KebabGud t1_jac2y94 wrote on February 28, 2023 at 10:35 AM

Reply to comment by Sassy_Weatherwax in Level 4 Cultist by jay_thorn

Amazon is a major owner of Rivian (arguably holding them afloat) And while Bezos is not a man baby he is a megalomaniac

Sassy_Weatherwax t1_jacwo1n wrote on February 28, 2023 at 3:14 PM

good point, he is also a rocket douche. But he's not involved in the day to day operations the way Musk is with Tesla.

KebabGud t1_jad4y8w wrote on February 28, 2023 at 4:09 PM

You are totally right Bezos has nothing to do with the day to day of Rivian and is also not the Majority stakeholder. the point i was hoping to make was that people tend to hyper fixate on Elon and then totally ignore the horrible things associated with other car brand. Rivian is somewhat safe currently in that regard, even if their association with Amazon is troubling (says the man who has 3 packages from amazon in route).

But if you look at companies like Lucid, their Majority stakeholder (61%) is the Saudi Government. In terms of who i would support between Elon and The Saudi Government , Well I'm picking the Edgelord manchild every day (until he goes full Supervillian.)

And old school Companies like Ford and VW.. well Henry Ford was pure Evil and VW was founded by Hitler himself..
A friend of mine Sold his Tesla because of Elon and got himself a Mustang Mach-E.. he is now the butt of a thousand jokes (and yes Henry ford is long dead but still the evil he did should never be forgotten)

And to add, Bezos is pretty much the epitome of Rocket douche, but i find it hard to call Elon a Rocket douche these days.
You have to take into consideration that Bezos has so far not even reached orbit and most of the launches are expensive joyrides while SpaceX is now the primary launchprovider for NASA and the only American launch provider that can deliver Humans to the ISS, They had in 2022 61 orbital launches, that ties with the Soviet unions record from 1980. and they are building the next Moon lander.

Elon is a Douche, but he is not a Rocket Douche, thats a title only Bezos gets to keep (especially after the stunt he pulled with the Artemis Program)

Sassy_Weatherwax t1_jae1uo6 wrote on February 28, 2023 at 7:37 PM

I completely agree with you that the money trails of horrible entities are harder and harder to avoid. It's a symptom of the f*cked up late stage capitalism we've got. I do think Elon is a rocket douche because I'm deeply uncomfortable with that creepy edgelord having that much control over our space program. But I get what you are saying-Bezos is a cosplaying space fool.

KebabGud t1_jae4pf3 wrote on February 28, 2023 at 7:55 PM

> I do think Elon is a rocket douche because I'm deeply uncomfortable with that creepy edgelord having that much control over our space program

I would not worry too much about that. What SpaceX did started an entire new industry thats resulted it several companies reaching orbit (But not Bezos).

Rocket Lab routinely launch their Electron rockets into orbit and their new Neutron rocket will probably be the rocket that replaces the SpaceX Falcon9 (when Starship is in full operation.)

Firefly Aerospace have kinda reached orbit (something Bezos is yet to manage)

We are still just in the start of the new Space age and its SO much cheaper this time.

Sassy_Weatherwax t1_jaefmfo wrote on February 28, 2023 at 9:05 PM

I hope you're right. I worry that he's already got enough power and money to maintain a monopoly, at least on the critical infrastructure...but hopefully that's not true. It's frightening though, that Ukraine's internet and communication capability rests in his hands, especially because he's buddying up to authoritarians and is susceptible to flattery by bad actors just like his orange twin, Trump.

KebabGud t1_jaemg72 wrote on February 28, 2023 at 9:49 PM

There is also a lot of misinformation out there regarding the use of Starlink in Ukraine.

Like when SpaceX said they cant use if for Drone strikes, people started complaining that Elon was sucking up to Putin ..

the reality is if they use it as a weapon or weapon component it will be classified as one and thus regulated by international Arms trade restrictions and made almost impossible to be sold outside the US..

there are a lot of billions invested in it