It bothers me how he and other billionaires think that it's all worth it letting them get so rich because they "give it away". It's almost insulting.
You know who could have used all that money all this time? The people you leeched it away from via this thing known as taxes and a functioning government. But no, let's give it away to private foundations who will serve only their needs.
> I have visited quite a bit of small towns that were actively built I suppose in the 60-s, and often see abandoned ambitious or even grandiose projects like a park here, or a community center there - fully built but totally deserted now, often in ruins.
I think those probably failed for different reasons, namely capitalism destroying the small town in America.
It's unfortunate for the non-rich though, because we have to have our lives affected by those who are rich but don't want to spend time with us. Munger's "architecture" is a good example of that.
Not fully. There's a lot of institutional inertia that makes it hard to train and hire new ATC controllers. The pay isn't that great, it requires a lot of education, and you might have to move to some small city to get started for your career -- you're not gonna be doing JFK fresh out of certification. That might be fine if you're in your early 20's, but by the time you're qualified to be ATC you've probably got more than just job goals in your life. And unlike the military->civilian pipeline for pilots, there's not that many people who could transition to civilian ATC after a military career.
The current admin is probably not helping much, but it's an issue that goes back quite a bit.
Sadly the problem predated him, the FAA has been under funded for a long time. Last Week Tonight did a really good segment about it a year ago. However, Trump absolutely made it a lot worse.
> failed to provide convincing arguments for why mathematicians should widely receive funding for merely understanding things
Mathematicians receive almost no funding, as it is pennies coming from the already anemic NSF budget. I don't even know why it's a question as to why liberal arts needs more funding. They don't get any to begin with!
No. Euler solution would have bith names, this was not up to debate. The discussion was about the solution for NS, which was solved by OpenAI, but not by B&A. OpenAI proposed B a cooperation on NS (were super-nice and threw him a bone, really) using OpenAI's findings and resources. It would be weird to have A, an Anthropic employee, as part of the OpenAI research and project.
On the backs of the government and its people's tax money with nothing given back.
reply