
Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan - samdung
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/what-jeff-bezos-wants/598363/
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mothsonasloth
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, Liandri, UAC, Weyland Yutani) that has its tentacles in every market.

* Facilitating the demise of human privacy laws

* Encouraging consumerism and subsequent pollution.

I am sure there are other themes in sci-fi that could be applied to Amazon.

Looking forward to my subdermal Alexa powered chip!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrruSboN1bQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrruSboN1bQ)

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

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netjiro
I really hope you're joking. It scares me that distracting entertainment is
preferred over advancement in reality. Remembering (true or not?) that we
spent more on movies about extinction level impacts than on actual detection
and prevention.

That said, I enjoy watching Expanse and look forward to s4 :)

~~~
PopeDotNinja
I just really like SpaceX. Blue Origin is taking their sweet time to do
anything cool, making me wonder if they'll ever do anything.

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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?

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dredmorbius
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.

~~~
aperrien
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 are
such a small part of what we as a country and the world spend our resources
on.

~~~
dredmorbius
[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fiwgs/why_col...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fiwgs/why_colonizing_space_is_not_the_solution_to/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/faq](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/faq)

~~~
aperrien
These essays, and the root of all of the, the Charles Stross essay, are quite
good! However, they are also 13 and 6 years old, respectively. Have you taken
a look around to see if the assumptions behind them still hold? The landscape
may have changed since they were written.

The world, and the technology of it is in constant change; I really like your
essay examples, in that the goalposts for your viewpoints are set quite
thoroughly. If only everyone were so clear in their arguments...

~~~
dredmorbius
I wrote those. If anything my views, based on evidence and understanding, have
strengthened.

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vixen99
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 countries increase their fossil fuel
use 'up to but not beyond' Western levels. They have a way to go and it seems
not to involve cutting back whatever words emerge.

~~~
carapace
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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sunasra
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

~~~
andreilys
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.

~~~
dpau
Agreed. But it's a bit like your house has caught fire and, rather than try to
put it out, you call a realtor and go shopping for a new home. Why not try to
save your current home, first?

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minitoar
Because the only way to stay warm in this current house is literally lighting
bits of it on fire.

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morningseagulls
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 that Hayek
> never imagined any single entity could hope to achieve. [...] With its
> logistics business—and its growing network of trucks and planes—it has an
> understanding of the flow of goods around the world. In other words, if
> Marxist revolutionaries ever seized power in the United States, they could
> nationalize Amazon and call it a day._

Perhaps we need to break up Amazon because communism? /s

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roenxi
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 goods
for that matter) so it isn't a centrally planned system in that sense.

~~~
dredmorbius
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.

~~~
ci5er
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 one and
only one brand of whatever product (like peanut butter).

~~~
dredmorbius
Amazon b2b: [https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amazon-
business](https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amazon-business)

~~~
ci5er
Neat!

(Although I knew about it and stand by my assertion, because...)

I still can't conceive of using that to build a (say) iPhone.

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sverige
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?

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Infinitesimus
> greedy, power-mad megalomaniac

Why do you think that of him?

~~~
sverige
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.

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gdy
You have no idea of what poverty and misery are.

~~~
sverige
Having spent a year homeless on the streets and sometimes on friends' couches,
I would say 'Fuck you.' But that would be rude.

~~~
gdy
That's what I thought. No idea.

And by the way, was that happening while you were working at Amazon?

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cerealbad
Allegedly Rent seeking billionaires are hypothetically positioning themselves
in the supposed space race because the theoretical American -Chinese cold war
will be potentially fought in low earth orbit, "smart money gets in quick to
suckle at the trillion dollar defense budget." some people might say. Edit:
opinion duly corrected in line with moderation standards

~~~
dang
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, regardless of how provocative
or annoying such things are. You may not owe rent-seeking billionaires better,
but you owe this community better if you're participating here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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fredsanford
I'd guess... Make enough money to cure baldness and disdain for working
people.

Only half sarcastic...

