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Space The Almighty Buck Technology

Jeff Bezos: I Spend My Billions On Space Because We're Destroying Earth (cnbc.com) 330

Posted by BeauHD from the future-of-humanity dept.
In an interview with Norah O'Donnell of "CBS Evening News," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explained why he's investing much of his Amazon fortune in the development of space technologies through his aerospace company Blue Origin. Why? "Because I think it's important," Bezos said. "I think it is important for this planet. I think it's important for the dynamism of future generations. It is something I care deeply about. And it is something I have been thinking about all my life." From the report: Bezos -- who says "you don't choose your passions, your passions choose you" -- became fascinated with space when he was a child watching astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong land on the moon, he tells O'Donnell. Further, developing space technologies is critical for human beings to have a long future, Bezos says. "We humans have to go to space if we are going to continue to have a thriving civilization," Bezos says. "We have become big as a population, as a species, and this planet is relatively small. We see it in things like climate change and pollution and heavy industry. We are in the process of destroying this planet. And we have sent robotic probes to every planet in the solar system -- this is the good one. So, we have to preserve this planet."

To do that will require being able to live and work in space, says Bezos. "We send things up into space, but they are all made on Earth. Eventually it will be much cheaper and simpler to make really complicated things, like microprocessors and everything, in space and then send those highly complex manufactured objects back down to earth, so that we don't have the big factories and pollution generating industries that make those things now on Earth," Bezos says. "And Earth can be zoned residential." It will be "multiple generations" and "hundreds of years" before this is a reality, Bezos said on CBS, but with Blue Origin he is working to develop the technology that will make it possible.
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Jeff Bezos: I Spend My Billions On Space Because We're Destroying Earth More

Jeff Bezos: I Spend My Billions On Space Because We're Destroying Earth

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  • Hey Bezos (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TimothyHollins ( 4720957 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @06:07AM (#58944588)

    If you care so much about the Earth, why not reduce the massive pollution of Amazon? Or is responsibility too expensive for the world's richest man?

    https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]

    • Why be responsible when you're rich? Geez, it's like you miss the point of having hundreds of billions of dollars entirely.

    • Re:Hey Bezos (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @06:44AM (#58944660) Homepage Journal

      Right, what me means is "I'm destroying the world and you are paying me to do it, so long suckers!"

      This is the plot of several sci-fi novels and movies. Rich people go off and live in space with all their wealth, leaving the rest of us with the barely inhabitable Earth that they are STILL leeching off.

      • But there's nowhere else to live in space, and no way that even musk and bezos working together will change that before everything goes straight to hell here. They might get something built out there somewhere, but nothing self-sufficient.

    • Amazon doesn't run factories.
      Read your own article. The article says "...The climate proposal requested a report outlining how Amazon âoeis planning for disruptions posed by climate changeâ and âoereducing company-wide dependence on fossil fuelsâ, citing Amazonâ(TM)s coal-powered data centers and the amount of gasoline burnt for package deliveries...."

      I GUARANTEE you that Amazon isn't deliberately choosing fossil fuels. I expect Amazon doesn't give a shit.

      I'm pretty sure Amazon ju

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Amazon is mostly a corruption problem.
      "Grileiros". People that fake a property certificate, then proceed to cut down and sell all the expensive wood to first world countries, then create a basically fake cow pasture to get around some legal hurdles.

  • Euhm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Krakadoom ( 1407635 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @06:07AM (#58944590)

    Then how amount spending your billions on preventing the destruction on Earth instead. He could also, and I know this is outrageous, improve the environmental impact of his own business if he would accept making less money from it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      He's obviously a psychopath, no point appealing his good nature. His wife though... She has billions burning a hole in her pocket, and what better way to give the middle finger to her ex-husband than by spending it on fixing the problems he is creating?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by lobiusmoop ( 305328 )

      In case Mr Bezos isn't reading this article (hint - he isn't), you could always send a message by not buying so much stuff on Amazon that you don't really need...

    • Re:Euhm (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @07:21AM (#58944762)

      Then how amount spending your billions on preventing the destruction on Earth instead. He could also, and I know this is outrageous, improve the environmental impact of his own business if he would accept making less money from it.

      Because the unwashed masses consistently keep voting overlords into power who think the destruction of the earth's environment is a Chinese hoax? Bezos probably did the probability math and decided he'd be more likely to succeed in surviving by pouring his money into trying to escape from a situation where passengers are cheering on while the crew is sabotaging the life support system of the giant spherical space ship they are all travelling on than he would be trying to change the lunatics' minds.

      • Those aren't the unwashed masses, they're an unwashed minority. More people voted against that than for it last time. What you're talking about is a very specific problem with the democratic processes of one nation.

      • Don't listen to what they say, read their SEC filings. Said this before, but you can lie to the public, you can lie to your priest, you can even lie to yourself but you cannot lie to the SEC. Multiple SEC filings have called out the risks of climate change.

        The overlords are planing on profiting on climate change. They're buying up all the water and they're gonna sell it back to us.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by strikethree ( 811449 )

        Because the unwashed masses consistently keep voting overlords into power who think the destruction of the earth's environment is a Chinese hoax?

        In order for this sort of accountability to reasonable, then we have to assume that electing Hillary Clinton would have made a difference in dealing with climate change.

        Do you honestly expect anyone to believe that any of the climate related policies would be "better" if Hillary Clinton had been elected?

        Go ahead and keep blaming the ignorant voters when the system is rigged to give us only two choices, neither of which is significantly different than the other.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mentil ( 1748130 )

      It is hypocritical to tut-tut the inevitable effects of consumerism, while simultaneously running one of the largest retail outlets in the country.
      OTOH, he's cutting down on electricity usage by not powering fans in his warehouses.

    • I bet you're a terrible chess player.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      Then how amount spending your billions on preventing the destruction on Earth instead.

      Bezos is orders of magnitudes not rich enough to move the needle on "preventing the destruction".

      He could also, and I know this is outrageous, improve the environmental impact of his own business if he would accept making less money from it.

      He probably could do more on pushing for better packaging, but do you think better bio degradable packaging is going to make difference? All that means that geological record will have less old Amazon packaging under the thick layer of ash.

    • because he is self indulgent windbag who like to play with spaceships, but also, apparently has some kind of virtue/savior complex that requires him to convince himself that he is actually doing this for some greater good

  • maybe pay taxes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ReneR ( 1057034 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @06:16AM (#58944606)
    so government have money for public transport, recycling, environmental projects, etc.?

  • pollution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @07:01AM (#58944714)

    so that we don't have the big factories and pollution generating industries that make those things now on Earth

    This is stupid. The reason we create pollution is because it's cheaper. For instance, many industries use water in their process, and often the water gets contaminated. When you dump the waste water in the river, it's cheap. If you have to process it until it's pure enough to drink, it can become very expensive.

    If you want to do this in space, water is relatively scarce, even in places claimed to have a lot of it, so it makes more sense to make a closed cycle. But if you can do that in space, you can also do it here on Earth.

    • The reason we create pollution is because it's cheaper.

      It's not the only reason.

      • It's not the only reason

        Don't keep us in suspense. What's another reason ?

        • The pollution due to cost savings, incompetence, etc.. is itself a symptom; the cause is semi-intelligent monkeys that have learned how to synthesize weird and wonderful shit that's largely incompatible with the "jungle" that provides for them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      This reminds me of asteroid mining. Some people get excited about it because of the romantic appeal, but it makes no sense until moving stuff in and out of the Earth and Sun's gravitational well is essentially free.

      If there were one metric ton lump of pure native platinum floating around out in the asteroid belt (which there likely isn't), and we knew exactly where it was (which we wouldn't), it wouldn't make economic sense to try to retrieve it, although likely somebody would. Just like some people have

    • This. Nothing you want on Earth can be made cheaper in space. How do you save money by adding choking resource constraints and ridiculous launch costs? His reason makes the most sense as a bit of made-up nonsense to give plausible deniability for much more selfish plans.

      • This. Nothing you want on Earth can be made cheaper in space. How do you save money by adding choking resource constraints and ridiculous launch costs?

        You're thinking too small, too local, and too short-term. You get the resources from space, rather than lifting them from Earth. There are no materials available on Earth which aren't also available in space, and much more abundantly. The challenge is that you need to build the infrastructure in space to be able to acquire and refine the resources there.

        Of course, you need enormous delta-V to be able to shift the raw materials from where they are to here, though, which means you first have to build the

    • And yet, Bezos can pump a billion dollars a year into Blue Origin.
      He could, just as well, somehow uses that billion dollars to clean up Amazon's footprint, which in turn could create a whole new eco-industry.
      I'm all for space exploration - but I prefer the SpaceX variant to the Blue Origin one. B.O. has too much of a "rich mans hobby" flair to it - and justifying it with wanting to help the environment is a bit of a stretch.
  • All the problems of the world would be fixed if all billionaires spent their money on Earth. MacKenzie Bezos is spending her money on Earth. I tend to agree with her, since it is clear that most of us are stuck here anyway.

  • You and your greedy fellow 1%ers ARE destroying the earth

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 )
      The Earth isn't being destroyed. The conditions here are being changed by mass industrialism, China being the worst offender with the United States running a close second such that it may become inhospitable to humans. Earth itself will be just fine. If we can't figure out how to play nicely in the biosphere we have here, we deserve to be purged in favor of other species that can via natural selection.

    • No, we're collectively destroying the Earth because we're demanding all these products that made them so rich in the first place. Oh and I forgot to mention we always want them cheaper by any means.

  • He'd spend his money on terraforming preferably via robotics.

    • Re:If Bezos were smart... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @07:39AM (#58944830) Homepage

      If Bezos was smart, he would spend his money on avoiding the Marsification of the Earth surface, instead of trying to Terraform Mars.
      Costs much much much less, same effect.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        If Bezos was smart, he would spend his money on avoiding the Marsification of the Earth surface, instead of trying to Terraform Mars. Costs much much much less, same effect.

        The top contributor to carbon emissions is China. What is Bezos going to do about that?

        • The top contributor to carbon emissions is China. What is Bezos going to do about that?

          A good chunk of Chinese carbon emissions is for making cheap gadgets that Bezos sells. He could start there.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

            A good chunk of Chinese carbon emissions is for making cheap gadgets that Bezos sells. He could start there.

            Oh the irony! Nicely done! Thus part of globalization is the ability to produce cheaper goods and one of the ways to produce cheaper goods it to use less regulated manufacturing facilities that cause large scale pollution that could make the planet inhospitable to humans. Yay, globalization! We need more of that shit. Talk about alienating a market segment... brilliant! For some reason, the abstract notion of a feedback loop of stupidity is coming to mind. :)

        • If Bezos was smart, he would spend his money on avoiding the Marsification of the Earth surface, instead of trying to Terraform Mars. Costs much much much less, same effect.

          The top contributor to carbon emissions is China. What is Bezos going to do about that?

          Long-term, he wants to move manufacturing from China (or other low-cost countries willing to accept pollution) to space, where pollution is irrelevant.

      • If Bezos was smart, he would spend his money on avoiding the Marsification of the Earth surface, instead of trying to Terraform Mars. Costs much much much less, same effect.

        I think you're confusing Bezos with Musk. Musk is the one who wants to go to Mars and live there. Bezos is saying he wants to move manufacturing into space in order to make Earth a nicer place to live.

        Personally, I think both visions have merit. It's not an either-or. Space-based manufacturing will make Earth nicer and living on Mars more feasible. Achieving a self-sustaining population on Mars dramatically reduces the probability that a single event can wipe out humanity.

        Both visions are very gran

  • The world would be a batter place... (Score:3)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @07:29AM (#58944796) Journal

    ...if people who dared utter something that ironic and arrogant got slapped in the face by the hand of god.

  • The idea that all construction will be done in space is asinine. We'll need energy on Earth regardless, and there'd still be benefit to making the energy plants renewable. Sending raw materials from Earth to orbit/moon/Mars, with finished goods being sent back to Earth, is inefficient. Once we're mining resources elsewhere, then sure there could be construction there, but it'd be more valuable for the base/colony that's there (and Earth-orbiting stations won't be mining resources.)
    We're not going to be buil

    • "The idea that all construction will be done in space is asinine."

      I don't know that's ever been the premise, although it is conceivable. If we had somewhere else to go, and we had space elevators to get people there, then we might reasonably send goods back down in the otherwise empty cars. So the short answer to your assertion is "not any time soon, anyway".

      "We'll need energy on Earth regardless, and there'd still be benefit to making the energy plants renewable."

      If you're developing space then the only no

  • aaaa (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18, 2019 @08:01AM (#58944900)

    "I'm moving house because I wont clean up dog shit"

  • Dear jeff, I'm glad you... (Score:3)

    by herve_masson ( 104332 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @08:43AM (#58945054)

    ... realize we are doing dangerous things on earth.

    We all can do small things to reduce our footprints; I for example greatly reduced my purchases on amazon to avoid individual shippment of $5 objects from asia. This allows me on the same time to not encourage the vat fraud scheme that rely on amazon platform's gross negligence, as well as destruction of local distribution businesses. This is less convenient, I admit. Much less indeed. But that's the price I'm willing to pay.

    Look around you, you can do a lot to reduce earth destruction. This is my part of the dream; that people like you stop beeing so dumb sometimes, while you can be so smart elsewhere.

    Regards,

  • Abandon ship (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @09:20AM (#58945240) Homepage Journal

    We're all on a ship sailing in a limitless ocean, and we've managed it such a half-assed way that it's become an unsanitary dump. Then somebody has a bright idea: we'll move into the lifeboats!

    Yeah, that'll end well. It makes no sense to get into the lifeboats unless you have a place to go. If you have the technology to, say, terraform Venus, which in the long term may be a very good idea, you very likely have the geoengineering knowledge to handle pollution.

    It's not that space exploration is useless. A garden shed is useful, that doesn't make it a viable option to live in if you've filled your house up with garbage.

  • Fixing Earth Seems Easier (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @09:50AM (#58945388)

    I've never understood the idea that because we are destroying earth, we need to recreate the earth somewhere in space. Whatever damage we may be doing to earth, it seems exponentially easier to fix that damage than to create the earth anew (either on a floating station or terraforming another planet).

    We can't even get people to low earth orbit without spending more than than their per-capita lifetime economic output, and you are proposing we move the entire human population off planet? You say the earth is too crowded? That's why birth control was invented.

    • Re:Fixing Earth Seems Easier (Score:4)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @10:23AM (#58945602) Homepage Journal

      Tech nerds dream of escaping the "common people" and establishing a colony where they rule based on logic and fairness. It is basically the New Religion. That is why every rich tech nerd starts a rocket company when they hit the jackpot.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is the myth of the "perennially shifting frontier" (i.e. the US western border during colonization) combined with a whole lot of stupidity that creates this fantasy of a solution. Of course, there is absolutely no way to even get a minor fraction of the human race into space, even if there were a nice, livable, not messed-up planet at the distance of Mars or Venus. Sure, with a herculean effort, it may be possible to get the 60k or so people there required for a long-term viable gene-pool. But the 8B pe

  • We are not destroying earth. (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @10:57AM (#58945820) Journal
    We are simply destroying mankind's ability to live on it. Until we learn to stop adding new fossil fuel electricity plants, we will continue to make things worse. China, India need to stop adding coal plants or replacing with bigger plants. And the west, esp America, needs to quit replacing coal with bigger plants. These new plants will be around for 40+ years. Instead, hydro, geothermal, nukes combined with wind/solar is needed. America is loaded with great geothermal locations ( we have multiple super volcanoes), and can convert a number of fracked oil/nat gas sites into geothermal cheaply.

  • As if we're ever going to live out there somewhere in the next thousand years. If our Earth is in trouble, and it is, do something about it with all the money you are leeching from society.

  • I have the same issue with this as with the movie Interstellar.

    Functioning society but with corn blight --> This planet is fucked. Let's start over on a barren rock planet.

    If you can terraform a lifeless planet (with all of the long-tail problems), then you can fix environmental problems on Earth.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ahodgson ( 74077 )

      I do agree with that. With the addition that even if we did terraform a new world we could never move any noticeable percentage of existing humans to it. We might someday plant a new population but it still wouldn't make a difference to almost anyone existing now.

      However, one could make an argument that it's easier to alter something that doesn't already have 8 billion angry chimps with nuclear weapons on it.

      You can drop comets on Mars for a couple hundred years to give it some water, for instance, with no

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      And as a direct implication, if you cannot fix the problems on this planet (and it very much looks like the human race as a whole is completely incapable to do that), you most certainly cannot terraform anything.

  • The wealthy living in space with the poor on a devastated Earth.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]

    Pretty good movie in my opinion.

  • And a lot of money does certainly not imply a lot of insight, as Bezos nicely demonstrates. Space tech is not going to rescue the human race from climate change. You may, eventually, be able to create a self-sustaining colony with the required 60k or so people for a long-term viable genetic pool, but that is in the far future, a lot farther out than the full impact of climate change. People continuously underestimate how slow technology is moving. Actually get a larger ( > 100) moon-base going that does

  • The wealthy living in space with the poor on a devastated Earth.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]

    Pretty good movie in my opinion.

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