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When I was a liberal, I was very into all the youtube pop science video, kurtzgesagt, rational animation, etc. I was bought on the space fantasy of terraformation, "grabby aliens", "longtermism" and all that.
Becoming a Marxist and being exposed to dialectical materialism made me realize just how much idealism, metaphysics and techno-washing of societal problems there is in science communication and academia itself.
Yeah, it's really annoying sifting through all the techbro space fantasy when you want to learn about why and how we would send humans in space.
Realistically, the only thing an industry in space would have that we couldn't already get on earth for way cheaper is low gravity. So basically, the only industry for which it would make sense to bother putting it in space is the industry to launch stuff in space. This means that there is no profit to be made from asteroid mining, it would be run at a constant loss unless it can somehow be made self sufficient. And of course it's not a solution to mining pollution on earth in and of itself, there are a lot of solutions that could be up and running long before any space mining effort become able to supply earth with even 1% of the metals and rare earths we need.
Not only is mining resources in space far from the solution-to-every-problem that techbros present it as, but a capitalist system is incapable of doing it because there is no profit to be made. Only a system that doesn't need profit to survive could achieve it.
I hate how modern science fiction and futurism is just "the same capitalist hellhole we live in now but with lasers and stuff". I hate how so many authors imagine that we'll continue to have the same petty wars when the idea of a war in space become more and more absurd the more you think about it, the distances involved alone makes war on an interplanetary scale impossible.
It's all so imprint with this extremely liberal idealism even academia isn't speared. For example, I don't know if you've heard of "grabby aliens". It's a completely serious and unironic proposal for a "solution" to the Fermi paradox, the author is a famous scientist, the same guy who proposed the "great filter" hypothesis. It supposes that alien civilizations start expending in the universe and taking over star systems at a large fraction of the speed of light and because of that if we could see aliens they would be here instead of us and that's why we don't see aliens. Even in this short TL;DR there is glaringly obvious problems. This theory imediately falls apart as soon as you start asking questions about those "grabby aliens", which as you might have guessed are justified ans an assumption by the classic liberal "greed, competition and expansionism is natural "
The average “futurology” devotee handwaves all of that and just says “there are that many resources out there” and then thoughts terminate, leaving only a smug smile and thoughts of passive income from renting out their ZYBERTRUKKKs on Autopilot™ once the kinks are worked out.
Exactly, the capitalism brainrot is deep with those types. The epic space colonymust be handled by private companies to them, even the dreams of cool futuristic space habitats must be milked for profit. Even the few ones who have a more grounded view of how we could create industries and permanents outposts don't escape the mind virus. I found a youtube channel all about creating a spaceport and permanent bases on the moon a few days ago, and his plan to develop it is unironically space tourism for assholes billionaires and other private investments.
When I was a liberal, I was very into all the youtube pop science video, kurtzgesagt, rational animation, etc. I was bought on the
space fantasy of terraformation, "grabby aliens", "longtermism" and all that.
Becoming a Marxist and being exposed to dialectical materialism made me realize just how much idealism, metaphysics and techno-washing of societal problems there is in science communication and academia itself.
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Yeah, it's really annoying sifting through all the techbro space fantasy when you want to learn about why and how we would send humans in space.
Realistically, the only thing an industry in space would have that we couldn't already get on earth for way cheaper is low gravity. So basically, the only industry for which it would make sense to bother putting it in space is the industry to launch stuff in space. This means that there is no profit to be made from asteroid mining, it would be run at a constant loss unless it can somehow be made self sufficient. And of course it's not a solution to mining pollution on earth in and of itself, there are a lot of solutions that could be up and running long before any space mining effort become able to supply earth with even 1% of the metals and rare earths we need.
Not only is mining resources in space far from the solution-to-every-problem that techbros present it as, but a capitalist system is incapable of doing it because there is no profit to be made. Only a system that doesn't need profit to survive could achieve it.
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Same.
I hate how modern science fiction and futurism is just "the same capitalist hellhole we live in now but with lasers and stuff". I hate how so many authors imagine that we'll continue to have the same petty wars when the idea of a war in space become more and more absurd the more you think about it, the distances involved alone makes war on an interplanetary scale impossible.
It's all so imprint with this extremely liberal idealism even academia isn't speared. For example, I don't know if you've heard of "grabby aliens". It's a completely serious and unironic proposal for a "solution" to the Fermi paradox, the author is a famous scientist, the same guy who proposed the "great filter" hypothesis. It supposes that alien civilizations start expending in the universe and taking over star systems at a large fraction of the speed of light and because of that if we could see aliens they would be here instead of us and that's why we don't see aliens. Even in this short TL;DR there is glaringly obvious problems. This theory imediately falls apart as soon as you start asking questions about those "grabby aliens", which as you might have guessed are justified ans an assumption by the classic liberal "greed, competition and expansionism is natural
"
Exactly, the capitalism brainrot is deep with those types. The epic space colony must be handled by private companies to them, even the dreams of cool futuristic space habitats must be milked for profit. Even the few ones who have a more grounded view of how we could create industries and permanents outposts don't escape the mind virus. I found a youtube channel all about creating a spaceport and permanent bases on the moon a few days ago, and his plan to develop it is unironically space tourism for assholes billionaires and other private investments.
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The take away of this entire thread.
I hope we'll start seeing some based leftist science fiction stories on our creative writing community as the platform grows. See you in space comrade
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