51–60 of 95 posts
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?
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There are no more frontiers on Earth to discover/explore/develop. Everything here is controlled by a more-or-less recognized government over a nation-state. Built. Controlled. Civilized. The expanding frontiers of space represent a fantasy - where there would be contant expansion of human possibility/potential. Also a hedge against earth's collapse.
>There are no more frontiers on Earth to discover/explore/develop. That's not true - we know far less about the oceans than we do about space. >The expanding frontiers of space represent a fantasy - where there would be contant expansion of human possibility/potential. That fantasy depends on the common science-fiction metaphor that space is just a bigger, wider ocean and that we just need to recreate the Age of Sail…
That said, re: Oceans -- I find it hard to believe that "pioneers" could build islands or sub-oceanic cities (Gungan-style), without a nation-state declaring their sovereignty over it. Maybe a floating flotilla of ships, like in Snow Crash? But, still, generally I think that nation-states have us just where they want us.
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…
Ha, indeed. It's almost like a weird form of localized entropy reduction. Driving improvements in some areas whilst externalizing damage in others.
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> greedy, power-mad megalomaniac Why do you think that of him?
With his Amazon warehouses, for most of his employees he's created the terrible future of poverty and misery that he allegedly dreams of saving humanity from with his space colonies. And his success isn't built on any innovation other than relentlessly keeping as much as he can for himself.
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?
It's an appealing fantasy which enables denial of limits to economic and technological growth. It's an appealing fantasy to which I was very strongly drawn in my youth, through O'Neill torii, T.A. Heppenheimer, von Braun, Clark, Asimov, and Heinlein. I believe I've matured slightly.
Matured in favor of, or in opposition to, or in a different path altogether?
How do you plan to spread that maturity to others if what you're sharing is not clear? I grew up on the same diet of SF authors, and while I do acknowledge the need for work to be done here on earth, we shouldn't let that need tear down progress towards space. Especially when space expenditures are such a small part of what we as a country and the world spend our resources on.
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How does mass murder help to reduce alienation again? Also, it's widely disputed that the USSR was actually a Marxist society. I've heard it described as "State Capitalism". Regardless, it's pretty clear that the mass murder in places like the USSR, China, and Cambodia was due to small groups of people getting massive amounts of power, abusing that power, and being completely insensitive to the suffering they cause,…
By eliminating the alienated and scaring the rest.
>> small groups of people getting massive amounts of power
In part, yes. But in part it was because in any revolution not everyone will support your kooky ideas. Those folks will fight you after you succeed. The only known way of pacifying them is by murdering them all. You see this every time.
>> you have to understand Marxism
I'd argue you're the one who needs to "understand" in this case. I lived the consequences of Marxism for the first 22 years of my life. I want no part of that shit here in the US, no matter how it's sold to me.
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…
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…
what if it was an ai instead?
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It's an appealing fantasy which enables denial of limits to economic and technological growth. It's an appealing fantasy to which I was very strongly drawn in my youth, through O'Neill torii, T.A. Heppenheimer, von Braun, Clark, Asimov, and Heinlein. I believe I've matured slightly.
Just stating you've matured isn't very useful. Matured in favor of, or in opposition to, or in a different path altogether? How do you plan to spread that maturity to others if what you're sharing is not clear? I grew up on the same diet of SF authors, and while I do acknowledge the need for work to be done here on earth, we shouldn't let that need tear down progress towards space. Especially when space expenditures…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an appealing fantasy which enables denial of limits to economic and technological growth. It's an appealing fantasy to which I was very strongly drawn in my youth, through O'Neill torii, T.A. Heppenheimer, von Braun, Clark, Asimov, and Heinlein. I believe I've matured slightly.
More like you've died slightly.
Several other parts have grown in its place though.
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Regardless, Amazon picks the suppliers, owns the information channel, and both informs and transacts with the consumer. It operates on a greater scale than many national economies, falling at about 38th on a current listing based on 2018 revenues. Amazon is the market. Hayek's basic premise was that national-scale central management was impossible. Amazon and other megacorps put paid to this.
Amazon - often picks all the suppliers, and lets the buyer decide which they prefer. Also - they deal in finished (consumer) goods. There is a whole lot of coordination before that stuff gets assembled and ready for Amazon or one or their marketplace suppliers to ship it. Maybe they've integrated the demand chain logistics, but not the integration supply chain. And they don't dictate that consumers get to purchase on…