[nickpsecurity]

"Lots of good points intermingled with unwarranted jabs at Elon Musk, X-risk and anti-aging efforts. I suppose the latter are just signalling, but they do detract from the point he's making."

They actually don't. These people are throwing billions of dollars at the wrong problems. There are problems solvable with a fraction of that affecting Americans across the board. If they want people to live longer, patent reform (eg reducing patent length) devaluing cancer drugs/equipment followed by buying them and non-profit manufacturing (i.e. low margin) would save lots of lives or improve those who otherwise would mortgage a house. Likewise, hitting both copyright and patent law in a way to allow clean-slate clones of software like Oracle would fight lock-in. They could fund use of the courts plus tech-assisted cooperation on so many local issues that happen all over the place like gerrymandering or water supplies being poisoned. They might even build a new Tier 1 or Tier 3 ISP as a public benefit company w/ privacy and net neutrality in its charter plus a range of services from gigabit for businesses to wireless mesh for poor areas built on consumer routers. Edit to add investment into those lego-like, pre-fab houses and apartments that are dirt cheap vs traditional homes might make it easier to get more people affordable homes or reduce homelessness.

All kinds of existing problems can be solved with focused efforts by millionaires or billionaires. Instead, they're going to Mars, trying to live forever, or some other stuff while worrying about fantasy problems.

[TeMPOraL]

> These people are throwing billions of dollars at the wrong problems.

That's your (and idlewords's) opinion, but other people may disagree. In particular, I don't understand the desire to pick on Elon's work on the Mars program, when it pushes forward an industry with huge knock-on effects that are very beneficial to society[0], while he's also one of the few people doing high-impact work in fighting climate change. Tell me that's a "wrong" problem to solve.

You mention a bunch of other problems, but the thing is, most of them are problems that should be solved by our democratic governments. Who is a SV billionaire to tell us how copyright law should work? Not to mention, some of those problems are such that those billionaires could put all their wealth into solving them and in the end have little to show for it. Take gerrymandering - this is not something you can solve by just throwing money at it; the money will get stolen by the same people who perpetuate the problem.

Also, if you want billionaires to work on problems you deem to be "right", you should encourage them instead of mocking each one that choses to do some good instead of buying a new yacht. Or, if you prefer a less consequentialist approach, let's focus on insulting all the other rich people, both within and outside of tech industry, who don't help solve social problems.

> They might even build a new Tier 1 or Tier 3 ISP as a public benefit company w/ privacy and net neutrality in its charter plus a range of services from gigabit for businesses to wireless mesh for poor areas built on consumer routers.

SpaceX is actually on its way to do that with their LEO Internet satellites program.

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When I talk about "unwarranted jabs", I mean things like the whole "Irreality" chapter of the talk, which is one long mix of ad-hominems and mocking people that disagree with him. So Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are suddenly trying to cause "the collapse of representative government". OpenAI is a cult now[1]. And anti-aging is obviously meant to ensure "that our big idea men don’t expire before the world has been received the full measure of their genius".

This is stuff that I'd expect to hear from John Oliver, who's running a comedy show. Not from someone who attempts to discuss serious issues.

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[0] - For starters, I'll refer you to WTFNasa, existence of GPS and the impact satellites have on global agriculture, healthcare, logistics and disease management.

[1] - his reasoning is explaioned more by his previous talk of AI; I'll leave discussing that particular talk to Scott Alexander - http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/01/g-k-chesterton-on-ai-ri....

[nickpsecurity]

"In particular, I don't understand the desire to pick on Elon's work on the Mars program, when it pushes forward an industry with huge knock-on effects that are very beneficial to society[0]"

So does fixing housing, media, universities, medical, copyright/patent law, and so on. They'll have immediate benefit to all kinds of people on a massive level. If anything, those ripple effects will likely be superior to a Mars project even creating more Elon Musks as opportunities and capabilities increase with critical costs decreasing.

Meanwhile, as technocrati screw around like they are, the real elites that own this country continue doing the reverse of what I suggest controlling more and more doing more and more damage to the benefit of the tiniest few. Those elites are focusing on all the critical areas with wide impact. Just with perverse incentives that lead to harm. The Elon Musks should do the same with more benevolent stance to act as a balance against them plus create opportunities instead of remove them. So, far the only large, tech companies lobbying Washington and working at those levels are the most harmful or selfish ones. The rest are just rich people parasiting on a system actual elites control. Too bad as the people need benevolent elites these days.