this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
1527 points (96.1% liked)

Memes

45124 readers
1411 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
1527
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

To be fair, if I was a billionaire and I had the choice of helping ordinary people or doing something awesome, I would definitely pick to do something awesome. I respect Bill Gates for fighting malaria, but I would go for spaceships or robots.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which is why not you, nor them should have so much money. We need to prevent idiots from doing idiot things by redistributing their wealth.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Helping ordinary people is the most awesome thing though.

[–] thrawn 11 points 1 year ago

Gates has the money to do both, and more. It’s just sometimes better to let others do it instead— having your own space company means worrying about competition, contracts, and potential profitability. Meanwhile if he wanted, he could hitch a ride on any of their rockets with no effort.

Musk and Bezos also have the money to do both, but they merely elect not to. Perhaps in the future they will, like Gates, begin funneling more of their effort and wealth into altruism to improve their reputations.

[–] fluxion 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But if it's something awesome marketed towards saving humanity then do something actually awesome and impactful instead of distracting bullshit like hyperloops and Mars colonies on unrealistic time-frames and self-driving cars instead of public transportation. Endless talk and grand gestures when these people have the resources to really drive improvements/innovations in achievable realistic projects.