Elon Musk and Richard Branson need to get their priorities straight.

 

IN RESPONSE TO ELON MUSK'S BULLSHIT POEM, WHICH READS AS FOLLOWS:

@elonmusk on Twitter, posted July 12th, 2021

those who attack space

maybe don’t realize that

space represents hope

for so many people

MY RESPONSE:

I don't look to space as our ultimate hope. If they can somehow make a place as desolate, boring, and voided as Mars into some sort of deeply functioning colony with a working economy, why couldn't they just do the same for Earth when global warming reaches its ultimate threshold? Why isn't that their ultimate and immediate priority, while outer space adventurism is cast as a close second but ONLY insofar as budgets and capital allow?

I mean, hopefully it won't come to such a worst-case-conclusion scenario such as this, but wouldn't that be

1- A sensible and social as well as economic feasibility given that Earth has been hosting humanity since the very dawn of our existence? Is that not a clear one million points in its favor?

2-A way to guarantee no finite natural resources are used and wantonly wasted in this preparation for the wealthiest of humankind to escape the planet with in order to build their new off-world colonies, stations, and societies? What exactly happens to the rest of us?

3-A way of understanding that space travel and colonization should NEVER be a short-term goal expressing something of a cynically class-based 'escape plan'?

Look. If we can plan to build cities on Mars, we could build domed cities underwater, in deserts, atop a multiplicity of powerful stilts which reach to the sea floor as to resurrect new and environmentally friendly cities whose ground-based predecessors are presumed to be eventually lost with the constant rise in sea levels (eg: think of something along the lines of a future "New Vancouver").

I'd also like to note that Musk's poetry skills are absolutely horrendous, and this is a pretty terrible excuse for any poet, save perhaps for 8 to 16 year old's who are still learning the ropes.