Jeff Bezos’ live Blue Origin space launch is the pinnacle of waste

It’s the most 2021 of all 2021 storylines: after gorging themselves on the best of a plague-torn planet, the billionaires are going to space. Corporate giants Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have all drawn on public coffers as well as their own enormous fortunes to breach the bounds of earth. What they seek to leave behind is a planet burning and flooding and full of the kind of small and ordinary suffering such fortunes could alleviate in an instant.

via www.msnbc.com

Jeff Bezos (aka “Penis Head”) certainly could have found a less ostentatious way to enjoy himself. Ditto Richard Branson and Elon Musk. How about using that fortune to liberate Cuba or start a million new businesses in Africa? Just because you think such an epic display of consumption is in poor taste does not make you a socialist. I’m no expert, but the opportunities for profit on Mars also look pretty limited to me. The Moon, better perhaps, but not by much. I’m not sure whether any of this would even be possible without the massive subsidies they all get. As for NASA, the Saturn V was the apotheosis of the V2. Bit ironic, ja? Democracies do weird things, but so do oligarchies.