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Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

theatlantic.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#21

Post by pdonis »

morningseagulls wrote: post #15
roenxi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is what you were drawing attention to, but that part of the article misinterprets centralised planning. What it describes is the logistics of getting something from one place to another. Centralised planning is when a government planner decides the source, the destination and the good without giving final power to a consumer. Amazon doesn't have the final word on what people buy (or the destination of good…

>that part of the article misinterprets centralised planning. What it describes is the logistics of getting something from one place to another. I think it's worthwhile to re-read the passage I quoted: >Hayek[...] argued that no bureaucracy could ever match the miracle of markets, which spontaneously and efficiently aggregate the knowledge of a society. This isn't just about physical logistics. Hayek is arguing that…

> Hayek is arguing that no centralised agent has perfect information. The author is arguing that Amazon is approaching the stage when it would have perfect information about the consumers it serves.

This statement in the article is a huge misstatement.

First, Amazon only has information about the goods it sells. There are many things it doesn't sell, and many things that it can't sell. There are huge supply chains behind the products it sells that it does not see. There are also many things of value that are not exchanged with money.

Second, to the extent Amazon does have information about its customers, it has that information because of those customers' buying decisions. In other words, it has exactly the information that Hayek says a market participant has, and no more: the price at which other market participants will buy whatever quantity of one's products are sold.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#22

Post by yters »

Why the space colonization focus of techies? So much of earth vastly underpopulated and much easier to colonize. What if an asteroid strikes earth? What if the space colonies all fail?

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#23

Post by m0xte »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #18
mothsonasloth wrote: post #8

I am a sci-fi enthusiast like Bezos, however he seems to cherry pick the themes that he likes to apply to himself and Amazon e.g. driving mankind towards the stars and solving energy crises. There are however plenty of dystopian concepts in science fiction which his company seem to be propelling us toward: * Compression of labour wages by replacing/augmenting with robots. * Building an evil mega-corp (think Tyrell, L…

I propose he stop investing in Blue Origin and fund another 100 seasons of the Expanse.

I would be very very happy about that if it happened. It filled the gap where firefly was supposed to be.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#24

Post by pmoriarty »

morningseagulls wrote: post #2

I like this detour into economics: > Bezos’s enterprise upends long-held precepts about the fundamental nature of capitalism—especially an idea enshrined by the great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek[, who] argued that no bureaucracy could ever match the miracle of markets, which spontaneously and efficiently aggregate the knowledge of a society. > Amazon, however, has acquired the God’s-eye view of the economy tha…

Alienation is a critical and central part of Marxist critique. To miss it is to misunderstand Marxism.

Marxists could not call it a day after nationalizing Amazon because the people who make the goods that Amazon sells would still be alienated from the goods they produce, and Amazon's workers would still be alienated from the products of their own labor.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#25

Post by sergioro »

sunasra wrote: post #12

Move to space to save the earth is useless statement. Human isn’t able save natural resources on earth, how come he can build enough resources to survive human being in space or mars or whatever. I would say Focus on earth, invest on the broken things

Earth's limited resources might well be the primary reason to explore other planets.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#26

Post by andreilys »

sunasra wrote: post #12

Move to space to save the earth is useless statement. Human isn’t able save natural resources on earth, how come he can build enough resources to survive human being in space or mars or whatever. I would say Focus on earth, invest on the broken things

Think of it as a hedge against possible extinction.

Being a multi-planterary species means that an existential threat on earth (I.e. asteroid, super bug, etc.) doesn’t wipe out all of humanity.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#27

Post by carapace »

yters wrote: post #22

Why the space colonization focus of techies? So much of earth vastly underpopulated and much easier to colonize. What if an asteroid strikes earth? What if the space colonies all fail?

> Why the space colonization focus of techies?

I. Many "techies" are also science-fiction fans.

II. Space is where everything else is located.

> So much of earth vastly underpopulated and much easier to colonize.

For the next few minutes.

Either we stabilize population or we fill the Earth (exponential growth) or Nature stabilizes it for us (which is expected to be pretty gruesome if it comes to pass.)

If we want to keep growing we are going to have to do it in space. (Although that will only postpone the inevitable, albeit for perhaps millions or billions of generations.)

> What if an asteroid strikes earth?

That would suck, but it seems like a reason to colonize space.

> What if the space colonies all fail?

That would also suck. It is not a reason not to try though.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#28

Post by andreilys »

morningseagulls wrote: post #5
sverige wrote: post #3

Interesting article. I thought Bezos was just another greedy, power-mad megalomaniac. That he's also a dewy-eyed Trekkie who rationalizes his greed with dreams of space colonization makes it even sillier. Who knew Gene Roddenberry was more dangerous than any economic theorist?

>That he's also a dewy-eyed Trekkie who rationalizes his greed with dreams of space colonization makes it even sillier. Space colonization is a form of greed: it's basically saying this world is not enough. So I don't see this as a rationalization: in fact, the article heavily suggests that his dream of space colonization was what led to his greed.

You could just as easily say that space colonization is the highest form of humanitarianism.

If an extinction-level event occurs on earth, humanity can continue to flourish and populate the cosmos rather than go the way of the dinosaur.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#29

Post by pas »

yters wrote: post #22

Why the space colonization focus of techies? So much of earth vastly underpopulated and much easier to colonize. What if an asteroid strikes earth? What if the space colonies all fail?

Almos all the tech needed to survive in space is useful also down here too.

The odds are that all the colonies fail is real, just as the asteroid striking Earth, but the colonies on the long term perfectly hedge against a lot of failure modes.

Re: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan

#30

Post by carapace »

vixen99 wrote: post #7

Bezos on climate: "While others might fret that climate change will soon make the planet uninhabitable, the billionaire (Bezos) wrings his hands over the prospects of diminished growth. But the scenario he describes is indeed grim. Without enough energy to go around, rationing and starvation will ensue." As Lovelock as said, currently the only answer is nuclear energy and that's largely rejected while the non-Western…

Yeah, nuclear energy for the long-term (I'm hearing that it would take too long to build the reactors to be much immediate help with climate change) and biomemetic food production (regenerative agriculture, "Permaculture", applied ecology, etc.)

As much as I would like to go to space I don't think mass migration will be possible (unless we make some crazy technological breakthrough like anti-gravity or something.)

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