20 years later, same promises as 20 years ago, now with "vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically... on one planet"
Getting into Stefan Molyneux levels of breeder fetish egg fixations, too.
On one thing, Musk and I agree. It is desirable to have self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colonies. Because you never know what kind of crazy shit space can cook up to kill us all. If we could have a colony outside of Earth which has enough resources to get a few thousand people back to Earth any time, it would make it much more likely that the most advanced intelligent life we're aware of continues to exist.
Unfortunately, doofuses like Musk make it far less likely that we'll ever actually achieve that goal. By his involvement he delegitimizes the entire endeavor.
It is desirable to have self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colonies.
Having a private corporation, for profit, promise to make them, especially one ran by a fucking clown that executively meddled the ZYBERTRUKKK into existence and hasn't met a safety regulation he actually liked, is definitely a mistake even then.
Yup, obviously it isn't going to work with his involvement.
Not to mention the fact that no one has actually demonstrated how a self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colony would work. Much less one on Mars, which is frankly a ridiculous leap. Trying to make your first extra-terrestrial colony on Mars is like picking up chess and deciding that for your first match you want to go for the FIDE master title
Trying to make your first extra-terrestrial colony on Mars is like picking up chess and deciding that for your first match you want to go for the FIDE master title
A lot of so-called "spacesteaders" are billionaires that have already failed to "seastead" and decided that going to space would make it work.