- cross-posted to:
- WorkReform@europe.pub
- cross-posted to:
- WorkReform@europe.pub
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It’s a clear sign the government isn’t, itself, spending enough on spaceflight and associated R&D.
Turning our next generation of economic and military supremacy over to the dipshit horn dogs that tanked retail sales and fucked up the post office seems like a huge mistake.
With higher progressive taxes, not only do we stop billionaires from possibly existing, but the government gets more resources to spend on spaceflight R&D among other things.
Governments HAVE the resources. They CHOOSE to not spend it on R&D.
But taxing the rich would give them even MORE resources
That they also won’t use on R&D. Or healthcare. Or housing. Or feeding people. Those things aren’t shit for a lack of resources to fund them, they’re shit for a lack of interest in funding them. That’s not a problem you can fix with more money.
Both can be true
90% should be the minimum after 1 million a year
I’d go for 99% after 5 bil
Log tax rate.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist at all
I’d go for 200% after 5 bil, because their wealth needs to be lowered.
There should be a wealth cap much lower than that. Perhaps 10 mil. Enough to live comfortably for life but not enought to have enormous power over politics.
$999,999,999 is just fine though!
Stop focusing on an arbitrary figure and start focusing on a real progressive income tax with no loopholes or workarounds.
“Billionaire” is a sound bite to focus attention. Publicizing “An improved progressive taxation rate” isn’t as marketable.
$999,999,999 is just fine though!
Better than $450 billion, gotta start somewhere
I say we put them all in a rocket and shoot them into space…
That’s it. Problem solved.
That’s kinda expensive. Just put then in a field and strap some explosives on them, same net effect without wasting millions of taxpayer money.
Subs are cheaper
Especially if you don’t plan to bring them back.
Anchor and chains in 20m waters is much cheaper.
Ancher and chain?! In this economy! A .22 round is about ¢28
I mean at that rate stoning is free, but I don’t wanna stoop to taliban. Maybe French had the right idea.
Ya gravity and a blade sharpener is a good rate for upkeep.
I say we put them all in a rocket and shoot them into space…
you’re not gonna believe this but that’s actually what they’re trying to do.
Win win
Yeah… no. First other, no less greedy people will inherit their wealth, second capitalism guarantees the concentration of wealth to absurd degrees. “Kill all billionaires” is surprisingly not a good solution to the problem of billionaires.
Oh, I read the OC idea as a symptom cure. It’s not as good as curing the cause, but symptoms need to be addressed too.
We can build more rockets…
I don’t even know who the first one is and I’m kind of afraid of finding out
Richard Branson.
I haven’t heard anything particularly bad about him. Actually, I don’t know anything about him. How’s he like?
Not that it really matters but he’s been knighted.
She should have swung that sword a lot harder
I agree, but they’re not giving enough credit to human greed and megalomania. It should be at least 50/50.
It’s not a policy failure; it’s a feature of the system. We need a different system that doesn’t allow the existence of billionaires to begin with
nor that they give a rat’s ass about sustainability, humanity, earth etc like some of them like Elon claims
If you’ve got money to waste on doing the same space shots that they’ve been doing for the last 65 years, just with newer technology, all while people in America are hungry, and suffering from lack of health care, then we should take away everything they own, and redistribute it to the people. We can even name each distribution after the benefactor. First we’ll have the Musk distribution, then the Bezos, distribution, then the Ellison distribution, etc.
And their companies, primarily created and made profitable by government grants and tax breaks, belong to the American people, and they should be confiscated, and operated for the profit benefit of the American people. To make it fair, the billionaire, and his descendents, will always have an entry level job available, at entry level wages, but they will be treated like any other employees, and can be fired without rehiring privileges. They aren’t entitled to any special treatment, other than a guaranteed job. After that, they have to behave themselves.
Jesus all commies.
Now you guys have a problem with innovation.
Can you explain to me, in your own words, what you believe a “commie” is?
Belief that government can do better or some rich people innovating is a bad thing.
Right. Try reading a book.
Said the commie
Oh no, anything but that
Socialist
Leftists are the first to laud innovation when it benefits regular people. This is just a dick measuring contest by some asshats, financed by stealing billions of dollars from their workers.
You do realize that NASA has a fixed budget for the science missions they can run right? Amd you do realize that when the launch costs for their satellites are 50x lower, that means they can run more science missions more often?
We all hate Musk, but it’s fucking insane to look at the equivalent of the first airplane company that could land a plane and didn’t just destroy it after every flight, and say ‘thats just a dick measuring contest, how could that be useful?’
Capitalism can create innovation, but capitalism is not necessary for it. The very same innovation could have happened if the state spent a fraction of this money on R&D, without all the insane Terraform Mars T-shirts and 3 companies wasting resources to do pretty much exactly the same thing three times. Sadly the american government is not an effective redistributor of wealth, and any NASA budget comes with a million (dumb) strings attached, like spending it on certain projects that benefit the state senator who voted for it.
Also, I don’t know where you get that 50x number, SpaceX lowered the launch cost maybe by about 3-4x compared to contemporary chinese rockets.
Capitalism can create innovation, but capitalism is not necessary for it. The very same innovation could have happened if the state spent a fraction of this money on R&D, without all the insane Terraform Mars T-shirts and 3 companies wasting resources to do pretty much exactly the same thing three times. Sadly the american government is not an effective redistributor of wealth, and any NASA budget comes with a million (dumb) strings attached, like spending it on certain projects that benefit the state senator who voted for it.
In this situation, the state LITERALLY spent more money developing the SLS rocket, and it is going to be a colossal failure and waste of money compared to the rockets that can be reused.
Three companies trying to produce the same thing is not a waste, it’s literally the defining feature of capitalism and why every government, including the Chinese Communist government, still uses capitalist systems. Multiple entities competing to do the same thing gives you more variety and diversity, and hedges your bets in case one of them is wrong or corrupted by flawed people in it.
Also, I don’t know where you get that 50x number, SpaceX lowered the launch cost maybe by about 3-4x compared to contemporary chinese rockets.
Compared to SLS, the literal state funded alternative.
Your a scholar.
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Half the innovation and tech you use today is because of development by research councils that are government funded, military tech (government funded) or open source projects that were forked in some way shape or form.
Developed by private players not government, if you give civil servants the money they will burn it up.
Hahahahahahaha Jesus christ
Wow god you are special.
If there was a space race then you can guarantee that elon would want it out of the country.
it isn’t. it is an intended best case scenario for those invested. capitalism rewards trickery and thievery. excess wealth is part of its system dependent on class hierarchies. it was millionaires before billionaires and now we’re about to have our first trillionaire. for fucks sake.
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Power of all forms corrupts, but that doesn’t mean tyrants have a point when they disappear dissenters. Fuck the rich’s perspective, not because I’m above being a rich asshole (maybe I am, maybe I’m not, who knows) but because even if I was it wouldn’t justify hoarding my wealth at the expense of 99.9% of the population.
Temporarily embarrassed millionaire energy here.
We understand their perspective alright. The concept of a millionaire or billionaire is simply disgusting because it is clear they use the power their wealth offers them to get out of paying their fair share while simultaneously needlessly exploiting us even further and in some cases meddling in politics or media so as to delude us into thinking: this is normal or – in your case – won’t someone empathize with the billionaire?
If I became rich suddenly, I would spend it on improving life for rural Americans.
You’re projecting and assuming everyone else is a corrupt scumbag like you.
Lol, you do realize that Starlink is literally the first time that most rural Americans have had reliable high speed internet right?
Wrong.
You’re just outing yourself as a piece of garbage. I would pay my fucking employees, and if I somehow did it myself ethically it would be winning a lottery and I would share it amongst my friends and family.
I already do stuff like this. I own a sports car and I fight for pedestrianizing our streets, including the main one near where I live. I ride public transit and take the bike share service to get places. A guy once asked me to sign a petition to get rid of paid parking and I told him that I literally do not care and that it’s only fair that I personally pay to park my personal vehicle on publically funded infrastructure given how many people on that street don’t own cars and still have to pay for them.
You’re just an asshole who has already been visited by the sins of greed and pride and you’re just pissy that you don’t have the resources to act on those feelings. Be a better person, and quit this projecting bullshit; I don’t want any part of it.
If I become a billionaire, Lemmings would be right to break out the French cutlery and bibs.
I have no problem with the rich. In fact I love them! I’d love to have as many rich as possible.
Unfortunately, that means, the gold hoarding dragon monsters we have currently at the top need to go.
I’ve played fallout for more than 2 decades. How the fuck are we diving face first into every sci-fi dystopia at the same time? Like, there’s hints of star wars, dune, fallout, 1984, the outer worlds, hunger games, Idiocracy etc. I’m hoping cyberpunk 2077 shows up and gives a sliver of a chance.
Because those things were based on the real world and we are very bad at learning from the ever-growing list of mistakes we can’t stop making.
Cyberpunk 2077 is not a good world and does not have a good ending. That world is a horrid, capitalist dystopia. Maybe you should watch Edgerunners if you still can’t figure it out from the game.
The point was that as bad as cyberpunk’s future is, I’m fairly certain ours will be worse in 52 years. At least in their timeline there’s a resistance.
I suppose so? But there are things we can do right now that give us far more than a sliver of a chance. Unfortunately those things are “boring” and not as fashionable, like doing actual research and trusting real experts so it’s rough out there.
The main reason is because people are stupid and get taken advantage of accordingly.
Every time you saw a moron say “they’re a business and they need to make money!” you saw someone lowering their standards to make a rich person richer.
I’m absolutely pro taxing billionaires. But this has been like that forever and they fill an ingesting financing nieche with their dick measuring contest of a space race. Somebody financed all the expeditions to the north pole for example. They finance exploration and science ands engineering that the public is not willing to, but personally in glad somebody does. Also industry brings arguably far less politics and other inefficiencies with it that public funding does. Look at how the NASA budget is cut every few years and how their funding is mostly squandered overfeeding some States industry so their senators get to keep their constituency happy. I’m not saying I particularly love that there are people getting richer by the second while doing fuck all, but I love that they have a hobby that arguably benefits humanity long term.
