Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is set to be the next billionaire who paid his way into space on his own rocket, drawing intense backlash. Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks with MSNBC’s Ari Melber about the current billionaire “space race,” and pushes back on critics who argue inequality and other problems on earth should limit private space travel. (This interview is from MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber, a news show covering politics, law and culture airing nightly at 6pm ET on MSNBC. ).
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#MSNBC #JeffBezos #SpaceRace
Billionaires going into space. Hey, wasn’t that how _Elysium_ started? 🤔
Not a very good movie, but a pretty good comment.
@Johnathan Davis they are already building bunkers for the wealthy. That’s not a stretch
@Johnathan Davis many science fiction have predicted the future which then turns into real life, just saying.
Just for the record, I don’t really care if Bezos goes into Space, its his money. Also both Branson and Bezos are willing to put their life on the line for their dream, can’t see Elon doing that with SpaceX.
With Elon Musk, he keeps promising the most fantastic future, yet fails to deliver on so many promises.
@Steve Gillham bro his money wtf he still destroys nature
@Nostalgia they are all destroying the environment.
Thanks Ari. As a science nerd Dr. Tyson is one of my heroes.
Whos ari
Well he shouldn’t be your hero. Real scientists are people like Joseph Polchinski, Juan Maldecena, Edward Witten, etc. This guy is a poser!
So ultra wealthy can play with their toys while people are literally dying from lack of Healthcare, going to sleep hungry because they haven’t enough money for food, (notice I said going to sleep rather than to bed, which leads me to my next point) and numerous families live in tents, or under an open sky because they can’t afford rent. Got it.
It’s not that I expect these billionaires to hand out their money to people on the streets, but I do expect them to pay taxes so that we can provide Healthcare, food, and shelter to those in need.
Tyson just went down several pegs in my book…
So then get on your government officials to get them to pay taxes here instead of offloading to overseas. Or get Amazon to pay their staff living wages and afford bathroom breaks. Those are separate issues as he said. SMH
@Dan Vang I’m completely not ok with tax payers funding 220 million towards Branson’s space flight…
Everything has to pass through Congress and get accepted no matter how much money you have and Congress does not agree on everything.
Just doing the math Bezos could spend 20 million dollars a day for the next 30 yrs and still be a billionaire.
@Bobbie ikr
@Adam Taylor agreed
@Mr. Majestic Lighten up a bit. If you bother to read what I wrote: “assuming he has 200 billion…” because his wealth changes from day to day. My point was to make a joke at the absurdity of the situation. These guys make more money in one day than you and I together will make in a lifetime. There is something very wrong with a society that finds this perfectly fine and the way to go. Especially when you consider how little these guys pay in taxes in proportion to their wealth.
@aquelpibe No offense the comment was just to bring out the absurdity of that amount of vast wealth and how much you can burn it per day.
@Mr. Majestic Yes, I agree! No offense taken, my comment was made in the same spirit.
He’s just the best!
Interview a smart guy is alway wonderful to watch.
Shakespeare said it centuries ago in Twelfth Night: “Dost think that because thou art virtuous there shall be no cakes and ale?”
“They said there would be pie and punch”
— Eric Cartman
@R Stedler
So did he get pied and then punched???
No issue with billionaires doing whatever they want, so long as they’re held to the same accountability as ‘regular’ people. That I pay more income tax than billionaires and these new frontiers they’re developing are still highly subsidised by taxpayers changes the argument because they’re doing it off our shoulders
you really believe you pay more tax than billionaires?
@mfdoom As a percentage of earnings, yes. 50% of everything I earned last year was gobbled up by state and local taxes.
That’s because the US ceased being a “democratic republic” since at least Reagan. It has been a corporate oligarchy for a while now.
@mfdoom Yes, and probably you do too. As a percentage of what you earn, no doubt about it. In 2014 through 2018 Bezos paid less than one percent of what he earned. How much did you pay? And why do you think it is like that? Spoiler: because they make the rules.
I find it exciting — all of these advances in science and technologies. On the other hand, I do have issue with billionaires funneling so much money in influencing public policy and creating chaos in other areas of our society. Why would the Koch brothers, for instance, be funneling money into influencing local school boards in places where they don’t live or have relatives attending those schools? They’ve purchased much of our government and secured tax policy in their favor so they can then funnel even more money towards the same ends. Perhaps, it’s always been that way. Where does this cycle end? I don’t claim to know the answer but these questions need to be raised.
If one doesn’t like Bezos and the way he spends his money.
Cancel ur Amazon subscriptions so u don’t contribute to his wealth
It’s really that simple and has always been that simple for the past two decades.
How about the monopolies be broken up? Just in case you don’t know your history monopolies were illegal then things got corrupted (as always in the U.S. of greed) and monopolies formed. Now Biden is once again mandating that the Anti-Trust laws be enforced.
“The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space – each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.”
The decision we have to make right now is not wether we want to go to space. Instead we have to decide wether we want to stay alive a a species on this planet.
His argument is a little too reductionist and misguided to me. That does often happen with people who are out of touch with 90% of humanity. Don’t get me wrong; Tyson is brilliant in his department of thought. I just don’t think his line of thinking is very pragmatic in the scheme and complexity of human evolution.
He killed it with wu tang “cream dollar dollar bill y’all”
Has anybody figured out what Jeff Bezos’ carbon footprint is??
What an idiotic conversation… On the extremely narrow and oversimplificated angle that they chose to abord this matter, yeah there is nothing wrong with it.
But for the love of god take the angle of the problems like… The taxation system that created these ultra-rich… The ecologic fallout of this potential industry… The political angle… The privatization of the space exploration… Or even (not my favourite) the moral angle.
They are full of it.
I have to admit, I’d rather see things tested on rich people first. That’s why I didn’t mind hearing that the Trump family got the vaccine first.
Imagine a future where “regular” people take space cruises like people take sea cruises today. Neither Dr. Tyson nor Ari Melber corrected Dr. Tyson’s verbal gaff. Jeff Bezos is worth $200+ BILLION!!! – not $200+ million but I know he
was thinking in billions.Dr. Tyson’s assertion that Earth is in space and we’re ALL on Earth was like a Big Bang Theory Sheldon’s gazinga moment.
I always see this guy everywhere but I don’t know why? What are his achievements as a scientist? I think he wrote some books or something like that
What would be great is ppl like Bezos paying a fair share of taxes like the rest of us
Bozo needs to pay more taxes or raise the salary of his workers. It’s our legislators fault not taxing them fairly.
He was good.
But logically doesn’t hold water. We have everything we need on earth. He fails to take into account ANY of humanity’s true issues.