glimpses population freefloating planets

#GLIMPSES POPULATION FREEFLOATING PLANETS SERIES#

In the aftermath of Bezos’s announcement, his vision of a population living in space colonies was most frequently compared to Neill Blomkamp’s film Elysium - and it’s clear why. When they’re filled in, Bezos looks a lot more like Niander Wallace, the replicant manufacturer in Blade Runner 2049, than the saviour he thinks himself to be. The utopian future put forward by Bezos has blind spots so big you could pilot a starship through them. The Jeff Bezos brand of never-ending growth will require constant population gains, increased energy use, and more resources than our planet can provide - so, into the stars we must go.Īs is so often the case with the analyses of billionaires, a lot gets left out of the picture.

This is the same imperative that has driven Bezos to look to the stars.Īlso read: A Vision of the Future of Space Exploration From a Century Agoīezos is convinced that humanity will fall prey to “stasis and rationing” if we remain on Earth. Its inaction is of course motivated by the logic of profit maximisation - at the expense of planetary destruction. Amazon workers have demanded their boss take stronger measures to address the company’s environmental footprint, but even his renewed pledge doesn’t go far enough. He says this as he nonetheless courts the oil and gas industry. The quest for space habitats is essential, Bezos argues, because we’re destroying the planet.

The richest man in the world with an intent to “ save the Earth,” Bezos has claimed that space travel is “ the only way” he can see to effectively deploy his enormous wealth - a statement he saw fit to make while simultaneously working to defeat a small tax increase in Seattle that would have bolstered programs to help the city’s soaring homeless population. Such a development, argues Bezos, will allow us to produce thousands of “Mozarts and Einsteins.” But what about everyone else? This proximity, he argues, will help the planet to avoid exceeding its capacity as the population swells into the trillions.

#GLIMPSES POPULATION FREEFLOATING PLANETS SERIES#

During an hour-long presentation in Washington, DC, the Amazon billionaire described how humans will need to leave Earth if we’re to maintain “growth and dynamism” in the future.įor Bezos, our future is a series of free-floating space colonies called O’Neill cylinders in close proximity to Earth. In May, Jeff Bezos unveiled his long-term vision for humanity’s future.

Glimpses population freefloating planets