this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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I think that most hate for SpaceX is people actually hating on Elon Musk. While hating Elon Musk is fully understandable, from a technological perspective, SpaceX brings humanity forwards.
I still think starlink should have been a publicly funded endeavor by NASA. We could have led the world by offering free connection to places that truly need it abroad.
Also, of less immediate concern but once asteroid mining takes off, I'd rather these rockets not be in the hands of private equity. Disparity will break this world, sooner or later.
I think that's a pretty wild take given the state of NASA right now. The only way I could see anything like that happening would be the GPS model, where the DoD build out StarShield for military purposes, then realise it'd be a net good for civilians to have ubiquitus global internet services. Even then, that would compete with existing non-SpaceX services which is antithetical to NASAs principles and would be considered 'socialism' by half of America.
Asteroid mining is really in the hands of governments. While space is basically a free-for-all on an international level, each nation can levy whatever conditions and taxes they like on their own enterprise. If companies tried to 'flag' themselves with low-tax nations, then I think other nations could levy tariffs and prevent access to technology to make that unattractive. Either way, a significant portion should end up in government budgets.
I'd rather private equity invest in more forward looking technology than LLMs or finance. There just needs to be a balance where it's still attractive for them to invest, but as much of the value as reasonable gets distributed in lifting up the quality of life here on earth.
"needs to be a balance" this is exactly the problem right. There is zero balance, to the extent that even projects that set out to be operated for the benefit of humanity (open AI, looking at you) get converted to just enrich the already ludicrously wealthy. The corporation is a lever to concentrate wealth. Really important projects being closely controlled by billionaires is the natural consequence of this. Their unfettered power puts us all at risk from their capriciousness.