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e.w. niedermeyer
@niedermeyer.online

crushing the pernicious mirage of space colonization, "the enoblement of the frontier" as it is succinctly put here, is a load-bearing element of the battle against techno-fascism

Noema Magazine@noemamag.com

“Detractors might scoff at Musk’s ambition to die on Mars, but at least the dying part would be easy.” — @henrywismayer.bsky.social #mars #spaceexploration #spacex

noemamag.comThe Mars Delusion | NOEMAEstablishing a human colony on Mars is fraught with risk. Why are so many people obsessed with achieving it?
e.w. niedermeyer
@niedermeyer.online

this piece nails the entire underlying impulse: exhuming a midcentury sense of modernist momentum out of nothing more than shallow nostalgia, itself a muffled, distorted yearning for an older and more troubling colonialism, "short of ethical or genocidal wrinkles" and reified as our species destiny

e.w. niedermeyer
@niedermeyer.online

this is really what Musk offers to his followers: the sense that their identity as engineers makes them part of a bold, noble modernism, freeing them from any introspection about their privilege, or any ugliness in how they wield techno-scientific power... virtuous pioneers in an endless frontier

e.w. niedermeyer
@niedermeyer.online

this ideology has to be concealed under layers of self-delusion, with regard to the viability of space as a frontier for settlement as well as the fact that it is ultimately more nostalgic than forward-looking, because when you strip it down it is such a deeply ugly, entitled, regressive worldview

dredecopp.bsky.social
@dredecopp.bsky.social

So they want to get rid of all the human labour they can through AI and then they want to get humans to do factory work? Sounds backwards-why not send robots to build and run the factories, then bring in humans when there's habitable spaces?

Ben Warner
@bpw87544.bsky.social

As a professional inventor*, I can totally see how having only rocks for supplies and no spare parts would totally juice my productivity * 75+ patents in five families, all of which have been revenue producing

Unwoman
@unwoman.com

Why on earth would Martian IP be respected on Earth??? By anyone? Unless they're like Expanse Martians, they can't get us nyah nyah

Keith Ivey
@kcivey.bsky.social

Even if deuterium is 6x more concentrated in Martian water than in Earth water, could it really be more cost-effective to extract it on Mars and ship it from there rather than just processing 6x as much water here?

Evan Simko-Bednarski
@simko-bednarski.bsky.social

So while living on a planet where a significant portion of your bandwidth is spent simply on making it survivable, you’re also going to solve physics problems we haven’t managed to solve here on earth where the air *can* be respired??

jace cavacini
@dysamoria.com

So much delusion. It’s extremely gaslighting to see how the most self-deluded, theologically-minded, cultish people have taken over tech, and also, with their narcissism, taken over & dominated our national conversations on almost everything. Extreme wealth and sycophancy are existential threats.