Billionaires aren't getting into the Space Race because they grew up on Star Trek. This is a game of Monopoly, and they are playing to own the pipes.
A new form of consolidation through lateral integration, across apparently separate industrial sectors that maintain control over essential communications infrastructures.
Own the pipes, and you control the world.
It #obviously needs a #Q to #puzzle them and put them into some #wealthy @Disorder and #Chaos.
https://hachyderm.io/@cyberlyra/116206636468006458
Some additional context for those who haven't had a lot of exposure "how awful Silicon Valley types are".. the prevailing "thought" in "start up" / "leadership" / VC parts of tech is essentially:
- "lie, cheat, steal, and break any law(s) that you personally won't be held accountable for... until you have a monopoly. a.k.a "get too big to fail'"
- If/ When you get caught... you'll be rich enough to buy your way out of any serious consequences and/ or to draw out the lawsuits until there is a political administration that's 'friendly' to giving you a 'get ouf of jail free' card
- then use your monopoly to 'steal everything that isn't nailed down' (for as long as possible)..
- then, you use the money from your previous crime spree to move on to your next start up and "do it all over again"
Reid Hoffman is one of the people credited with spreading this propaganda, which he's written about in multiple books and talks about on his podcast fairly regularly.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38398157-blitzscaling
It's fairly easy to find references to this and once you know it's a thing, you can see it in almost every choice that 'big tech' makes
"Consume everything in sight, use up every resource, break every cultural norm/ every law".. and then move on to 'the next thing' and do it again
It's not difficult to see why/ how Epstein was able to ingratiate himself with so many of these assholes
The Gilded Age reference is not misplaced. When the railway barons were busy building their empires of steel, Andrew Carnegie bought up the steel mines and mills that supplied the rails. He and his investors were enriched beyond imagination thanks to vertical integration and preferred pricing. At the same time, enormous corporations like General Electric bought up shares in local power grids and utility companies, then flooded the market with low-quality electrical appliances. These spoke of the future to the 1920’s housewife even as they increased her household’s reliance on the very grids they owned, ensuring a double payout.
@cyberlyra I can't disagree overall, but do think the Star Trek thing might have something to do with it as well? I mean, frikkin' humanoid robots at your beck and call? Uploading yourself to a computer to achieve immortality?! These aren't things ordinary humans want, and aren't the "pipes" either. They're the sci-fi fantasies of 12 year-old boys.
The tech bros are man-children with waaay too much power and money. 🤷🏻♂️
@ApostateEnglishman
i have actually written about how people who pay attention to their scifi --as political parables with meaning beyond the flashy surface- use those references in their daily work on spaceflight. it looks nothing like these fantasies.
(open access at https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/315 if you're curious )
Perhaps it would be a good idea if the billionaires joined forces and built and occupied their own "perfect" world on Mars together, the sooner the better...
last i checked the verdict was out on exactly HOW one would die within three minutes on Mars--from your blood boiling under radiation, or freezing in the extreme cold, or hypoxia and asphyxiation from the atmosphere.
they'd be doing us a service for Science if they tested for us.
Mark Powell, formerly of NASA
Cyberlyra
aproitz
For I am CJ 
Roadskater, Ph.D.
Charlie Stross
The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉
Thomas Wassermann