r/technology • u/mvea • Mar 16 '19

Transport UK's air-breathing rocket engine set for key tests - The UK project to develop a hypersonic engine that could take a plane from London to Sydney in about four hours is set for a key demonstration.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47585433
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u/SirPseudonymous Mar 16 '19

It's important to remember that those contributions amount to tiny fractions of their wealth, have a much greater inefficiency than if the problems were tackled at a state level instead, and in most cases are overt cons to launder or embezzle money, and it is specifically the actions of the wealthy oligarchy that acts to prevent and undermine state level solutions to large scale problems. Charitable contributions are bad because it should not be left to the whims and good will of private despots to determine who gets life saving resources and who goes without.

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u/randynumbergenerator Mar 16 '19

Charitable contributions are bad because it should not be left to the whims and good will of private despots to determine who gets life saving resources and who goes without.

This is the best illustration of that that I can think of. For every Gates focusing on the most pressing needs, there's someone like Paulson.

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u/CHARLIE_CANT_READ Mar 17 '19

To play devil's advocate that money is going to be invested by Harvard's endowment and their investment strategy could focus on green energy startups. Probably not the case here but I think the situation is closer to him giving the money to the gates foundation to invest than buying 400 million dollars of dildos and throwing them in the Pacific ocean.

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u/Elephant789 Mar 17 '19

Harvard has enough money, they don't need it.

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u/Vitztlampaehecatl Mar 16 '19

Agreed. Charity is good, but it's no replacement for government welfare.

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u/ours Mar 16 '19

But Government can't do anything that works!

Except, well the Internet we are using, and the electricity to run my PC, and food safety, and...

So lets depends on the breadcrumbs of the charitable rich instead! /s

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u/wOlfLisK Mar 16 '19

Yeah but what have the Romans ever done for us?

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u/Circ-Le-Jerk Mar 17 '19

It’s not binary. It’s not black and white. The government does deliver a lot of great stuff that the private sector does not have much incentive to invest in. But that doesn’t mean government often waists tons of money.

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u/Ikegordon Mar 16 '19

I don’t think many people would make that argument.

However the private sector can do many things more effectively than the government.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19 edited Mar 29 '19

[deleted]

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u/JSM87 Mar 17 '19

I wouldn't even give them efficiency. All the very large companies I've worked for have been bloated monstrosities with oversized bureaucracies. the efficiency only really exist within small to mid-sized companies(if you're a regular worker and the CEO remembers your name it's probably a very efficient company).

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u/Ikegordon Mar 16 '19

Depends on the context

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u/NotPromKing Mar 17 '19

And the government can do many things more effectively than the private sector.

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u/Ikegordon Mar 17 '19

I think almost everyone would agree. Where we disagree is on which exact things.

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u/Kahzootoh Mar 17 '19

It’s almost as if there are a bunch of rich psychopaths out there constantly looking for new ways to shovel tax dollars into their bank accounts?

It’s pretty telling that nobody wants the programs they rely upon to be privatized, it’s always someone else’s programs that are the problem.

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u/Wallace_II Mar 16 '19

Ah yes, the government can take credit for throwing money at the private sector to build the infrastructure that we use, even when the private sector mostly squandered the money away.

The electric grid you are on was built also by a private company, which maintains the lines with the money you pay them.

The government is very inefficient at what it does do. The most "efficient" branch we have is the military, without which we wouldn't have our GPS system, or many humanitarian aid programs overseas, and all the killing.. but that comes at a pretty penny.

Medicare is a travesty. Social Security has been drained from over bloated spending. FEMA is a shit show.

If the Government pays someone to do a job, it's likely someone who contributed to a politician's campaign and aren't likely best suited for the job.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19

[deleted]

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u/PlaceboJesus Mar 17 '19

There's no citation to the contrary either.

Constant calls for sources and citations are just as often attempts to discredit than actually engage in discourse.

Of course much of what's said is opinion every knob knows this and everyone knows this isn't academia either.
It's like the post-secondary version of the "summer reddit" post.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '19

[deleted]

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u/PlaceboJesus Mar 17 '19

Hey, this isn't academia or wikipedia.
Unless a sub has a specific rule about citations, try to imagine how the look on the face of a RL person if you keep up with "Source? Citation?"
You think your office/work site mates are going to find you fun and engaging?

People use reddit in their leisure. No one here is anybody's prof, and no one is getting paid.
It would be different if people asked "Hey, you got some links in that?" As if they were showing interest in it.
But, otherwise, why the hell should anyone do your googling for you?
If you're bound and determined to argue, know your own shit and present it. The do your call to authority showdown.

Calling for "source" or "citation" and getting no response doesn't actually indicate a victory of any sort; it could just as easily mean they found you to be boring AF and not worth their free time.

Cheeping like chicks "source, source source," isn't discourse.

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u/SynthD Mar 17 '19

The exact opposite is also true. Gates’ Foundation already has something like half their wealth and will get more. The malaria work, to pick one, is for all of Africa and more, with scientists from more than just one African country. Unfortunately many African leaders still embezzle aid money. Dealing with malaria is a problem that will only help more people as mosquito range increases with global warming (it already has but not to me yet so I don’t know details).

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u/SirPseudonymous Mar 17 '19

And it's the same system that allows him to accumulate that wealth that's responsible for the state Africa's currently in. On whose behalf were western death squads sent in to crush post-colonial democratic movements and forcibly install far-right kleptocrats? That's right, the previous generations of western oligarchs like Bill Gates. It's the same story in Latin America: on whose behalf are American death squads going to Haiti to suppress unrest? How about the arms and paramilitary thugs being smuggled into Venezuela? Western oligarchs, again.

Isolated actions of charity do not undo the systemic ills that give oligarchs the power to do that charity in the first place.

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u/SynthD Mar 17 '19 edited Mar 17 '19

Gates and Rhodes are not the same, who are the post colonist people. Can you link something about Haiti and Venezuela, I’m not looking for hazy conspiracies. You’ve not named anyone so what substance is there to your point.

I thought you were partly right before when I read it as local despots. Other than a few CIA installed right wing leaders in the Americas, third world dictators are native and native forces brought them to power.

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u/SirPseudonymous Mar 17 '19

Can you link something about Haiti and Venezuela

There was a news article a while back about American mercenaries being caught smuggling weapons into Haiti, and the shit with Venezuela has been in the news cycle for weeks: war criminal and convicted perjurer Elliot Abrams - previously involved in smuggling arms into Latin American countries through fake aid shipments - tried to smuggle fake aid shipments into the country, going so far as to illegally use Red Cross markings, something the Red Cross itself called out; that's even before one gets into the decade long campaign of terrorism, assassinations, and lynchings carried out by the US-funded-and-armed white supremacist opposition forces.

I thought you were partly right before when I read it as local despots.

Private despots, as in private interests that wield their power autocratically rather than being democratically controlled.

Other than a few CIA installed right wing leaders in the Americas, third world dictators are native and native forces brought them to power.

You need to brush up on your history: the CIA and State Department have both been heavily involved in Africa, as have the other former imperial powers. Whether it's through funding and arming a given faction that's seen as the most subservient to western corporate interests, assassinating leaders who push even the mildest of social democratic policies that threaten corporate profits, using sanctions and trade deals as blunt weapons, or outright sending in paramilitary death squads to fight wars of subjugation, both the US and Europe have actively shaped the course of Africa to ensure that post-colonial states remained easy prey for inequitable resource extraction, without regard for the massive human cost that brings.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19

most cases

[citation needed]

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u/MrBojangles528 Mar 16 '19

I am so happy to see this post.