99% of the world's problems could be meaningfully dealt with if we got rid of billionaires .... and the biggest problems we'd be dealing with after them would be trying to solve interstellar travel. Instead we're fighting wars to try to figure out which small group of idiots get to own all the imaginary money in the world.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Yep. 90% of the world’s brightest minds are dedicated to ad optimization, not actually useful technology.

If we had simply put our resources towards spaceflight or, I dunno, solving world hunger, it would be done by now. But the “invisible hand” optimizes for greed and money, not real progress.