677. Should We Care When Billionaires Go to Space? Here's Why It Actually Matters

0:00Hi Rachel, hi Brittany. I just spoke in a really high-pitched voice. I could have broken a glass with that greeting like the opera singers. Well today I want to talk about a billionaires going to space which is a topic that we've been people have been talking about all over the place because some celebrities it was like Katie Perry. What's her name? Is it Olivia Munn? I always get her and the other one confused. Another celebrity, she's married to John Mulaney, the comedian, Gail King, Oprah's best friend and then I can't remember the other celebrities. Oh Jeff Bezos' fiance or wife. So it was all this female crew. They all went up to space and it was like oh look we went to space. Katie Perry got back and she kissed the ground like I'm so glad to be back on her spiritual thing and the funny love. They were only in space for

1:00so that whole journey was 11 minutes but they were only in space for four. So it wasn't like they were gone for the parents you know. And they're taking selfies the whole time. And for the parents who've seen Interstellar it wasn't like they were gone for you know 30 years. Interstellar is a favorite movie in our house. I feel like it's everyone's favorite movie. I've just saw it for the first time in the theater when it was re-released in December and I had never seen it before and I don't like space, space terrifies me because the idea of being lost in space just scares me. And let me tell you I was bawling in that movie theater. That movie was so good. Especially I think as a parent watching it you probably get a little emotional. I'm assuming right because there's the whole thing. We won't go too much in Interstellar. I don't want to spoil it. But that's for everyone's mind. And this was not a NASA trip. This was a blue origin trip and that is Jeff Bezos the founder CEO of Amazon. That's his company. And years and years ago Connor and

2:04I did a podcast where I talked about billionaire space travel because that was when it was Elon, Jeff Bezos, and I love him. Oh my goodness. What's his name? Richard Branson. Thank you. Richard Branson, we're having the like they all started their own private space companies. And they were all trying to race to space and people were like, oh, these billionaires were sitting here paying whatever for eggs and they're going to space. And that's happening again today. And there's also the silliness of people being like, this is feminism. Let's go to space. And it was like you were you were in space for four minutes. It's calm down. It's calm down here. Also they'll throw the line at Adam like they think of how many people they could have fed and clothed with that money or you know climate change alarmism about like the fuel. But then you know they all take private jets and that's fine for some reason. Oh that always makes me laugh because I know people like Taylor Swift are taking jets all the time. But no, like she gets a car or

3:09Al Gore. Yes. Yes. When you heard about the Al Gore effect, like wherever he goes talk about global warming. It's like always like unseasonably cold like snowing. So funny. July. He is climate change. He's the cause of the Gore effect. But I want to talk about billionaire space travel because of what we were just talking about a second ago that people are up in arms like, oh, this is you know you could have fed people and kind of like I just said like I do think it's a little bit silly too. Just because I don't think the income inequality or the class you know stuff is silly. What I think is silly is it's like Katie Perry talking about how she understands love now and the universe makes sense and it's like all right you were there for four minutes. So that part silly. But there's a broader lesson here that I want to talk about and that is why should we care? Why doesn't matter that these billionaires are going into space and I think it does. I think it does matter because it seems silly today. But Mises, the economist, Ludic van Mises, he wrote a

4:09book liberalism and he talks about income inequality or this wealth inequality which is a big point of contention between individualists and collectivists right because the collectivists they're always thinking like you have to you know nobody should have more than somebody else. So if there's somebody hungry then we should be feeding them before you even think about going to space you know things like that. But in this book Mises this is way before we were going to space. But he wrote and he was talking about how there were all these luxuries back in the day that aren't luxuries anymore. They're just normal things and they only became normal things because rich people were able to buy them and consume them and then they were able to be made cheaper eventually. So his example was silverware. And that might seem silverware. Silverware. Now have you ever been to medieval times Rachel? Oh I love medieval times. I've been there once. I've been there once. I was 13 but it stuck with me because I loved it so much. It's I mean this is nerdy but Rachel and I are both theater kids at heart. You go and it's kind of like a renaissance fair like you pretend you're

5:12watching a medieval like nights are jousting and you have like a night you're supposed to cheer for and they bring you what like this food you're supposed to be like they give you like a chicken leg and things like that but they don't give you silverware you can ask for it they'll give it to you but they don't give you silverware because it's like oh it's supposed to be authentic you're supposed to be like living in the medieval times eating with your hands eating with your face greets right wipe it on your clothes but people did in the medieval time they did not have utensils to eat with in fact only the very very very rich had utensils and there was a point in time when people were like can you believe these billionaires were hungry and they're eating from you know silverware from these utensils made of precious metals how dare they and people who were all up in arms about it now let's look from today's sides like it's silly to think of eating food with our hands right like that's just so silly to us you we we pay to go to medieval times do experience right that's not something we have here everybody uses silverware it has a good role like there's a reason for it

6:15but that was only able to happen because these very rich people started using these utensils and then that idea struck somebody else and like you know we don't have to make this out of precious metals let's make this out of this let's you know and slowly it got cheaper and I got more affordable and it trickled down to people of of all you know class social classes I mean look at you can go to Walmart and you can get when I first moved in my first college apartment I think I got like a pack of like four forks four spoons four knives for like three dollars granted that was a long time ago but you can get them for so cheap right and it's because billionaires did it first well they weren't billionaires with them but you know the very very wealthy same with iPhones it used to not be that everyone could afford an iPhone right but more people bought it and then they found better ways to produce it and then it became cheaper or um Rachel remember not everyone had a VCR back in the day yeah I have some examples yeah really so so there is a famous industrialist here a developer land developer um famous in Florida called Marie Flagler yeah

7:20Henry Flagler he was a partner with John D Rockefeller and they formed standard oil which is today X on anyway one of the most fabulously wealthy men on the planet and he built this mansion called Whitehall it's over in Palm Beach and it's a museum now but in one of the grand music rooms beautiful rooms just lush and um I learned that okay so the walls were kind of shiny it looked like gold I'm like wow is that gold on the wall and the dose and said no actually that's aluminum I'm like aluminum you think he could afford something better than aluminum and she said no actually aluminum was a luxury item before they developed a process to make it like cheap how it is today it it was like the the fancy thing so to put it on the wall was considered back in those days which would be like 18 that was a sign of wealth yeah that was a sign of wealth and it was

8:20very beautiful um and another thing is linoleum linoleum flooring started off as like a luxury product and you can imagine why like before linoleum it would be like wood floors and they would be subject to getting scuffed and dirty and blah blah blah but I mean something came along that you could wash easier like linoleum you you know it's water resistant um and and that was the new the new fancy wealthy thing of course now it's linoleum floor is it's not something that you yeah yeah a hardwood floor today is like a luxury thing but you know things change and things like like you said they trickle down something that's like luxury one day trickles down and it becomes available for everybody and makes everybody's life better so um maybe because we have billionaires in space we'll have like normal people in space one day and maybe I will get my four minutes to learn about love space space I don't think space terrifies me but uh but uh yes when people

9:27might be thinking like well why why would going to space be like utensils or be like linoleum or aluminum and we might not know that yet we might not know that yet and like not to be all like I've been watching a lot of like dystopian movies lately not to be like maybe we'll run out of resources here and we need to go to another planet but I don't know maybe we will like we don't know we can't always see what's going to be big in the future if you would have told me when I was in elementary school that I would have a tiny computer that I held in the palm of my hand and that I did everything with that I talked to people that I used the internet and that I paid everything I just do two clicks and use apple pay if you would have told me that an iPhone was going to be everything or smartphones I would not have believed you right that would have been so just incomprehensible at the time and so we don't know what space might do for us we don't know maybe there's going to be a cure to something found on another planet maybe I don't know it could be anything I know something um my husband is an astrophysicist and he's studying a lot about

10:31astronomy and uh he says that what we should do is mind the asteroids because there's gold on the asteroids so we could we could hop like somehow lasso and asteroid you know and and and sit on top of it and like start mining for gold and other rare minerals so that's one thing there you go but but then but then if we do that too much then guess what loses value gold because we can't get two in the week that's a whole other that's a other thing I don't know if I said this quote already I may have in the beginning but I'm going to say it again just as we wrap up and that is Beesys put it perfectly where he said today's luxuries will be the necessities of tomorrow so we don't know so is it silly that some billionaires and celebrities went to space maybe but guess what they can do it it's their money and I love seeing I love the billionaires have the freedom financial freedom to do things like this it takes trailblazers like this to do the things that

11:34I would never do that I couldn't afford to do so should we care about billionaires going to space I think so I think it's actually pretty cool maybe it is pretty cool even if they're being silly about it I think it's pretty cool so we will wrap it up there please don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast and share with your friends and until next time Rachel we will talk to you later it's actually later