the ego has landed
As we earthlings are lashed by heatwave and flood, and when even a trip to the sunny south coast feels a somewhat distant and daunting prospect, the current billionaire’s space race was bound to be a tad jarring for many. The battle of boys’ toys between Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos has created a fresh wave of interest in space but for all the wrong reasons and highlights the tin-ear of all three.
I do not for one second buy the whole disingenuous argument about this being the start of moving heavy industries into space, mining asteroids for minerals and resources in the future, directly tapping into solar energy, or even pioneering space tourism. This is an ego thing, a big boy’s p*ssing contest, pure and simple. In thanking “every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for this” Bozo failed to realise that his ten-minute trip, costing $5.5bn, was enough to prevent almost forty million people from starving this year, or at least enough to allow his staff to have proper pee-breaks and a decent pay rate.
Experiencing zero-gravity and displaying zero-humility the three stooges should’ve expected to feel a certain amount of push-back from Joe Public, as evidenced by the 185,000 people who signed a petition for the Amazon boss to forfeit the return journey and stay up there instead! Bon voyage.
As you might imagine, the reality principle and the pleasure principle are forever at odds. Because of the role the ego plays, it’s often referred to as having an executive or mediating role in personality. The ego constantly engages in what is known as reality testing; it must come up with realistic plans of action that can satisfy our needs. ? ?