Comment by icelancer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icelancer | Hacker News Reader

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Flint is a solved problem as far as logistics and planning are concerned; lead levels fell below the acceptable amount in 2017 and the pipes are being replaced systematically through 2020. The bottled water program has been extended despite the state terminating it; the company that is privately funding it to the tune of 100,000 bottles per week is the very evil corporation Nestle. (Note: They actually do some terrible shit, but give credit where it's due here.)

The original problem in Flint had nothing to do with money that someone could throw at it and everything to do with government corruption and potentially racism. Is the plan to privatize cities in hopes of better and more efficient oversight, giving Elon/Bezos cities to purchase?

Here is a list of celebrities and rich people who have donated to Flint, since you brought it up. It is not an insignificant list nor an insignificant amount of money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis#Donations_o...

>> but we could easily just freight bottled water in far cheaper

This is being done by Nestle, and had been funded by many other rich people as well.

The headlines of "Flint still doesn't have clean water" are technically true, but the problem has a solution being applied to it. Upending all the pipes tomorrow by throwing billions of dollars at contractors to do it will cause the entire city of Flint to have no water instead of potentially risky water (despite testing showing that the water is almost entirely fine), so that's not a solution either.

First off, thanks for the well written response! I love discussions on here.

I'm not suggesting privatizing cities though my replies specifically. What I mean is on the broader perspective, we as a society are spending 10s/100s of billions to get to the moon and make a habitable base.

I totally understand that many of the problems communities face are political, and just throwing money at these kinds of issues won't solve those problems. I'm in favor of funding NASA with taxes (my taxes included), etc. I think flint wasn't the best example for this specifically.

I just think that there are certainly problems communities are facing that can be solved by paying R/D of civil and scientific engineers to work on solving these issues. It's great that we can recycle urine on the ISS, but can we help people in less fortunate places who have no water?

I'm NOT saying these issues can be solved by only throwing money at them. But if we as a society are spending tens or hundreds of billions (Let's include private companies and any other space programs from any nation because I'm considering this an international effort) to make the moon habitable, that's hundreds of billions not spent on helping many fixable problems that will immediately provide significant improvements to quality of life to many lives (say drinkable water in 3rd world nations, etc). I'm not saying we should spend all of that money on not going to space, just that we should consider what we're really achieving vs. what we know we can effectively achieve in terms of bettering humans as a society.

>> I'm in favor of funding NASA with taxes (my taxes included), etc.

NASA was buying things from Russia and overspending with the ULA contractors until SpaceX came around. Unfortunately, in entrenched industries, it sometimes takes someone like Elon with all of his flaws to actually get shit done. The private sector needs to push the public one from time to time.

>> I think flint wasn't the best example for this specifically.

But it very much was. Most problems we have as a society and the greatest injustices are not ones where short-term - or even long-term - economic bandages will solve the problem. The enemy is mostly us and how we choose to politically navigate these situations.

>> It's great that we can recycle urine on the ISS, but can we help people in less fortunate places who have no water?

You've chosen another Flint. Do you think globally, the problem of water distribution is one where private money could solve issues? This would only be true if you were okay with private money hiring private military contractors to overthrow dictators who are oppressing their citizens on purpose to control them with water shortages, and quelling political wars/problems with privately-funded forces to increase water distribution efficiency.

If that's unacceptable - and I think you will find that it is - then private money doesn't do a lot there. Water shortages exist globally primarily because leaders of countries want them to exist, or don't give a shit that they exist. Not because there isn't enough money being thrown at the problem.

>> I'm not saying we should spend all of that money on not going to space, just that we should consider what we're really achieving vs. what we know we can effectively achieve in terms of bettering humans as a society.

You keep bringing up money as the proxy, however.

I want you to describe to me how billions of dollars could fix political instability globally that won't make American private companies seen as imperialist assholes.

The US govt spends 3 trillion a year. Bezos 100 billion lifetime wealth is not even a rounding error. The govt could try being a tiny 0.1 percent efficient every year and satisfy the desires of every liberal bleeding heart

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