Elon Musk’s Rocket Ship Blew up Mark Zuckerberg’s $200M Satellite. Yes, really.
Space toys: Silicon Valley’s newest pissing match
There’s absurdity and then there’s billionaires in a pissing match about blowing up each others space toys. I don’t even comprehend how we should comment about this? Like, what opinion should we have? Should we be disappointed that the satellite due to beam internet to 14 countries in Africa was destroyed or should we nervously laugh as we slowly back out the door?
When we were kids NASA handled ALL the space shit. Now, space-shit is firmly squeezed in the hands of billionaires renting out Cape Canaveral like it’s a birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese.
Of course, their gracious quests to conquer space for the good of humanity is really just scrambled eggs wrapped in bullshit — Zuckerberg is attempting to give everyone internet so everyone can be on his network and Musk is literally trying to own the future of transportation.
People listen, this is power equivalent to knowing your friend/spouse/SO’s incognito browser history.
The Emperor Games
Moore’s Law implies that because the rate of change and innovation is constantly accelerating due to uncontrollable factors. Then there is an even deeper implication that we will hit an event horizon where in which what we create, will destroy us.
So, whoever can get out ahead of this, who can control access, assets and transport — even before governments will rule us.
Were not just dealing with ‘f-you’ money or power-plays: this is emperor games.
Emperors?
Some people rise to power using political tactics. Some people rise to power using violence. And some sneak around the public’s nose blowing up space toys and the next thing you know they are running the country/world/universe/video game (Musk’s brain).
These guys are the new Robber Barons.
The original Barons in the late 1800’s snuck up underneath everyone’s nose because the public was very much worried about dying from disease and on going post-war unrest. Today we’re distracted by a billion other things.
Maybe we’re being less than diligent with billionaires trying to sneak in a quick space launch on a Thursday before a long weekend.
Oh well…
Besides the whole “be really scared of the future” thing, the takeaway here is that you can basically AirBnB Cape Canaveral on Labor Day weekend Thursday. And that’s pretty sick.
Lastly a big shout out to my guy, Bill Gates. The OG billionaire. I didn’t know billionaires existed until I learned about Bill when I was 12.
Bill is sitting with as much, if not more money than the space-nerd twins. But, is Bill trying to ride a rocket ship to space? Is he building self driving cars equipped with the Microsoft Office stack? No and No.
Bill’s just over there trying to toss around some food for the poor, fight a couple diseases real quick, and maybe deliver a few gallons of fresh water to Africa.
Even though I’m a through and through Apple guy, I must give huge ups to my boy Bill for sticking to helping around our current inhabitance first.
I will have an exquisite long form piece (me? long form?) about the modern robber baron coming soon-ish. To read it when it drops, Follow Me sometime ;)
