I’m ashamed to say that when he was talking about that originally, I was gullible enough to think a one-way Mars trip would be worth doing.
I mean, I still think that, in the abstract, if we could make a good plan and trust the people back home. But I did not understand what massive pieces of shit billionaires all were and what a terrible idea it would be to volunteer for humanity’s very first off-world company town.
The fantasy of a pioneering life on Mars is an easy one to love, especially if we assume it’s actually well enough established that you have all the excitement of Frontier life and none of the struggle to survive. It’s not gullibility, it’s hope.
Then we think about it and ask ourselves what worker abuses Musk has perpetrated here on earth, and what would he do when Earthly laws can no longer apply. The more I think about what it would be like in the SpaceX Mars Colony, the more dystopian it gets.
I would expect somewhat of a struggle to survive even in a well-run Mars colony, but otherwise I agree in general.
And I don’t think we even need to look at Musk’s personal history, just any knowledge of what capitalists have done any time they’ve had access to a captive workforce. It’s pretty clear they wouldn’t be pioneers, they’d be prisoners.
I’m ashamed to say that when he was talking about that originally, I was gullible enough to think a one-way Mars trip would be worth doing.
I mean, I still think that, in the abstract, if we could make a good plan and trust the people back home. But I did not understand what massive pieces of shit billionaires all were and what a terrible idea it would be to volunteer for humanity’s very first off-world company town.
The fantasy of a pioneering life on Mars is an easy one to love, especially if we assume it’s actually well enough established that you have all the excitement of Frontier life and none of the struggle to survive. It’s not gullibility, it’s hope.
Then we think about it and ask ourselves what worker abuses Musk has perpetrated here on earth, and what would he do when Earthly laws can no longer apply. The more I think about what it would be like in the SpaceX Mars Colony, the more dystopian it gets.
I would expect somewhat of a struggle to survive even in a well-run Mars colony, but otherwise I agree in general.
And I don’t think we even need to look at Musk’s personal history, just any knowledge of what capitalists have done any time they’ve had access to a captive workforce. It’s pretty clear they wouldn’t be pioneers, they’d be prisoners.