The richest man in the world says the future of humanity is in space

The richest man in the world says the future of humanity is in space.

He gave an hour-long presentation yesterday, the video of which is available on Youtube (and is embedded at the end of this article) that began with historical footage of the moon landing when America planted a flag on the moon. Jeff Bezos, who is the richest man in the world and the founder, chairman, CEO, and president of Amazon, explained that his dream has always been to see humans expand into space, in order to continue to keep expanding the economy and the population.

He continued his speech that was peppered by quotes from Carl Sagan , saying "Earth is the best planet... Earth is heaven." 

He then noted briefly that poverty, hunger, homelessness, pollution, and overfishing in the oceans are “urgent immediate problems”, and that "we need to work on those things."

But, he said there were "long-range problems" that need to be solved. 

"We will run out of energy on earth," he said, "This is just arithmetic, it's going to happen."

"You live better lives than your grandparents did, and they lived better than their grandparents did," he said, adding that "a big part of that is the abundance of energy that we have been able to harvest and use to our benefit."

For years now his Amazon warehouse workers have reportedly spoken about the poor working conditions (on top of poor pay) where they aren't allowed to talk to other employees, and are expected to fulfil a work rate that is grueling, and nonstop. 

Workers of his company Amazon, in speaking to The Guardian earlier this year said that due to the hourly rate of work that is expected of each worker to avoid termination, workers cannot take bathroom breaks or they risk Tot (time off task points) that could be used to justify job termination.

Another publication called The Daily Beast, after getting access to records of 911 calls from Amazon's warehouses, reports that Amazon warehouse employees display suicidal tendencies.

“What happens when unlimited demand meets finite resources? The answer is incredibly simple: Rationing,” said Bezos at his talk.

Following the posting of this article, EdgeProp.my was contacted by Amazon via email with a request to add the following statement by Ashley Robinson, senior manager of External Communications for North America Customer Fulfillment: “As a company, we work hard to provide a safe, quality working environment for the 250,000 hourly employees across Amazon’s US facilities. We provide a $15 minimum wage for all US hourly employees, opportunities for career growth, industry-leading benefits, and hands-on training using emerging technology. Associates are the heart and soul of our operations, and in fact, they are also our number one recruiter for new hires by regularly encouraging friends and family to apply for roles. We encourage anyone to compare our pay, benefits, and workplace to other major employers across the country.”

Additionally the senior manager writes that Amazon ensures every associate has easy access to toilet facilities which are just a short walk from where they are working and says that associates are allowed to use the toilet whenever needed.

Bezos at his speech said: “The good news is that if we move out into the solar system, for all practical purposes, we’d have unlimited resources.”

But as colonising other existing planets within our solar system would be a monumental task, Bezos then went on to speak about Gerard O’Neill, the late physicist and a big proponent of building artificial habitats in space. These artificial space habitats would rotate to create artificial gravity, Bezos said.

Their designs could be anything from recreation to agriculture, he said, and said these artificial environments could have the perfect climate, all the time, and could house milions of people each. 

“This is Maui on its best day, all year long. No rain, no storm, no earthquakes. What does the architecture even look like when it no longer has its primary purpose of shelter? We’ll find out.” 

Heavy industry and “all the things polluting our planet” will be done off Earth, he said. 

But because at present it is incredibly expensive to move things from Earth into space, there needs to be a radical launch cost reduction, and there needs to be an exploitation of in-space resources, he explained. 

“The kids here, and your children, and their grandchildren, you’re going to build the O’Neill colonies. This generation’s job, my generation’s job is to build the infrastructure so that you’ll be able to,” said Bezos. “We’re going to build a road to space and then amazing things will happen.”

He also unveiled during his speech, the “Blue Moon,” a lunar lander that Bezos says they’ve been working on for three years.

“What I’m laying out here today is obviously a multi-generation vision. This is not going to get done by any one generation, and one of the things that we have to do is inspire those future generations.”

Watch the full presentation below: