Re:$6 Million Dollar Man (Score 1)

In some respects, $6 million now buys a lot more than in the mid 1970s. For computer technology, $6 million today could be used to purchase the computing power of a million mainframes from the 1970s. Some things are available now that would cost infinity dollars in the mid 1970s, like the cures for some diseases, or drugs to keep certain diseases in remission (e.g., AIDS, etc). We have the DNA sequences for humans and other species. Anyone can buy a cellular phone; it's easy to forget what a miracle it is. And then there's the Internet! Sure, all of those things cost a lot to develop, but any consumer can now pay a tiny fraction of $6 million and have god-like power compared to the people in the mid 1970s. My computer can emulate 1000 Atari 2600s simultaneously. Could any supercomputer in the world in 1975 compete with the average computer sold to the consumer today? I mean, one can get a 2.6 GHz quad-core CPU and 8 GB of RAM for just a few hundred dollars! Meanwhile, labor costs have increased dramatically. George Lucas said he couldn't have afforded to make the original Star Wars if he had started production a decade or two later; the labor costs in the film industry increased dramatically over the years. Likewise, the cost of getting a college education made an exponential increase in the 1990s. Medical care is another field with high labor costs. So, it seems like the PARTS for the Six Million Dollar Man might only cost tens of thousands of dollars, but the LABOR might easily run in to the millions. Heck, it's easy for an ordinary guy to get charged $250K for basic surgery; imagine the costs of replacing sensory organs and limbs with bionics... Hopefully those costs will come down as more medical devices are produced.