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 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.

Honestly, the space race part of it isn't concerning to me at all. The fact that it's between billionaire-backed companies is several policy failures, though.

NASA has traditionally relied heavily on defense/space contractors. The space shuttle was built by Rockwell International (which was eventually acquired by Boeing).

The Saturn V rocket that took people to the moon was manufactured by Boeing, Douglas (which became part of McDonnell Douglas, which was acquired by Boeing), and North American (which got acquired by Rockwell, which was acquired by Boeing).

But through consolidation in the American aerospace industry, the bloated behemoth that is modern Boeing has serious issues holding it back. And so the rise of new competition against Boeing is generally a good thing!

Except the only companies that were started up to compete with Boeing were funded largely as ego projects by billionaires who made so much money in other fields that they have excess billions to throw around.

NASA's new approach to contracting is fine, too: basically promising prizes to companies that hit milestones, which put the risk (and potential reward) on the private companies. Then, once SpaceX did demonstrate feasibility, NASA switched to fixed price contracts for a lot of the programs and did save a ton of money compared to previous cost-plus contract pricing. It's unclear whether other space companies can deliver services at prices competitive with SpaceX, but their attempts at least force SpaceX to bid lower prices.

Ideally, we would've retained a competitive aerospace industry in the past few decades, and a bunch of companies would be competing with each other to continue delivering space services to NASA and other space agencies (and private sector customers that might want satellite stuff). And these companies would be big corporate entities where the major shareholders aren't exactly household names (like Boeing today).

The way Bezos and Musk became billionaires would be a problem even if they didn't try to go to space. The way they're trying to go to space doesn't really move the needle much, in my opinion.

the thing is that NASA did indeed try to build reusable spaceships themselves back in 1968 with the space shuttle. the thing is: they didn't make it. their space shuttle sucked and cost more than non-reusable rockets. Then some 30 years later SpaceX came along and somehow did the impossible, which is to build reusable rockets that are actually cheaper than the previous, non-reusable rockets. So, that's a big step forward. As a consequence, NASA started paying SpaceX for the fine product they were making that they tried to make themselves previously but failed.

And not only that, but if you taxed them at 99% they’d still have silly amounts of money and ungodly financial security while even 20% off a poor person being paid by a less rich local business is just hurting the both of them. Taxes are a good thing but like you say they are horrendously unbalanced.

National space programs suck. We need a united international space push. Something overseen by... Let's call it the Union Aerospace Corporation. When earth science and tech is combined who knows what they can do on distant research bases set up in places like Mars. Maybe even open portals to transfer matter and energy across vast distances.

the thing is that NASA did indeed try to build reusable spaceships themselves back in 1968 with the space shuttle. the thing is: they didn't make it. their space shuttle sucked and cost more than non-reusable rockets. Then some 30 years later SpaceX came along and somehow did the impossible, which is to build reusable rockets that are actually cheaper than the previous, non-reusable rockets. So, that's a big step forward. As a consequence, NASA started paying SpaceX for the fine product they were making that they tried to make themselves previously but failed.

Thr government is supposed to enforce regulations in a capitalistic market like ours.

Amazon should have been torn a new asshole for some of the anti competitive things they've done for example, which would have maybe prevented or at least slowed what happened.

Google should have been broken up ages ago

And so on.

The rules and regulations are there, it's just become so corrupt they aren't being enforced.

Hereeee we areeeee...

I think capitalism can work depending on two things

1. The state must discipline and tax the capitalists constantly.

2. There is a competing system that capitalism has to outperform.

If you want to fix it you need a new economic system.

We could try actually free markets with no benefits to anyone. By benefits here I mean tax breaks, government contracts and subsidies for companies.

T(axed) E(nough) A(lready) Party

Are you in the Netherlands?

Richard Branson.

I'd go for 99% after 5 bil

Subs are cheaper

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.

I wouldn't do that, it's barbaric overkill. You could accomplish the same result with like five Morties and a jumper cable — which I also wouldn't do... just saying... it's bad craftsmanship.

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.

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.

That's what they want. We can't eat the rich if we can't reach the rich.

Both can be true

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.

In a free market, competition has end results. Buisnes don't just keep competing with one another ad infinitum. One of them eventually cant keep up and closes shop. It's competitors expand into the space it previously filled. This process repeats until you have fewer and fewer firms that account for more and more of their sector of the economy. New business do not have resources to eke out space in an already filled niche.

Under a long enough time frame, a free market creates less competition.

that nets that much profits

that's kinda the issue, building rockets isn't all that profitable. they do it anyways because they believe in the vision and that it will pay off long-term, just not short-term

"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