we’re not talking about the nature of the system here, we’re talking about this specific instance.

If I buy a million lotto tickets that have a 50% payout, it would be incomplete if not deceptive to point at one ticket and say “Well you might win 100 bucks, we don’t really know” instead of “the reason they’re selling you those tickets is because the risk and expense is greater than the payout.”

Hiring people is extremely expensive and having those people do nothing between projects is even more so.

That’s still an example of NASA eating an expense of R&D while Lockheed gets the profits.

Just because a river flows south doesn’t mean you couldn’t find an eddy in the currents that flows north for a few seconds.

But the water still has nowhere to flow but south. If the cost was less than expected return, these companies would do this research internally. Even if for just one moment, one tiny aspect of the program did make a profit, it wouldn’t change the nature of the system.

If NASA was a profitable enterprise, it wouldn’t require external funding, and Lockheed and co would be doing that research themselves to keep that profit for themselves.

NASA isn’t like CNSA or Roscosmos in that they don’t make their own rockets. It exists first and foremost to funnel money to aerospace contractors by either directly contracting with them or providing R&D in cases where cost/risk is greater than expected profit.

A similar relationship exists with publicly funded universities selling patents to pharma.

I know right? Of course it’s sold at a loss, that’s why NASA is paying Boeing to do the research.

Can’t have Boeing waste money on R&D, that would hurt their shareholders.

Both sides developed jet engines. The allies didn’t get them into a fighter until after the war though.

lol I clicked your name to see if you were doing a bit, and apparently you don’t tip servers.

People who deserve money, according to Huge Anus:

[❌]Food service workers

[❌]Hollywood workers

[❌]Tech workers

[✅]Landlords, Shareholders, copyright trolls, and IP rights giants

You think people renting out their property is immoral?

Correct. All wealth is the product of labor, therefore rent and profit are theft, and workers taking back a bit of the wealth stolen from them is good.

I think I see the confusion, you believe in private and intellectual property.

I’m quite aware there’s some silly laws written by those same billionaire’s lobbies and passed by their politicians.

Copying something is quite obviously not stealing from someone.

But again, stealing back some of the wealth the billionaires have stolen from us is morally good. If you’re not stealing from them, you’re stealing from your family to support your family’s further deprivation.

It’s not theft, because it doesn’t deprive the original owner of anything.

But if it did, theft from billionaire hollywood studio owners is cool and good.

You’re not paying the wages of the hollywood workers, you’re just increasing the funds the studios have to break the worker’s strikes and further depress their conditions.

But you can watch those movies and shows for free. The only part you’re paying for are the ads.