[lapcat]

> if we go all the way in and establish permanent economic activity and eventually settlements in the space near Earth and beyond.

Could you please explain exactly how these would help to stop war and inequality?

As far as I can tell, space exploration is going to exacerbate inequality, for example, by making Elon Musk even more obscenely wealthy than he already is.

[ben_w]

Is the problem inequality or rather poverty? Because those are not the same thing.

What we've done in space has absolutely helped with poverty. It makes weather forecasts possible, which helps even the poorest farmers.

This can happen at the same time a handful of people become obscenely wealthy from it.

Though in Musk's case, I suspect the wealth is a bubble which will pop before he can cash out more than 8% of it.

[lapcat]

> Is the problem inequality or rather poverty? Because those are not the same thing.

According to the OP, inequality: "Regardless of whether this particular mission is perfectly planned, this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war, inequality and climate mismanagement."

> What we've done in space has absolutely helped with poverty. It makes weather forecasts possible, which helps even the poorest farmers.

Are you talking about manned Moon missions or unmanned Earth-orbiting satellites? To use your own words, those are not the same thing.

In any case, poverty is a policy decision, a refusal to redistribute the wealth.

[remarkEon]

This is a policy decision insofar as the policy isn’t to liquidate entire groups of people over class and status resentment. “Just redistribute the wealth bro, it’ll work this time bro I swear let’s just do a redistribution”.

[lapcat]

> “Just redistribute the wealth bro, it’ll work this time bro I swear let’s just do a redistribution”.

Bro, have you considered that NASA, the topic of this submission, is government redistribution of wealth via taxes?

[remarkEon]

Yeah, the difference is that NASA is cool, and lighting money on fire for utopian and inevitably corrupt money transfer schemes is not.

Hope that helps.

[ben_w]

NASA may be cool, but the main reason SpaceX was able to undercut old launch providers was all the I Can't Believe It's Not Corruption of pork barrel spending by those old launch providers.

So SpaceX made space cheaper, was good value for the US taxpayer, and was also a money transfer scheme from the government to him. (Worse with Tesla, but this isn't about Musk just SpaceX).

That said, now there's questions about if Musk is corrupt with all those US government ties that result in suspicious direct pressure on non-US governments, including with Starlink which even if theoretically separate to SpaceX is obviously functionally inseparable at present.

[lapcat]

> Hope that helps.

It doesn't.

I think that helping the less fortunate is cool, and launching people to the Moon is lighting money on fire for utopian and inevitably corrupt money transfer schemes.

[ben_w]

> “Just redistribute the wealth bro, it’ll work this time bro I swear let’s just do a redistribution

Literally 100% of taxes work like this, it happens every monthly paycheck.

[TheOtherHobbes]

That's part of a general meme shift. 60s tech was defined by a mix of fear, awe, and optimism. Apollo had elements of all three.

There was a confidence underlying all of them. From the New Deal to the late 60s, there was a public belief a better future was possible.

2020s tech is defined by fear, pessimism, and dystopia. The utopian edge has either gone or been replaced by horrific anti-utopian tech - surveillance, manipulation, exploitation, and irrationality.

Tech has become anti-science. Musk's DOGE cut around $1.5 of science funding, science education, and NASA exploration.

The naive sense that a better future is possible, and tech will make it happen, has almost disappeared.