It seems that every billionaire started out as a kid who wanted to live in space.
Yes, we’re talking about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who both seem to think that being the richest men in the world gives them the power to live out their childhood fantasies of taking over the literal galactic universe, rather than directing their resources, wealth and power towards…oh I don’t know… global poverty?
Or perhaps they know all too well that our planet will explode due to global warming at some point in the scarily near future and they’re preparing an exclusive escape to Mars.
Either way, they do seem to both be making waves in the world of outer-space technology which can be exciting due to new discoveries and abilities but also scary, when the magnitude of their power starts to sink in.
Some people feel pretty strongly about these money-making moguls, so much so that there’s currently a petition surfacing, with 12,000 signatures requesting that Jeff Bezos is banned from re-entering the atmosphere after his announcement he was going to space in a few days.
Back in May, Jeff Bezos’s aerospace company Blue Origin was auctioning off a seat on its first autonomous spacecraft, New Shepard, which is scheduled to fly from Blue Origin’s West Texas spaceport to the edge of space on July 20. Update: the winning bid was $37 million.
Now, Bezos has announced that he will be on board this flight, going to space for 11 minutes, as a part of New Shepard’s first crewed flight.
The creator of the change.org petition Jose Ortiz describes Bezos as “an evil overlord hellbent on global domination” and claims that Bezos has “worked with the Epsteins and the Knights Templar, as well as the Free Masons to gain control over the whole world”.
Clearly, Ortiz thinks the world would be a better place without Jeff Bezos and apparently, 12,000 others agree with him.
The bit that confuses me is when Ortiz states “he’s also in bed with the flat earth deniers; it’s the only way they’ll allow him to leave the atmosphere”. This accusation of Bezos comes across as a claim that his political beliefs are very radical, right up there with anti-vaxxers, coronavirus truthers and even conspiracy theory groups like QAnon.
Do we just assume that every rich white male in power has terrible political beliefs and questionable morals? It’s hard to say, the internet can be a very accusatory place.
Regardless of the ugliness that comes with Jeff Bezos’s reputation, I personally don’t think that a petition to get him banned from Earth is the best course of action.
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