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A comment on ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly. Parent comment

Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by godelski on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @08:09PM (#23982071)
The discussion of billionaires building "CERNs" came out of a discussion I was having with a friend as a way to quantify how rich these people are in terms more understandable. Graphics like pixel wealth[0] just show scale, but doesn't put things in perspective. But a Forbes analysis estimates the cost of finding the Higgs at around $14bn (rounding up)[1]. I also tried using Super Computers, but at around $300m a piece the number was too small (e.g. Elon is 100 Auroras and Bezos is 1000, ball parks). Number of CERNs became a much more approachable metric but also has the fault that these take over a decade to build (meaning the # of CERNs is likely an underestimate).

I do agree that this would be a great PR move. Especially as we've seen Bezos grow his wealth by $65bn in the last 4 months[2] or Elon by $44bn (more than doubling) in the same time frame[3]. But the practicability is also a little naive considering that these numbers do not equate to liquid cash that they have available. Though someone like Gates has much higher liquidity than Bezos or Elon.

But it is interesting. Maybe if my metric catches on someone will build one (or another mega science project) :D

[0] https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-d...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=billionaires...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?list=billionaires#...

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Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by imtringued on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @04:59AM (#23984724)
Regarding mkorostoff's 1 pixel wealth page. Taking wealth from the richest is very difficult. You'll have to find a way to make them agree with it. If you forcibly take money from people then you're just an angry mob. The only thing that would appear fair is higher taxes and maybe a wealth tax [0] but a 100 billion dollars buys you a lot of lobbying power. The worst case scenario is that the rich just hide their wealth.

[0] One could even make a concession and let the wealthy choose among a list of approved charities/projects to spend the taxed money on.

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Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by SolarNet on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @07:04AM (#23985372)
> You'll have to find a way to make them agree with it. If you forcibly take money from people then you're just an angry mob.

Not really. They use the "mob"'s roads and banks to make their business work and store their wealth. They use the "mob's" courts and police to protect themselves and their property. We live in a society, if your worry is that they are too powerful for them to participate in that society (e.g. because their power would let them hide their wealth away), then that just makes the ridiculousness of their wealth all the more apparent.

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