The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Jeff Bezos is like a lot of the whiz kid, bang up tech boyz, plenty of smarts, too much money and a penchant for imagining a sci-fi world in their own lifetime. There are plenty of folks who applaud the new Rockefellers, but I’m not one of them. I want them to go away. The moon is a good start, but Mars is even better. Hopefully they’re dreaming even bigger. Leave the solar system, guyz, and be quick about it.

Bezos answered a few questions in Amazon’s stockholder meeting last week, some folks particularly disturbed by the colossal carbon footprint envisioned by same day deliveries, drone technology, and packages containing a toothbrush cushioned by plastic airbags in cardboard boxes that are 100 times larger than the brush delivered by fleets of self-driving trucks and drones. Bezos really didn’t address those concerns, just sees a future so bright we’ll all wear radiation shield sunglasses in our cyclindrical cities orbiting throughout the galaxy, little self-contained communities drifting along in their bubble like boats on a river beneath tangerine skies. You bet.

The trouble is, these self-made bazillionaires have the wherewithal to manifest their vision. And the capability of making this particular planet which I’m kind of fond of, a living hell. If you’re rich enough, you too might board the next city leaving earth’s gravity. Not sure what jobs you’ll have, but hopefully money is as unnecessary as the filthy air and polluted water you’re leaving behind. Utopian dreams by the tech wizards! Oh boy!

Not to sound too Earth chauvinistic, but I like the place. I’d like to take care of it for awhile longer, not just assume folks who feel the need to monetize every profit-making aspect of it have the right to muck it up to the point they’ll want to move on to some new colony to exploit when the resources are sucked dry and the the sky rains poison. I’d prefer to get my Amazon delivery a little later if that would would help. But if Bezos isn’t willing to listen, even to his shareholders, I might have to vote for folks who would make Amazon pay taxes, who would think twice about their packaging, who would hold Bezos’ feet to the fire of global warming. Short of that, hurry up, Jeff and build those rockets. Hopefully you’ll be a passenger on the first plane to leave.

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