Elon Musk is serious about enabling humanity to become multiplanetary. This 2014 interview (link below) is the best resource to capture his thoughts on this subject. He still reaffirms this goal today.

I'm not against colonization of Mars or building a starship that could carry and sustain a population. It actually sounds cool. But it seems to beg the question of what we are here for in the first place. Without agreement on that, you can end up in a dangerous place.

People who think like Musk seem to think the purpose of existing is just to exist. We're conscious at a high level, so we have to be sure that we as a species go on being conscious. And if that's our primary purpose, then you can do all kinds of terrible things in service of that goal: "For the greater good ..."

For Musk in particular, I think it allows himself to excuse his own behavior, such as fathering nearly a dozen children by multiple women. It's sort of a weird rationalization where he can think of himself as a virtuous person because he's pro-human.

It all reminds me of Professor Weston, the antagonist in the first two parts of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy. He was willing to sacrifice others (and admittedly, himself) in service of the goal of bringing humanity to other planets. Even in 1938 (publication of Out of the Silent Planet), Lewis anticipated that people like Musk would come along. He tried to expose the hubris of that ideology and type of evil that it would lead to.

Has anyone else been struck by the parallels between the character Weston and our real-life Musk?

https://aeon.co/essays/elon-musk-puts-his-case-for-a-multi-planet-civilisation

#cslewis #outofthesilentplanet #perelandra #multiplanetary #musk #spacex