[worldsayshi]

I'm all for enlightenment, in principle and ideologically. But if it fails to solve our existential problems it also looses much of its raison d'etre.

I'm not sure if I would rather live in a doomed and enlightened (sounds like an oxymoron) society than an ignorant but stable world of hunter gathering tribes.

What good is all our technological advances if it also leads to ecological collapse that nullifies all of it?

[tboughen]

This is false dichotomy. For me the question is “of hunter-gathering and agriculture, which better leads to sustained and sustainable technological development to ensure the permanent* survival of our species”.

*permanent being like Musk’s notion of humanity being a multi-planetary species

[bad_user]

“Permanent survival of the species” is not a goal.

When in the current climate I worry about the life my 8 year old son will have and that of my future grandchildren, I couldn’t give a damn about any permanent survival of the species plan that people like Musk might have.

I am also not convinced that technological advancement couldn’t have happened with hunting-gathering societies. At the very least people would have had more time, whereas right now I worry we might not survive another century.

Also, fun fact: life on Mars would be much worse and much more expensive than anywhere on Earth. Fixing Earth to ensure our survival for another 1000 years is more doable than colonizing Mars in any meaningful way. And yes, we should colonize Mars, but we are unable to fix problems in our own back yard and the clock is ticking.