On the heels of Artemis II, our cultural obsession with space colonization continues, even as we face increasing global resource constraints and planetary health declines. Techno-optimists, including some of the wealthiest among us, dream of a future where we mine, travel to, and colonize other planets – all in the hopes of bypassing the problems we now face on Earth. But from the perspective of physics and ecology, how feasible is space colonization – and are these interplanetary ambitions blinding us to the miracle of the planetary spaceship we already inhabit?
It’s so true. Rather than find ways for humanity to sustainably thrive on Earth - the only human habitable planet known to exist in the universe - the techno- optimists would rather use up our precious nonrenewable resources trying to live out their interplanetary colonization fantasies, on worlds that are not only inhospitable to human life, but actively, aggressively hostile to it.
They want to guide humanity to what they believe to be our teleological final evolutionary form (which is not how evolution works!), as some god-like, intergalactic mega civilization. It goes beyond delusion. It’s a complete inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
They constantly complain that the future portrayed in 20th century movies and TV shows never arrived, but they’re too thick to realize that’s because those futures were never possible. They’re unmoored from reality and we’re all paying the price.