Obviously things cost money, you patronising jackass, but pining all your hopes on CEOs and the ultra-wealthy to cut in to their own profit margins for the sake of humanity makes you more braindead than I am. It’s scientific innovation that drives discovery, cost reduction, and economic growth, not profit-hoarding conglomerates.

A large portion of our discoveries and inventions in the past fifty years or more are building on top of innovations made during the 60s, 70s, and 80s by NASA’s launches. Electrical engineering, structural engineering, communications and data, materials sciences, all needed to be advanced for space travel. Handing this responsibility off to SpaceX just leads to all the data, discoveries, innovations, and corollaries being patented, trademarked, and locked away to make sure no competitor can take advantage of it.

Shell knew climate change was going to devastate the planet over 50 years ago. Did they capitalise on that opportunity to develop green and renewable energy first and completely dominate that market for the betterment of themselves and the planet? No. They locked down that information, spread misinformation for decades, and made short term profiteering decisions to advance their own individual careers. Now we’re watching the planet slowly burn. So sure, let’s trust the corporate pigs.

This is a horrible take. Absolutely awful, ultra-capitalist drivel. Why does every action or accomplishment have to be viewed through the lense of economic benefit? Not even holistic or utilitarian, just stakeholders and making the ultra-wealthy even wealthier… Who gives a fuck about space tourism? What the hell does that give us as a species?

The original comment about the importance of aerospace and space exploration is absolutely correct, but the idea that the end goal is space tourism is more than enough to make me turn against it also. The end goal is exploration, technological advancements, and a greater understanding of how our universe works. We should be taxing the ever-loving shit out of sociopaths like Musk and Bezos and feeding some of that in to NASA, and ESA, so scientists can make discoveries for us all, rather than businessmen making discoveries so they can exploit, gatekeep, and profit off it.

It seems like their economy is reliant on a series of short term fixes, and as each one winds down another bigger one needs to take its place.

12% interest is another example of this, it will improve things in the short term but has no effect on the underlying problems, meaning that in a couple of months or so something even more drastic will be needed.

How do you know?

For all we know that one person could have convinced another to vote in favour of debt relief. Or perhaps when it became clear the vote was standing 5-4 it would make one of those five decide it’s not clear enough and switch their vote because there wasn’t a strong enough majority to block the executive branch.

Or perhaps if it was blocked at 5-4 it would give more options for result to be challenged or appealed.

Lots of things might be different if politicians who say they are for the people actually act in the best interests of the people, even if that means they retire.