this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Lol
You think we're going to colonize space?! We can't even agree to feed and house the humans here, and not because we lack the resources but because the economy requires scarcity to increase private profit. We can't even agree to stop destroying our only world/fishbowl to continue to profit a relatively small group of sociopaths who already have enough for 50 lifetimes. We can't even agree to stop killing each other over inherited melanin quantity.
We are a solidly type 0 civilization. We're far more likely to keep beating each other to death in the dirt over who gets the most capital until we destroy ourselves. Maybe if we eventually alter our genetics through technologies like CRISPR to weed out our most vile, least social impulses like insatiable selfishness, low intellect, and violence, then maybe those people will be able to stop undermining eachother long enough to establish a significant presence outside this rock.
But then we'll no longer be human, which I'm more than fine with because we're trash but most humans seem to think we're worth a damn despite 10,000 years of recorded history proving otherwise.
You want a space faring potential? Try Alpha Centauri. Want fart jokes, snake oil con artists, and murder over ignorant superstition and sociopathic greed? Yeah, you found the right place. Wanna buy a gun?
I have a metal cup on my desk. This cup used to be a rock. Humans took that rock, and placed it into an environment specifically tailored to remove just the molecules we want from it. It was melted, using temperatures far exceeding what a human could survive. It was formed into a sheet, then pressed into shape, using tools specifically crafted for that one purpose. It was painted with a compound not naturally found anywhere on earth, because someone thought it should be green. It was packaged in organic compounds carefully formulated and shaped through hundreds of processes to ensure it couldn't be damaged on its trip to the other side of the planet. All of this for a cup. Why? Because it's slightly more comfortable to drink out of. A problem that wouldn't even register with any other living thing, solved with efforts far beyond their capabilities. And that is our closest competitor.
Humanity has accomplished more in the last hundred years, hell even the last ten, than anything else on earth (or beyond, for all we know) ever has. Yeah, war, greed, and racism are a thing, but it hasn't stopped us before, and won't stop us now. You are comparing real people to some idealized fantasy. A fantasy that only seems attainable because of what we have already accomplished, not in spite of it.
We only aspire to do better because we know what we are capable of.
Sure, that sounds pretty impressive, but without another sentient civilization to compare to, how do we know we're really doing all that great?
We might be the special education class in the universe.
o7
Bezos is estimated to be worth $150 billion. With a lavish lifestyle spending $500 thousand a year, and a life expectancy of 85, he theoretically has enough for 3529.4 lifetimes, or about 23.5 lifetimes per billion. Given that rich assholes tend to also be legendarily cheap, this is likely a conservative estimate for the number of lifetimes. On the average income in the USA of $63,214, that would be 186.1 lifetimes per billion, or at the median income of $44,225 it would be 266 lifetimes per billion. So every billionaire has enough wealth to support hundreds of people for their entire lives, from birth to death. An unfathomable amount of money.
Well they're going to leave the unfed and unhoused behind, obvi
Sounds like you're hungry. Go finance a pizza