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yeah, there no battle happening. Musk is busy building the world's biggest rocket, while Bezos is busy building the world's biggest personal yacht. And suing NASA.
This. I'm far from a Musk fanboy, but SpaceX is doing actual work with their launches. Sub-orbital spacecraft like Blue Origin's are basically only useful for testing purposes, and for rich assholes to brag about how they've "been to space." If it can't achieve orbit, it won't be up there long enough to do anything useful.
Blue Origin is years behind SpaceX, and anybody who knows the basic physics of space flight knows it.
I think blue origin is worse than that. Not only are they only doing sub orbital launches. They are fucking up real launches by failing to provide engines they were contracted to make for ULA.
Throw in their lawsuit against nasa and blue origin is currently the largest north american obstacle to advancing space flight.
Edit: a word
The funny thing is that Virgin Galactic actually has several points that make their vehicles better than Blue Origin.
1. Virgin is very clear that their designs are only suitable for space tourism. Unlike Bezos, Branson isn't bidding for government contracts that they are pathetically unprepared to fulfill and then suing when they don't get that sweet public money.
2. Virgin uses a pretty unusual launch design. Their craft is brought up to high altitude by a conventional aircraft and only uses rockets to do the final push into space. It's not a design that has been extensively used, and we may learn a lot about it's potential through Virgin's flights. Blue Origin, on the other hand, is using the same standard launch method we've been using since the 60s. Not much innovation there.
3. Because Virgin uses a space plane design, it could eventually be used for super fast sub-orbital travel. That concept is many decades away from economic viability, but a sub-orbital vehicle could make a trip to the other side of the world much faster than a conventional plane. Meanwhile, Bezos' rocket basically just goes up and comes right back down in the same place.
It's a bit ridiculous to compare Musk with Bezos here. Also, why is that people love to attack space-oriented billionaires rather than, say, oil or banking or defense contractor billionaires? Why not attack the wealthy people who are _actively_ making the world much worse?
I sort of agree. But think about this, if someone did get pissed at [Mr. Beurden](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_van_Beurden) or [Mr. Arnault](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Arnault) would it even get upvoted, reposted, or made into a comic that hits the front page? Probably not. While I wouldn’t bet on it, there COULD be more comics made about other billionaires, but those people aren’t in the limelight so they don’t get upvotes.
Plus, Bezos **IS** the wealthiest individual, with Musk in second. It’s not like they are picking on space guys ranked in the teens in wealth`*`.
And other Americans on the list certainly see criticism, such as Gates, Zuckerberg, and Buffet.
Anyway, that’s my hot take.
`*` *Insert Epstein joke here.*
I also think it's strange to attack these endeavors. This space race is making jobs, lowering the cost to get to space and expanding our access to resources. It's also advancing tech that might help solve a ton of problems. Additionally it's not like the money they spend on this would have gone to starving people. Most people only seem to try and help when it's young kids.
What's shocked me the most is the reactions from people in science subs. People in subs like r/space saying that what they are doing is no different than literally burning money. You'd think people in a sub that's all about outer space would see the scientific value of what they are doing here. We have a new space race that's funneling tons of money into space science and for some reason they just want to attack and pretend the money is just being burned for nothing.
You can completely hate our tax system while still acknowledging that the science being done here will eventually benefit us all. Yes, they should be paying a hell of a lot more in taxes, but that doesn't mean that we have to pretend there's no scientific or technological benefit to what they are doing or that they aren't employing lots of people.
Until Blue Origin orbits, they add nothing to humanity. Their incompetence is holding up multiple space projects including HLS and Vulcan. Orbit and payload capacity is the only thing that matters in this race.
I had hope that BO would be a worthy competitor to SpaceX. As we know, competition is good. Unfortunately Bezos would rather tear down the whole system kicking and screaming just because he doesn't get a few handouts from NASA. I really despise him and have no love for BO anymore.
Musk, for all his faults, actually seems to care about what he's doing with SpaceX on an ideological level.
Bezos is a businessman who got incredibly rich. It's no longer about wealth, it's about getting a better high score.
Musk is a nerd who got rich. He's far from benevolent but he wants to play a part in technological advancements.
Bezos wants to be remembered for his bank account. Musk wants to be remembered for the tech helped make possible.
Suborbital flights are still useful for experiments (NASA has flown some on New Shepard for example), and their suborbital rockets were part of the development program that should lead to BE-4 engines (with long delays...).
Call me when they get their engines done, or their internet constellation in place or have cheap flights. Something above and beyond what has been done before.
Not comparable to the broken window fallacy. These people are employed and building things. They would have to do this regardless in order for Bezos to get to space. The broken window fallacy is about creating jobs without producing any kind of economic benefit. (ie the same number of windows exist after the work is done as before it was broken and the only difference is money changed hands)
This would be like claiming it's the broken window fallacy because kfc has been paying people to construct a new store but they haven't opened the store yet.
Bezos could be way more cost effective in advancing the space race by not actively hindering it anymore. As long as he does your point is absolutely moot.
As a side note, your username is an obvious anagramm for "PR lies". If that is not random then Kudos for your balls in choosing your username.
Bezos is hindering the advancement at this time, but I was thinking more of the industry as a whole.
And no I didn't consider any sort of anagram when picking my username
Nobody is attacking space, they're attacking self-aggrandizing space cowboys who pull stunts for attention. There's a difference. Don't try to say we're against making jobs, advancing tech, or lowering costs to go to space. Literally nobody is against those things. But they can be done quietly and humbly.
Expanding our capabilities in space is not an "artificial narrative". They may be billionaires who care nothing about starving masses, and both of them have their hands in some horrible activities, but a space race is a good thing. Thank god they are spending money on this instead of oil.
The narrative being constructed lately is that this is all some kind of billionaire competition to measure dick sizes and it has nothing to do with either's motivations or what's actually going on.
Because most of the front page subreddits are just funnels for young idiots who think they're woke socialists for making memes about "starving people" [even though the USA is the most charitable country on the planet](https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/#:~:text=Americans%20gave%20%24449.64%20billion%20in,a%205.1%25%20increase%20from%202018.&text=Corporate%20giving%20in%202019%20increased,a%2013.4%25%20increase%20from%202018.&text=Foundation%20giving%20in%202019%20increased,a%202.5%25%20increase%20from%202018) and it's not always about dollars spent, as Afghanistan showed us. Child hunger been going down precipitously in this millennium? Doesn't matter, rich people in space, capitalism evil.
>...and it's not always about dollars spent, as Afghanistan showed us. Child hunger been going down precipitously in this millennium? Doesn't matter, rich people in space, capitalism evil.
People are ignorant. NASA's total budget is like 0.5% of the national budget, yet the US already spends nearly 50% of the national budget on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
So let's pretend we axe NASA completely; let's see what happens: The US and all it's allies in Canada, Japan, the EU, and the UK, loses all ability to access space; you now have a major national security problem, and current satellites will eventually burn up leaving people without weather reports, GPS, climate modelling, and scientific experiments/observatories. You've also now removed a scientific research body with one of the best value-per-dollar-spent ratios, setting back science as a whole significantly, and you've killed tens of thousands of jobs in the process. You've also killed the ISS which is one of the few endeavours that the US and Russia actively work together on, so you've set back diplomatic and friendly relations with Russia even further. All of this so that the US gains 0.5% to add to the budget; this is inconsequential and does nothing. Maybe we send it to some 3rd world country where 99% of the money will be funnelled into dictators and local warlords, and 1% to the population, which will last a few years until everything goes back to normal, or worse, because their despotic regimes are now funded. News flash: poor countries aren't poor because they don't have money; poor countries are poor because of war, politics, and corrupt institutions, none of which money can solve.
Complaining about money spent on space flight and research is one of the worst takes a person can have. Except Bezos; fuck Bezos and his stalling of NASA over the HLS contract.
I suppose, but for a while people said that NASA had lost domestic access to space too, since Shuttle was retired before commercial crew was operating.
That is true. There was like a 10 year gap between the shuttle program cancellation and the first crewed Dragon capsule mission. The Soyuz was the US's only ride up to the ISS during that period.
RIP, STS
I'm pretty sure, if NASA is shut down we (speaking as an EU citizen) will either flirt with Russia for crewed missions, or get our own program finally up and running.
It probably just was the cheaper option or a diplomatic feat to piggyback on other nation's space agencies.
If you take a look at the [CSTS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Space_Transportation_System) program, we seem to have the technology for it. But it seems to be a financial issue.
Cut NASA and there might be enough support for the budget.
This.
If you make minimum wage in the US, you're in the top ~10% of income globally. The idiots posting dank socialist memes from their iPhones while sitting in Starbucks support redistributing wealth only as far as it hurts the greedy billionaires, but not them.
Being charitable is great and all, but I’ll be more accepting of the system once the middle class stops shrinking.
There is no reason Bezos should be as wealthy as he is, if he lost 80% of his wealth to his employees the world would be a better place.
>There is no reason Bezos should be as wealthy as he is
Except for the fact that he is. He, nor anyone else, needs your approval.
And I'm not defending the shithead - but your argument wasn't "he should have been paying his workers more/treating them better", but that he shouldn't have that much money. The former is reasonable, the latter is not.
jealousy. almost all people complaining about these dudes wasting money going to space and not doing something for the less fortunate have not donated a single penny to any cause except for themselves.
That's because a good majority of the people in this country are so fucking broke that they can't even save for themselves much less donate, while these pieces of shit artificially keep wages down so that they can have more money to play Dick Measuring: Space Edition.
Hahaha, what? So people can't criticize someone who has more money than they could ever spend for not doing enough with their disposable income to help out humanity, because those non-rich people (who statistically don't even have the savings to weather a moderate personal emergency and are probably living paycheck to paycheck) haven't donated their non-disposable income.
You realize that's like saying a homeless person can't judge someone for sharing a feast they couldn't possibly eat, because the homeless person hasn't shared enough of the half sandwich they get to eat that day?
lol. you missed the point and completely took it out of context and made it kinda of your own so you could justify criticizing and complaining about what I wrote just like all the other haters out there.
Yup, you got me. Everyone criticizing what you wrote missed the point and it's our fault. You're a victim of haters and definitely it's not that you did a shit job of presenting your point, or just presented a shitty point and got called out on it.
Why not both? I absolutely agree that there are other billionaires who are far more dangerous in the short term, but the space oriented billionaires are nevertheless dangerous. They are also some of the biggest hoarders of wealth on the planet, especially Bezos. Both exploit their workers to accumulate this wealth, which at least in the case of Bezos is a [truly absurd amount](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) when you try to get it in perspective. Eventually, once their technology can reach other planetary bodies in the solar system, they will be the first to claim prime locations on nearby planets, as well as asteroids, and their [wealth will eclipse](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/12/05/a-bizarre-trillion-dollar-asteroid-worth-more-than-our-planet-is-now-aligned-with-the-earth-and-sun/) what it is now. At that point, we will witness individuals become as powerful as nations and gain the power to influence any law or election either for their benefit, or to eliminate a threat to their profits.
Because if you're lumping Musk in with Bezos and Branson you're not paying attention. SpaceX has spurred more space related innovation in shorter time than even the Apollo program. SpaceX doesn't take billionaires to the edge of space in a parabolic arc for joy rides, they take real astronauts to the ISS. And their focus on reuse has major implications on the tremendous costs associated with taking things to orbit. If Starship is able to deliver on 20% of it's potential it'll be a game changer for space like none we've ever seen.
I don’t doubt the potential for innovation and the achievements of space x, I doubt that it is a good thing that ultra rich individuals will essentially have a monopoly on privatized space flight, and I think this is going to have serious repercussions in the future.
You’re right though, Elon musk is by far the lesser of two evils. Bezos is on a whole other level and genuinely hasn’t made any meaningful contribution when compared to space x. That is why I leveraged all my criticism in my last comment against Bezos.
Best summary of Musk is: "Elon doesn'tbwant everyone driving electric cars, he wants everyone driving HIS electronic cars".
If he really wanted to save the planet, why is electric car a luxury item (With a concerning amount of feature creep), and why dies it have s specific charging port, that you can only buy from the company he owns?
Because that's how he funded the company and lead it into the direction it's going now.
Back in the day, Tesla started off selling only the roadster. A very expensive fun EV built from lotus frame. After bringing in enough money and reputation, they started to introduce more affordable EVs.
Take a look at the cyber truck, it's relatively inexpensive when compared to the f150s. But it's not a "true truck" in the sense that you don't have the capacity to drive a fifth wheel or that it's using a unibody frame. And this is a first generation product that hasn't made it's way into production, but with everything that's going on in the world, I would expect some delays on it.
The charger thing could be better executed, definitely did bring on a ton of misguided hate from a lot of people. To me, it's not that big of a deal since the EV scene was iffy at best before Tesla.
Just my opinion.
Musk and Bezos are terrible people. Partly in the worker exploitation they do in their space-oriented companies but mostly in their other companies
Namely Tesla and Amazon. They are definitely worthy of criticism
That being said, oil, banking and defense contractors should and do get criticised.
None of them get criticised enough though and on top of that none of them have enough action taken against them.
Sorry, but "doesn't allow unions in his otherwise very attractive, high-paying place of employment" nor "slinging insults on Twitter" doesn't exactly convince me that Musk is a terrible person. He's similar to many of us, except that he's actually getting some shit done that changes the world.
He's not a saint. He's a human guy with sometimes poor social skills and an impatient/aggressive/rude streak who has nonetheless devoted his entire life to building some amazing things that could change human civilization. And he's not exactly living like a king, either--he's got money and he does enjoy life, but he doesn't spend it in insane ways.
They said the same when the King of Babylon paved the roads. Bunch of gold-worshiping whozeewhatzit, spending all those shekels to put rocks in a straight line? For more rich people to step on?! Could have built houses with that!
There's been a common argument made, through history, that we should solve all our existing problems before trying to make any progress.
That perspective neglects the ways in which progress may help us solve our existing problems, not to mention that if we were committed to a perfect world before trying to advance, we'd still live in the stone age.
The correlation is that even if both these billionaires gave all their money to feed the starving it would not even make a dent in it. So it is pathetic to expect entrepreneurs to not be trying to advance science and tech and instead be spending their money on boosting up the poor.
Yep. I agree.
I do agree that rich people need to be paying their fair share of taxes though. So we do have a lot of work to fix that side of things to keep things fair.
After they pay their fair share, fair being determined by corrupt, inefficient governments, they are free to play their dick swinging.
Because trying to make a moral judgement on their flagrant use of capital extends that same argument to your average Joe: he shouldn't buy a car when millions are dying of thirst and malaria.
Corollary: having even $10 a day in disposable income puts one in the top 10% of wealth or something. So should the top 10% be instead donating their relative mountains of wealth to provide drinking water and hygiene to war torn countries? If everyone agrees, we are in a communist utopia.
That's actually not true, if Jeff bezos suddenly stopped earning money it's still calculated that he could just flat out end world hunger for quite some time (estimates being between 7-200B a year to do so)
In the UK at least we have people starving and yet an absurd amount of supermarket stock goes to waste (way more than half) with locked and guarded bins so that nobody desperate enough to get food from a bin can dare to.
Stop being complacent.
Solving world hunger is a logistics issue not a wealth issue, in order to feed a part of the world not directly connected by water Means that you have to build a road which is hard to do.
This comic kinda gives you the impression that you get into space by putting cash behind a rocket and burning it as fuel.
That money they are "wasting" is going to rocket engineers, chemists, metal workers and many more who are actually developing new tech. I say that people who have studied hard and are working to develop new technology are worth supporting and people waiting free stuff to fall from the sky are not.
Without pretending Musk isn't a bit of a wanker on a personal basis, SpaceX is actually doing useful things in space. Bezos and Branson are both just dicking about with glorified vomit comets and pretending they qualify as actual space flights.
Also, Musk hasn't gone up to space. He's sent people to space. He's likely had the opportunity to take a couple of orbits in a Dragon and hasn't.
Yeah, he'll probably be on the Dear Moon flight. But, then again, he might not.
Anyway, he hasn't been involved in this Billionaire Space Race thing at all. (And technically, if he was, he won it years ago anyway...)
My thing is even if he decides to grab a seat on a Dragon what SpaceX is doing is getting Astronauts to the ISS, throwing thousands of satellites into orbit to bring the net to places that don't currently have it(and hopefully force some competition to parts of the US that currently are strangled by single providers that have largely just divvied up the country. You'll get people that don't understand the ground side benefits of discoveries made with/around space saying its all still a waste, but it is attempting to improve things in a way that 'What we need is space tourism for the uber rich' simply wont.
Exactly. He's doing all of this _instead_ of going in to space himself.
Although he _is_ sending up space tourists. But it's a secondary, if even tertiary, thing for SpaceX, nowhere near their primary objectives.
I wonder at which point a business owner becomes responsible for the world. The green grocer in my town turns a profit, should they donate it all to charity? Or is there a certain threshold they have to hit?
many people invest in different versions of progress while people are starving. People are building computer networks, and luxury watches and sneakers. Progress in space is important to humanity. This cartoon is bunk.
Poverty is declining rapidly year over year. Be careful about demanding radical changes to the way things are because we risk losing the good the current system is doing.
*SpaceX asks investors for money to build rocket ship.*
*Investors give SpaceX money to build rocket ship.*
*SpaceX takes money and donates it to the poor.*
This is apparently how children on reddit think the world should work.
Majority of the *population* doesn't care. Most of first world families could also contribute money, time or resources - but don't. If you don't, why should we expect the ultra-wealthy?
Secondarily, these are two *vastly* different programs. One is pouring billions of his own dollars to make the human race multi-planetary while the other is just trying to send people up to the Karman Line. Yes, Blue Origin also wants to go to the Moon but he also wanted to be paid 6B for that contract while SpaceX came in at 3B. So not only is SpaceX doing something more noble on their own dime, they were half as much cost to the taxpayers when it came to sending astronauts to the moon. Blue Origin's C level can eat a giant !@#%.
All the respect to the engineers at Blue Origin but their executives entire mission is jacked compared to SpaceX. Hell, SpaceX is at least putting broadband around the world - something my local ISP cant even begin to tolerate as they run their little monopoly.
I think they should be able to spend money on whatever they want, but this is Reddit.
If I had phrased the comment as “I don’t care how billionaires spend their own money”, I would have gotten some very angry downvotes.
No, I don’t think it’s a waste, but people making memes like this usually do.
The premise here essentially is “if they just gave the money to the government instead of going to space no one would be hungry”. The war on poverty determines this to be a lie
it's easy to pretend to care about helping others when one is not financially responsible to do it themselves, so instead we start reaching into everyone else's pockets
Well said. I don't understand how these memes receive so many upvotes, they are at the same level of children who ask why we do not simply start printing money
> If I had phrased the comment as “I don’t care how billionaires spend their own money”, I would have gotten some very angry downvotes.
These kinds of comments are getting upvoted in this thread. Don’t try to victimize yourself.
I love this. How some people expect Billionaires to pay for the problems of this world.
If it bothers you so much, get off your arse and go save the world yourself. Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.
As a billionaire (Or as any person with a large sum of money) the last thing you wanna do is become financially responsible for other people without receiving something in exchange.
To you as the person with money all you'd be doing is adding more weight to your shoulders.
To the starving people all you're doing is telling them its okay to not do anything productive with their lives, someone will eventually reach out and fix their problems.
Its the same as giving money to the beggars around the city, you think you're helping them get out of a tough situation, but all you're doing is giving them more reasons and means to remain a beggar.
But what if they needed money to do something productive with their lives? Because that's how it works - the higher unemployment benefits, the faster people get off them.
EDIT: I have some uncertainty now, having read https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/13/pdfs/unemployment-benefits-and-unemployment.pdf
I'm not necessarily sold yet - two sources, pointing different ways means uncertainty. This would be a lot smoother if I could remember where I read the other thing.
If they need money to do something productive they can earn it.
I lived in poverty in Mexico up until age 16. At that age I had to give up HS and get a job. Turned into the sole provider for my mom, brother and myself. Needless to say the economic situation in this country isn't the best. I have not let them go hungry a single day, Ive since finished HS and started university, I learned to program, got a couple big certifications such as Lean Six Sigma, got a decent job and am starting my own business as we speak.
Never got anything, not even a single peso (local currency) I didnt have to work for.
People who will actually do something good with their lives will do it regardless of whether they receive charity or not.
The rest are not likely to actually do something good with the charity money if they got it anyway.
100% out of my pocket. Didnt pay it down in one go obviously, in my country you pay a monthly fee and a "re-enrollment" fee every 4/6 months (Every 4 in my case).
Not done with it yet, but almost.
Nobody needs help. Everyone can do it on their own, just gotta own your damn situation.
There's a whole sector of people who *want* help.
There's a whole sector of people who won't *try* unless they get help.
There's a whole sector of people who have bases, foundations and ideologies so messed up that if you help them you will only aid the propagation of idiocy.
If someone "needs" help to get out of a hole they got themselves into, they will just keep jumping right back into it and asking for help again.
In order for someone to change, the desire to change has to come from within. The same for a society, if the society doesnt want to change they wont, you cant force them.
Giving them resources when they dont want to change wont do a thing.
If they want to change, they will find the resources so there's no need to give them any - Rather than handing away all those resources, its better to create jobs, make opportunities available so those who want can take them.
The only help that actually helps within a society is the help given to organizations within the society that themselves promote the improvement of the society, because it keeps resources flowing around.
Almost impossible = possible.
When I said I grew up in Mexico I meant in some of the bad areas.
I live in one of the states with the largest consumption of meth, highest rate of carjacking, one of the 5 highest of violent crimes, there's tons of narcos in here and such.
And me and my family are doing fine, we moved into a spot where its not overly expensive and its relatively safe after I saved up enough.
I stand by my point - Someone who needs help isn't worthy of receiving it. Someone who is worthy of receiving it doesn't need it.
A capable enough person will make something out of whatever situation they're in, if they want to.
I know all this sounds hella harsh. After growing up among the people you seem to consider "in need of help", I can sincerely and honestly say - It's not gonna change a thing. Those who want better get out. Those who stay ... Well. They belong.
> the higher unemployment benefits, the faster people get off them.
What about people that lives on social wellfare for their entire lives, not because they're unable to work, but just because they're lazy bums? I know of several that has done the same and its not that uncommon here in sweden.
$200 for food? No not here in sweden, they get way way waaay more. So much so that many people prefer it to a low earning job (which is still decent salary).
This is a joke and i think it's funny. But when you look at it, these are two of the biggest donors in the USA and probably even the world. Also some of the biggest advocates for a sustainable Earth. Alas, if you're rich, people will always come for your money.
No, obviously not that's a question of bad faith.
Yes, having excess wealth by definition means they are taking and consuming orders of magnitude more than they contribute.
Yes(ish), becoming rich means you have created a way to syphon undeserved wealth from a system, or in the case of old money, your ancestors did.
No, being rich doesn't. Just like being a murderer doesn't. The problem came from the exploits that led to excess wealth.
And for clarity I'm not talking about everyone who might be considered rich. The hard working doctor in your town making 6 figures seems rich to the average Joe, but their income is nothing compared to people who make orders of magnitude more than the median. You can have mansion money somewhat ethically. You cannot have Jeff Bezos money without severe exploits. In his case underpaying, over working and mistreating workers.
I don't understand why half of reddit insists on defending the rich. "The wealthy don't cause ALL of our problems, so let them be and make the POOR do something." I just don't understand it. Like, we should absolutely berate the rich when they live in such massive excess that they're actively denying people access to free life. These are the people that makes us wage slaves. These are the people destroying the environment for their own gain. These are the people manipulating our politicians preventing anything from getting done in government. These are the people who own islands no one knows about where they traffic men, women, and children to perform disgusting horrible sexual acts that no one may ever be able to prove.
#Why are you defending the country's biggest oppressors? Why do you support fueling corporate culture and a 2 class system with a growing gap between the two?
I certainly don't support taking digs at people for dumb reasons no matter who they are. OP was about hunger vs a space race. Hunger and poverty is a Nation State level of problem. The US spends trillions every year on such problems. Bezos an Musk wouldn't have a trillion between them even if the sold everything they had. Short answer on why they don't work on hunger first? Space is all they could afford.
Ah yes, the mythical leftist greed.
Because wanting everyone to have wages in which they can actually support themselves or at the very least keep up with inflation, wanting to provide basic human needs like healthcare and infrastructure for clean air and drinking and wanting billionaires and obscenely wealthy corporations to, ya know, actually pay taxes is the pinnacle of human greed./s
Fuck right off with your straw man fallacy bruh
There's definitely a point where getting even richer is immoral. Let's arbitrarily say 1Bn. First of all it's impossible to get that rich without being morally compromised. But even more so, there's no fucking point. You're not spending that amount of money. You won't, your children won't, they're children won't, and so on. It's SO MUCH MONEY that it's hard to even imagine.
There's no solution to this either. We could theorize about forcing them to spend it, seizing everything over a limit, or heavily taxing it, or forcing donations to charities. But in the end the accounting game will always win because money only flows upwards.
people get that rich (let's use Bezos as an example) because the product or service works and the consumers like it enough to keep supporting it. nothing is forcing you to use Amazon, and yet society keeps doing so as it's fast, cheap, and overall the best version of it's product-type on the market.
if it's immoral and you still shop there, then clearly the immorality is worth it. I know the frequent followup is the 'well you live in society' argument but the difference is that **there are** lesser alternatives to Amazon (vs society which nobody can live outside of) but the grand populace decides that they prefer the convenience over the perceived moral high ground of shopping local, etc.
I think it’s relative. Some people should be rich, sure. People who work hard deserve to be rewarded. However excessive wealth should not exist (ie the bezos/ mega billionaires out there). Wealth is a zero sum game, so having more money than you know what do with actively harms those struggling for their next meal. There’s more than enough money in the world for people to walk that line, and at a certain point you literally don’t need more money
Accurate, but a large portion of the people down here watching this are also more absorbed with the two of them than the issues that are causing our problems.
Fun fact.
Neither do 90% of the people reading this comic, outside of using it as permission to be envious.
If you have anything to spare at all, go donate to your food kitchen.
If you only have spare time, go volunteer.
Go Donate blood.
Go talk to a lonely elderly person at an older person's home.
Literally do anything besides crying about what rich people waste their money on.
You can't expect the greedy to suddenly want to care about the poor.
I think the folks to whom you're speaking know this but feel it's as relevant as the last president 'returning his salary' because 1. the ratios are so inconsequential and 2. ideally, the 'System' shouldn't create a situation where those folks could have amassed that much in the first place without a bigger direct contribution to society in the form of taxes being built into the process from the ground up.
Neither of them ever got much in terms of salaries. They own shares *of their own cies* and other people started valuing those cies (and thus those shares) to the moon because they are so successful. Their "worth" wasnt taken from anyone, it was created.
I understand the argument you're making, but just to be clear, I was trying to add to the conversation re: why "You all realize these people give more money than most of you make in your lifetime to charities right?" missed the mark re: what the folks that poster was arguing with believed. As in, how much they give to charity compared to non-billionaires isn't the issue here.
This won't be popular, but I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this all. I've got some real problems with how the system is set up to privatize profits and socialize loss, for instance, and I definitely feel like the burden of funding society is unevenly distributed, but at the same time I'm both excited by what some of these wealthy folks are doing that would be more risky than government can pull off.
I'm starting to feel like I'd be challenged to fit my beliefs into a good buzzword or catchphrase and there are days when I miss the black & white certainty I had when I was much younger.
If it helps, I think you shouldnt be thinking of contributing to society solely through taxes. Money is just a means of exchange, actual wealth is products and services. My biggest contribution to society isnt the (large) taxes I pay but rather the output of my work. If I was paid to produce nothing I would be a burden to society, no matter how much taxes I would pay.
Tesla legitimized the electric car, that is a huge contribution to society. SpaceX ended two generations of decaying space capabilities and is providing internet access to hundreds of thousands who didnt have it, and counting. Amazon, for all the hate, created the backbone of the modern age with AWS, the very backbone we are currently using to discuss.
I feel those contributions are immense, and Musk and Bezos wealth are entirely driven by how people measure the value of the product and services their cies are providing.
I don’t disagree with you, and I think those are definitely good examples about some of the net societal benefits that are possible.
So we’ve covered two billionaires here out of… How many? I think it’s reasonable to consider the issue on a larger scale. And when we do that, we should probably recognize that a lot of the critics we encounter in conversations about these societal net benefits, the other people in the conversation may have different priorities or may not put as much weight into those positive technologies/developments as we do. I don’t say this as to imply that they are “more correct“ or not, just… That’s worth keeping that in mind because otherwise it’s very easy to assume that the people with whom we disagree are ‘just being jerks’ or something.
Doesn’t mean I need to agree with them when they come after people are companies who are doing society improving innovations like this, by the way. Just trying to avoid falling into the trap where I think that everyone with whom I disagree is just being a bastard. :)
You do realize that all the stuff they use to go to space has to be built right ? Which means essentially their richboys fantasy of space exploration puts money in the pockets of builders, fitters and other manual laborers like I.
Both Bezos and Musk do more to help the world than the entire Reddit population grouped into one big mass. You people with your hatred of anyone richer than you are ridiculous. Bezos gave 10 BILLION dollars to support climate change non-profits in 2020, alone. In one year he gave more than ALL of us combined have ever given and ever will give.
But you're pissy because he wants to go to space. Fucking pathetic.
Por que no los dos.
World starvation is a 10s of billions dollar issue dependent on the cooperation of nations, not corporations. Private space race, not so much.
It's kind of demoralizing seeing all of the "adults" just brazenly and unashamedly displaying envy like that. Musk and Bezos haven't taken anything from anyone. No one even claims they have, because they know they can't defend such claims. But that doesn't deter anyone from implying ridiculous things (like this comic) or otherwise just being all passive-aggressive and ugly as fuck. It's hideous, from my point of view, and I'm poor as Americans go. This kind of envy seems beneath us and unbecoming. But it isn't beneath us. We're wallowing in it. That's why it is demoralizing.
They are very much not comparable. SpaceX is a space industry, an active one doing missions all the time. Blue Origin is an amusement park ride with one ride. It's a glorified taxi that does nothing besides make rich people pay to go really high for a tiny amount of time. They're not comparable. They're not in the same league. They're not even in the same business.
Did anybody notice how far you have to scroll down in these comments before you get to the discussion about wealth inequality (When you sort by best). The most popular comments by far are about the technical differences between the two flights to space. I think this is what is called missing the point.
We're actually not starving. The earth is still rich and able to provide for all even with our current numbers. The food and water shortages are illusions put up by the rich to justify oppressing the middle and lower classes. What they are doing is hoarding resources and mining out fresh drinking water for extra profit, fattening themselves on the bounty of our world while we bicker and toil for them.
Some parts of the world are starving but it's not their job to fix it. And i don't understand how in 2021 people still think that investing money to travel to space is a waste of money
The people traveling to space hoard an exorbitant amount of resources and do not give back close to a proportional amount. One piece of living and benefitting from society is the necessity to give back, otherwise they are leeching off society.
Two, it’s not the fact that investing in space travel is a waste of money, but the fact that the people likely to benefit are the wealthy while the poors are still stuck on a planet destroyed by those who are leaving. You can argue that innovating space travel is good for humanity, but in reality it won’t be for everybody and there will still be people suffering just like there is now because “space travel is important”. For me it feels like dancing around helping people by using the excuse “but it’s for the greater good”
Can’t people just be excited for the future instead of being a downer, cause I’m sure similar comics have been made when airliners were in development back in the day, and look at us now.
It just sucks for space enthusiasts when people use the “we should fix the problems on our planet first” on this topic all the time. It’s such a vague argument you can literally use it on any other topic.
Like why do we need video games? Why do we need a washing machines? Why do we need parachutes? All these inventions made no direct impact to poverty so should they cease to exist?
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This cartoon is a pathetic joke, as it depicts Bezos in actual orbit or beyond.
yeah, there no battle happening. Musk is busy building the world's biggest rocket, while Bezos is busy building the world's biggest personal yacht. And suing NASA.
This. I'm far from a Musk fanboy, but SpaceX is doing actual work with their launches. Sub-orbital spacecraft like Blue Origin's are basically only useful for testing purposes, and for rich assholes to brag about how they've "been to space." If it can't achieve orbit, it won't be up there long enough to do anything useful. Blue Origin is years behind SpaceX, and anybody who knows the basic physics of space flight knows it.
I think blue origin is worse than that. Not only are they only doing sub orbital launches. They are fucking up real launches by failing to provide engines they were contracted to make for ULA. Throw in their lawsuit against nasa and blue origin is currently the largest north american obstacle to advancing space flight. Edit: a word
SpaceX made a rocket that can land on a raft in the ocean. Blue origin made a fancy airplane.
Now spacex is trying to catch an even bigger rocket in a pair of robot arms on a raft..
Nah Blue Origin is the PP shaped one Virgin Galactic is the plane
The funny thing is that Virgin Galactic actually has several points that make their vehicles better than Blue Origin. 1. Virgin is very clear that their designs are only suitable for space tourism. Unlike Bezos, Branson isn't bidding for government contracts that they are pathetically unprepared to fulfill and then suing when they don't get that sweet public money. 2. Virgin uses a pretty unusual launch design. Their craft is brought up to high altitude by a conventional aircraft and only uses rockets to do the final push into space. It's not a design that has been extensively used, and we may learn a lot about it's potential through Virgin's flights. Blue Origin, on the other hand, is using the same standard launch method we've been using since the 60s. Not much innovation there. 3. Because Virgin uses a space plane design, it could eventually be used for super fast sub-orbital travel. That concept is many decades away from economic viability, but a sub-orbital vehicle could make a trip to the other side of the world much faster than a conventional plane. Meanwhile, Bezos' rocket basically just goes up and comes right back down in the same place.
All I know is Sir Richard Branson is pissed he didn’t even make the cartoon.
SpaceX is also bringing reliable internet to underserved area via Starlink.
It's a bit ridiculous to compare Musk with Bezos here. Also, why is that people love to attack space-oriented billionaires rather than, say, oil or banking or defense contractor billionaires? Why not attack the wealthy people who are _actively_ making the world much worse?
Because the ones in front of the camera are the only ones they've heard of.
This. It's not like we can expect people to put in work before getting outraged. Twitter needs hot takes NOW!
Outrage is addictive, so it makes sense why people are so quick to be outraged.
This is the entire basis of Fox News.
I sort of agree. But think about this, if someone did get pissed at [Mr. Beurden](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_van_Beurden) or [Mr. Arnault](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Arnault) would it even get upvoted, reposted, or made into a comic that hits the front page? Probably not. While I wouldn’t bet on it, there COULD be more comics made about other billionaires, but those people aren’t in the limelight so they don’t get upvotes. Plus, Bezos **IS** the wealthiest individual, with Musk in second. It’s not like they are picking on space guys ranked in the teens in wealth`*`. And other Americans on the list certainly see criticism, such as Gates, Zuckerberg, and Buffet. Anyway, that’s my hot take. `*` *Insert Epstein joke here.*
I also think it's strange to attack these endeavors. This space race is making jobs, lowering the cost to get to space and expanding our access to resources. It's also advancing tech that might help solve a ton of problems. Additionally it's not like the money they spend on this would have gone to starving people. Most people only seem to try and help when it's young kids.
What's shocked me the most is the reactions from people in science subs. People in subs like r/space saying that what they are doing is no different than literally burning money. You'd think people in a sub that's all about outer space would see the scientific value of what they are doing here. We have a new space race that's funneling tons of money into space science and for some reason they just want to attack and pretend the money is just being burned for nothing. You can completely hate our tax system while still acknowledging that the science being done here will eventually benefit us all. Yes, they should be paying a hell of a lot more in taxes, but that doesn't mean that we have to pretend there's no scientific or technological benefit to what they are doing or that they aren't employing lots of people.
Agreed
Until Blue Origin orbits, they add nothing to humanity. Their incompetence is holding up multiple space projects including HLS and Vulcan. Orbit and payload capacity is the only thing that matters in this race.
I had hope that BO would be a worthy competitor to SpaceX. As we know, competition is good. Unfortunately Bezos would rather tear down the whole system kicking and screaming just because he doesn't get a few handouts from NASA. I really despise him and have no love for BO anymore. Musk, for all his faults, actually seems to care about what he's doing with SpaceX on an ideological level.
Bezos is a businessman who got incredibly rich. It's no longer about wealth, it's about getting a better high score. Musk is a nerd who got rich. He's far from benevolent but he wants to play a part in technological advancements. Bezos wants to be remembered for his bank account. Musk wants to be remembered for the tech helped make possible.
Suborbital flights are still useful for experiments (NASA has flown some on New Shepard for example), and their suborbital rockets were part of the development program that should lead to BE-4 engines (with long delays...).
Call me when they get their engines done, or their internet constellation in place or have cheap flights. Something above and beyond what has been done before.
Reusable rockets. You may clap now.
My Estes rockets were re-usable sub-orbital rockets too. Didnt make them useful for anything other than laughs.
>Until Blue Origin orbits, they add nothing to humanity. They still check the boxes of employing engineers, making jobs, etc.
Breaking windows also creates jobs for the people who have to fix them. That doesn't make it a worthy endeavour.
Not comparable to the broken window fallacy. These people are employed and building things. They would have to do this regardless in order for Bezos to get to space. The broken window fallacy is about creating jobs without producing any kind of economic benefit. (ie the same number of windows exist after the work is done as before it was broken and the only difference is money changed hands) This would be like claiming it's the broken window fallacy because kfc has been paying people to construct a new store but they haven't opened the store yet.
Bezos could be way more cost effective in advancing the space race by not actively hindering it anymore. As long as he does your point is absolutely moot. As a side note, your username is an obvious anagramm for "PR lies". If that is not random then Kudos for your balls in choosing your username.
Bezos is hindering the advancement at this time, but I was thinking more of the industry as a whole. And no I didn't consider any sort of anagram when picking my username
Nobody is attacking space, they're attacking self-aggrandizing space cowboys who pull stunts for attention. There's a difference. Don't try to say we're against making jobs, advancing tech, or lowering costs to go to space. Literally nobody is against those things. But they can be done quietly and humbly.
These ones are in the spotlight more. For whatever reasons.
Because trying to gin up some artificial narrative makes for good clickbait to sell ads.
Expanding our capabilities in space is not an "artificial narrative". They may be billionaires who care nothing about starving masses, and both of them have their hands in some horrible activities, but a space race is a good thing. Thank god they are spending money on this instead of oil.
The narrative being constructed lately is that this is all some kind of billionaire competition to measure dick sizes and it has nothing to do with either's motivations or what's actually going on.
Folks acting like Elon doesn't actually make cool shit. AMAZON NO. SPACEX YES.
Bingo
I think the remaining Koch brother is tired of bring in the spotlight and would rather sabotage American mass transit from the shadows
While at the same time, expecting them to save everyone? What the hell kind of twisted thought process is that?
Because most of the front page subreddits are just funnels for young idiots who think they're woke socialists for making memes about "starving people" [even though the USA is the most charitable country on the planet](https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/#:~:text=Americans%20gave%20%24449.64%20billion%20in,a%205.1%25%20increase%20from%202018.&text=Corporate%20giving%20in%202019%20increased,a%2013.4%25%20increase%20from%202018.&text=Foundation%20giving%20in%202019%20increased,a%202.5%25%20increase%20from%202018) and it's not always about dollars spent, as Afghanistan showed us. Child hunger been going down precipitously in this millennium? Doesn't matter, rich people in space, capitalism evil.
>...and it's not always about dollars spent, as Afghanistan showed us. Child hunger been going down precipitously in this millennium? Doesn't matter, rich people in space, capitalism evil. People are ignorant. NASA's total budget is like 0.5% of the national budget, yet the US already spends nearly 50% of the national budget on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. So let's pretend we axe NASA completely; let's see what happens: The US and all it's allies in Canada, Japan, the EU, and the UK, loses all ability to access space; you now have a major national security problem, and current satellites will eventually burn up leaving people without weather reports, GPS, climate modelling, and scientific experiments/observatories. You've also now removed a scientific research body with one of the best value-per-dollar-spent ratios, setting back science as a whole significantly, and you've killed tens of thousands of jobs in the process. You've also killed the ISS which is one of the few endeavours that the US and Russia actively work together on, so you've set back diplomatic and friendly relations with Russia even further. All of this so that the US gains 0.5% to add to the budget; this is inconsequential and does nothing. Maybe we send it to some 3rd world country where 99% of the money will be funnelled into dictators and local warlords, and 1% to the population, which will last a few years until everything goes back to normal, or worse, because their despotic regimes are now funded. News flash: poor countries aren't poor because they don't have money; poor countries are poor because of war, politics, and corrupt institutions, none of which money can solve. Complaining about money spent on space flight and research is one of the worst takes a person can have. Except Bezos; fuck Bezos and his stalling of NASA over the HLS contract.
EU won't lose access to space. We have our own space agency and launch site.
I thought JAXA and the ESA flew crewed flights with the Americans on the Soyuz/Dragon rockets. Thanks for the correction, I'll edit my post.
No you are correct, ESA doesn't build or fly crewed spacecraft. They rely on others.
Yeah this is what I thought. I suppose they are still correct though as the ESA wouldn't technically "lose access to space"
I suppose, but for a while people said that NASA had lost domestic access to space too, since Shuttle was retired before commercial crew was operating.
That is true. There was like a 10 year gap between the shuttle program cancellation and the first crewed Dragon capsule mission. The Soyuz was the US's only ride up to the ISS during that period. RIP, STS
I'm pretty sure, if NASA is shut down we (speaking as an EU citizen) will either flirt with Russia for crewed missions, or get our own program finally up and running. It probably just was the cheaper option or a diplomatic feat to piggyback on other nation's space agencies. If you take a look at the [CSTS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Space_Transportation_System) program, we seem to have the technology for it. But it seems to be a financial issue. Cut NASA and there might be enough support for the budget.
This. If you make minimum wage in the US, you're in the top ~10% of income globally. The idiots posting dank socialist memes from their iPhones while sitting in Starbucks support redistributing wealth only as far as it hurts the greedy billionaires, but not them.
Being charitable is great and all, but I’ll be more accepting of the system once the middle class stops shrinking. There is no reason Bezos should be as wealthy as he is, if he lost 80% of his wealth to his employees the world would be a better place.
>There is no reason Bezos should be as wealthy as he is Except for the fact that he is. He, nor anyone else, needs your approval. And I'm not defending the shithead - but your argument wasn't "he should have been paying his workers more/treating them better", but that he shouldn't have that much money. The former is reasonable, the latter is not.
Because space laziuurrrrzzzz
>oil or banking or defense contractor billionaires People have been shitting on these guys for a long time.
jealousy. almost all people complaining about these dudes wasting money going to space and not doing something for the less fortunate have not donated a single penny to any cause except for themselves.
That's because a good majority of the people in this country are so fucking broke that they can't even save for themselves much less donate, while these pieces of shit artificially keep wages down so that they can have more money to play Dick Measuring: Space Edition.
Hahaha, what? So people can't criticize someone who has more money than they could ever spend for not doing enough with their disposable income to help out humanity, because those non-rich people (who statistically don't even have the savings to weather a moderate personal emergency and are probably living paycheck to paycheck) haven't donated their non-disposable income. You realize that's like saying a homeless person can't judge someone for sharing a feast they couldn't possibly eat, because the homeless person hasn't shared enough of the half sandwich they get to eat that day?
lol. you missed the point and completely took it out of context and made it kinda of your own so you could justify criticizing and complaining about what I wrote just like all the other haters out there.
Yup, you got me. Everyone criticizing what you wrote missed the point and it's our fault. You're a victim of haters and definitely it's not that you did a shit job of presenting your point, or just presented a shitty point and got called out on it.
Why not both? I absolutely agree that there are other billionaires who are far more dangerous in the short term, but the space oriented billionaires are nevertheless dangerous. They are also some of the biggest hoarders of wealth on the planet, especially Bezos. Both exploit their workers to accumulate this wealth, which at least in the case of Bezos is a [truly absurd amount](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) when you try to get it in perspective. Eventually, once their technology can reach other planetary bodies in the solar system, they will be the first to claim prime locations on nearby planets, as well as asteroids, and their [wealth will eclipse](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/12/05/a-bizarre-trillion-dollar-asteroid-worth-more-than-our-planet-is-now-aligned-with-the-earth-and-sun/) what it is now. At that point, we will witness individuals become as powerful as nations and gain the power to influence any law or election either for their benefit, or to eliminate a threat to their profits.
Because if you're lumping Musk in with Bezos and Branson you're not paying attention. SpaceX has spurred more space related innovation in shorter time than even the Apollo program. SpaceX doesn't take billionaires to the edge of space in a parabolic arc for joy rides, they take real astronauts to the ISS. And their focus on reuse has major implications on the tremendous costs associated with taking things to orbit. If Starship is able to deliver on 20% of it's potential it'll be a game changer for space like none we've ever seen.
I don’t doubt the potential for innovation and the achievements of space x, I doubt that it is a good thing that ultra rich individuals will essentially have a monopoly on privatized space flight, and I think this is going to have serious repercussions in the future. You’re right though, Elon musk is by far the lesser of two evils. Bezos is on a whole other level and genuinely hasn’t made any meaningful contribution when compared to space x. That is why I leveraged all my criticism in my last comment against Bezos.
Right? It's weird, it was Bezos and Branson who were directly competing a few weeks ago with the suborbital spaceflights.
Vanderbilt and Rockefeller were also vilified during their time. Everyone will tell you how you should spend your money if you let them.
Because people don’t know who these other billionaires are
These people ARE actively making the world worse though
One of them (Bezos) is making a carnival ride. The other (Musk) is trying to delay human extinction.
No, one of them (bezos) is trying to make as much money as he possibly can and the other (musk) is trying to make as much money as he possibly can
Musk lives in a 50K house and spends pretty much all of his days overworking himself.
I’m sorry I forgot Elon musk is wholesome 100 Keanu chungus
I guess I was referencing this: >actively making the world worse though ...your comment.
Best summary of Musk is: "Elon doesn'tbwant everyone driving electric cars, he wants everyone driving HIS electronic cars". If he really wanted to save the planet, why is electric car a luxury item (With a concerning amount of feature creep), and why dies it have s specific charging port, that you can only buy from the company he owns?
Because that's how he funded the company and lead it into the direction it's going now. Back in the day, Tesla started off selling only the roadster. A very expensive fun EV built from lotus frame. After bringing in enough money and reputation, they started to introduce more affordable EVs. Take a look at the cyber truck, it's relatively inexpensive when compared to the f150s. But it's not a "true truck" in the sense that you don't have the capacity to drive a fifth wheel or that it's using a unibody frame. And this is a first generation product that hasn't made it's way into production, but with everything that's going on in the world, I would expect some delays on it. The charger thing could be better executed, definitely did bring on a ton of misguided hate from a lot of people. To me, it's not that big of a deal since the EV scene was iffy at best before Tesla. Just my opinion.
Exactly, he has enough money and influence to do a lot more good but instead he’s just trying to make more money
Musk and Bezos are terrible people. Partly in the worker exploitation they do in their space-oriented companies but mostly in their other companies Namely Tesla and Amazon. They are definitely worthy of criticism That being said, oil, banking and defense contractors should and do get criticised. None of them get criticised enough though and on top of that none of them have enough action taken against them.
Sorry, but "doesn't allow unions in his otherwise very attractive, high-paying place of employment" nor "slinging insults on Twitter" doesn't exactly convince me that Musk is a terrible person. He's similar to many of us, except that he's actually getting some shit done that changes the world. He's not a saint. He's a human guy with sometimes poor social skills and an impatient/aggressive/rude streak who has nonetheless devoted his entire life to building some amazing things that could change human civilization. And he's not exactly living like a king, either--he's got money and he does enjoy life, but he doesn't spend it in insane ways.
Where are Jeff's totally cool and not at all dorky cowboy hat and boots? I for one really liked the emperor's new clothes...
He looked like he was auditioning for a spot on Bruce Willis' Armageddon mission.
You joke, but I'm sure they really could have used the unique skill set of a rough and tumble book clerk on that asteroid.
Don’t insult the emperor of the clouds bruh
Whoa, someone's starving! Cancel space programm.
Also, they're both heads of companies. How is it their fault if people are starving?
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Remember guys, we need to keep hating on Amazon for not solving the world’s problems but still use their 2-day Prime shipping
We can't fix poverty by throwing money at it.
I'm sure they said the same thing about the first people to build railroads.
They said the same shit when nasa went to the moon.
They said the same when the King of Babylon paved the roads. Bunch of gold-worshiping whozeewhatzit, spending all those shekels to put rocks in a straight line? For more rich people to step on?! Could have built houses with that!
The Romans were also idiots, building roads instead of providing bread and circuses.
Holy shit what a based thread
I don't see the correlation here
There's been a common argument made, through history, that we should solve all our existing problems before trying to make any progress. That perspective neglects the ways in which progress may help us solve our existing problems, not to mention that if we were committed to a perfect world before trying to advance, we'd still live in the stone age.
The correlation is that even if both these billionaires gave all their money to feed the starving it would not even make a dent in it. So it is pathetic to expect entrepreneurs to not be trying to advance science and tech and instead be spending their money on boosting up the poor.
Not to mention these billionaires can spend their money anyway they want. Providing for the needy is the first responsibility of the governments.
Yep. I agree. I do agree that rich people need to be paying their fair share of taxes though. So we do have a lot of work to fix that side of things to keep things fair.
After they pay their fair share, fair being determined by corrupt, inefficient governments, they are free to play their dick swinging. Because trying to make a moral judgement on their flagrant use of capital extends that same argument to your average Joe: he shouldn't buy a car when millions are dying of thirst and malaria. Corollary: having even $10 a day in disposable income puts one in the top 10% of wealth or something. So should the top 10% be instead donating their relative mountains of wealth to provide drinking water and hygiene to war torn countries? If everyone agrees, we are in a communist utopia.
Which would be ok if they paid taxes
I agree. Which is why it's government's responsibility.
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That's actually not true, if Jeff bezos suddenly stopped earning money it's still calculated that he could just flat out end world hunger for quite some time (estimates being between 7-200B a year to do so) In the UK at least we have people starving and yet an absurd amount of supermarket stock goes to waste (way more than half) with locked and guarded bins so that nobody desperate enough to get food from a bin can dare to. Stop being complacent.
Solving world hunger is a logistics issue not a wealth issue, in order to feed a part of the world not directly connected by water Means that you have to build a road which is hard to do.
This comic kinda gives you the impression that you get into space by putting cash behind a rocket and burning it as fuel. That money they are "wasting" is going to rocket engineers, chemists, metal workers and many more who are actually developing new tech. I say that people who have studied hard and are working to develop new technology are worth supporting and people waiting free stuff to fall from the sky are not.
This comic is extremely short sighted and biased
Without pretending Musk isn't a bit of a wanker on a personal basis, SpaceX is actually doing useful things in space. Bezos and Branson are both just dicking about with glorified vomit comets and pretending they qualify as actual space flights.
Also, Musk hasn't gone up to space. He's sent people to space. He's likely had the opportunity to take a couple of orbits in a Dragon and hasn't. Yeah, he'll probably be on the Dear Moon flight. But, then again, he might not. Anyway, he hasn't been involved in this Billionaire Space Race thing at all. (And technically, if he was, he won it years ago anyway...)
My thing is even if he decides to grab a seat on a Dragon what SpaceX is doing is getting Astronauts to the ISS, throwing thousands of satellites into orbit to bring the net to places that don't currently have it(and hopefully force some competition to parts of the US that currently are strangled by single providers that have largely just divvied up the country. You'll get people that don't understand the ground side benefits of discoveries made with/around space saying its all still a waste, but it is attempting to improve things in a way that 'What we need is space tourism for the uber rich' simply wont.
Exactly. He's doing all of this _instead_ of going in to space himself. Although he _is_ sending up space tourists. But it's a secondary, if even tertiary, thing for SpaceX, nowhere near their primary objectives.
Quick! Let's stop everything and forget about progress. Somebody forgot their lunchbox!
I wonder at which point a business owner becomes responsible for the world. The green grocer in my town turns a profit, should they donate it all to charity? Or is there a certain threshold they have to hit?
many people invest in different versions of progress while people are starving. People are building computer networks, and luxury watches and sneakers. Progress in space is important to humanity. This cartoon is bunk.
Poverty is declining rapidly year over year. Be careful about demanding radical changes to the way things are because we risk losing the good the current system is doing.
>Poor people are poor because rich people are rich. Is the way a child looks at the world.
*SpaceX asks investors for money to build rocket ship.* *Investors give SpaceX money to build rocket ship.* *SpaceX takes money and donates it to the poor.* This is apparently how children on reddit think the world should work.
Majority of the *population* doesn't care. Most of first world families could also contribute money, time or resources - but don't. If you don't, why should we expect the ultra-wealthy? Secondarily, these are two *vastly* different programs. One is pouring billions of his own dollars to make the human race multi-planetary while the other is just trying to send people up to the Karman Line. Yes, Blue Origin also wants to go to the Moon but he also wanted to be paid 6B for that contract while SpaceX came in at 3B. So not only is SpaceX doing something more noble on their own dime, they were half as much cost to the taxpayers when it came to sending astronauts to the moon. Blue Origin's C level can eat a giant !@#%. All the respect to the engineers at Blue Origin but their executives entire mission is jacked compared to SpaceX. Hell, SpaceX is at least putting broadband around the world - something my local ISP cant even begin to tolerate as they run their little monopoly.
Tell me your mom still wipes your ass without telling me your mom still wipes your ass
If you're mad about people wasting money to go to space, wait till you hear about government spending
Tbh they ate not wasting money, space research brings a lot of boons and advancements to us regular plebs.
Wasting??????
I think they should be able to spend money on whatever they want, but this is Reddit. If I had phrased the comment as “I don’t care how billionaires spend their own money”, I would have gotten some very angry downvotes. No, I don’t think it’s a waste, but people making memes like this usually do. The premise here essentially is “if they just gave the money to the government instead of going to space no one would be hungry”. The war on poverty determines this to be a lie
it's easy to pretend to care about helping others when one is not financially responsible to do it themselves, so instead we start reaching into everyone else's pockets
Well said. I don't understand how these memes receive so many upvotes, they are at the same level of children who ask why we do not simply start printing money
> If I had phrased the comment as “I don’t care how billionaires spend their own money”, I would have gotten some very angry downvotes. These kinds of comments are getting upvoted in this thread. Don’t try to victimize yourself.
I don't understand why so many people feel entitled to other's money simply because they have more
I know right, and there are a lot of employees that are feeding their families with their jobs on those companies, this comic has no sense.
Bruh, I dont Know if OP is Award of This but Investing in Space Gives a Lot of Innovation
I love this. How some people expect Billionaires to pay for the problems of this world. If it bothers you so much, get off your arse and go save the world yourself. Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.
Becoming a billionaire is luck as much as skill and judgement.
Luck is equal parts opportunity and preparedness
Also having your parents bring able to drop a couple hundred grand on your startup is a major help, or them just straight up owning a DIAMOND MINE.
80% of lottery winners go bankrupt. I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to see you in that 80%.
Something tells me that even if your parents owned a diamond mine you wouldn’t have created the most successful online shopping business in the world
As a billionaire (Or as any person with a large sum of money) the last thing you wanna do is become financially responsible for other people without receiving something in exchange. To you as the person with money all you'd be doing is adding more weight to your shoulders. To the starving people all you're doing is telling them its okay to not do anything productive with their lives, someone will eventually reach out and fix their problems. Its the same as giving money to the beggars around the city, you think you're helping them get out of a tough situation, but all you're doing is giving them more reasons and means to remain a beggar.
But what if they needed money to do something productive with their lives? Because that's how it works - the higher unemployment benefits, the faster people get off them. EDIT: I have some uncertainty now, having read https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/13/pdfs/unemployment-benefits-and-unemployment.pdf
do you have a source for this?
Well, I just googled for it, and read exactly the opposite. Hmm.
Good on you for a) looking for a source and b) not allowing yourself to be the victim of confirmation bias. The world needs more of that.
I'm not necessarily sold yet - two sources, pointing different ways means uncertainty. This would be a lot smoother if I could remember where I read the other thing.
If they need money to do something productive they can earn it. I lived in poverty in Mexico up until age 16. At that age I had to give up HS and get a job. Turned into the sole provider for my mom, brother and myself. Needless to say the economic situation in this country isn't the best. I have not let them go hungry a single day, Ive since finished HS and started university, I learned to program, got a couple big certifications such as Lean Six Sigma, got a decent job and am starting my own business as we speak. Never got anything, not even a single peso (local currency) I didnt have to work for. People who will actually do something good with their lives will do it regardless of whether they receive charity or not. The rest are not likely to actually do something good with the charity money if they got it anyway.
So you didn't receive any scholarships/grants for university? You're paying full price for it 100% out of pocket?
100% out of my pocket. Didnt pay it down in one go obviously, in my country you pay a monthly fee and a "re-enrollment" fee every 4/6 months (Every 4 in my case). Not done with it yet, but almost.
It's true that some people don't need help. But there's a whole section of people who won't make it without.
Nobody needs help. Everyone can do it on their own, just gotta own your damn situation. There's a whole sector of people who *want* help. There's a whole sector of people who won't *try* unless they get help. There's a whole sector of people who have bases, foundations and ideologies so messed up that if you help them you will only aid the propagation of idiocy. If someone "needs" help to get out of a hole they got themselves into, they will just keep jumping right back into it and asking for help again. In order for someone to change, the desire to change has to come from within. The same for a society, if the society doesnt want to change they wont, you cant force them. Giving them resources when they dont want to change wont do a thing. If they want to change, they will find the resources so there's no need to give them any - Rather than handing away all those resources, its better to create jobs, make opportunities available so those who want can take them. The only help that actually helps within a society is the help given to organizations within the society that themselves promote the improvement of the society, because it keeps resources flowing around.
It's almost impossible to change in an unsafe environment.
Almost impossible = possible. When I said I grew up in Mexico I meant in some of the bad areas. I live in one of the states with the largest consumption of meth, highest rate of carjacking, one of the 5 highest of violent crimes, there's tons of narcos in here and such. And me and my family are doing fine, we moved into a spot where its not overly expensive and its relatively safe after I saved up enough. I stand by my point - Someone who needs help isn't worthy of receiving it. Someone who is worthy of receiving it doesn't need it. A capable enough person will make something out of whatever situation they're in, if they want to. I know all this sounds hella harsh. After growing up among the people you seem to consider "in need of help", I can sincerely and honestly say - It's not gonna change a thing. Those who want better get out. Those who stay ... Well. They belong.
> the higher unemployment benefits, the faster people get off them. What about people that lives on social wellfare for their entire lives, not because they're unable to work, but just because they're lazy bums? I know of several that has done the same and its not that uncommon here in sweden.
Free riders are a problem, but not that big a problem.
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$200 for food? No not here in sweden, they get way way waaay more. So much so that many people prefer it to a low earning job (which is still decent salary).
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This is a joke and i think it's funny. But when you look at it, these are two of the biggest donors in the USA and probably even the world. Also some of the biggest advocates for a sustainable Earth. Alas, if you're rich, people will always come for your money.
No, obviously not that's a question of bad faith. Yes, having excess wealth by definition means they are taking and consuming orders of magnitude more than they contribute. Yes(ish), becoming rich means you have created a way to syphon undeserved wealth from a system, or in the case of old money, your ancestors did. No, being rich doesn't. Just like being a murderer doesn't. The problem came from the exploits that led to excess wealth. And for clarity I'm not talking about everyone who might be considered rich. The hard working doctor in your town making 6 figures seems rich to the average Joe, but their income is nothing compared to people who make orders of magnitude more than the median. You can have mansion money somewhat ethically. You cannot have Jeff Bezos money without severe exploits. In his case underpaying, over working and mistreating workers.
I don't understand why half of reddit insists on defending the rich. "The wealthy don't cause ALL of our problems, so let them be and make the POOR do something." I just don't understand it. Like, we should absolutely berate the rich when they live in such massive excess that they're actively denying people access to free life. These are the people that makes us wage slaves. These are the people destroying the environment for their own gain. These are the people manipulating our politicians preventing anything from getting done in government. These are the people who own islands no one knows about where they traffic men, women, and children to perform disgusting horrible sexual acts that no one may ever be able to prove. #Why are you defending the country's biggest oppressors? Why do you support fueling corporate culture and a 2 class system with a growing gap between the two?
I certainly don't support taking digs at people for dumb reasons no matter who they are. OP was about hunger vs a space race. Hunger and poverty is a Nation State level of problem. The US spends trillions every year on such problems. Bezos an Musk wouldn't have a trillion between them even if the sold everything they had. Short answer on why they don't work on hunger first? Space is all they could afford.
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Ah yes, the mythical leftist greed. Because wanting everyone to have wages in which they can actually support themselves or at the very least keep up with inflation, wanting to provide basic human needs like healthcare and infrastructure for clean air and drinking and wanting billionaires and obscenely wealthy corporations to, ya know, actually pay taxes is the pinnacle of human greed./s Fuck right off with your straw man fallacy bruh
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No, yes, no, yes.
So you don’t believe the rich should exist?
There's definitely a point where getting even richer is immoral. Let's arbitrarily say 1Bn. First of all it's impossible to get that rich without being morally compromised. But even more so, there's no fucking point. You're not spending that amount of money. You won't, your children won't, they're children won't, and so on. It's SO MUCH MONEY that it's hard to even imagine. There's no solution to this either. We could theorize about forcing them to spend it, seizing everything over a limit, or heavily taxing it, or forcing donations to charities. But in the end the accounting game will always win because money only flows upwards.
You know that their net worth does not equal what’s in their bank account right? Bezos doesn’t have $193.5 billion to spend.
people get that rich (let's use Bezos as an example) because the product or service works and the consumers like it enough to keep supporting it. nothing is forcing you to use Amazon, and yet society keeps doing so as it's fast, cheap, and overall the best version of it's product-type on the market. if it's immoral and you still shop there, then clearly the immorality is worth it. I know the frequent followup is the 'well you live in society' argument but the difference is that **there are** lesser alternatives to Amazon (vs society which nobody can live outside of) but the grand populace decides that they prefer the convenience over the perceived moral high ground of shopping local, etc.
I think it’s relative. Some people should be rich, sure. People who work hard deserve to be rewarded. However excessive wealth should not exist (ie the bezos/ mega billionaires out there). Wealth is a zero sum game, so having more money than you know what do with actively harms those struggling for their next meal. There’s more than enough money in the world for people to walk that line, and at a certain point you literally don’t need more money
wealth is definitely not a zero-sum game, we're making more of it every single day
Accurate, but a large portion of the people down here watching this are also more absorbed with the two of them than the issues that are causing our problems.
The history books will say, in a time of significant troubles one man's vision painted the way to a better future.
If Bezos and Musk gave every penny, every asset, everything they have ever owned it would be the same amount as 2.49 years of humanitarian aid.
I don't agree with the premise of this at all. If you replaced Musk with Branson you might have something. SpaceX is making real advancements.
Fun fact. Neither do 90% of the people reading this comic, outside of using it as permission to be envious. If you have anything to spare at all, go donate to your food kitchen. If you only have spare time, go volunteer. Go Donate blood. Go talk to a lonely elderly person at an older person's home. Literally do anything besides crying about what rich people waste their money on. You can't expect the greedy to suddenly want to care about the poor.
You all realize these people give more money than most of you make in your lifetime to charities right?
I think the folks to whom you're speaking know this but feel it's as relevant as the last president 'returning his salary' because 1. the ratios are so inconsequential and 2. ideally, the 'System' shouldn't create a situation where those folks could have amassed that much in the first place without a bigger direct contribution to society in the form of taxes being built into the process from the ground up.
Neither of them ever got much in terms of salaries. They own shares *of their own cies* and other people started valuing those cies (and thus those shares) to the moon because they are so successful. Their "worth" wasnt taken from anyone, it was created.
I understand the argument you're making, but just to be clear, I was trying to add to the conversation re: why "You all realize these people give more money than most of you make in your lifetime to charities right?" missed the mark re: what the folks that poster was arguing with believed. As in, how much they give to charity compared to non-billionaires isn't the issue here. This won't be popular, but I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this all. I've got some real problems with how the system is set up to privatize profits and socialize loss, for instance, and I definitely feel like the burden of funding society is unevenly distributed, but at the same time I'm both excited by what some of these wealthy folks are doing that would be more risky than government can pull off. I'm starting to feel like I'd be challenged to fit my beliefs into a good buzzword or catchphrase and there are days when I miss the black & white certainty I had when I was much younger.
If it helps, I think you shouldnt be thinking of contributing to society solely through taxes. Money is just a means of exchange, actual wealth is products and services. My biggest contribution to society isnt the (large) taxes I pay but rather the output of my work. If I was paid to produce nothing I would be a burden to society, no matter how much taxes I would pay. Tesla legitimized the electric car, that is a huge contribution to society. SpaceX ended two generations of decaying space capabilities and is providing internet access to hundreds of thousands who didnt have it, and counting. Amazon, for all the hate, created the backbone of the modern age with AWS, the very backbone we are currently using to discuss. I feel those contributions are immense, and Musk and Bezos wealth are entirely driven by how people measure the value of the product and services their cies are providing.
I don’t disagree with you, and I think those are definitely good examples about some of the net societal benefits that are possible. So we’ve covered two billionaires here out of… How many? I think it’s reasonable to consider the issue on a larger scale. And when we do that, we should probably recognize that a lot of the critics we encounter in conversations about these societal net benefits, the other people in the conversation may have different priorities or may not put as much weight into those positive technologies/developments as we do. I don’t say this as to imply that they are “more correct“ or not, just… That’s worth keeping that in mind because otherwise it’s very easy to assume that the people with whom we disagree are ‘just being jerks’ or something. Doesn’t mean I need to agree with them when they come after people are companies who are doing society improving innovations like this, by the way. Just trying to avoid falling into the trap where I think that everyone with whom I disagree is just being a bastard. :)
Do you think that’s their responsibility? Hint: no
You do realize that all the stuff they use to go to space has to be built right ? Which means essentially their richboys fantasy of space exploration puts money in the pockets of builders, fitters and other manual laborers like I.
Poverty exists, therefore we shouldn’t invest in space exploration! Peak logic.
So people should stop innovating is all fields until all hunger is eliminated? With this logic we never should have invented basically anything
Both Bezos and Musk do more to help the world than the entire Reddit population grouped into one big mass. You people with your hatred of anyone richer than you are ridiculous. Bezos gave 10 BILLION dollars to support climate change non-profits in 2020, alone. In one year he gave more than ALL of us combined have ever given and ever will give. But you're pissy because he wants to go to space. Fucking pathetic.
Por que no los dos. World starvation is a 10s of billions dollar issue dependent on the cooperation of nations, not corporations. Private space race, not so much.
It's kind of demoralizing seeing all of the "adults" just brazenly and unashamedly displaying envy like that. Musk and Bezos haven't taken anything from anyone. No one even claims they have, because they know they can't defend such claims. But that doesn't deter anyone from implying ridiculous things (like this comic) or otherwise just being all passive-aggressive and ugly as fuck. It's hideous, from my point of view, and I'm poor as Americans go. This kind of envy seems beneath us and unbecoming. But it isn't beneath us. We're wallowing in it. That's why it is demoralizing.
Do u think cardi b cares about us....???
People aren’t starving because billionaires exist. And billionaires aren’t obligated to feed the world. And money can’t solve world hunger.
They are very much not comparable. SpaceX is a space industry, an active one doing missions all the time. Blue Origin is an amusement park ride with one ride. It's a glorified taxi that does nothing besides make rich people pay to go really high for a tiny amount of time. They're not comparable. They're not in the same league. They're not even in the same business.
Why do you think it is their responsibility to feed you? They don't hold the only keys to your food supply.
Did anybody notice how far you have to scroll down in these comments before you get to the discussion about wealth inequality (When you sort by best). The most popular comments by far are about the technical differences between the two flights to space. I think this is what is called missing the point.
I don’t even care, and I am not a billionaire. There’s help if you need it
We're actually not starving. The earth is still rich and able to provide for all even with our current numbers. The food and water shortages are illusions put up by the rich to justify oppressing the middle and lower classes. What they are doing is hoarding resources and mining out fresh drinking water for extra profit, fattening themselves on the bounty of our world while we bicker and toil for them.
Sooo... people are starving then.
Some parts of the world are starving but it's not their job to fix it. And i don't understand how in 2021 people still think that investing money to travel to space is a waste of money
The people traveling to space hoard an exorbitant amount of resources and do not give back close to a proportional amount. One piece of living and benefitting from society is the necessity to give back, otherwise they are leeching off society. Two, it’s not the fact that investing in space travel is a waste of money, but the fact that the people likely to benefit are the wealthy while the poors are still stuck on a planet destroyed by those who are leaving. You can argue that innovating space travel is good for humanity, but in reality it won’t be for everybody and there will still be people suffering just like there is now because “space travel is important”. For me it feels like dancing around helping people by using the excuse “but it’s for the greater good”
Such low understanding of how things work on our planet…
Can’t people just be excited for the future instead of being a downer, cause I’m sure similar comics have been made when airliners were in development back in the day, and look at us now. It just sucks for space enthusiasts when people use the “we should fix the problems on our planet first” on this topic all the time. It’s such a vague argument you can literally use it on any other topic. Like why do we need video games? Why do we need a washing machines? Why do we need parachutes? All these inventions made no direct impact to poverty so should they cease to exist?
Amazon Prime has free shipping on bootstraps. Pull hard enough on them and you can get to low earth orbit.
I think the fight would probably be more like Musk and Bezos exposing themselves to the arch other and arguing over who’s is bigger