Jeff Bezos wants to take you into SPAAAAAACE!

Going to space, that is, not getting rich. Me, given the choice? Just write me the check and I'm happy to stay down here.

There are no laws in space so you can murder Jeff Bezos and get off scot-free.

I’d much rather than go to space and have no money than the other way around. Money is bad

There are no laws in space so you can murder Jeff Bezos and get off scot-free.

Sure way to get Space Force on your tail, imo.

I'd rather explore the deep than space, really. James Cameron is the rich guy for that one iirc.

yeah, I'd rather go to the bottom of the ocean than to outer space.

idk they scare me about equally and in space there are no fish to laugh at me as I die

There’s nothing at the bottom of the ocean except for trash and blind minibosses. In space there is absolutely no trash, zero debris, and the lack of gravity makes you strong and hardy

@milo - not sure if the fact it's a private craft changes things at all, but:

According to Article VIII of the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies whenever one of the nations that's a party to the treaty launches an object — i.e., a spacecraft, satellite or space station — into space, or builds one on a celestial body, that nation retains jurisdiction and control over it.

So we need to wait for a rocket launched from Peter Thiel's floating microstate to start murdering?

Getting a letter of marque to assassinate Elon Musk on his rocket to Mars.

"Why did you murder Mr. Bezos?"
"I'm a legal scholar"

Karl, pretty sure space is *nothing* but orbiting trash.

Soon including Bezos.

(i know :))

anything within visual distance of earth is bound to be full of trash soon

(xp the lack of gravity makes one weak and cranky, too, i suspect)

didn't realize this company was from 2007!

I'm all for this-- as long as Bezos has to pee into a bottle for the entire trip

the superrich probably have less access to the sublime than the average person, ordinarily. the world feels malleable to them, small. this probably produces a severe sense of despair, you know, the unfathomable loneliness of god and all that, so they are trying to heal themselves by going into space and experiencing a reality that makes them feel small again.

what he should do instead is give away his money, change his name, and get a job at the burger king in paramus.

Rockets are explosive and inherently dangerous. So is falling to earth from a great height. I would like Jeff Bezos to experience this situation as often as possible. Once a day would be excellent.

idk they scare me about equally and in space there are no fish to laugh at me as I die

― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Monday, June 7, 2021 12:03 PM (one hour ago)

a good one for the 100 drawings thread

I'd like to go into space if the spacecrafts weren't blowing up all the time

https://t.co/cN3nzyBCwr pic.twitter.com/uytubJ02ho

— hollywood brett thousand (@BrettThousand) June 7, 2021

This could be excellent fodder for the Punky Brewster reboot.

men will literally go to the edge of space with their brother instead of going to therapy

— blaire erskine (@blaireerskine) June 7, 2021

This could be excellent fodder for the Punky Brewster Fantastic Four reboot.

"There's nothing."
"I know. Have a good journey, Mr. Bezos."

the superrich probably have less access to the sublime than the average person, ordinarily. the world feels malleable to them, small. this probably produces a severe sense of despair, you know, the unfathomable loneliness of god and all that, so they are trying to heal themselves by going into space and experiencing a reality that makes them feel small again.

I hear making minimum wage and shopping at the dollar store gives you direct access to the sublime. Like literally downloading Barnett Newman into your optic nerve. You should try it some time.

thoreau thought that poverty helped make one more receptive to aesthetic experience. it's not an insane idea. but i was sort of being semi-ironic. like, i do think it is true that the space thing has to do with bezos feeling dead inside, but also whatever.

or *could* help rather. and maybe not poverty, really -- the brutality of lived poverty -- but simplicity, which is different. either way, i feel like it probably is a little disorienting to wield the kind of economic power bezos does.

Fuck amazon

thoreau thought that poverty helped make one more receptive to aesthetic experience.

treeship badly paraphrasing thoreau isn't the same as what thoreau thought or wrote -- and treesh amplified and corrected his bad paraphrase,

yeah, poverty means living in a state of constant stress and uncertainty. often you have little control over your own life. i wasn't trying to romanticize that sort of condition. but i also think vast wealth, on the order of what bezos has, is corrupting in a different way.

The poor get their rewards in heaven iirc

While for Bezos, heaven is a place on earth.

(By "on," I mean slightly above, looking down with contempt.)

treeship is otm about extremely rich people having no access to spirituality and otm about why bezos is doing this imo. it's also extremely pathetic and funny.

it's not necessarily that the wealthy can't access spirit but that obsession with money/capital/exploitation is incompatible with it.

exactly. thanks map.

I remember an interview with some Japanese shipping magnate who had spent years in a Zen monastery before coming back to run the family business. The interviewer asked him how his spiritual training informed his shipping magnate-ism. The guy said, "Zen is good for many things. But not so much for business."

odd then that spiritual people tend to gravitate toward money/capital/exploitation

o rly

If by "spiritual people" you mean "religious institutions," sure. But that's probably not the best way to define that.

society is sick in a lot of ways, fabrication of spiritual well-being for capital is one of them

prosperity gospel, sea org, sexual exploitation of followers, etc. etc. etc.

i don't think cult leaders who sexually exploit their followers are necessarily spiritually enlightened either.

i was talking about the sublime specifically, or an aesthetic/spiritual intuition of infinity. it requires a kind of humility and an ability to step beyond your immediate attachments and strivings.

anyway, I told my 6 yo that Bezos was going into space and he said, "I guess the people on earth will be free for a few days then."

lol for real?

Neanderthal, you should pitch this as a series

xxpost

"Onlookers called it the least threatening mob in recorded history"

look, we can try to impeach the choir president. again. we know what happened last time. it will fail again. i hate to use this tired phrase, but...i kind of feel like we're preaching to the--

reluctant lol

sponsored by MeMayMahMoMooveOn.org

loooooooooooooool Karl

Neanderthal, you should pitch this as a series

i would like it to be one of those series where episode 6 is entirely about the day there was a substitute choir teacher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulhz75reeAw

sponsored by MeMayMahMoMooveOn.org

Part of a historic bridge in the Netherlands will be dismantled so that a superyacht built for Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, can pass through the river that flows through Rotterdam, the city said on Thursday.

Netty Kros, a spokeswoman for the city of Rotterdam, said that the middle part of the 95-year-old Koningshaven Bridge would be removed this summer so that the sailing yacht could pass. The bridge, known locally as “De Hef,” will then be restored, potentially on the same day, she said.

Mr. Bezos’s yacht should be able to fit under all the other bridges in Rotterdam, Ms. Kros said. She did not have an estimate of how much the deconstruction would cost but said that the shipbuilder, not residents of Rotterdam, would pay.

There will not be any structural changes to the bridge, Ms. Kros said, adding that the city had to weigh the economic benefits of having the yacht built in Rotterdam and the jobs that would create.

posted this in the Amazon thread before I saw this. Jesus christ that last line :(

yeah I wasn't sure which thread was best for this depressing example of modern capitalism, lots of options!

what gets me is it is both a depressing example of modern capitalism and of almost comically feudalistic insanity

lords of the manor: the original job creators

yeah this sort of thing was par for the course for early modern royalty. like if the princess was travelling with her 250-person retinue it would simply be understood that if he had to a truly gracious host would dismantle an exterior wall in order to carry her bed into the best room of the house

It's really the fault of Rotterdam's founders for not anticipating that a future billionaire's mega-yacht might need to get through, sheesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGhcSupkNs8