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Something bigger than you

2021-08-10T03:20:51.323Z


Future humanity, who will inhabit the outer colonies, will crave the products that Amazon's intergalactic drones, or whatever Jeff Bezos has in the glove compartment for them.


Jeff Bezos (wearing a hat) and his crewmates after making landfall in Texas on July 20.JOE SKIPPER / REUTERS

Whoever thinks that Jeff Bezos screwed up is wrong when, after his little walk through the atmosphere on July 20, he thanked Amazon workers for having "paid for the trip."

The anger of commentators and politicians like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Elizabeth Warren, outraged that the precarious and exploited workers of Amazon were financing the whims of a megalomaniac and this one also gloated, was well calculated.

Those statements were just one more part of the

media

performance

that accompanied the event: the first installment was the video of the voyage of the ship, the

New Shephard,

built by Blue Origin, a company that is also owned by the magnate. The piece is full of memorable moments, such as the plans of the assistant personnel on Earth, in whose monkeys, similar to those of NASA, the Blue Origin logo stands out, a white feather on a blue background, suspiciously reminiscent of the Amazon smile . But the shot that gives an idea of ​​how far we are facing a performance comes when the ship lands: we see the tycoon through a window with his glistening bald head, but when he leaves, Bezos proudly wears his cowboy hat.

The staging did not stop there, soon the recording of the expedition seen from within was released. You only have to look at the sound to realize that the fragment is more edited than

Gravity

. The protagonist, by the way, is a doll nicknamed "

Skywalker Mannequin

", draw your conclusions.

But despite the alleged ultra-broadcast feat, the

New Shephard

passengers

did not get the astronaut badge from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for failing to meet the tougher requirements. It did not matter, on the contrary, this gave rise to what is undoubtedly the icing on the cake of the

performance

, the video in which the astronaut Jeff Ashby, now on Bezos's payroll, gives him, who is still wearing his hat, and the rest of the crew, the astronaut insignia marks Blue Origin.

This media display worthy of Hollywood has served several purposes at the same time, we expected nothing less from the man who has managed to hide behind a smile drawn on cardboard a delusion of precariousness of work and life. On the one hand, it has unleashed criticism, which has exponentially multiplied the dissemination of the event, and on the other, it has worked at the same time as a smokescreen for the public and as a message for NASA and the rest of the competitors (Musk, Branson) , to whom it shows that Blue Origin, paid exclusively with its own money, is as gifted as the most for the new space race that, clearly, will be led by private capital.

The competition has already started, Musk's SpaceX has announced that it will make a private expedition to the moon in 2023 and has won a multimillion-dollar contract with NASA to design the agency's new moon landing module. Blue Origin and Dynetics, a traditional NASA contractor, had also bid on the contract, which was originally going to be for two companies, so Blue Origin has taken the award to court claiming the position of second developer.

Make no mistake, Amazon workers and us all, direct or indirect consumers of the company's products and taxpayers that the multinational saves, we are not subsidizing the atmospheric trips of an eccentric millionaire, but who is going to send in the space and, what is more serious, and that is where

Bezos'

performance

reaches its maximum expression and sweeps away his competitors: we are financing the symbolic horizon that will determine the lives of our descendants, their dreams and their expectations.

Because Bezos, who is way ahead of us, has a “long-term and multigenerational” vision, as he recently explained to

The New York Times.

Lori Garver, who was NASA's deputy administrator during the Barack Obama administration.

Future humanity, who will inhabit the outer colonies, will crave the products that Amazon's intergalactic drones will deliver to their home capsules, or whatever Mr. Bezos has in the glove compartment for them. Because, by then, Bezos, to whom we will have also paid for the transfer of his consciousness to a digital medium, which will have several different cybernetic bodies that will have in common wearing a cowboy hat, will have devised new ways to

amazonize

our consciences.

But there is no need to worry, our great-great-grandchildren will be very happy because they will feel that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves, such as, perhaps, bringing PlayStation70 (the PS5 is the most demanded product currently on Amazon) beyond the Milky Way, and members of a great interstellar adventure led by a cyborg will be known, all free at last from the ties of the state.

Pilar Fraile

is a writer.

His latest novel is

Days of Euphoria

(Alliance).

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-08-10

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