larrytheimp

Also cool but I'm still advocating the heart in the butt tattoo. Or just a "WHAT DO YOU SEE?"

And the irony is that it'll be the envirohippies, if anyone, who colonizes mars

Where did you stop beating your wife?

Wasn't a copper tree the house of Tsonos or something? I think knee of the mansions symbols was a tree. Personally, if I was getting a Bakker tattoo I'd go with a dagger across the throat and the script "some corruption begs not the cloth, but the knife". On an unrelated note, but still Bakker related art, RRL sent me an Instagram link yesterday to a drawing by this awesome artist Porous Walker who made a pretty good rendition (unknowingly, I'd assume) of the HitB theory. Fair warning most of his artwork is not safe for work. I have a pin of a grateful dead steal your face emblem except it's got a butthole on the skulls forehead.

Cool, looking forward to your thoughts as this has been in my TBR pile for a long time.

Here's how it's going to play out: musk won't send the sub through because it will probabaly get stuck. He'll probabaly say they were unable to secure permits or some other excuse,.or more likely, let the question of why they didn't send the sub through fade away. I'm actually very impressed with the hoops you've managed to jump through to support Musk through what has surely been a difficult time for him and his family. Imagine being involved in that kind of rescue situation and having your expertise called in to question. The mind positively boggles, Jeeves.

Care to elaborate?

Come on, who has suggested death panels for when your idea fails. Ffs. I don't actually support outlawing private investment. I've been defending it because, for one, I think democratic control of the world's resources is preferable to trusting profit to do the right thing. I support a shift towards having major structural controls on unfettered capitalism, but I think it's actually too entrenched in the current system to do much about. And secondly, some of the arguments against Felice's preference were flawed (see the alleged stifling of innovation). Our laws protect a corporation making money for shareholders over everything else. This has proven disastrous for the environment, perpetuated inequality, and contributed to concentrating the profits of all this into the hands of a few. For all this dollar worship, what you earn has hardly anything to do with how hard or how creatively you work. IP laws heavily favor corporations over individuals. It's not like the woman or man actually coming up with the idea is necessarily rewarded for it. It's also not as if all innovation is supported by major VC investment right now. Not every cool new idea needs a hundred million dollars behind it like in HBOs Silicon Valley. I think that especially when it comes to medicine, we need to change shit up. There's no reason that shareholders quarterly profits are more important than public health. When the product's profitability is given priority over its utility there is a problem. I'm not saying someone needs to suck it up and go bankrupt making something that costs $500,000 a dose to produce. But like with that Lyme disease vaccine, the government should have a way to step in and force a license on a patent or something to be able to manufacture a product that's being sat on thanks to antivaxxers and an uncertain market 15 years ago. The reality is that command vs free market is a spectrum, not an either or. And for me, I'd rather take the flaws that come with more state (read: democratic )influence than the flaws of unrestricted capitalism. This planet is going to shit because we priortize a shareholders profits over our children's health. And there are motherfuckers doubling down on this shit all throughout Trumps cabinet. I just can't see prioritizing someone's right to be a little more rich over shit like public health, the environment, fair working conditions, etc. And when the counter argument is "well it'll stifle innovation" I just think it's so much bs. ETA: re: state using force on bad inventors: we already have companies like GE blow hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars developing a products for the government that never even end up being used (see that jet engine contract that went to Pratt & Whitney or someone else back in the early 2000's). How many members of the board did we execute? How many of the people responsible for the financial crisis ten years ago were beheaded?

This is missing the point. I'd venture that most of the working world doesn't work hard because of the money. Most jobs have a pay ceiling and it's not like you stop trying or doing good work just because compensation is nearly maxed out. I bust my ass for a lot of reasons but money certainly isn't even in the top 5. I'm unlikely to make much more. I could probably find an easier job that pays about the same. But I'm not really interested. Money isn't the only reason people try to do well. I think you're right though that it wouldn't be the same people running things - in my mind the goal would be to develop useful technology, products and services rather than profitable ones, so I doubt that a typical VC would be a good fit.

NASA

Actually you gave a hypothetical caricature of how you imagine state controlled capital used for innovation would work.

Lol way to completely miss the point. Private capital isn't some magic wand that brings all good ideas to fruition. I gave an example that demonstrates this

My point is simply that innovation and capitalism don't go hand in hand, and that people aren't motivated soley by the dollar, and a system where profit is the metric of 'good' is necessarily limiting. A lot of corporate innovation happens on the government's dime.

Private capital invests in what it thinks is profitable. Imagine the innovation that could occur if an idea was pursued on quality alone. Just an example - there's a Lyme disease vaccine out there for humans. But it's not profitable so it's not being manufactured anymore. In the mean time, instead of preventing the disease in the first place, it's being treated with antibiotics after the fact. And we all know what's happening with antibiotics and superbugs. Just one example of private property preventing, and actively harming, public health.

*Bows, blows kisses to the crowd*