Shooting the billionaires into space

It turns out I am ahead of the curve in this space.

I wrote last month that Elon Musk should consider sending himself to Mars to give us all a break from his frantic energy for a bit. It was, of course, tongue and cheek, but there was also an element of fatigue in the argument.

Musk is a lot. I do wish he would take up less bandwidth and that his influence was a tad less pronounced — particularly in the crypto space.

Musk is part of a small group of American men that has an unhealthy influence on us all. If you read this space you don’t really need to hear their names, but here they are: Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg. They all have a cult of personality that allows them to expand their influence beyond the business world.

And that, in turn, makes a lot of people mad. So mad that some copied my idea about sending these guys on a long trip out of our consciousness and started a petition to not all Bezos to return from space after he goes on the native trip on his Blue Origin spaceship.

Mean. Also popular. There’s more than 100,000 signings at the time of writing.

We, of course, can’t actually leave Bezos in space. And, Musk isn’t going to go to Mars, even if I really, really wish he would. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t figuratively put them there.

I don’t share the kneejerk reaction of some that all billionaires are bad. They got that way through innovation and we can learn from their success. What they can do with their money is significant, as well.

Blue Origin has a commercial aim, but if exploring that it will also advance technology in the aerospace world. That’s a good thing.

However, we must be careful to not make these people Kings. They are very good at what they do, but they don’t know everything. The reason we are sick of them is because we talk about them all the time.

So maybe don’t do that (he ironically writes while writing about them)?

If we give the billionaires club a little less oxygen we might get back to appreciating what they are good at. That would be a good thing and it would probably be healthier for all of us. 

It’s a lot less mean than threatening to shoot them into space, anyway. 

I think we can agree that’s a step too far. Except for Musk. He needs to go to Mars.