It seems to me that the world is not in a great place right now. Here in America, the government has been shut down for weeks, and even when it’s open, it’s being run by a wannabe dictator, with too few checks or balances from his feckless followers. On the internet, social media algorithms drive negative effects on mental health, political polarization, and the spread of misinformation. Globally, the very real effects of climate change are being seen and felt in ways big and small, while humanity seems incapable of dealing with such a big problem and the collective action it requires.1
We should all buck up though, because uber-rich Jeff Bezos sees no reason for anyone, anywhere, to be discouraged.
Jeff Bezos Says He Doesn’t Understand Why Anybody Alive Now Would Be ‘Discouraged’—Because Soon, ‘Millions Of People Will Be Living In Space’
“Will this make me sound like an out-of-touch mega-billionaire?” Bezos ought to have wondered, but apparently did not.
Right now, we all live on the perfect place for human life.2 Rather than attempting to send millions of people to live in space, it would be really great if we could focus on making life easier for the people who live on planet Earth, as well as not destroying our home.
Footnotes:
A couple years back, I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s “We Are The Weather”, which proposed that we can avert the worst outcomes by having fewer children, eating fewer animal products, and flying less. Though I do what I can here myself, I am not optimistic about that happening at a wide enough scale. ↩︎
Well, almost all. ↩︎
