I mean, we can do both, right? Though surely the issue is the order of priorities of spending said money, not just that it was spent on a particular thing (and afaik there are pretty reasonable criticisms of the Gates foundation and similar orgs)
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Replying to @ReluctantPotato @falk_moritz
There are tons of reasonable criticisms, but that billionaires don't put a lot of money toward world hunger isn't one of them. The unfortunate fact remains that hunger is more of a political problem than a technology problem, so it is less easy to throw money at it blindly.
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And as their apparent unpopularity in the media and on places like Twitter should make apparent, it's unclear that "billionaires" are really in much of a position to solve political problems - and most people complain loudly when they _do_ involve themselves in politics.
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So I tend to see things like electric cars and space exploration as great things for billionaires to be doing, because they can expend resources towards technology we need whilst simultaneously not involving themselves in political problems where they just make things worse.
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Personally, my problem isn't with space race fueling tech innovation. The innovation is good. My problem is with billionaires existing. So when I complain about the fact that billionaires spend their money incorrectly I'm mostly just upset about the fact that they can.
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Just for clarification, is that because you would like the billions of dollars for tech innovation to be spent via a political process instead (voting for reps who tax you and then allocate the money), or because you would like it not to be spent on that at all?
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Spending that much money/resources shouldn't be a single-person decision in a scarce economy imo. I don't think there's a net positive to having that much individual wealth while there are still people living in poverty in the same society.
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Replying to @jchmoe @cmuratori and
So spending that many resources on innovation should happen through government programs or large organizations after careful consideration, but not through individuals who want to put their name in the record books, in my opinion.
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So more like the original Apollo program, for example?
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If I may assume that was done through US government funding, then yes. ESA is another such example where scientists motivate their missions and governments provide the funding. Academic funding isn't a perfect system either, of course, but it beats billionaires in my opinion.
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Yes, Apollo was mostly government funded AFAIK. Amusingly, it was _also_ a dick measuring contest, though - US vs. Russia - so, I would still have to circle (pun intended?) back to say that dick measuring still seems to be important in advancing technology :)
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Replying to @cmuratori @jchmoe and
It sounds like you and I probably agree to a certain extent, but perhaps just differ as to how dangerous we view government spending as being vs. billionaire spending... since the US does things like spend $1.5 trillion on a new fighter jet design that isn't actually very good :(
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Replying to @cmuratori @jchmoe and
So relying on the political process seems fraught with peril as well, and I'm not sure the billionaires are necessarily worse, depending on the circumstances. Hopefully that makes sense :)
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