No Utopia for You
Motherboard about how billionaires have the means to shape the future according to their values and visions, while the rest of us are often never asked. The disconnect of realities between the ultra-rich and regular people is well documented, so what’s good in their opinion probably does not reflect the true needs of many. Even more interestingly, it mainly appears to be about competition:
Clark founded Silicon Graphics and Netscape and became very wealthy doing so. He directed part of his wealth to the pursuit of the fastest sailboat. For a time, he and Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, competed for that title, and in doing so, their masts got taller and their hulls got longer (stop giggling.) Clark fashioned his boat with the latest technology available and those who saw it compared it to the Bridge in Star Trek. Ellison did similar.
Also, there’s this nugget:
In April the US House of Representatives passed an Act that says, “outer space shall not be considered a global commons.” This means that for all of our own dreaming (and the dreaming of other countries), unless we are in the United States, and incredibly wealthy, we aren’t allowed to make outer space part of our personal Utopia—it belongs to the rich, which right now means SpaceX and Blue Origin.
This is in stark contrast to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and will only serve to increase tensions between the US and other nations.