Life on Mars

[Young Master Smeet]

The excellent Cory Doctorow has this review of the book Cities on Mars
“In A City On Mars, biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith set out to investigate the governance challenges of the impending space settlements they were told were just over the horizon. Instead, they discovered that humans aren’t going to be settling space for a very long time, and so they wrote a book about that instead:”

“it’s not just that we should solve Earth’s problems before attempting space settlement – it’s that we can’t settle space until we figure out the solutions to Earth’s problems. Earth’s problems are far simpler than the problems of space settlement.”

This is a shot across the bows both of Elon Musk and is fan boys who dream of a city on Mars, but all those who see space as a new Wild West to be settled and an escape from having to properly manager our commons, a literal externality in which we can dump our dreams and provide infinite growth for capital.

[Thomas_More]

If they think they can transport proles to Mars to produce surplus value there, after wrecking their own planet, why not? The beginnings of an expansion of capitalism beyond Earth.

[Author]

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