It’s amazing how the left invented and now believe the myth that Elon Musk reneged on his promise to end world hunger. It always leaves out that he said “it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.”
▪️He was calling the World Food Program’s (WFP’s) bluff, while responding to a tweet pointing out that the WFP already raised $8.4B in 2020 yet didn’t solve hunger! He literally says if the WFP could show how $6B would end hunger he’d sell Tesla stock and do it.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1454809318356750337?s=20&t=HS0-NSrVF8EwW80k_Xgpag
▪️Musk highlighted what should be obvious, that $6B given to the UN wouldn’t solve world hunger. The US alone gives $11B to the UN every year. Michael Shellenberger wrote a piece at the time showing it was hopelessly naive to believe $6B would help 42M starving people.
https://nypost.com/2021/11/13/elon-musk-is-right-world-hunger-cant-be-solved-with-6-billion/
▪️The most obvious reason UN food aid doesn’t solve hunger is that it gets stolen, usually by local warlords/govts to buy arms. Starving people are almost exclusively found in war zones or areas with hostile political turmoil. How would the UN get food to those in Afghanistan or Yemen?! This is why Musk asked for open source accounting.
▪️Notice that there is never a similar objection to something like the student loan forgiveness plan, which will likely cost well over $500B. This could supposedly solve world hunger 100 times over according to the same logic, but the “logic” is only reserved for ammunition against billionaires.
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
