At the Mars conference, Jeff Bezos Hosted Roboticists, Astronauts and more

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/technology/at-mars-jeff-bezos-hosted-roboticists-astronauts-other-brainiacs-and-me.html

by gumby • 8 years ago

62 22 8 years ago

nytimes.com

cupofjoakim4• 8 years ago

This is cool but on some level this pisses me off. What is this story about, really? Is it a quick recap of when a bunch of elites gathered and lived in luxury for a bit? The bit about free booze flowing and attendees smoking high end cigars triggered something in me that I'm not sure I understand fully. It feels like Bezos just wanted to host a cool party so that other people that he consider cool will think he's cool.

jazoom2• 8 years ago

triggered something in me that I'm not sure I understand fully.

I think that feeling is called jealousy.

gadders2• 8 years ago

I think you mean envy.

cupofjoakim4• 8 years ago

Well, if it's jealousy it's not as I have experienced it before. Not saying it isn't though!

adventured• 8 years ago

Ok, simple question then: should rich people not have fun? Or should they just never allow everybody else to find out they have fun?

zxcb1• 8 years ago

More interesting I think, what is the purpose of the conference besides networking? As I understand it MARS is an acronym?

stupidcar• 8 years ago

Are you pissed off because it's insufficiently editorialised? It's undoubtedly news — these are some very rich, influential and/or talented people, and all of them attending an event like this is notable. What it "means" is up to you, and different people will have different takes on it. I'd prefer that they just tell me it happened and let me make up my own mind.

My take is that society has different tribes of elites: You have old-school aristocracy and royalty, ultra-rich businesspeople, celebrity entertainers, politicians, artists, and top scientists. Each tribe is fascinated by, and envious of the different cachet and influence of the others. But the nature of the capitalist system means that it is the ultra-rich who pull the strings, and so they organise events like this in order to rub up against these other types.

In the past, the rich were most interested in rubbing up against the aristocracy, in the hope of acquiring by association the social capital associated with inherited nobility, and eventually becoming aristocrats themselves. Then, as the status of the aristocracy diminished during the 20th century, the rich became more interested associating with celebrities, as their associated glamour was something exotic and interesting.

In the 21st century, celebrity and fame has been demystified and become somewhat vulgar. So, now you have a subset of the very rich who are instead interested in associating with scientists, futurologists and researchers, as their air of intellectual achievement and specialised knowledge offers a new type of cachet that they wish to associate themselves with.

cupofjoakim4• 8 years ago

Dude, thanks for this reply. I think you sorted out some of my feelings about this a bit, and I think I understand more now. "...eventually becoming aristocrats themselves." is what I think is happening here - Bezos is a cool guy but he admires the scientists and researchers and want to be around these people to be more like them himself.

Me reacting poorly is probably elitist in itself - from my perspective the organization of this "party" makes Bezos somewhat of a poser if you will. I guess I'll have to do a bit of reflecting on this, so that I can have a more mature reaction.

cornholio• 8 years ago

The annoying feeling could be triggered by the over-pompousness of a rich networking event that thinks of itself as "the new School of Athens". Some attendants seem to believe they are special human beings in and of themselves so they expect bringing exceptional people together should lead to exceptional, out of this world results.

It's a small scale version of what the guys at Davos have been doing for decades, only with tech toys instead of politicians - an expression of the power shift from politics to tech giants.

gumby2• 8 years ago

It's a small scale version of what the guys at Davos have been doing for decades, only with tech toys instead of politicians - an expression of the power shift from politics to tech giants

This is an insightful observation. Thanks!

eeZah7Ux• 8 years ago

Poor cupofjoakim - you've been accused of being envious (and, implicitly, being unable to afford booze and cigars), immature and more.

Yet it's true that the article has zero informative content, as millionaires are throwing parties every day, and it reads like a piece of PR or advertising.

cupofjoakim4• 8 years ago

No worries, I can take the feedback (and it looks like I need it too). I'm not quite sure what I am at this point, but atleast I know I have no issue with gaining access to free booze and cigars. There's that kind of festivities in sweden too :)

dekhn2• 8 years ago

I think a better way to think about is, now that the nerds have grown up and have a bunch of money, they want to share that with the next generation of nerds.

vadimberman• 8 years ago

Sounds like a part publicity (NYT was invited), part employment fair for the Bezos' ventures. He can talk to the candidates, observe how they behave, and at the same time intrigue them with the prospects of working for him.

Amazingly, the article does not mention what the presentations were about.

mstade• 8 years ago

Is this an article or the outline of an upcoming Silicon Valley episode? It's hard to tell.

Symmetry• 8 years ago

We had a beer pong robot at our party first!

But more seriously this makes me wonder about collaborations between Blue and Rocket Lab or between Amazon Robotics and Boston Dynamics. The first is currently independent and the later is under the Softbank umbrella.

dekhn2• 8 years ago

This sounds pretty similar to SciFoo, which is an annual unconference inspired by FooCamp. SciFoo is held at Google, and refers to the attendees as "campers". It often has cool science demos, telescope parties, etc. I would guess MARS was influenced by SciFoo and FooCamp and probably even has an overlap in the attendees.

gumby2• 8 years ago

It is just like a SciFoo (well, not the cigars bit)! And in fact I submitted it under a title along the lines of "Bezos' private unconference" but the title was edited -- perhaps "unconference" is not a familiar term?

At the Mars conference, Jeff Bezos Hosted Roboticists, Astronauts and more

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