Billionaires-in-space critics are 'largely right', Bezos concedes
edition.cnn.com
edition.cnn.com
Relevant portion from the article (which itself isn't much more than PR reprint and fluff):
Earlier in the day, during an interview that aired on "New Day," Crane asked Bezos, "There have been a chorus of critics saying that these flights to space are, you know, just joyrides for the wealthy, and that you should be spending your time and your money and energy trying to solve problems here on Earth. So what do you say to those critics?"
Bezos didn't tap dance around the question: He said, "Well, I say they're largely right. We have to do both. You know, we have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We've always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both." He said this mission is about "building a road to space for the next generations to do amazing things there, and those amazing things will solve problems here on Earth."
But what he and Branson are doing has none of that R&D that defined the space age, where innovations in materials and technology found real-world applications and became everyday objects for common people. All they're doing is spending millions of dollars doing something that has already been perfectly possible for over 70 years.
There's no innovation or societal benefit to their private joyrides.
1. If the public money being thrown at SpaceX were redirected, what could NASA (or other private companies) do with it?
2. If the administrators of NASA collected $80B (combined) in salary and bonuses last year, largely from public coffers, would that be considered reasonable?
NASA knows exactly what they're buying. They've just become such a bureaucratic, top-heavy, risk-adverse organization (by Congressional design) that it's a better deal to outsource pieces to SpaceX.
Although Raptors are a great achievement, their design if used alone is not made for bigger loads. SpaceX is stacking them now for larger ships. Hopefully the whole system will prove reliable on higher flights, and a different design won't be needed.
Elon Musk is not a net positive for humanity.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/elon-musk-confesses-to-l...
(That said, while I’d like to be part of the first wave of Mars colonists, my concern with his politics make me not want it if he’s in charge of much more than the logistics).
Do these people have the same amount of power and influence as Musk? If they don't that's very much a differentiator.
His power is a multiplier for his actions, which are better than average, and so in that regard makes him a net positive.
If it turns out I’m being overly pessimistic about human attitudes, the result can be inverted.
Regardless, even if the proportions are inverted, his words have the power to strengthen the pro-coup numbers, which is not the same as keeping baseline humanity numbers and certainly makes a difference.
In any case, by condemning an entire country of roughly 11 million people to live under the rule of a foreign-backed government against the people's will is always going to be a net negative, regardless of other endeavours.
Since this is a matter of opinion (what's positive, what's negative, how much weight each action has on either direction, etc. is very much subjective), it seems like we simply disagree.
> But what he and Branson are doing has none of that R&D that defined the space age, where innovations in materials and technology found real-world applications and became everyday objects for common people.
Except that these companies absolutely are doing R&D. We don't know what sort of "real world applications" might come from it in the future. We do know that right now, it's extremely expensive and difficult to go into space for anyone. Hopefully in the future going into space will become more than an expensive hobby for billionaires, but you can't get there without investment into space exploration.
> All they're doing is spending millions of dollars doing something that has already been perfectly possible for over 70 years.
Yet we still haven't returned to the moon and haven't gone to Mars, or to an asteroid, or to really anything else in that time. Being able to do it and it become a thing that we do are two different things entirely. We can't rely solely on NASA for innovations in space flight, especially when its funding can be stripped and killed off on the whim of a President, like Obama's disastrously bad space policy did during his presidency.
Doing the same thing but 10x cheaper is progress, also makes the thing that's 10x too expensive that's never been done before possible.
Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit are making air launches easy, but they're not the first.
Pegasus first flew in 1990, released at 12km, can launch 443 kg into orbit for $56 million.
Virgin's LauncherOne, releases at 10.7km, can carry 500kg into orbit for $12 million
And because the US only cares to do anything if there's a competition involved, the fall of the Soviet Union meant that politicians didn't really care anymore, they got lazy and lost their ambitions. Now China (and India) and speeding up and leaving the US in the dust.
The money spent on private space exploration could be spent much better on public research and space exploration, with international space agencies working together, instead of funding billionaire joyrides and further lining their pockets with money they can barely figure out how to spend.
We absolutely need private companies vying for better space capability. We would have to send someone, whether it be billionaires or someone else up into space to facilitate that. That money would be spent regardless, so why does it matter that Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are doing it rather than any random person?
The goal is to get to the point where it's no longer remarkable to travel through space.
It's the same old game, lobby for politicians to reduce funding to public agencies and institutions, demand ever-higher profits and put hack-and-slash stooges in charge.
Then after a few years of letting them struggle, publicly declare the public sector horribly inefficient and call for widespread privatization, with the contracts coincidentally going to your biggest sponsors.
The USPS is just the latest in a long lineup of examples of this method. It's corruption, pure and simple.
Several of the major technological innovations in history are a case of doing something "already possible" at a reduced cost: electric light, printing press, refrigerator...
I think that largely misses the point, either on purpose or out of sheer ignorance.
So far the main contention is that they should never have been allowed to amass such insane amount of money that they can have this dystopic billionaire space race. Had they paid better salaries to their employees, kept working conditions sane, had lower working hours, etc etc etc. they might have solved (or at least not created / helped with) many of said problems in the first place.
Edit: typo
Amazon is often the best employer many individuals have ever had in their areas.
What's the proportion of those to the total number of individuals employed, directly or indirectly by them?
That said, I don't begrudge Bezos&Branson their space race hobby. Certainly better than the "who has the biggest yacht" type of shenanigans most rich people get up to.
To provide proper healthcare to every child (and adult) on earth we'd need to stop the people who are currently limiting the availability of healthcare: the hospital cartels preventing the construction of new hospitals, the medical associations preventing the training of more doctors, the pharmaceutical companies preventing the free trade of medicines, and the governments colluding in all that.
But they'll fight that every step of the way and one of them most effective ways they fight it is by talking about money, as if lack of healthcare spending was the problem. It's not. We'd actually spend less on a more accessible healthcare system, because all the people sucking the money and life out of the current system wouldn't be getting richer.
What possible incentive do governments worldwide have to actively prevent child healthcare? Even a cold-hearted monster who only cares about money has an economic incentive for the population generally to not die of easily preventable causes before retirement, and would know that letting them die before they enter the workforce is literally the most wasteful option. And almost nobody is that heartless about children.
For example, why does the US government sanction countries that import or manufacture generic versions of patented drugs? Manufacturing these lifesaving drugs doesn't cost much. They could be sold much cheaper to a lot more people.
These politicians probably don't think of it as actively preventing healthcare, but medications could be as cheap as Coca Cola if not for laws that prioritize profits over lives.
No doubt drugs could be cheaper, but denying pharma an incentive to ever develop them is not the answer. Of course manufacturing is cheap, but the research and clinical trials are expensive and have to be paid for somehow. Focusing on only the manufacturing costs is a bizarre combination of dumb and disingenuous.
Research needs an incentive. It doesn't have to include a for-profit pharma company. Quite a bit of the research is publicly funded anyway, so why not publically fund the clinical trials as well? The answer, of course, is that people who are making money off the current system won't let things change.
Ignoring the people dying because they can't afford to pay for the research is heartless. A previous post suggested "almost nobody is that heartless about children", but it appears the people in charge really are that heartless.
More people die if research isn't done _and_ developed. In no way does just not paying improve the situation.
"Think of the children" is just an empty appeal to emotion over reason. Great indicator of a bad faith argument though.
Remember that once upon a time, firefighting companies would stand outside a burning building and watch it burn until the owner paid up? That's pretty much the current situation with healthcare - the healthcare and pharma companies just watch patients die if they can't afford to pay.
But nationalization isn't my suggestion for the problem of pharma patents preventing healthcare in impoverished countries. For that, just let those countries ignore US patents. They don't have a lot of money anyway, so allowing them to use lifesaving medications would not imperil pharma research.
Of course you're right, the world doesn't work the way I want it to, but I think saving lives is an excellent argument why it should.
If you think that's "bad faith" or "an empty appeal to emotion over reason", then there's really nothing more to say.
The journalist asked a question with 2 possible scenarios:
- Bezos spends his money on space race; or
- Bezos spends his money fixing problems on Earth.
He also sugests the second option is what the critics are asking for.
I'm saying most criticisms I've seen are much broader than that, and if that world view was true, neither option would exist in the first place.
This is a problem because it lets Bezos off the hook about the bigger issue, and passes the responsibility of solvin humanity's problems to billionaires who shouldn't exist in the first place.
This is the dystopic part - relying on a small amount of people with overwhelming power amassed largely through no merit of their own (inheritance, tax avoidance, neo-feudal-like employment/exploitation of others) to fix the very problems that allowed them to be in that position.
This is the question that should have been asked. I suspect either ignorance of the journalist or pre-screened questions only allowing the ones who wouldn't put Bezos in an awkward position but of course I can't be sure.
Well, yeah, did I suggest you weren't? I'm aware of the topic we're discussing.
>This is a problem because it lets Bezos off the hook about the bigger issue, and passes the responsibility of solvin humanity's problems to billionaires who shouldn't exist in the first place.
Whether or not they should exist is an opinion. The question was about a different opinion that some people have. What makes your opinion (that billionaires shouldn't exist) more important than the opinion that the journalist was referencing (that since they do exist they should use their wealth to different ends)?
> This is the question that should have been asked.
What answer would you expect Bezos to give that would make it a better question?
> did I suggest you weren't?
Yes, you did, here: > You're pointing out a possible avenue for using wealth to fix problems on earth
I was not. I was questioning the scenario posed by the journalist and how it doesn't fit the debate I see happening.
> Whether or not they should exist is an opinion.
Yes, but in this context we're not talking about my opinion, so I don't really understand what you're arguing about.
A more complete quote of that part of the question is: "There have been a chorus of critics saying that these flights to space are, you know, just joyrides for the wealthy, and that you should be spending your time and your money and energy trying to solve problems here on Earth."
So the journalist is acting as a proxy of, yes, the opinion, of "a chorus of critics".
What I'm saying is that this seems misguided/ignorant/malicious (I don't know which) given that most of the criticism I have seen is NOT about how billionaires should spend their wealth but rather criticising the very conditions that make this question or choice exist in the first place - the very existance of a tiny number of extremelly wealthy persons, mostly amassed by
> What answer would you expect Bezos to give that would make it a better question?
I have no expectations, and I am not Bezos to know what he thinks. I imagine he'd just deflect but I can't know unless the question is actually asked and he's given a chance to respond.
Essentially what I'm discussing is how the whole thing seems nonsensical and just a farce to let Bezos mostly off the hook, whereas you seem to be questioning my opinions about the subject matter of the interview.
My actual opinion is that the interview is based on bad premises and should be discarded altogether.
If so, ok. I disagree, but ok.
Based on that observation, I then proceeded to say that the question is based on false premises and as such is not a good question as it can only have a meaningless answer.
Another commenter mentioned the debate they've seen is more inline with what's in the question, and that's a fair observation. If that's the case and my observation is biased in the wrong way, then the question is ok.
Maybe that's the source of our miscommunication.
> Based on that observation, I then proceeded to say that the question is based on false premises > If that's the case and my observation is biased in the wrong way, then the question is ok.
Because that falls into my definition of an opinion.
> I'm saying most criticisms I've seen are much broader than that, and if that world view was true, neither option would exist in the first place.
Not the case for me
> billionaires who shouldn't exist in the first place
100% your opinion and is completely separate from the criticism that billionaires should spend their wealth solving earth's problems
So you had a completely different question than the "journalist." Get upset that this journalist didn't answer the question you wanted asked, but don't speak for the rest of the viewership.
Fair enough. I did say "most criticisms I've seen".
> 100% your opinion
That may or may not be the case. It's not what I'm arguing about though. I'm saying it doesn't match the meat of the debate I have seen.
When you said "not the case for me", that's definitely a relevant data point. The rest of this thread is not.
As a journalist, do your research. If you have a question, ask YOUR question.
Even mild resource extraction from space or a second planet massively boosts a civilization's resource base.
Not sure why Bezos and Branson are getting flack, when people just as rich as them are spending it in worse ways.
And, if it comes down to it, I'd rather see the super wealthy spend their money on technological advancement, than be another drop in the bucket on things government should be doing (social support, healthcare, etc).
Most rich people don't get (or seek) quite as much media attention as these two.
A: Well, I say they're largely right. We have to do both. You know, we have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We've always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both
When did people begin to look to billionaires to solve problems on earth? I think a big problem is too much involvement in politics and policy by the wealthy.
I'm with you. We ditch their political influence entirely and tax them proportionately the same as everyone is supposed to be. Maybe ratchet up the rate some once you're beyond money that you can ever spend because you'll do something grossly moronic, rubbing everyone's faces in it like taking joy flights to space.
Billionaires are a large-ish part of problems here on earth. Change my mind.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche...
I'll ask you a question. Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises, and how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners? Is doing so really in the public interest?
The exceptions I think we can agree are parasitic behaviours. Inherited wealth, rent seeking, corruption, however these are a minority of billionaires, and looking at the developed world a small minority.
>and employ lots of people doing productive work.
I think we may have different definitions of "themselves."
The employees of said companies, who have done the hard, sometimes back-breaking work to bring said company to such a valuation. Of course, current CEOs deserve a share of it too, proportional to the work they have put in. Just not simply because they had capital from mom and pop lending them a cool 500k like Bezos did.
> how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners
Force.
> Is doing so really in the public interest?
Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest.
There are no good billionaires. Every billionaire has become so upon the back of stealing wages, time and money from their employees. Every billionaire has death, sorrow and blood on their hands, as a result of their actions to greedily scrunge up money for their personal gain. Not even in a "well you could stop world hunger" way. No, in a "the work conditions you imposed led the people working 16 hours a day for you into deep mental issues, or the slave labour you knowingly used has caused people to die as a result of your actions." way.
My wife is Chinese, and her parents grew up under Mao. Because her father's family owned some land which they rented out to other farmers in their village, in Hebei, they were categorised as capitalist class enemies and persecuted. He was not allowed to go to school, was refused work and he grew up destitute. He still tears up when talking about that time. But hey, apparently it was in the public interest.
Capitalism is based on three things. Freedom to own property and capital, freedom to buy the labour of others or sell your own labour, and freedom of association to form partnerships and companies. The reason Marxism always fails is because it is based on the elimination of those freedoms, putting power over these activities in the hands of functionaries. It takes away personal property; it coercively mandates and directs labour; it prohibits freedoms of association, organisation and communication.
If you want to found an employee owned partnership there is nothing to stop you doing so. The freedoms granted under capitalism are entirely compatible with this. There are plenty of socialists in the world with large amounts of personal capital to seed such projects. Plenty of businesses are founded using loans. There's no law that says startups have to have individual founders, they could be formed as partnerships between the employees. In fact some such partnerships do exist, which shows that the reasons they are not more common are nothing to do with the regulatory environment. However such partnerships are extremely uncommon, why is this?
The fact is most people choose not to take on the risks that owning and running a business entail. They don't want the responsibility in case it fails as most new businesses do, they prefer the owners and investors to take that risk and earn a regular pay packet instead. That's their choice. It's also the choice I have made throughout my career, but at least I'm prepared to take responsibility for it.
The only capitalist in particular I defended was my father in law. Actually his father as my father in law was a child at the time. His father was a farmer that committed the terrible crime of renting out some of his land instead of letting it lie fallow. He and his whole family worked incredibly hard in a small village in Hebei until they were evicted from their farm by the Communists.
No human can make a billion dollars by themselves. That is simply not possible. The one single and only way you can make a billion dollar is by exploiting the labour of others.
There is nothing "self-made" about billionaires.
The fact is they chose not to accept the risks of doing that, after all most new businesses fail. Instead they opted for a regular pay packet from an owner and investors who accepted all of that risk.
There aren't laws against it, but the trouble with such structures is they need stability, so they tend to grow way slower, with new members who go in and stay (50-70 years for the examples below). That's not conducive to a space "race" indeed.
Alternatively they need some state protection until they are big and stable enough - and then you're living in full Marxist-cum-Bolchevik or Maoist territory.
There still exit various such cooperatives in Spain and northern Italy with from 12 to 30'000 members (also including industry). A lot of large Chinese firms also have that form.
Billionaires are a completely different type of thing. You do not become a billionaire by employing some people and taking on a bit of risk.
What you say about the wealth not being in piles of cash is completely incorrect. The stock has value, and the super wealthy can use their stock ownership as collateral and get as much cash as they wish. Cash is not an issue for the super wealthy. Additionally, while the owners take a salary of $1, let's say for kicks, in addition to getting unlimited cash, they also get other perks as well - like company jets, and limos with drivers, etc. I don't know if Bezos does, but many business owners do.
I think that Bezos should control the company, but there could be a 90% tax on wealth (not income) at the highest marginal rate and that would be fine with me. It's been there before in the USA's best years, where there was money to build roads and bridges, and pay for student's educations at public universities.
It's not like Jeff Bezos and those people like him are going to quit if we limit their wealth to $1 billion or $5 billion.
But the rich are a bunch of c-nts. San Francisco said that they would raise taxes for the richest by 1%...1 f-ing percent, in order to help the homeless, which is a big problem there, and the wealthy started making noises about leaving San Francisco because of that. What utter c-nts the wealthy are.
Here is how wealthy Jeff Bezos is, and how wealthy the .0001% of our population is - that are as rich as the bottom 60% of the USA. Below is a graphic that shows actual wealth of Bezos accurately, which we never see, ever. Can you get to the end? I never have been able to yet. Just use your right arrow key to start scrolling. Here it is: https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire
"Proxmire stated that; "it's the best argument yet for chopping NASA's funding to the bone .... I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy".[33]"
I think we can look back and say that this was short sighted, NASA helped kickstart things like cordless power tools, among other now everyday techs. Would we have discovered innovations without them? Maybe, but seems unlikely.
We are looking to them not existing in the first place, to free up resources for people that actually need them.
If the US federal government did that with SpaceX would be actively worse, because NASA and American aerospace industries are deliberately spread out over the USA, specifically to give every senator a clear interest in keeping funds high, which means they have absolutely no interest in lowering costs (lower costs mean less money for their state in the short term, even if you can guarantee the follow on effects would double their state’s tax revenue after just three election cycles).
I can think of no obvious parallel ways to have as outsized a negative impact on Spaceship Earth as this. Especially in such a short window of time.