more progress made toward long term space habitats. You don’t need reusable rockets when you don’t plan on coming back anytime soon.

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

#777

Post by dumpsterdiver »

delusional wrote: post #773
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…

> dumped billions of dollars back into the economy. And how did they do that? By wasting earthly resources and real human lives on pointless rocket launches. The disgusting part isn't that they are going to space. The disgusting part is that ONLY they get to go to space. They are pushing the worst conditions here on earth (forcing shit hours and trash work conditions) so that they can go fly in a rocket. It's patheti…

Noone bats a eye when those same companies perform test launches that are just as expensive.

I mean I get it that it seems extravagant, but if you just think about it as another test launch that they risked their lives to ride along with, it’s less troubling.

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

#778

Post by machinelearning »

thn-gap wrote: post #775
machinelearning wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that there 100% isn't anything morally wrong with: 1. Building a rocket company 2. Being a billionaire 3. Going on a flight on a rocket your company built The issue stems from how the optics of these 3 lumped together appears to the masses. To the people who are struggling everyday to make a living, it says: "Hey look at how much of a baller I am, I just went to space and you didn't" Obviously, investing…

You give as truth that #2 is not 100% morally wrong. I am not so sure, and many other people would also disagree.

The implicit assumption in what you're saying that the only way to obtain a billion dollars is by immoral means. There is no proof that this is always the case.

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

#779

Post by dumpsterdiver »

8note wrote: post #468
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people that think about this as their day job consider climate change to be the existential threat we are fixing by going to mars. It's generally: nuclear war, asteroid strike, super volcano bioweapon/plauge and possibly malicious AI.

Super volcanoes, nuclear wars, asteroid strikes and bioweapons makes earth about equal to living on Mars or the moon. You could build all the same things on earth instead, for a fair bit cheaper. Malicious AI would almost certainly affect the moon or mars more heavily than earth, since on earth you can survive without high tech solutions

> Malicious AI would almost certainly affect the moon or mars more heavily than earth, since on earth you can survive without high tech solutions

They do have the benefit of being air gapped, though.

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

#780

Post by m4rtink »

cwkoss wrote: post #597
xyzzyz wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither Bezos or Branson achieved orbital velocities, which is the minimum bar for doing useful things related to space. Well, ICBMs are very useful, and only require sub-orbital velocities, though I don't necessarily want Bezos or Branson to get those.

Do ICBMs have any practical uses besides delivering explosives?

There were some plans to convert demilitarized R-36 ICBMs to land couple tons emergency supplies (eq. lifeboats, medical stuff, firefighting gear) anywhere 10000 km from the launch site. In the end those rockets were just converted to the Dnepr space launcher.
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