It really wouldn’t.
I tried a few calculators and flying Auckland to London return (you can’t fly that much further) comes out somewhere around 3000kgs.
To get to the amount Bezos uses (maybe 75 tonnes, but likely 250-1000 tonnes), that one hell of a lot of flying.
The carbon cost of the plane should be divided by the number of it's many users. So it is overall, minute, compared to if we do the same division for Bezo's craft.
You will have to travel a lot more, over a really long period of time, to get to the 75ton/250ton numbers. Technically, anybody who eats hamburgers can eat enough burgers to hit that number - the point is that JB did that for a small, largely unnecessary spaceflight.
For extra context, his trip is roughly 3 years of the average American's emissions (21 t/yr) [0] and 7 years of the emissions of an American in the bottom 50 percent by income (9.7 t/yr) [0], which is where many of Bezos' employees fall. [1] If the 250 tons figure is correct, those become 12 and 26 years.
Americans who fall in the bottom 50 percent already emit less than necessary to hit the 2030 Paris Agreement targets [0]. If Bezos emits the typical amount for someone in the top 0.01 percent globally (2531 t/yr) [2], he'd have to slash his emissions by 99.6 percent.
Calling it a joyride seems like typical rage bait du jour. Space is a worthy project. Projects need goals to rally around, and this was a goal being accomplished. Who cares who was on the ride?
Furthermore, making it all about the richest few people misses the point. More useful to focus on the goal (regain U.S. space capability, and expand human space capability overall) and remember that there are tens of thousands of people involved in this.
Further-furthermore, you could make this same argument about any major development being a waste of resources if you just ignore the ever-expanding light cones of benefit that the whole human race gained from them.
Space is a worthy project; the commercialization of space travel is not.
Aren't you tired of billionaires externalizing horrific environmental costs for their own profit?
Isn't asking us to rally behind them because they have " a goal" just a little bit patronizing / condescending / cynical?
Isn't the opportunity cost for such a jaunt just horrific, compared to the "ever-expanding light cones of benefit" we'd get by putting that money into the hands of teachers and janitors?
We could also simply do-away with level-headed discourse, and go back to the tried-and-true:
"Billionaires are not your friends. They don't know you, they don't care about you, and they can do nothing for you -- except allow you to live vicariously through their avarice, as if you're some sportsfan."
To seriously spend any time at all aligning oneself with the workings of reality-disassociated billionaires---much less as anything but a fellow billionaire!---is silly. There really is nothing good that will happen if Jeff Bezos does X, Y, or Z, except parasocial fans will be imbued with energy and celebration.
That's it.
Maddening. I'm of a mind of treating anyone supportive of unaccountable billionaires as enablers, or even missing some basic human faculties of independent thought.
Yes, the distribution of resources available to any particular person is governed by a power law. People complaining about it every time one of these people is mentioned just gets boring.
Everything Jeff Bezos does is going to attract people complaining about it and they would complain about it just the same if the wealth inequality in the world was divided by a thousand. It all reminds me of Obama eating a sandwich with fancy mustard was made into a scandal and I care just as much.
Unless you’re loving your life pretty radically different than most people, you’re “enabling” many billionaires in the very real sense of giving them plenty of your money, regardless of whether or not you complain about them on social media.
... You do realize that all of those excuses are straight out of the enabler playbook, right? Apathy, false equivalence, deflection and projection. Come on bro; do better.
Alright, I'll try to use smaller and simpler words; just for you.
Spending huge sums of tax dodged, union-busted dirty money on dick rockets that destroy the earth is bad. Controversial, I know.
Excusing such based on a "power law" that is presented as inevitable or equivalent is lazy, and can be used to excuse any actions of said billionaires. That's known as false equivalence, and a call for apathy.
Attacking Obama for eating mustard doesn't take away from the fact that he approved assassinations, continued torture and executive actions, expanded drone strikes and whole new wars; but you wouldn't know it from Cole's comments. That would be an example of deflection.
Accusing anyone who says hey, maybe we shouldn't jerk billionaires off for their atmospheric ring-kissing - at enormous opportunity and environmental cost - of "enabling" billionaires by giving them money is another clear fallacy; google "we live in a society" for more on that big-brain line. Likely some projection in there too.
Why people feel the need to defend this shit is beyond me, and I usually stay out of it. But praising it as "ever-expanding light cones of benefit" is a little too beyond ... searching for a polite word .... well, narcissistic enabling. If you want to know more about that term, I can recommend some books for you guys. I think it would help you.
"Billionaires are not your friends. They don't know you, they don't care about you, and they can do nothing for you -- except allow you to live vicariously through their avarice, as if you're some sportsfan."
While this is true, it's also true of anyone I don't personally know. They can't care about me. Dunbar's number.
Really? The last few thousand years of history have been pretty illustrative; the last 50 especially so.
The uber-wealthy have no direct dependence on functional public services. They have no need (and even a preference) for corrupt legal and political systems. They (hire people to) work day and night to gut regulations that protect us, and they cover for each other and circle the wagons when anyone starts getting too close to breaking any part of the golden circle.
If people institute progressive tax systems, billionaires find a way to dodge or loophole their way out; going so far as to leave if people demand "too much". Modern billionaires find creative ways to exploit workers and demonize unions.
Compare all that to the decent and normal people you know, assuming you have something like a normal life. The people I know are happy enough to pay their share for the common good, and wouldn't dream of hiring some slimeball tax accountant to figure out how to hold on to as much as possible - see Pandora, Paradise, etc.
No one normal is paying politicians to break regulations, or writing legislation that allows for tax loopholes, or removing any possibility of accountability for "malfeasance" like oil spills or banking crises.
And billionaire owned media is happy for none of this to be in the national conversation. But once you start looking - it's pretty obvious.
So you are saying "normal" people don't hire accountants to ensure they pay the minimal amount of tax while wealthy people do? Normal people don't hire accountants for the simple fact that it isn't economically viable for them. The taxes they could save is much lower then the pay for the accountant. This balance is of course completely different for a billionaire. I'm willing to bet that if the cost of hiring an accountant would be 500$ and a normal person would pay 5000$ less in tax because of that then almost everyone would have an accountant at the ready. In fact you would be financially irresponsible not doing that.
The thing you talk about in your post is that billionaires have more power and use that power to their advantage. Not unlike what anyone really does. Except that billionaires have much more weight to throw around.
> So you are saying "normal" people don't hire accountants to ensure they pay the minimal amount of tax while wealthy people do?
Did I say that? Or did I specifically refer to slimeballs, loopholes, Paradise and Panama papers, bribing legislators etc. Do normal people do that, in your view? Because it seems pretty normal among billionaires. I don't remember any normal people paying thugs to bust up strikes, or paying to print anti union propaganda and rig unionising votes.
You seem to be saying, might makes right; and that we'd do those things above if we were in their position. Even if that were true (it's not), that would be all the more reason to change the rules that allow such consolidation of wealth and abuse of power to exist.
Going back to your original claim - that it's not obvious (to you) that billionaires care less about the common good than common people - here is a poem that has survived the last 250+ years.
> Did I say that? Or did I specifically refer to slimeballs, loopholes, Paradise and Panama papers, bribing legislators etc.
With the exception of bribing legislators these are perfectly fine things to do. And in fact amount to having a smart accountant.
> I don't remember any normal people paying thugs to bust up strikes, or paying to print anti union propaganda and rig unionising votes.
I don't remember any billionaires doing that either. What I do remember is companies doing that might have a billionaire at the helm. And as far as I can see most companies helmed by a billionaire do not do that.
> You seem to be saying, might makes right; and that we'd do those things above if we were in their position. Even if that were true (it's not), that would be all the more reason to change the rules that allow such consolidation of wealth and abuse of power to exist.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying my default assumption is that the expected behavior of normal people and billionaires is the same. The billionaires outcome is simply different because they are billionaires, they have much more weight to throw around.
> Going back to your original claim - that it's not obvious (to you) that billionaires care less about the common good than common people - here is a poem that has survived the last 250+ years
Yes and we also used to believe putting blood sucking leeches on your skin to suck out blood would cure illnesses. It's always easy to blame someone in a better position then yourself. Something that exists in a poem doesn't mean anything.
What I'm asking of you is essentially do you have data/studies that shows very wealthy people have a fundamentally different psychological profile in regards to caring about society then non wealthy people. Because that is your claim.
There are also plenty of counter examples. Like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or Azim Premji. Or the entire billionaire philanthropist archetype.
> With the exception of bribing legislators these are perfectly fine things to do. And in fact amount to having a smart accountant.
Dear god man, NO. Those may be legal - and who wrote those laws? But they sure as fuck aren't fine, morally and ethically speaking, unless you're a fucking sociopath. Which billionaires are more likely to be.
> as far as I can see most companies helmed by a billionaire do not do that.
Didn't Amazon get in trouble recently for interfering with a union vote?
> my default assumption is that the expected behavior of normal people and billionaires is the same.
That's a bad assumption, and there are mountains of research out there on the topic. It's stunning that you can't seem to look for any yourself, because if you looked you would find it.
> we also used to believe putting blood sucking leeches on your skin to suck out blood would cure illnesses. It's always easy to blame someone in a better position then yourself.
That's a very, very lazy take. That's really the best you could come up with? Leeches and victim blaming?
> What I'm asking of you is essentially do you have data/studies that shows very wealthy people have a fundamentally different psychological profile in regards to caring about society then non wealthy people. Because that is your claim.
> Dear god man, NO. Those may be legal - and who wrote those laws? But they sure as fuck aren't fine, morally and ethically speaking, unless you're a fucking sociopath. Which billionaires are more likely to be.
Then you and I simply have different morals. I don't consider anyone trying to minimize their taxes in a legal way to be immoral.
> Didn't Amazon get in trouble recently for interfering with a union vote?
Which is one company whose CEO is not a billionaire...
> That's a bad assumption, and there are mountains of research out there on the topic. It's stunning that you can't seem to look for any yourself, because if you looked you would find it.
I admit I didn't search for any research. I assumed you would have it since you are so certain billionaires are fundamentally different from non wealthy humans.
> That's a very, very lazy take. That's really the best you could come up with? Leeches and victim blaming?
It's lazy to assume something you read about that is in a book that is > 100 years old to be true. And I'm not victim blaming. Who even is the victim here? I'm simply stating that it is always easy to blame something outside of yourself. Blame shifting has been a well researched area in psychology for decades.
> Read the above link. Look into the sources it cites.
> There are huge differences, and it's not even remotely in doubt. Your whole assumption is so far off base it's not even funny; just sad.
While the article is garbage the cited sources are interesting and on a cursory glance do seem to show that wealthy people are more antisocial compared to average people. At least in America. I wonder if this is the same for other cultures.
Anyway I don't really care to continue this discussion with you since you are obviously not in the right state of mind to approach this subject without heavy emotion.
That's fine and all, but let's make it a public good from the start. Seems to me that allowing spooks and billionaires to do whatever the fuck they want up there is a bad, bad idea.
And let's keep track of what we're missing out on: How much environmental damage is being done? How many science teachers annual salaries did they just burn?
Is it not a little repugnant to be working towards space tourism for billionaires, at great expense to our natural resources and biosphere? And this while millions die from hunger for the lack of a tenth of Bezos' fortune (built on exploitation and union busting, among other fuckery).
Good things may come of this yet, but think of the opportunity cost. Good things come from science teachers too. Good things come from global stability and not letting hungry people die. Do a cost/benefit analysis while leaving these fuckers enormous egos out of the equation, and explain to me how it makes any fucking sense at all.
Calling it a joyride seems like typical rage bait du jour. Space is a worthy project. Projects need goals to rally around, and this was a goal being accomplished. Who cares who was on the ride?
Space is a worthy project, but not this particular project.
It could have been impressive in the early oughts, but space projects had moved on. Now we have startups who already launched products to orbits, alongside with SpaceX in which actual commercial products that benefit people worldwide are being launched.
The standard had risen. It's no longer acceptable to only being able to do joyride for billionaires and his friends.
The fact they compare his space flight to the billion people who live in squalor shows the average person who lets that billion live that way is a stain on humanity.
This billion are just a punch line to use as an comparison about CO2 for the media. To remove them from their abusive and shitty lives means in practical terms increasing their CO2 output.... if you want to reduce the world to CO2 which is messed up in itself.
Jeff Bezos has created a trillion dollar company, the average person just consumes, breeds and dies leaving behind more to consume, breed and die, they push nothing forward.
Good on Jeff Bezos for exploring the unknown. He also put the top two oldest people gone in space. He's a dick for attacking SpaceX, but that's off topic.
"We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space. And keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is..."
It would "take decades to achieve, but you have to start. And big things start with small steps."
Bezos acknowledges that it won't be achieved in just one (his!) lifetime. That's not selfish at all. Which other 'ultra-wealthy' tech billionaire has such a vision?
And that's where these critics fall flat: they're basically petty and stupid. One reason why someone like Bezos is rich, and they're not: long-term vision. Amazon was a disappointment for shareholders, because it reinvested its profits into growth: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-...
Government initiatives are sometimes driven, but mostly hampered by politics (NASA has a very limited budget!) - unlike private ventures. Remember how Tesla started: by wooing wealthy individuals with exclusive vehicles; it was part of the plan!
Moving industry into space is not a new idea, but Blue Origin is taking the first real steps to achieve this.
It's one thing to have a vision, it's another to execute it. As of late, he had made enemies of space fans and people across the space industries, and destroyed the morale of his workers at his own companies, all the while achieving very little.
Blue Origin is older than SpaceX, and yet SpaceX is far ahead.
Could not agree more. And while people are happy to hate on Bezos and his space adventure I’m very unhappy that we ignore far more meaningful problems and discussions. He’s just a scapegoat. I don’t know what to call this exactly. It’s like when someone is successful doing something that someone else thinks the government only should be doing so they get mad and throw mud and insults. And I don’t really give a crap about Bezos, don’t care for Amazon one way or another.
How about we increase NASA’s funding 100x, stop building all new highways, and electrify America? Why are we complaining about Bezos and not our actual leaders that we elect? It’s lazy!
I was surprised to see this report, given the rockets themselves emit literally zero Carbon Dioxide (the byproduct of their engine being NO2). Then I got to the actual meat of it:
>An 11-minute flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger once indirect emissions are taken into account (and more likely, in the 250-1,000 tonnes range).
Ah yes,indirect costs. Sure. These things that don't matter when NASA or SpaceX sends rockets to space (which actually have CO2 generating engines to boot!)
But for the record, the typical US household generates on average of 40-60 of emissions per year. You have to do some phenomenally uncharitable math to make the lifetime claim. It's certainly an... editorial choice to make this an issue about inequality.
Well, it is like the difference of going on a cruise and using products that were sent via shipping container. The latter is essential for our modern economies to function, while the former is just irresponsibly destroying the environment for your own amusement.
The problem is people seeing this as a joyride, spaceX or nasa can send up a thousand rockets, and people correctly see that as progress and testing of the ship and advancement of technology. But because people have a hard on for blaming Bezo's for everything this is classified as some sort of waste of time. Blue Origins intended goal is to reach the moon, and this is a step towards it, one that offers a way to fund the project through space tourism, a practice done by most space programs in one shape or form.
Its just painful to watch the hypocrisy, I mean if musk can launch a tesla into space, and not be considered a joyride, I don't think its fair to classify this one any differently.
But hey, gizmodo gets its ad revenue, which I'm sure is equality disturbed across all those involved in making this site possible.
I don't disagree with you, Bezo's flying to space is just really bad publicity, because it makes apparent how much the contemporary space race is a dick measuring contest between filthy-rich tech industrialists. To me, it is honestly one of the most telling signs of the times, that a contest that was originally "held" between the only two super-powers on the planet, is today led as much by capitalists as it is by nation states.
Space tourism is only a viable form of commercializing space exploration because we live in incredibly unequal times, and this is where most of the criticism of Bezos in particular comes from. Added on to that, in contrast to Musks companies, Amazon is also constantly in the news for viciously exploiting labor, so that adds to the criticism.
If NASA does it, the carbon cost could reasonably be amortised over the populace, since it is a public mission. I think it it fair to not give private missions the same benefit of the doubt.
45 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 96.4 ms ] thread"A lot of people" is a bit of a stretch.
To get to the amount Bezos uses (maybe 75 tonnes, but likely 250-1000 tonnes), that one hell of a lot of flying.
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/loyaltymodule/form/carbon-em...
https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/P...
If you add all that in to the carbon cost of a plane's first flight as well, I wouldn't be surprised to find the gap narrower that one might expect.
Americans who fall in the bottom 50 percent already emit less than necessary to hit the 2030 Paris Agreement targets [0]. If Bezos emits the typical amount for someone in the top 0.01 percent globally (2531 t/yr) [2], he'd have to slash his emissions by 99.6 percent.
[0]: https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-6/#tab_61b433da73d0e
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-salary-pay-m...
[2]: https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-6/#tab_61b433da73d06
Furthermore, making it all about the richest few people misses the point. More useful to focus on the goal (regain U.S. space capability, and expand human space capability overall) and remember that there are tens of thousands of people involved in this.
Further-furthermore, you could make this same argument about any major development being a waste of resources if you just ignore the ever-expanding light cones of benefit that the whole human race gained from them.
Aren't you tired of billionaires externalizing horrific environmental costs for their own profit?
Isn't asking us to rally behind them because they have " a goal" just a little bit patronizing / condescending / cynical?
Isn't the opportunity cost for such a jaunt just horrific, compared to the "ever-expanding light cones of benefit" we'd get by putting that money into the hands of teachers and janitors?
"Billionaires are not your friends. They don't know you, they don't care about you, and they can do nothing for you -- except allow you to live vicariously through their avarice, as if you're some sportsfan."
To seriously spend any time at all aligning oneself with the workings of reality-disassociated billionaires---much less as anything but a fellow billionaire!---is silly. There really is nothing good that will happen if Jeff Bezos does X, Y, or Z, except parasocial fans will be imbued with energy and celebration.
That's it.
Maddening. I'm of a mind of treating anyone supportive of unaccountable billionaires as enablers, or even missing some basic human faculties of independent thought.
Everything Jeff Bezos does is going to attract people complaining about it and they would complain about it just the same if the wealth inequality in the world was divided by a thousand. It all reminds me of Obama eating a sandwich with fancy mustard was made into a scandal and I care just as much.
Unless you’re loving your life pretty radically different than most people, you’re “enabling” many billionaires in the very real sense of giving them plenty of your money, regardless of whether or not you complain about them on social media.
Spending huge sums of tax dodged, union-busted dirty money on dick rockets that destroy the earth is bad. Controversial, I know.
Excusing such based on a "power law" that is presented as inevitable or equivalent is lazy, and can be used to excuse any actions of said billionaires. That's known as false equivalence, and a call for apathy.
Attacking Obama for eating mustard doesn't take away from the fact that he approved assassinations, continued torture and executive actions, expanded drone strikes and whole new wars; but you wouldn't know it from Cole's comments. That would be an example of deflection.
Accusing anyone who says hey, maybe we shouldn't jerk billionaires off for their atmospheric ring-kissing - at enormous opportunity and environmental cost - of "enabling" billionaires by giving them money is another clear fallacy; google "we live in a society" for more on that big-brain line. Likely some projection in there too.
Why people feel the need to defend this shit is beyond me, and I usually stay out of it. But praising it as "ever-expanding light cones of benefit" is a little too beyond ... searching for a polite word .... well, narcissistic enabling. If you want to know more about that term, I can recommend some books for you guys. I think it would help you.
While this is true, it's also true of anyone I don't personally know. They can't care about me. Dunbar's number.
The uber-wealthy have no direct dependence on functional public services. They have no need (and even a preference) for corrupt legal and political systems. They (hire people to) work day and night to gut regulations that protect us, and they cover for each other and circle the wagons when anyone starts getting too close to breaking any part of the golden circle.
If people institute progressive tax systems, billionaires find a way to dodge or loophole their way out; going so far as to leave if people demand "too much". Modern billionaires find creative ways to exploit workers and demonize unions.
Compare all that to the decent and normal people you know, assuming you have something like a normal life. The people I know are happy enough to pay their share for the common good, and wouldn't dream of hiring some slimeball tax accountant to figure out how to hold on to as much as possible - see Pandora, Paradise, etc.
No one normal is paying politicians to break regulations, or writing legislation that allows for tax loopholes, or removing any possibility of accountability for "malfeasance" like oil spills or banking crises.
And billionaire owned media is happy for none of this to be in the national conversation. But once you start looking - it's pretty obvious.
The thing you talk about in your post is that billionaires have more power and use that power to their advantage. Not unlike what anyone really does. Except that billionaires have much more weight to throw around.
Did I say that? Or did I specifically refer to slimeballs, loopholes, Paradise and Panama papers, bribing legislators etc. Do normal people do that, in your view? Because it seems pretty normal among billionaires. I don't remember any normal people paying thugs to bust up strikes, or paying to print anti union propaganda and rig unionising votes.
You seem to be saying, might makes right; and that we'd do those things above if we were in their position. Even if that were true (it's not), that would be all the more reason to change the rules that allow such consolidation of wealth and abuse of power to exist.
Going back to your original claim - that it's not obvious (to you) that billionaires care less about the common good than common people - here is a poem that has survived the last 250+ years.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
.
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
With the exception of bribing legislators these are perfectly fine things to do. And in fact amount to having a smart accountant.
> I don't remember any normal people paying thugs to bust up strikes, or paying to print anti union propaganda and rig unionising votes.
I don't remember any billionaires doing that either. What I do remember is companies doing that might have a billionaire at the helm. And as far as I can see most companies helmed by a billionaire do not do that.
> You seem to be saying, might makes right; and that we'd do those things above if we were in their position. Even if that were true (it's not), that would be all the more reason to change the rules that allow such consolidation of wealth and abuse of power to exist.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying my default assumption is that the expected behavior of normal people and billionaires is the same. The billionaires outcome is simply different because they are billionaires, they have much more weight to throw around.
> Going back to your original claim - that it's not obvious (to you) that billionaires care less about the common good than common people - here is a poem that has survived the last 250+ years
Yes and we also used to believe putting blood sucking leeches on your skin to suck out blood would cure illnesses. It's always easy to blame someone in a better position then yourself. Something that exists in a poem doesn't mean anything.
What I'm asking of you is essentially do you have data/studies that shows very wealthy people have a fundamentally different psychological profile in regards to caring about society then non wealthy people. Because that is your claim.
There are also plenty of counter examples. Like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or Azim Premji. Or the entire billionaire philanthropist archetype.
Dear god man, NO. Those may be legal - and who wrote those laws? But they sure as fuck aren't fine, morally and ethically speaking, unless you're a fucking sociopath. Which billionaires are more likely to be.
> as far as I can see most companies helmed by a billionaire do not do that.
Didn't Amazon get in trouble recently for interfering with a union vote?
> my default assumption is that the expected behavior of normal people and billionaires is the same.
That's a bad assumption, and there are mountains of research out there on the topic. It's stunning that you can't seem to look for any yourself, because if you looked you would find it.
> we also used to believe putting blood sucking leeches on your skin to suck out blood would cure illnesses. It's always easy to blame someone in a better position then yourself.
That's a very, very lazy take. That's really the best you could come up with? Leeches and victim blaming?
> What I'm asking of you is essentially do you have data/studies that shows very wealthy people have a fundamentally different psychological profile in regards to caring about society then non wealthy people. Because that is your claim.
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/16/8790357/rich-people-jerks
Read the above link. Look into the sources it cites.
There are huge differences, and it's not even remotely in doubt. Your whole assumption is so far off base it's not even funny; just sad.
Then you and I simply have different morals. I don't consider anyone trying to minimize their taxes in a legal way to be immoral.
> Didn't Amazon get in trouble recently for interfering with a union vote?
Which is one company whose CEO is not a billionaire...
> That's a bad assumption, and there are mountains of research out there on the topic. It's stunning that you can't seem to look for any yourself, because if you looked you would find it.
I admit I didn't search for any research. I assumed you would have it since you are so certain billionaires are fundamentally different from non wealthy humans.
> That's a very, very lazy take. That's really the best you could come up with? Leeches and victim blaming?
It's lazy to assume something you read about that is in a book that is > 100 years old to be true. And I'm not victim blaming. Who even is the victim here? I'm simply stating that it is always easy to blame something outside of yourself. Blame shifting has been a well researched area in psychology for decades.
> https://www.vox.com/2015/6/16/8790357/rich-people-jerks
> Read the above link. Look into the sources it cites.
> There are huge differences, and it's not even remotely in doubt. Your whole assumption is so far off base it's not even funny; just sad.
While the article is garbage the cited sources are interesting and on a cursory glance do seem to show that wealthy people are more antisocial compared to average people. At least in America. I wonder if this is the same for other cultures.
Anyway I don't really care to continue this discussion with you since you are obviously not in the right state of mind to approach this subject without heavy emotion.
You'd have to be naive to expect that capitalism will not bring in innovation and improvement to Space exploration / solutions. I'm all for it.
And let's keep track of what we're missing out on: How much environmental damage is being done? How many science teachers annual salaries did they just burn?
Is it not a little repugnant to be working towards space tourism for billionaires, at great expense to our natural resources and biosphere? And this while millions die from hunger for the lack of a tenth of Bezos' fortune (built on exploitation and union busting, among other fuckery).
Good things may come of this yet, but think of the opportunity cost. Good things come from science teachers too. Good things come from global stability and not letting hungry people die. Do a cost/benefit analysis while leaving these fuckers enormous egos out of the equation, and explain to me how it makes any fucking sense at all.
Space is a worthy project, but not this particular project.
It could have been impressive in the early oughts, but space projects had moved on. Now we have startups who already launched products to orbits, alongside with SpaceX in which actual commercial products that benefit people worldwide are being launched.
The standard had risen. It's no longer acceptable to only being able to do joyride for billionaires and his friends.
This billion are just a punch line to use as an comparison about CO2 for the media. To remove them from their abusive and shitty lives means in practical terms increasing their CO2 output.... if you want to reduce the world to CO2 which is messed up in itself.
Jeff Bezos has created a trillion dollar company, the average person just consumes, breeds and dies leaving behind more to consume, breed and die, they push nothing forward.
Good on Jeff Bezos for exploring the unknown. He also put the top two oldest people gone in space. He's a dick for attacking SpaceX, but that's off topic.
"We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space. And keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is..."
It would "take decades to achieve, but you have to start. And big things start with small steps."
Bezos acknowledges that it won't be achieved in just one (his!) lifetime. That's not selfish at all. Which other 'ultra-wealthy' tech billionaire has such a vision?
And that's where these critics fall flat: they're basically petty and stupid. One reason why someone like Bezos is rich, and they're not: long-term vision. Amazon was a disappointment for shareholders, because it reinvested its profits into growth: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-...
Government initiatives are sometimes driven, but mostly hampered by politics (NASA has a very limited budget!) - unlike private ventures. Remember how Tesla started: by wooing wealthy individuals with exclusive vehicles; it was part of the plan!
Moving industry into space is not a new idea, but Blue Origin is taking the first real steps to achieve this.
Blue Origin is older than SpaceX, and yet SpaceX is far ahead.
If it’s about moving heavy industry into space they need to spend less time talking about how much fun it is to float around in space.
How about we increase NASA’s funding 100x, stop building all new highways, and electrify America? Why are we complaining about Bezos and not our actual leaders that we elect? It’s lazy!
>An 11-minute flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger once indirect emissions are taken into account (and more likely, in the 250-1,000 tonnes range).
Ah yes,indirect costs. Sure. These things that don't matter when NASA or SpaceX sends rockets to space (which actually have CO2 generating engines to boot!)
But for the record, the typical US household generates on average of 40-60 of emissions per year. You have to do some phenomenally uncharitable math to make the lifetime claim. It's certainly an... editorial choice to make this an issue about inequality.
Its just painful to watch the hypocrisy, I mean if musk can launch a tesla into space, and not be considered a joyride, I don't think its fair to classify this one any differently.
But hey, gizmodo gets its ad revenue, which I'm sure is equality disturbed across all those involved in making this site possible.
Space tourism is only a viable form of commercializing space exploration because we live in incredibly unequal times, and this is where most of the criticism of Bezos in particular comes from. Added on to that, in contrast to Musks companies, Amazon is also constantly in the news for viciously exploiting labor, so that adds to the criticism.