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The Hyperloop was never meant to be built. Elon Musk admitted it was all about fueling opposition to California’s high-speed rail project so it would get canceled.
He never planned to improve transportation; he just wants to keep people trapped in cars.
https://newrepublic.com/article/174089/big-tech-watching-drive
#tech #transport #elonmusk #transportation #hyperloop #trains
I miss the days when aristocrats and big business owners were genuine philanthropists and not greedy money-hoarding bastards. Even Edward Colston, a merchant who literally profiteered from the transatlantic slave trade, built homes, schools and other public works.
I’d have a much higher opinion of people like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk if they used the vast sums of wealth they hoarded to build homes, power stations, water treatment plants and other useful infrastructure, not lobby governments for even more tax cuts. Otherwise, they’re chasing privatised space travel pipe dreams that we either aren’t going to achieve, or will be reserved only for the ultra-wealthy.
How can we honestly have dreams to colonize Mars, the Moon, or Venus in the next few decades when we can’t even fix our own problems at home?
They never were. You only think that because philanthropy has always just been an exercise in PR. If you dig deeper into the life and actions of those individuals, you will notice they all suffer from the same pathology.
This is it. If you Google Andrew Carnegie, he’s listed as a philanthropist who built libraries. If you Google the Battle of Homestead, you can see how people literally died to fight for labor rights against him. These people were never good people. We just forgot the bad.
Then let it be PR. It’s still better than whatever is happening right now. They had at least some dignity and somewhat cared about their image, now it’s just all greed
It isn’t bro, go read about the pinkertons, robber barons, etc. It’s not great now, but it is infinitely better than company towns, protestor massacres,pinkertons, and jimmy hoffa. Go read history it is amazing, I’m not calling you dumb, just ignorant of history and how bad things can really get if we don’t hold the line.
I think the point is that as long as certain services or fundamentals for living are based on good-will and philanthropy, they are in the end at the mercy of whims or calculated actions of those doing well.
It is PR in the sense that it does not only make the philanthropist look good, it also ties the subjects of the philanthrophy into a bond between the giver and receiver: as a receiver you are forever thankful to the philanthropist and in some perverted way constantly reminded of your subordinate status towards the giver. This strengthens the societal structures that benefit the rich and helps them stay powerful compared to massess. While I am sure that most rich people genuinely donate money to make things better and help others, it is still them who get to choose where the money is spent.
More equal and transparent option is to make sure that there is enough tax revenue to cover these kinds of costs from public spending.
I have also been playing with an idea of a philanthropic fund that allows anyone to donate, but not to decide where the money is spent. If the target for philanthropy could be decided by a group of experts/public poll, money could probably be allocated to places where it is needed the most. However, I am sure there would be a lack of bigger donations as the PR effect would be smaller…
It’s not that they had dignity or cared, it’s that news sources were so limited that if they did something shitty they just paid off the papers and nobody was ever the wiser
Bro they take 95% of the wealth and then donate back 5% and always have, don’t believe the hype my friend. OR some wait until they die and donate 20% and leave 80% in perpetual trust to keep their descendants rich and they then dribble out small amounts to charity to keep it as a tax haven.
Your last point is something that I often say: we’ll never figure out how to reverse aging, we’ll only figure out how to stop Elon Musk aging.
On the philanthropy point: We used to have more progressive taxation systems that discouraged wealth-hoarding. For someone of arbitrarily large income, massive philanthropic acts were often ways to avoid paying taxes. They were going to lose the money either way, but by building a library, expanding a hospital, funding a humanitarian project, feeding the poor or whatever they could choose where the money was spent instead and, as others have said, get some good PR and legacy-building at the same time. Now their wealth isn’t threatened by taxation, why would they even consider relinquishing it?
I think the privatized space launch vehicles push is worthy endeavour. Costs of launching on space x are significantly lower. Lockheed and Boeing weren’t doing it, and there will be benefit to society in the future.
However, that’s about all I can justify as being well meaning. So many other ventures were completely stupid. Instead of buying Twitter, he could have built the highspeed rail and owned that shit, but naw.
I mean, the Russians competed with the US space race at a much lower budget. Privatization of this stuff wasn’t necessary to make it cheaper. The US government is just particularly inefficient with spending at times.
I miss the days when aristocrats and big business owners were genuine philanthropists and not greedy money-hoarding bastards. Even Edward Colston, a merchant who literally profiteered from the transatlantic slave trade, built homes, schools and other public works.
I’d have a much higher opinion of people like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk if they used the vast sums of wealth they hoarded to build homes, power stations, water treatment plants and other useful infrastructure, not lobby governments for even more tax cuts. Otherwise, they’re chasing privatised space travel pipe dreams that we either aren’t going to achieve, or will be reserved only for the ultra-wealthy.
How can we honestly have dreams to colonize Mars, the Moon, or Venus in the next few decades when we can’t even fix our own problems at home?
They never were. You only think that because philanthropy has always just been an exercise in PR. If you dig deeper into the life and actions of those individuals, you will notice they all suffer from the same pathology.
This is it. If you Google Andrew Carnegie, he’s listed as a philanthropist who built libraries. If you Google the Battle of Homestead, you can see how people literally died to fight for labor rights against him. These people were never good people. We just forgot the bad.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
Then let it be PR. It’s still better than whatever is happening right now. They had at least some dignity and somewhat cared about their image, now it’s just all greed
They literally hired mercenaries to murder striking workers. It has always been greed. It can only be greed. A library doesn’t change that.
It isn’t bro, go read about the pinkertons, robber barons, etc. It’s not great now, but it is infinitely better than company towns, protestor massacres,pinkertons, and jimmy hoffa. Go read history it is amazing, I’m not calling you dumb, just ignorant of history and how bad things can really get if we don’t hold the line.
I think the point is that as long as certain services or fundamentals for living are based on good-will and philanthropy, they are in the end at the mercy of whims or calculated actions of those doing well.
It is PR in the sense that it does not only make the philanthropist look good, it also ties the subjects of the philanthrophy into a bond between the giver and receiver: as a receiver you are forever thankful to the philanthropist and in some perverted way constantly reminded of your subordinate status towards the giver. This strengthens the societal structures that benefit the rich and helps them stay powerful compared to massess. While I am sure that most rich people genuinely donate money to make things better and help others, it is still them who get to choose where the money is spent.
More equal and transparent option is to make sure that there is enough tax revenue to cover these kinds of costs from public spending.
I have also been playing with an idea of a philanthropic fund that allows anyone to donate, but not to decide where the money is spent. If the target for philanthropy could be decided by a group of experts/public poll, money could probably be allocated to places where it is needed the most. However, I am sure there would be a lack of bigger donations as the PR effect would be smaller…
It’s not that they had dignity or cared, it’s that news sources were so limited that if they did something shitty they just paid off the papers and nobody was ever the wiser
Bro they take 95% of the wealth and then donate back 5% and always have, don’t believe the hype my friend. OR some wait until they die and donate 20% and leave 80% in perpetual trust to keep their descendants rich and they then dribble out small amounts to charity to keep it as a tax haven.
Your last point is something that I often say: we’ll never figure out how to reverse aging, we’ll only figure out how to stop Elon Musk aging.
On the philanthropy point: We used to have more progressive taxation systems that discouraged wealth-hoarding. For someone of arbitrarily large income, massive philanthropic acts were often ways to avoid paying taxes. They were going to lose the money either way, but by building a library, expanding a hospital, funding a humanitarian project, feeding the poor or whatever they could choose where the money was spent instead and, as others have said, get some good PR and legacy-building at the same time. Now their wealth isn’t threatened by taxation, why would they even consider relinquishing it?
I think the privatized space launch vehicles push is worthy endeavour. Costs of launching on space x are significantly lower. Lockheed and Boeing weren’t doing it, and there will be benefit to society in the future.
However, that’s about all I can justify as being well meaning. So many other ventures were completely stupid. Instead of buying Twitter, he could have built the highspeed rail and owned that shit, but naw.
I mean, the Russians competed with the US space race at a much lower budget. Privatization of this stuff wasn’t necessary to make it cheaper. The US government is just particularly inefficient with spending at times.