>We literally got to the moon before any billionaires bought joy rides to lower orbit,
Once upon a time you needed nation state sponsorship in order to sail across the ocean.
It's absolutely insane to me that people don't see that a billionaire can do as a vanity project something that was ~50yr ago only the purview of superpowers as an obvious sign of societal progress.
There's some truth to this but for the most part you're drawing the wrong conclusion here; Things like aviation and rocketry have become well-understood and "cheap" enough that they're now within reach of the private sector (same goes for the development/construction of satellites which facilitates commercial demand for access to orbit). Just because I can use my smartphone to perform tasks which could only be rivaled by global superpowers 300 years ago doesn't mean I wield the power of a state.
You, a single human being, can send messages from your home to the other end of the planet within a second today. This is greater power than any state had even 100 years ago.
Why compare this "single man's power" to a state from 50 years ago? It's disingenuous.
You are missing the point. You, as an individual living in 2021, have the power of a state as recent as 100 years ago, in many ways. Is that also appalling?
Once upon a time you needed nation state sponsorship in order to sail across the ocean.
It's absolutely insane to me that people don't see that a billionaire can do as a vanity project something that was ~50yr ago only the purview of superpowers as an obvious sign of societal progress.