Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos want to colonize outer space to save humanity, but they couldn't care less about protecting the rights of workers here on earth.
Musk's SpaceX just won a $2.9 billion NASA contract to land astronauts on the moon, beating out Bezos.
The money isn't a big deal for either of them. Musk is worth $179.7 billion. Bezos, $197.8 billion. Together, that's almost as much as the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.
And the moon is only their stepping-stone.
Musk says SpaceX will land humanson Mars by 2026and wants to establish a colony by 2050. Its purpose, he says, will be to ensure the continued survival of our species.
"If we make life multiplanetary, there may come a day when some plants and animals die out on Earth but are still alive on Mars," hetweeted.
Bezos is also aiming to build extraterrestrial colonies, but in space rather than on Mars. Heenvisions"very large structures, miles on end" that will "hold a million people or more each."
But Musk and Bezos are treating their workers like, well, dirt.
Last spring, after calling government stay-at-home orders "fascist" and tweeting "FREE AMERICA NOW," Musk reopened his Tesla factory in Fremont, California before health officials said it safe to do so. Almost immediately,10Tesla workers came down with the virus. As cases mounted, Musk fired workers who took unpaid leave. Seven months later, at least450Tesla workers had been infected.
Musk's production assistants, as they're called, earn $19 an hour hardly enough to afford rent and other costs of living in northern California. Musk isvirulently anti-union. A few weeks ago, the National Labor Relations Boardfoundthat Tesla illegally interrogated workers over suspected efforts to form a union, fired one and disciplined another for union-related activities, threatened workers if they unionized and barred employees from communicating with the media.
Bezos isn't treating his earthling employees much better. His warehouses impose strict production quotas and subject workers to seemingly arbitrary firings, total surveillance and 10-hour workdays with only two half-hour breaks often not enough time to get to a bathroom and back. Bezos boasts that his workers get $15 an hour, but that comes to about $31,000 a year for a full-time worker, less than half the U.S. median family income. And no paid sick leave.
Bezos has fired at least two employees who publicly complained about lack of protective equipment during the pandemic. To thwart the recent union drive in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon required workers to attend anti-union meetings, warned they'd have to pay union dues (untrue Alabama is a "right-to-work" state), and threatened them with lost pay and benefits.
Musk and Bezos are the richest people in America and their companies are among the country's fastest growing. They thereby exert huge influence on how other chief executives understand their obligations to employees.
The gap between the compensation of CEOs and average workers is already at a record high. They inhabit different worlds.
If Musk and Bezos achieve their extraterrestrial aims, these worlds could be literally different. Most workers won't be able to escape into outer space. A few billionaires are already lining up.
The super-rich have always found means of escaping the perils of everyday life. During the plagues of the 17thcentury, European aristocrats decamped to their country estates. During the 2020 pandemic, wealthy Americans headed to the Hamptons, their ranches in Wyoming or their yachts.
The rich have also found ways to protect themselves from the rest of humanity in fortified castles, on hillsides safely above smoke and sewage, in grand mansions far from the madding crowds. Some of today's super rich have created doomsday bunkers in case of nuclear war or social strife.
But as earthly hazards grow not just environmental menaces but also social instability related to growing inequality escape will become more difficult. Bunkers won't suffice. Not even space colonies can be counted on.
I'm grateful to Musk for making electric cars and to Bezos for making it easy to order stuff online. But I wish they'd set better examples for protecting and lifting the people who do the work.
It's understandable that the super wealthy might wish to escape the gravitational pull of the rest of us. But there's really no escape. If they're serious about survival of the species, they need to act more responsibly toward working humans here on terra firma.
Excerpt from:
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos: the great escape - Salon
- 'For All Mankind' season 4 episode 1 review: Lots of moving parts ... - Space.com - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Five Surprisingly Perfect Song and Sci-Fi Book Pairings - tor.com - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Retired Apollo program physcist to speak at First Colony Branch ... - Fort Bend Star - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Have Elon Musk Been To Mars? - TickerTV News - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- The Bodily Indignities of the Space Life - The New York Times - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Can Elon Musk Buy The Moon? - TickerTV News - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Report: SpaceX Safety Lapses Leading to Severe Staff Injuries - Gizmodo - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Luke O'Neill: 'Diverse' group needed to form Mars colony - Newstalk - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Lessons learned from first season with pitch timer, new MLB rules - MLB.com - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Opinion | Elon Musk, Geoff Hinton, and the War Over A.I. - The New York Times - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Warhammer 40K: The Imperium Is Ignoring A Lot Of STCs Sitting ... - BoLS - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Every Major City & Town In Starfield, Ranked By Vibes - Screen Rant - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Starfield Could Learn A Lot From Fallout: New Vegas' Wild Wasteland - DualShockers - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- 'Tech Week' summer program concludes at Kurn Hattin Homes for ... - Brattleboro Reformer - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- The 'Reality Check' Era Of The EV Transition Is Upon Us - The Autopian - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Humanity's Return To The Moon And The Prospect Of South Pole ... - Hackaday - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- The Biggest Horror Movie Flops of the 2000s - MovieWeb - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- The Future of Space Exploration: Upcoming Missions, Technologies ... - Medium - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Steam free games: download and keep 12 titles right now - GAMINGbible - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Emerges as the Wealthiest Individual on Earth - Clayton County Register - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- I'm Hooked on The Banished Vault's Bad Times Generation - Paste Magazine - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Everything We Know About Stars On Mars - Screen Rant - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- United Arab Emirates Announces New Mission to the Asteroid Belt - Sky & Telescope - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Best space settlement games: Manage bases & build cities on other ... - Space.com - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Dr. Bruce Bugbee Returns to Cannabis Conference to Share Latest ... - Cannabis Business Times - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- 25 states Americans visit the most | | thewetumpkaherald.com - Wetumpka Herald - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- 25 Best Blockbusters of the 2010s, Ranked - Collider - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Inside Bungie's First Ship Beset by Aliens and Rogue AI - The UESC ... - BoLS - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Starship Explodes During Test Flight: What to Know About SpaceX's ... - Smithsonian Magazine - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly": Image Shows the Moment ... - Inverse - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Did the Curiosity rover find alien bones on Mars? - Syfy - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- SpaceX releases simulation video of trip to Mars - Travel Tomorrow - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Fired on Mars cast: Who stars in the animated comedy series - Hidden Remote - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Thanks to NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, you can now circumnavigate the Martian surface - Syfy - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Interpreting the space travel craze | WORLD - WORLD News Group - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- From Wall Street to the Vatican, no one has been spared Twitters paid blue tick policy - The Economic Times - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- 6 best meme coins to buy in 2023 | Bitcoinist.com - Bitcoinist - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Ved Chirayath is on a mission to map the worlds oceans - Newswise - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- 10 Movies to Watch if You Loved 2001: A Space odyssey - MovieWeb - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- This nonprofit wants to reduce plastic waste one Austin business at ... - KUT - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- To the countryside or into outer space? 1970s utopias about escaping the city - Domus IT - February 2nd, 2023 [February 2nd, 2023]
- Tiverton firm making more parachute fabric for Mars - January 25th, 2023 [January 25th, 2023]
- Goofy Mars Rock Spotted by NASA Rover Might Be a Meteorite - January 17th, 2023 [January 17th, 2023]
- Mars rover Perseverance spots Ingenuity helicopter resting on sand dune ... - January 17th, 2023 [January 17th, 2023]
- Newsroom Discovery, Inc. - December 26th, 2022 [December 26th, 2022]
- Nostradamus' New Year 2023 Predictions: From Cannibalism On Earth And World War 3; Heres Some Shocking Claims Made By The French Astrologer - SpotboyE - December 26th, 2022 [December 26th, 2022]
- Mars Base Simulation in Poland to Lock People in a Habitat ... - Insider - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- Colonizing Mars: Practicing Other Worlds on Earth | Origins - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- You Can Build Colonies On Moon, Mars, With Help From... - NDTV - December 16th, 2022 [December 16th, 2022]
- The death of Twitter has dragged on too long. Please, Elon, put us out of our misery - The Guardian - December 4th, 2022 [December 4th, 2022]
- Musk trial over Tesla pay package looks considers his attention span and his friendships with board members - Los Angeles Times - November 19th, 2022 [November 19th, 2022]
- What happens if you grow plants on the Moon? New study shows how they react - Interesting Engineering - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Visualized: The Best Universities in America - Visual Capitalist - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Build and defend a base on an alien world in this surprisingly deep survival sim - PC Gamer - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Elon Musk and ex-lover Grimes believed she was an IMAGINARY character created to be his perfect g... - The US Sun - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- SpaceX Mars program - Wikipedia - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Human mission to Mars - Wikipedia - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Underground Microbes May Have Existed in Ancient Mars [Study] - Nature World News - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Elon Musk dreams of dying on Marsnow he might be one of the pioneering colonists - Fortune - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Twitter Employees are SHOOK Once Again About Elon Musk's Takeover, Even as the Deal Might Still Fall Through - Barstool Sports - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Exclusive First Preview Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike And The Quest For Stale Gum - Game Informer - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Artificial Gravity Lowers Spaceflight's Health Toll on Fruit Flies - Intelligent Living - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Dinner on Mars: How to grow food when humans colonize the red planet - CBC.ca - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Why the Space Race Isn't the Answer to the Climate Crisis - Green Queen Media - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike And The Quest For Stale Gum coming to consoles and PC as well as the NES - Real Otaku Gamer - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- 15 film recommendations for Indy's Heartland Film Festival - IndyStar - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Nasa investigating mystery object that has attached itself to Mars helicopter... - The US Sun - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- History mars ties between queen, ex-colony Cyprus - Breitbart - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Mars looks blinding as Webb telescope zooms in on Red Planet for the first time - India Today - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- Space cement could be used to build houses on Mars and the Moon - Interesting Engineering - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- From space to the third world war, these are Nostradamus's top 5 predictions for 2023 - News Day Express - September 20th, 2022 [September 20th, 2022]
- More People Need to Watch The Absolute Best Sci-Fi Show on Prime Video - CNET - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Should We Create a Permanent Base On The Moon? Explorersweb - ExplorersWeb - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Heres Why NFTs Are Poised To Witness Hypergrowth, Per John G - News Ghana - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- 6/30 Flashback: It's the freakiest show | Fred Clark - Patheos - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion UnicornThe fantasy of kibbutz capitalism - WSWS - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- The Ultimate Guide To An Adventurous Antarctica Vacation - Maxim - Maxim - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- NASA Astronauts Prepare For Mission To Mars By Spending Year Living In Simulated Colony On Venus - The Onion - June 15th, 2022 [June 15th, 2022]
- Build on Mars and get rewarded: Mars4 releases their first game demo - AMBCrypto News - June 15th, 2022 [June 15th, 2022]
- Elon Musk, Mars and the Holy Shechinah - Yated.com - June 15th, 2022 [June 15th, 2022]