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Welcome to the age of space scepticism – and a growing revolt against elites

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
torlok 2y ago
While I have the same wonder as everybody else about the universe, the way Musk talks about going to Mars always seemed like he just wants to leave by any means necessary instead of making Earth liveable, even if it's to a planet that's less habitable than the north pole. It's difficult to argue against the new space race, because it is moving us forward, but to me it has the same vibes as when billionaires fund universities as their charity work instead of helping people here and now. Technically it's good for the future of humanity, but at the same time we're perpetually stuck in exploiting people for cheap labour, and then investing in future generations that will also be exploited and feel miserable, but they'll have an iPhone.
- clipsy 2y ago
  > the way Musk talks about going to Mars always seemed like he just wants to leave by any means necessary Which is amusing, because a whole lot of other people also just want him to leave by any means necessary.
fouc 2y ago
I honestly find the skepticism about human activities in space to be annoying. And it's been going on for many decades. A lot of people seem to be automatically skeptical about space. They somehow think that investing in space is taking away from investing in the planet Earth. I disagree with that premise. I think we can do both. And we should do both. Colonizing the Moon or Mars will actually require significant understanding of Earth ecology. We still have lots to learn from Earth.
- tetris11 2y ago
  The article frames it as though everyone who is skeptical in this new space race is also anti-astronomy from the examples it uses. I think this is a false premise. Plenty of people love astronomy and the insights it has given to other worlds and ours, but are skeptic of what building and expending rockets can do for the world, except launch monitoring sattelites, tourism, and eventually the ability to build starships.
- elzbardico 2y ago
  The cynical in me thinks this is very suspicious to have appeared organically. Especially when you consider it is very convenient for the plebe to direct their attentions to this subject while ignoring the other far more nefarious stuff the same elites have been doing to allocate a bigger piece of the pie for them. It is almost like someone is distracting the Tiers-État with a sacrificial goat.
- mlsu 2y ago
  It stems from a more fundamental misunderstanding about how allocation of resources works. If a space program costs $10b and you suddenly defund it, you don't get $10b to spend on other stuff. You get a bunch of unemployed people, most of whom are interested in and good at launching things into space. I believe this phenomenon is responsible for SpaceX's success: a huge group of smart, motivated people, interested in space, being grossly mismanaged. Projects canceled, bureaucracy, etc. SpaceX comes along and says "we actually want to go to space; we're gonna do it for real" and all the sudden those people are breaking their backs working 80h weeks to hit impossible deadlines. You can't just buy that or materialize it from thin air, not for all the pork in NASA. If these rocket scientists and engineers are doing anything other than rocket science or engineering it's a loss for all of us. Certainly for them as well.
- mcmoor 2y ago
  Everyone have their own rational ratio of how much should be allocated for space (or any blue sky research). For example I'd oppose my country funding a moon landing, not only because my country have GDP per capita 20 times less than USA, also because trust in central government capability is low af. USA itself may be much much richer and more capable, but it just means there'll still be rational limit, but higher.
jdkee 2y ago
Thie article reads like decel propaganda.
- throawayonthe 2y ago
  [dead]
- 10u152 2y ago
  Claiming the moon is of spiritual significance so nobody is allowed there put me over the edge. Can I just invent a religion and claim all the planets as well? Ridiculous.
oraphalous 2y ago
Reminds me a quite a bit of the plot line from Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest. When aliens are set to wipe out humanity in 400 years, the idea of a small number of elites escaping in generation ships is so abhorrent to the masses that would be left behind, that 'Escapism' is deemed a crime and banned. I wonder if among civilisations generally in the universe, this resentment is so common, it could be counted as a "hard step" in Robin Hanson's grabby aliens model. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.01522 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.01522
- corimaith 2y ago
  The article points out this is mostly a western phenomenon. In China where the inequality is much more stark, support remains high. I wouldn't say this is resentment as much as classic resource allocation struggles at play here. A zero sum view that X resources put into space is X resources not being put into my goals. They'll do it with other areas too like military spending or foreign aid, but space is more vulnerable.
  - elzbardico 2y ago
    Home ownership rate in China is around 90%. Maybe their billionaires are really fucking billionaires, but your assertion of inequality being much more stark in China is hard to reconcile with this data when most young folks I know are renters or went back to live with their parents and the vast quantities of homeless people I see. Really, China is not a paradise, but we should be aware of the fact that we are fed copious amount of anti-china propaganda everyday.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      The Chinese save more than Americans do, and they don't trust their stock markets and banks to keep their savings safe, so they tend to put their money into real estate. And the main reason they save more is that they are trying to make it more likely they will survive the next time their society descends into chaos like it has dozens of times in Chinese history.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aurareturn 2y ago
Historically, are there periods in which the wealthy holds an abnormally high percentage of wealth like now? If so, what did society do in response? Can we expect the same patterns to repeat? For example, are there correlations between wealth inequality and the popularity of socialism? Does wealth inequality increase societal instability?
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Yes anytime before today. In feudal society you had King/Nobel who owned all and serfs who worked their land.
  - zrn900 2y ago
    That's patently false. Feudal law required that the serfs get 33% of the produce from the fields. The economy was mostly tied to farm produce and the serfs could not be kicked out from their houses.
    - bolobo 2y ago
      Where did you get that from? You are talking about millions of people scattered over hundreds of political entities over hundreds of years. There might have been some commonalities, but certainly not anything like this rule.
      - zrn900 2y ago
        The feudal laws of mostly Western Europe. Eastern serfdom has been much worse and much closer to slavery, however the serfs still had their house and share from the crops. The eastern European feudal lords, dukes, kings or emperors never had access to this much share of the wealth like ordinary billionaires today do.
    - Slyfox33 2y ago
      Ah yes "Feudal law". Which Feudal law?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

While I have the same wonder as everybody else about the universe, the way Musk talks about going to Mars always seemed like he just wants to leave by any means necessary instead of making Earth liveable, even if it's to a planet that's less habitable than the north pole. It's difficult to argue against the new space race, because it is moving us forward, but to me it has the same vibes as when billionaires fund universities as their charity work instead of helping people here and now. Technically it's good for the future of humanity, but at the same time we're perpetually stuck in exploiting people for cheap labour, and then investing in future generations that will also be exploited and feel miserable, but they'll have an iPhone.

clipsy 2y ago
> the way Musk talks about going to Mars always seemed like he just wants to leave by any means necessary Which is amusing, because a whole lot of other people also just want him to leave by any means necessary.

fouc 2y ago

I honestly find the skepticism about human activities in space to be annoying. And it's been going on for many decades. A lot of people seem to be automatically skeptical about space. They somehow think that investing in space is taking away from investing in the planet Earth. I disagree with that premise. I think we can do both. And we should do both. Colonizing the Moon or Mars will actually require significant understanding of Earth ecology. We still have lots to learn from Earth.

tetris11 2y ago
The article frames it as though everyone who is skeptical in this new space race is also anti-astronomy from the examples it uses. I think this is a false premise. Plenty of people love astronomy and the insights it has given to other worlds and ours, but are skeptic of what building and expending rockets can do for the world, except launch monitoring sattelites, tourism, and eventually the ability to build starships.
elzbardico 2y ago
The cynical in me thinks this is very suspicious to have appeared organically. Especially when you consider it is very convenient for the plebe to direct their attentions to this subject while ignoring the other far more nefarious stuff the same elites have been doing to allocate a bigger piece of the pie for them. It is almost like someone is distracting the Tiers-État with a sacrificial goat.
mlsu 2y ago
It stems from a more fundamental misunderstanding about how allocation of resources works. If a space program costs $10b and you suddenly defund it, you don't get $10b to spend on other stuff. You get a bunch of unemployed people, most of whom are interested in and good at launching things into space. I believe this phenomenon is responsible for SpaceX's success: a huge group of smart, motivated people, interested in space, being grossly mismanaged. Projects canceled, bureaucracy, etc. SpaceX comes along and says "we actually want to go to space; we're gonna do it for real" and all the sudden those people are breaking their backs working 80h weeks to hit impossible deadlines. You can't just buy that or materialize it from thin air, not for all the pork in NASA. If these rocket scientists and engineers are doing anything other than rocket science or engineering it's a loss for all of us. Certainly for them as well.
mcmoor 2y ago
Everyone have their own rational ratio of how much should be allocated for space (or any blue sky research). For example I'd oppose my country funding a moon landing, not only because my country have GDP per capita 20 times less than USA, also because trust in central government capability is low af. USA itself may be much much richer and more capable, but it just means there'll still be rational limit, but higher.

jdkee 2y ago

Thie article reads like decel propaganda.

throawayonthe 2y ago
[dead]
10u152 2y ago
Claiming the moon is of spiritual significance so nobody is allowed there put me over the edge. Can I just invent a religion and claim all the planets as well? Ridiculous.

oraphalous 2y ago

Reminds me a quite a bit of the plot line from Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest. When aliens are set to wipe out humanity in 400 years, the idea of a small number of elites escaping in generation ships is so abhorrent to the masses that would be left behind, that 'Escapism' is deemed a crime and banned. I wonder if among civilisations generally in the universe, this resentment is so common, it could be counted as a "hard step" in Robin Hanson's grabby aliens model. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.01522 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.01522

corimaith 2y ago
The article points out this is mostly a western phenomenon. In China where the inequality is much more stark, support remains high. I wouldn't say this is resentment as much as classic resource allocation struggles at play here. A zero sum view that X resources put into space is X resources not being put into my goals. They'll do it with other areas too like military spending or foreign aid, but space is more vulnerable.
- elzbardico 2y ago
  Home ownership rate in China is around 90%. Maybe their billionaires are really fucking billionaires, but your assertion of inequality being much more stark in China is hard to reconcile with this data when most young folks I know are renters or went back to live with their parents and the vast quantities of homeless people I see. Really, China is not a paradise, but we should be aware of the fact that we are fed copious amount of anti-china propaganda everyday.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    The Chinese save more than Americans do, and they don't trust their stock markets and banks to keep their savings safe, so they tend to put their money into real estate. And the main reason they save more is that they are trying to make it more likely they will survive the next time their society descends into chaos like it has dozens of times in Chinese history.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

aurareturn 2y ago

Historically, are there periods in which the wealthy holds an abnormally high percentage of wealth like now? If so, what did society do in response? Can we expect the same patterns to repeat? For example, are there correlations between wealth inequality and the popularity of socialism? Does wealth inequality increase societal instability?

ipaddr 2y ago
Yes anytime before today. In feudal society you had King/Nobel who owned all and serfs who worked their land.
- zrn900 2y ago
  That's patently false. Feudal law required that the serfs get 33% of the produce from the fields. The economy was mostly tied to farm produce and the serfs could not be kicked out from their houses.
  - bolobo 2y ago
    Where did you get that from? You are talking about millions of people scattered over hundreds of political entities over hundreds of years. There might have been some commonalities, but certainly not anything like this rule.
    - zrn900 2y ago
      The feudal laws of mostly Western Europe. Eastern serfdom has been much worse and much closer to slavery, however the serfs still had their house and share from the crops. The eastern European feudal lords, dukes, kings or emperors never had access to this much share of the wealth like ordinary billionaires today do.
  - Slyfox33 2y ago
    Ah yes "Feudal law". Which Feudal law?