If Tony Stark Was on Maui
Let’s say it’s a lot. A massive amount. One billionaire owns an entire island, another owns almost 20% of the island of Kauai.
They really love Hawaii, but mostly it’s considered a place where they can “bug out” and keep their families safe when society collapses.
Let’s imagine for a minute Tony Stark was on Maui in some future “Iron Man” Movie…
1> Mr. Stark sees the incredible devastation on the island he loves, and the total failure of local relief efforts.
2> Being a hi-tech genius, he immediately sets his A.I.s on the job, scraping all social media outlets to find the top 1000 items that displaced people on Maui are going to need or are requesting to just get their lives going again.
3> Having a gigantic computer-powered logistics network and thousands of employees at his disposal, he then automates the process (from his desktop) of sourcing all the items needed by the victims, packs the cargo onto privately chartered jets, and airlifts the goods to Kahului, Maui. He also charters smaller planes to fly to the West Maui airport at Kapalua.
4> Before the first jets even take off, he already has ordered thousands of hand-held beacons that can be distributed to people who are in the disaster area and who are out of touch.
5> Mr. Stark then fills another jet with airborne drones that are equipped to carry the lifesaving goods to anyone who holds a beacon in the disaster area.
6> Less than 24 hours later, victims on Maui are getting supplies and help.
Sounds like a movie, right? The truth is, the Silicon Valley bros could have made all this happen and they could have done it FAST.
How about it, bros???
If Tony Stark was in Maui, he would have the vast empire of his fortune at the disposal and be able to just invest as he sees fit, and put the manpower into getting the needed help.
The same can be said about Gates, or Musk, or whoever.
The problem is that 5 disasters later they're at $0 and are done. And this is because they were directly there to direct their people to solve the problem. We don't need any AI to research, people can do this juuuust fine, as they have done for the last entirety of human history. The difference is that the government doesn't have unlimited money, and food, and etc just sitting around waiting to give it for these situations. And there isn't any rich person stepping in and directing it all. And frankly it takes more than 24h to get all this done, because shipping that much food isn't easy, and finding available planes isn't easy, and fielding a fleet just to sit around all day waiting to be sent in isn't economical.
The problem isn't simple. The problem is that this is what preparations are form, and what redundancy economic mechanisms are for, so that when this happens, we can do something necessary.
The reason Tony Stark can do what he can do, is because of the following factors:
- he has unlimited money, or costs are so low that effectively unlimited money
- he creates technomagic. At that point why doesn't tony stark just send out nanobot tech making food for all humanity.
- he is actually intelligent and wins because of effort NOT luck. Reality is the opposite.