Shadowy Man
Contributor
Convenient then that the rich write the laws, neh?The political philosophy of the US: as long as you don't break the law, you are welcome to accumulate unlimited power. It's the paradox of liberalism.
Convenient then that the rich write the laws, neh?The political philosophy of the US: as long as you don't break the law, you are welcome to accumulate unlimited power. It's the paradox of liberalism.
No. Why would you?
What's wrong with thrill rides? If you go on a tourist trip to the Galapagos or something, you are not advancing science either. It's not like you're going to catalogue previously unknown flora and fauna while there.
But just because Charles Darwin did it almost 200 years ago, does not mean your trip there would be pointless.
These people have a lot of money. I see nothing wrong in spending it on stuff not affordable to us mere mortals. Bezos' jaunt to the edge of space is no more pointless than his longer-than-football-field yacht.
I don't agree.
First of all, the impact on the environment must be very significant and I don't think it's justifiable just to massage the egos of a bunch of rich people.
But the other more important thing is that it would be a very, very grave mistake to allow wealthy people to somehow stake a claim to any part of space or space exploration or the intellectual property rights to any discoveries made as part of these missions.
Of course you are way too young to remember the early days of NASA and the beginnings of space exploration but I'm not. Today, the world is filled with products and devices that directly arose from the space program. I don't want Jeff Bezos near any of the next waves of technology and innovation to arise. That belongs, by rights, to the world, not to any individual who has the ego and the pocketbook to grab even more for himself. It's obscene. And dangerous.
Branson Beats Jeff Bezos to Space, Aiming to Open Space Tourism - The New York Times
Doing what the North American X-15 did some 60 years ago. Carrying a rocketplane up on a carrier plane and then releasing it. The rocketplane then fires its rocket engine and gets high up in the atmosphere, close to the Kármán line boundary of outer space (100 km, 62 mi, 328,000 ft).
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic
WATCH LIVE: Virgin Galactic Unity 22 Spaceflight Livestream - YouTube - the actual trip is nearly an hour into this video
The "Virgin" part refers to Richard Branson liking to enter new businesses, something that e has done for decades.
RB himself flew in this flight, in rocketplane "Unity" carried up by carrier plane "Eve".
That livestream video does not show the takeoff of the Eve-Unity combination, and it skips to where Eve released Unity. It did so at
Altitude: 46,300 ft, 8.8 mi, 14.1 km
Velocity: 390 mph, 628 km/h, 174 m/s, Mach 0.5
Unity's rocket engine soon started, and it burned for a minute, pushing Unity to
Altitude: 138,000 ft, 26.1 mi, 42.0 km
Velocity: 3268 mph, 5259 km/h, 1460 m/s, Mach 3.0
Unity then flew on a ballistic trajectory, going up to apogee at 2:35 after release
Altitude: 283,000 ft, 53.6 mi, 86.3 km
Velocity: 674 mph, 1085 km/h, 301 m/s, Mach 1.1
It then dropped a little bit before its re-entry phase started at 3:40.
Altitude: 220,000 ft, 42 mi, 67 km
Velocity: 1500 mph, 2400 km/h, 670 m/s, Mach 2.3
Unity then became a glider, much like the X-15's and the Space Shuttles, and it successfully landed at 14:20.
bilby said:Unless you're an autocratic king or dictator, nobody has their own money.
Money is a measure of what your society owes you. It's not property, or a commodity, and it doesn't belong to you. It's a measure of what society owes you at any given point in time, and your society gets to decide how it fluctuates in value. You might have some of it taken away as tax, or some of the value of it taken away by inflation. Or you might be given some for whatever reasons society has to give it away - as payment of salary for bureaucrats or soldiers; as a benefit to people otherwise unable to support themselves, or their families; as a grant for education, or public art, or scientific research.
Even if people did not own money, they do own super yachts. And private spacecrafts. And companies. And so on. And they get them because they get money. Which other people generally give them, willingly, by means of transactions they do of their own free will. It's not about what a nebulous 'society' owes you. It's about what other people choose to give you, usually but not always in exchange from what you give them. Well, that and what you inherit, but usually parents too choose to leave those resources - which they own - to their children, and would do so even if there were no inheritance law to make that transition smoother.bilby said:Money hasn't been a commodity people can own for almost a century.
It's a measure of what the world owes you. And nobody's done enough for the world to be owed a super yacht, or a private spacecraft.
The era of nonprofessional astronauts regularly heading to orbit may also begin in the coming year. Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old billionaire, is essentially chartering a rocket and spacecraft from SpaceX for a three-day trip to orbit that is scheduled for September.
In December, Space Adventures has arranged for a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano, a production assistant, to launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket on a 12-day mission that will go to the International Space Station.
Another company, Axiom Space in Houston, is arranging a separate trip to the space station that will launch as soon as January.
The orbital trips are too expensive for anyone except the superwealthy — Axiom’s three customers are paying $55 million each — while suborbital flights might be affordable to those who are merely well off.
Governments and central banks cannot manipulate the value of commodities. They don't control supply or demand.bilby said:Unless you're an autocratic king or dictator, nobody has their own money.
Money is a measure of what your society owes you. It's not property, or a commodity, and it doesn't belong to you. It's a measure of what society owes you at any given point in time, and your society gets to decide how it fluctuates in value. You might have some of it taken away as tax, or some of the value of it taken away by inflation. Or you might be given some for whatever reasons society has to give it away - as payment of salary for bureaucrats or soldiers; as a benefit to people otherwise unable to support themselves, or their families; as a grant for education, or public art, or scientific research.
Of course your money belongs to you, in the moral sense anyway, and legal technicalities aside.
And sure, it can be taken away as taxes. But so can - say - gold, or wheat, or oil, or anything. And you might be given some not by "society" but by some other individual, in exchange for something you do or give. Just like gold. Or salt. Or maze. Or pretty much anything. And the value might fall due to inflation. And again, that is the relative value against other things. Which might fall for anything, e.g., gold's value might fall because people do not value it anymore to the same extent, etc. So, your argument would apply to pretty much anything if it were proper.
Any of which transactions are subjected to tax, so that the amount of money they get is controllable by the government.But be that as it may, when I say 'their money' I do not mean necessarily cash or currency in a bank account. In fact, most of their money is in terms of property, in turns in the form of shares of companies. And to get cash, they either get paid by some of those companies - not by society - with money some other individuals, companies (and so in the end other individuals), etc., pay them, or they sell shares, things like that.
and which can be taxed at various rates.Even if people did not own money, they do own super yachts. And private spacecrafts. And companies. And so on. And they get them because they get money. Which other people generally give them, willingly, by means of transactions they do of their own free will.bilby said:Money hasn't been a commodity people can own for almost a century.
It's a measure of what the world owes you. And nobody's done enough for the world to be owed a super yacht, or a private spacecraft.
It's a combination of both. But ultimately the value of money is determined by what it can buy, which is entirely dependent on what society can and does produce. The whole point of money is that it doesn't specify what it can be spent on. It's redeemable against any good or service available in society.It's not about what a nebulous 'society' owes you. It's about what other people choose to give you, usually but not always in exchange from what you give them.
And again, such transactions can be (and often are) subject to taxes.Well, that and what you inherit, but usually parents too choose to leave those resources - which they own - to their children, and would do so even if there were no inheritance law to make that transition smoother.
It's a measure of what the world owes you. And nobody's done enough for the world to be owed a super yacht, or a private spacecraft.
And then what, comrade? Expropriate the rich like they did in the glorious Soviet Union? How did that work out?
The SCMP mentioned Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Richard Branson of Virgin, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, David Geffen, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller, Steve Jobs of Apple, Niklas Zennström of Skype, Jim Clark of Netscape, Charles Simonyi of Microsoft.“The market’s been roaring,” said Sam Tucker, head of superyacht research at London-based VesselsValue. The number of transactions in recent quarters “was record-breaking -- the second-hand market is absolutely red hot.
If anything, demand for extravagantly high-end yachts has outstripped supply. “It’s impossible to get a slot in a new-build yard,” Tucker said. “They’re totally booked.”
The inland waterways of northern Germany, home to several highly regarded shipbuilders, are crammed with the city block-size steel hulls of future superyachts as well as existing yachts back for a spruce-up. In total, there are about 50 boats longer than 100 meters currently under construction, Tucker said. Bremen-based Luerssen is responsible for 10 of them.
Bezos and Branson do not write the laws.Convenient then that the rich write the laws, neh?
Thus being like the V-2 rocket
Some people want to go beyond short suborbital flights. From the NYT,
The era of nonprofessional astronauts regularly heading to orbit may also begin in the coming year. Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old billionaire, is essentially chartering a rocket and spacecraft from SpaceX for a three-day trip to orbit that is scheduled for September.
In December, Space Adventures has arranged for a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano, a production assistant, to launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket on a 12-day mission that will go to the International Space Station.
Another company, Axiom Space in Houston, is arranging a separate trip to the space station that will launch as soon as January.
The orbital trips are too expensive for anyone except the superwealthy — Axiom’s three customers are paying $55 million each — while suborbital flights might be affordable to those who are merely well off.
Bezos and Branson aren’t the only rich people. There are plenty of laws written to benefit rich people and their corporations, often at the ultimate expense of those less fortunate. Who do you think wrote those laws? Poor people?Bezos and Branson do not write the laws.Convenient then that the rich write the laws, neh?
Hell, Bezos wasn't even able to build his HQ2 in Queens because a certain socialist freshman congresswoman objected.
The government is A LOT more powerful than the billionaires.
First, they can significantly manipulate the value of many commodities in the domestic market by means such as increasing or decreasing taxation, banning some imports or exports, etc.bilby said:Governments and central banks cannot manipulate the value of commodities. They don't control supply or demand.
bilby said:You might have some of it taken away as tax, or some of the value of it taken away by inflation."
First, they can control to a considerable extent the supply of pretty much anything: they cannot increase supply indefinitely, but they can certainly limit it massively - how well depends on how well they can prevent smuggling.bilby said:But they can control money supply. Money isn't like a commodity. There are similarities, but there are very significant differences.
And the same goes for any transactions in which they use, say, gold. Or wheat. Or shares of a company. Or a private currency. The point is that the government, at least if sufficiently powerful, can certainly use force to restrict the freedom of people to engage in transactions. My point is that it's not wrong in general to use one's own money (which pretty much means the same as 'one's own economic resources') to have some fun.bilby said:Any of which transactions are subjected to tax, so that the amount of money they get is controllable by the government.
Yes, and even banned. Of course, the government, if sufficiently powerful, and take away people's money by force. And people's property, of any sort. I was not and I am not arguing that governments do not have enough power to take away people's stuff.bilby said:and which can be taxed at various rates.
But I wasn't talking about the value of money (whatever that is, but leaving that aside). I was talking about how people give other people money, which is a convenient way of exchanging resources.bilby said:It's a combination of both. But ultimately the value of money is determined by what it can buy, which is entirely dependent on what society can and does produce. The whole point of money is that it doesn't specify what it can be spent on. It's redeemable against any good or service available in society.
Yes, and that happens to transactions using gold. Or bitcoin. Or shares. Or wheat. Or whatever.bilby said:And again, such transactions can be (and often are) subject to taxes.
Taxes may or may not be theft, depending on the case. But I'm not sure why you bring up 'aristocracies'. Revolutions tend to change one group of powerful people for another, at the cost of many lives and more suffering.bilby said:The dismantling of aristocracies worldwide has been achieved by taxation OR revolution. Taxes aren't theft, they're a civilised alternative to theft, that allows people to keep both their heads, and some of the wealth that they do not deserve all of.
Massive inequality would come back again, as a result of the free choices of people. You could try to take away freedom to reduce inequality. But even in Cuba or North Korea, there is still massive inequality given the resources available to regime higher-ups. It is not destroying anything, except perhaps when some people decide to cause destruction.bilby said:When (as we see today) an aristocracy becomes hugely wealthy while disregarding high levels of poverty, something has to be done to reduce that inequality. It's better for all concerned that that something should be an orderly redistribution of wealth, because disorder tends to destroy both the wealth and the wealthy.
Wealth, shown to scale
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
We can have a world in which wealthy people exist, without handing nearly all money to the super rich.
No you might not. A trillion (short scale) is just 1000 billion or a million million. 1012 in the other words, or one terabuck. Now a long-scale trillion would be a truly baffling amount, much more than the estimated total wealth of the world, but it is still a well defined number (1018 or one exabuck).A trillion dollars is such a large figure, that you might as well say "eleventy gajillion zillion dollars."
Some will argue that using this wealth for public benefit is not possible, because it's "tied up" in stocks, and therefore inaccessible. This is just not true.
If you scroll far enough, you get to some spending ideas, given the $3.2 trillion controlled by the 400 richest Americans:
Of course not.Bezos and Branson aren’t the only rich people.
There are plenty of laws written to benefit rich people and their corporations, often at the ultimate expense of those less fortunate. Who do you think wrote those laws? Poor people?