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Mars Colonies and Class Warfare (examiner.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-only-we-had-a-history-of-colonizing-places dept.

MarkWhittington writes: An argument about class warfare has broken out over the notion of a commercial Mars colony. It started when Elon Musk, who is said to be planning to retire on the Red Planet, mused that World War III could ruin his plans to settle Mars by destroying the Earth or at least damaging civilization sufficiently that space exploration has to be put off indefinitely, Newsweek, taking up the theme of another sort of planetary disaster, accused Musk and other space-minded billionaires of plotting to abandon the planet to the ravages of global warming while they go to Mars to live the good life.

8 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Science Fiction at its finest... by bagboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Robert Heinlein would be proud.

  2. Satiric reasoning at its best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're rich enough to go to Mars, you're rich enough to have a bloody brilliant life on earth, whether it's ravaged or not!

  3. stupid stupid by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Newsweek... accused Musk and other space-minded billionaires of plotting to abandon the planet to the ravages of global warming while they go to Mars to live the good life.

    You can jack up global warming until every single molecule of polar ice melts, and on top of that you can detonate every single nuclear warhead in existence, and Earth will still be an infinitely more habitable place than Mars. So the accusation of abandoning Earth to become a hellhole while billionaires live it up on Mars is stupid beyond belief.

    Mind you I'm totally in favor of Elon or somebody sending people to Mars, but that would be as an exploration and human achievement rather than some bullshit class warfare thing.

    1. Re:stupid stupid by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is even stupider than that because Musk is a major proponent of alternative energy and getting rid of the internal combustion engine (hence Tesla) precisely because he's concerned about global warming. So even if this did make sense (and it doesn't for the reasons you correctly identified) they'd still have the wrong billionaire.

  4. Everything looks like a nail by tsotha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Some people are locked into seeing everything as a function of class, leaving out about 95% of human existence.

    And... Newsweek is still around?

  5. Musk running away by pesho · · Score: 4, Insightful

    accused Musk and other space-minded billionaires of plotting to abandon the planet to the ravages of global warming while they go to Mars to live the good life.

    Seems more likely to me that Musk is going to Mars to get as far as possible from the idiot who wrote this piece and the likes of him.

  6. Re:This is so ridiculous by ChrisMaple · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gravity is 0.38 g. Radiation and lack of oxygen are handled by living underground in sealed buildings, food grown in sealed surface greenhouses.

    Expensive. Difficult. Not fun. Possible.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  7. Re:This is so ridiculous by turbidostato · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Of all the ways to avoid "the ravages of global warming", going to Mars would be the nuttiest I've heard."

    Not forgetting the stupid notion that rich people need to go anywhere to avoid "the ravages of global warming" when the last working air conditioner, the last gallon of oil and the last kobe cow sirloin will be for them anyway.