- cross-posted to:
- nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
There is no particular mystery to unravel around the political views of Elon Musk, the billionaire technology and social media executive. He is — and for some time, has been — on the far right wing of American politics. He is an enthusiastic purveyor of far-right conspiracy theories, using his platform on the website X to spread a worldview that is as extreme as it is untethered from reality.
He has the history of doing the first option, his whole thing is going to Mars. That’s close enough to something good. The real problem is that he’s just doing both.
I don’t think that his plans for Mars are good for anyone but himself. Creating a small privately owned Mars colony is more likely to increase problems like climate change and inequality than reduce them. If it were Nasa or another government agency, we could argue that technological advances from the attempt would benefit everyone, like they did in the space race, but this won’t even do that. Best case, it makes him even richer. Worst case, it pumps a lot of carbon into the atmosphere and wastes a bunch of resources for no benefit.