Your argument “well it’s economic growth” can be used for anything. Paying a hitman to kill your wife is technically economic growth. It doesn’t make space exploration some particularly wonderful venture with huge benefits throughout society, because those benefits won’t actually be shared with society to the same degree if it’s a private venture. You’re comparing public apples to private oranges, and somehow convincing yourself they’re the exact same.
Oh, and I love how you’re comparing Bezos to a nation now. That’s rich. I mean, not as rich as he is, but your point hasn’t had a chance to exploit its workers or third party contractors yet. For the record, conflating Bezos with the birth of a nation is exactly what you’re accusing me of doing: creating a distraction, and not a logical argument.
And, sure! There’s going to be an economic benefit of some sort, I guess. But so would actually taxing Amazon and using that money for any number of public investments, like better education. How about this, why don’t you actually use something that actually supports your argument as a reference point?
Finally, I think if you can look back over the course of a man’s relatively short career and point out how little of a fuck he gives about the common man, you can also say “probably not a great idea that he’s heading up a strip-mining operation to the moon”.
Edit: For the record, I think space exploration is important, needed, and definitely should happen. But allowing a bunch of billionaires to head it up just means that we’re allowing a known menace to escape its containment, and allowing them to reach the stars first. Know how you said no nation was born without theft or violence or nefarious deeds? Yeah, this is exactly how it happens.
Allow. Fun word. Are we allowing anything here? No. It’s happening because someone with the money and will to make it happen has decided to do so. When our nation decided that space exploration wasn’t important enough to fund in a meaningful way, we set the stage and now you complain the the wrong person is doing it. It smacks of hand wringing and F.U.D. I’m not swayed by F.U.D.
Yes, I compare Bezos and most billionaires with nations. They all began in theft and harm which isn’t the same as saying no good can come from it. Now, if you want to end private ownership and enterprise, then make your case for it. Until then, we have to discuss events as if they are happening in the world as it actually exists.
If you think we should tax Bezos and other very wealthy people and make them pay their fair share, I’ll stand beside you in your efforts. But let’s not pretend one has to do with the other.
I remember in forensics, we had these things called Squirrel Killers. They were little books of invalid arguments and counter plans that one would study to learn to spot specious arguments. One classic form presented in each volume would be a “We should do X before we do Y” which is one of your arguments. Another was “We don’t know what will happen if X does Y” which is your other. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why those are both very “squirrelly” arguments. Until then, I’ll leave you to it so you can tell us how Bezos is evil and needs to be stopped because that’s not an argument worth having. He is what he is. Do what you can to change that as you see fit.
So, wait, me saying “let’s not let an asshole stake out a claim to an orbiting planetary body” is somehow me gibing into fear, uncertainty, and doubt? Yet you saying “yes, let the guy who ran a business that had paramedics stationed in the parking lot rather than fixing the AC up into space to do whatever he wants!” is well reasoned?
Wow.
Well, okie dokie. Guess your ideas just suck ass.
And, for the record, yes. We can allow or not allow. It’s why we have civil society and not some completely libertarian dystopia. Yet. Pretty sure your prescribed course of “get out of the way of progress, dur hur hur” approach is what gets us that much closer, though.
edit: by the way, FUD, is for when the information is incorrect. We KNOW Bezos is a piece of shit when it comes to worker’s welfare, and we KNOW he’s a piece of shit when it comes to strong arming business partners. What I’m working with is “evidence”, whereas you’re working with . . . I don’t really fucking know. A hope for a better future that Bezos will somehow provide?
And SCUBA, etc, etc… but it does leave that nagging questions of whether and if so why these inventions had to be “trickle-down” from something very abstract and esoteric (albeit very sexy, for the time) and not on direct efforts toward making everyday life better. The kind of historical determinism that says that we flat wouldn’t have these things without NASA seems hyperbolic. But if true, is just kinda frustrating. Honestly, I love space exploration too, but a self-conscious corner of my mind is pretty sure that Space exploration is a lot closer to spectator sports and the movie industry that I’d care to admit (two other industries that trickle innovation into the real world.)
As a counter-example that does make me feel better, often educational strategies designed for non-majority-language speakers and special needs environments often end up benefiting majority-language-speakers and neuro-typical kids as well…
There you go again. Let… allow… brass tacks nonlocal… what are you saying. Arrest Bezos for wanting to go to the moon? Tell him that he’s not allowed to? When discussing things, it’s helpful to do so within the frame of reality.
Please cite the law or authority which will stop someone with his resources from building a spaceship? Seriously. Explain how to stop it.
Again, not a zero sum game. Why not do both?
Actually its for when someone has presented worries about something they have no evidence will ever happen. Your assumptions are not reality. Your “evidence” is projection.
But these things didn’t actually require the going-to-space part. Xerox PARC did a lot more and all they needed was an office building and a few nerds. The Vietnam War made direct advancements in hospital emergency rooms that have certainly saved more people than the Vietnam War cost, but that doesn’t mean we should do more Vietnam Wars.
It is possible to focus on direct invention of things like smoke detectors and MRI machines without it being a side-effect of other research. Imagine the results (and jobs and economic boost) of that money going to direct research… We SHOULD be continuing to reach for the stars. WE being the citizenry choosing to support tax dollars going to government funding. Not space exploitation and “space tourism”. The Mars mission did not require the level of exploitation that Bezos’ private hobby does.
No evidence? I can literally point to Amazon, and it’s track record of worker exploitation and abuse as evidence. We know how Bezos acts when constrained by law, like a borderline sociopath, and yet you’re perfectly fine with him leading the space race to strip mine the moon.
And, yes, we can absolutely put a stop to someone utilizing national air space.
I’m a little sceptical of the ‘resource-rich’ description. The moon rocks that the Apollo missions retrieved had some interesting assays but nothing approaching economic concentrations of any real value. Given what we know about the genesis of the moon, its likely that most of the really good stuff is in the core, and a lack of tectonic or hydrologic processes means that it will stay there.
If mining is the goal, then Japan and NASA have already identified where the jackpots are: asteroids.
The moon is a great way station to the outer planets, but the LOP-G proposal is more than sufficient to support that. Going to the surface is a waste of energy (its a gravity well), unless there are a bunch of rubes in Washington who want to fund it for prestige or something.
