The Blue Origin of Pessimism

I woke this morning to watch Jeff Bezos nearly fly into space along with two other very wealthy people and one 82 year old woman who earned her place.  The announcer proudly informed me that it was at the expense of the great entrepreneur and passenger, Jeff Bezos.  Well actually the investment was primarily furnished by decades of government (your) investment in space technology and your Amazon PD purchases.  In other words, you financed that tiny blip into the border of space.  I don’t mean to belittle the accomplishment.  I fully intend to buy a ticket on a private space ship when the journey will be one rotation around the Earth and the cost of the ticket is under $10.  I would like to see Hispanic Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans and un-vaccinated Trump Monkeys (who will be rare after Covid-19 is finished with them).  But, I don’t wish to see any of these groups identified or segregated in the ship’s seating.  Like Jeff, I don’t want to fly the damn thing.  I only want to be a passenger.  Let artificial intelligence fly it.  I want to arrive back safely.

Ask yourself if private industry will ever likely mine materials outside of our atmosphere?  Answer yourself, of course not.  The cost of the journey will always exceed the value of the ore.  If in fact it could be accomplished centuries from now how much infrastructure would you be willing to sacrifice, in the meantime, in order to see Amazon PD’s grandchildren benefit from your investment?  When the corporate masters have sucked the planet dry, poisoned its water, poisoned its air and left only the cockroaches and the one percent of humans still alive, what satisfaction will you get from sending 50 or so rich folks off to Mars?  If there is a God and He has a sense of humor, their ship will crash on entry. This will be His best joke ever.  Better even than Noah’s Ark.

I am not anti-science.  But I do like science for the benefit of the planet, not one percent of its human population.  When our government spends billions to go out and bring back a quart of earth from a spot on a passing asteroid, I ask myself does that quart sample fairly represent the entire asteroid and does that asteroid represent all of the asteroids in the Universe?  So … what did we learn, for the billions spent?  Spend the money on education.  Spend the money on health care.  Spend the money on a clean air power grid.  Spend the money on infrastructure.  Spend the money on stopping drought on our planet.  When you have done this, look for other beneficial ways to invest.  You aren’t really investing money.  You are investing human toil, human ingenuity and human values.  Make them benefit all.

Cheers, Old Buz   7/20/2021

“Born an agnostic and with the help of GOD will remain one.”