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Not Amazon, but Bezos' startup Blue Origin is a defense contractor, currently bidding to supply the rocket engines for US national security launches (Air Force
by my-cowardly-alt 10y ago
Not Amazon, but Bezos' startup Blue Origin is a defense contractor, currently bidding to supply the rocket engines for US national security launches (Air Force, NRO). He's one of two finalists (with Aerojet Rocketdyne), with a decision expected in 2016 or 2017.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-lockheed-venture-developing-reusable-engine-for-satellite-launches-1428958267 http://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-lockheed-venture-developi...
I think it's reasonable to say it's a conflict of interest, trying to be both a newspaper reporting on the intelligence industry, and a major contractor for that industry at the same time.
(I apologize for creating a throwaway to post this; I'd prefer not to annoy AWS).
- wallace_f 10y agoYears ago I reserved this kind of level of paranoia for the tin foil hat types, but to me now, it seems not only reasonable, but prudent.
- jacquesm 10y agoIt's a sobering thought that we are still thinking about some as 'tin foil hat types', which makes you wonder what we'll think of them years from now.
- nitrogen 10y agoI realize this is an old thread, but it occurs to me that one of the problems is that implausible conspiracies are lumped together with plausible, likely operations and dismissed as a group with a single label.
- wallace_f 10y agoI agree wholeheartedly. Apparently the CIA popularized the term 'conspiracy theory,' in the 60s, though I don't have knowledge on the veracity of that claim. It's clear that at least a non-pejorative term would be useful.