To anyone who defends #SpaceX on the basis of space exploration/colonisation being vital for humanity’s ongoing survival: if you are not similarly defensive of our natural environment on earth (on which we depend and that #Musk and his ilk are all too eager to destroy for profit) and of the right for every person to experience health, happiness, and dignity, your professed concern for humanity’s survival rings hollow and you have nothing to say to me that I consider worth listening to.
@juliajaniszewski Mars is uninhabitable except for an incredibly expensive artificial environment. Life would not be worth living in such an environment. Meanwhile, Elon wants us to massively increase our human population which will turn earth into another uninhabitable planet. We need to quit funding his madness.
@juliajaniszewski When space exploration was NASA it was ours. Now it’s a bunch of conquistadors looking for something away from oversight they can turn into their private hellscape of exploitation.
So I’m out.
When space exploration is back in public hands again, I’ll support it again.
Agree emphatically.
The very idea of a handful of (probably rich, arrogant, shitty) people colonizing Mars to escape from the Earth they rendered uninhabitable is beyond absurd, as well as elitist. If it came to pass (which it will not) it would probably go the way of the Jamestown colony. I would not object to them putting 100 billionaires on the damned thing and sending them tomorrow, each with a bag lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich & an apple.
@dbc3@juliajaniszewski Without leaving the planet though, the superrich have already bought luxurious bunkers.
Search for superrich bunkers and you'll see the coverage.
This may be partly why some are pushing AI so very hard, to maximise what they have without needing other people.
I recall an interview (but cannot recall the source) where it was said the superrich felt catastrophic climate change could happen and their response (without speculating why) was only to secure their lifestyle.
@Trajecient@juliajaniszewski
some, maybe most probably think that way. They know they personally can pay for whatever they want and don't give a rat's ass about other people, even their own progeny
@Trajecient@dbc3 Let them rot in their bunkers. If society collapses in such a way that requires the ultra rich to retreat into their silos, their means of power (immaterial wealth) will collapse with it. The people who are cultivating communities around trust, responsibility, and compassion will be the most resilient collectively in the face of climate and/or political/social disaster.
@Trajecient@dbc3 Put simply, I would much rather share a post apocalyptic future with my local plumber than I would any übermensch Silicon Valley tech bro “genius” whose only appreciable contribution to a post apocalyptic society will be to wistfully dream of all the venture capitalling they’d be doing if they had half the chance.
@juliajaniszewski
If the worst comes to pass, their wealth will mean nothing. The world economy will collapse ( it is, after all, a human contrivance; a house of cards). Whatever is left of "society" will be similar to precolumbian N. America. Tribal, some regions dominated by warlords like rural Afghanistan. Global population will have crashed from famine and disease. Mobs will have stormed their fortresses like Saddam's palaces.
They
Just
Don't
Get
It
@juliajaniszewski@dbc3 If such a future were to occur, I suspect they would suffer as they would no longer be able to control and manipulate other people.
At least not at the scale to which they are accustomed and not in a consequence-free way (to the extent there are opportunities to control and manipulate others).
@juliajaniszewski 💯‼️
I've been enthusiastic about space exploration since I was a child in the 1960s, but time for that is now past. We cannot continue wasting billions of dollars that are so desperately needed in the fight against climate breakdown, and we cannot continue polluting the air, water, and soil with gross emissions from rocket launches.
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