I refuse to remember rich people wasting their money and opportunities
If I had billions of dollars, I would not waste a chunk of it taking a personal trip around the moon. I would put a satellite in orbit as part of a Moon Internet system and put lots of cameras and sensors on board. Then share the data with the roughly 2 Billions kids now. I call them first time learners. Ten cameras are cheaper than one human weight, food, oxygen, safety stuff, water, sewer, heat, etc.
And a space node of the Internet, you might be able to use something Elon Musk has on hand, or could adapt. And if EM was smart, he can let those billionaires name the nodes after themselves, now, and get some return on their investment later as early investors. They can own the sensors they install and use that to connect with billions on the earth. The humans species will go to the moon. It is not the gold miners who made money, most of them. It was the city builders, the shops and cafes, the suppliers. The orbital internet nodes build to serve ALL early builders and explorers with reliable communication from orbit to surface, from surface to orbiting Internet storage and Moon orbit to earth orbit Internet nodes.
It is possible to store human memories, It is possible to store human memories, but it will not be as cheap as cameras, information and communications for a while. My bet, beyond selling Internet time to China or India or any other group who wants to work on the moon, selling data sensors and Internet time will earn early returns. It is a lot easier to build where there is infrastructure, than “everyone inventing and building everything from scratch”. Worse, everyone re-inventing things”.
To all those wanna-be rich people who want to show off their wealth and get 5 minutes of media fame. Invest wisely and deeply in the future generations so your name and impact will be remembered, not some useless stunt. I am glad you were delayed, wake up.
Sharing continuous data with billions of Internet users (about 5.2 B now) is another way of “doing an Apple”. 20 years of sharing can change more lives, permanently, than 20 years of selling.
I do not know the name of that person. Invest in infrastructure and systems, not stunts. Invest in future generations, not monuments or stunts.
Filed as (I refuse to remember rich people wasting their money and opportunities)
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
