Comment on The existence of billionaires is a policy failure
Nomad@infosec.pub 10 hours ago
I’m absolutely pro taxing billionaires. But this has been like that forever and they fill an ingesting financing nieche with their dick measuring contest of a space race. Somebody financed all the expeditions to the north pole for example. They finance exploration and science ands engineering that the public is not willing to, but personally in glad somebody does. Also industry brings arguably far less politics and other inefficiencies with it that public funding does. Look at how the NASA budget is cut every few years and how their funding is mostly squandered overfeeding some States industry so their senators get to keep their constituency happy. I’m not saying I particularly love that there are people getting richer by the second while doing fuck all, but I love that they have a hobby that arguably benefits humanity long term.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 10 hours ago
Damn, get off that billionaire dick and explain how that helps humanity when we are dealing with fascism, starving children and climate change.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Well last time when we had space race we got: gps, medical innovations, lighter materials, knowledge about weather helping things like hurricane predictions, better fuel, new methods to preserve food, cordless tools, memoryfoam.
I dont know how those helped humanity at all? Like insulin pumps? What a fucking waste, right? /s
I much rather have the billionare competing with rockets than that they compete with yachs.
Best thing would be if they payd taxes too in same relation to normal people
ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
In the past ~30 years (I haven’t read older data) no drug research in US was privately founded. They all consume massive government grants for it. The “cost” the big pharma is so loud about is manufacturing and treatment testing. But the actual research is founded by your taxpayers.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I mean technologies like imaging improvements used to scan moon made CT and MRI taking better images, Robotics tech that has pushed prostetic limbs and robotic surgery foward, remote diagnostics has taken leaps because, well ISS is pretty remote place.
Soup@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The last space race was a government funded effort, not personal projects meant to enrich and entertain rich people who view morality as a defect. These projects aren’t meant to advance science and research, and humanity’s well-being is the last thing they give a shit about.
You’re either not being serious or you aren’t smart enough to understand anything below headline-level detail.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Dont be a moron. Last space race was not some humanitarian deed from goverments. It was just a one front of the cold war.
Do you really thing that any progress there is going to happen in robotics or anything else wont be commerialized and after some time normalised?
Do you really think biggest capitalists in the world would not try to capitalize on every single innovation they might get on doing there.
You are doubting other peoples inteligence when you dont seem to have any clue how world works. I guess its just easier to think everybody is one dimensional cartoon villain.
I have no love for Bezos or Musk, and they definedly are not saints, or even care about normal people, but they are not going to just sit on some breaktrough technology if they can sell it.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 9 hours ago
Pretty much any engineering problem will, if solved, create some amount of transferrable advancement that will help humanity in other areas. It's why technological progress is so connected to war. It's not like they're taking money from their feeding children fund and spending it on dick measuring contests in space; the problem is that they had no intention of feeding starving children in the first place.