Elon Musk: Tech Genius! Green Warrior! Biz King! Good Oligarch?

Re: Elon Musk

What I find interesting is how these two guys, Jobs and Musk, are the visible faces for massive EM dispersion in the form of Wi-Fi and cellphone towers, and electric cars which the C's have described as very dangerous (can't find the session though). In the case of Musk, electric cars are not as widespread as smartphones yet, but one can easily see by now that this is where we are going.
 
Re: Elon Musk

I was thinking about recurring patterns through "time" and what might be learned by reviewing the progress of the industrial revolution. I can't imagine that our 4D keepers wouldn't have failed to recognize the ripe opportunity; bending humans towards assisting their goals through managing the way our technologies and industrial practices evolved.

To this end, there were a couple of critical junctures/inventions which shaped our "cage", as it were. Electricity and what we did with it as a species is surely one of the big moments.

Like Elon Musk today, there have been other prominent figures in the field of invention. Thomas Edison was the major public face behind the last big leap in electricity distribution and general invention. Mister Light Bulb! A heralded hero during his time, but according to later accounts, it sounds like he wasn't so swell a guy after all. There are similarities between Musk's operation and Edison's in terms of pushing heavy output from his workers and taking credit. Musk does however, sound, according that the blog series, like he's put in his own enormous effort in terms of both research and a granular knowledge of every process involved on the shop floors. It doesn't sound like he avoids doing work in order to steal credit, (which is a commonality among psychopaths).

Though, another quality did jump out. -I recall reading somewhere that many of the great psychopaths of our history had a peculiarly perfect recall of soldiers and commanders down to every name and regiment, etc.; Hitler apparently knew the entirety of his military to a man. I don't know if that was propaganda or not, but it's a weird detail. -I'm not sure if Musk knows all his employees, though he does reportedly interview each of them, from janitorial to head researcher, personally.

Anyway...

I went looking for a reference to something I vaguely recall the C's (or somebody?) putting out there, but was unable to find it again. -Essentially, that the frequency of AC adopted for mass distribution was no accident, but I may be confusing it with something to do with the invention of television.

I did, however, find this...

Laura said:
Session Date: November 28th 2009

[...]

(C**) There was a documentary that we were speculating a week ago where they were talking about some of the side effects of Tamiflu and possibly the vaccines. They were saying that they had run studies in Japan and other countries and the biggest problem was mental problems. Psychological problems.

(Ark) Now they say, "Oh, we found 70 cases of this, it's not enough to..."

A: Massive inflammation on top of already epidemic autoimmune conditions.

Q: (L) If you're inflamed, your brain is inflamed.

(C**) So, my question is more...

A: Most mental conditions today are a result of autoimmune disorders.

Q: (L) So what's your question?

(C**) Well, if their plan is not just to kill people but to contribute to disintegration, personality disintegration, and make them more either vulnerable or paranoid of others, or...?

A: It is just the straw and the camel. The degradation has been in process for almost a hundred years.

Q: (L) You mean the degradation of human health, and destroying people, and breaking them down and making them vulnerable and all that sort of thing?

A: Yes

Q: (Allen) By-product of the Industrial Revolution?

A: Yes

Q: (C**) And they say joy is coming?!

A: You work on the other side and don't anticipate what the universe can and will do if the ground is prepared!

Q: (L) Alright then. Unless somebody else has some really pressing question, I'm inflamed! Alright, anything that we should have asked that we didn't ask that we could have asked that you think you possibly could answer even if we didn't ask? (laughter) Just let us know!

A: Keep on the course. Did you ever wonder if some of the "failure" of the other side might not be a result of the energy you are generating?

Q: (L) What do you mean "failure"?

A: Like "Climategate"?

Q: (L) You mean, if we, our group, our forum, our activities generate certain energies, it empowers people who aren't even connected to us to do things?

A: Yes

Q: (L) Well!

(C******) So they would have the courage to stand up and say what really is.

(L) Well, I guess we gotta keep on going because it's so much fun to see these things coming out! (laughter) I mean, I don't wanna stop the show or anything. We've gotta keep the lights going.

A: And on that fun thought, goodbye.

END OF SESSION


And also this...

Laura said:
February 17, 1996

A: Yes. And... Read John Naisbitt. We have direct communications with him, too!

Q: (L) Who is he?

A: "Megatrends."


Q: (L) Oh, I have the book. Are you telling me that you communicate with him?

A: Yes. Now, read chapter headings!!!

Q: (L) Okay: 'Industrial Society to an Information Society.' 'Force Technology, to High Tech,' 'National Economy to World Economy,' 'Short Term to Long Term,' 'Centralization to Decentralization,' 'Institutional Help to Self Help,' 'Hierarchies to Networking,' etc... Page 211, interesting numbers. Okay, anything else you want to add?

A: In your "spare time," read and absorb, and look for the clues there. This will allow you to use your resources more efficiently, thus quickly achieving goals.

Q: (L) Okay. (F) With an open mind. No prejudice!

A: Yup.

Q: (L) Can I ask my other questions? Some people on the net want me to ask about this HAARP thing... seems to be some sort of antennae thing...

A: Disguise for something else.

Q: (L) What is that something else?

A: Project to apply EM wave theories to the transference of perimeters.

Q: (L) What does that mean?

A: If utilised as designed, will allow for controlled invisibility and easy movement between density levels on surface of planet as well as subterranially.

Q: (L) Who is in charge of building this thing?

A: More than one entity.

Q: (L) What groups?

A: INVELCO is one guise as well as UNICON and banking interest.

Q: (L) Who is in disguise as INVELCO and UNICON? Are they just dummy companies for cover?

A: Close.

Q: (L) Can you tell us if this is a human organization or aliens, or a combination?

A: Human at surface level.

Q: (L) Whose idea was this project?

A: Not applicable.

Q: (L) Is there more you can tell us about this?

A: It has nothing to do with weather or climate. These things are emanating from 4th density, as we have told you before.

Q: (L) Is this something like a Transdimensional Atomic Remolecularizer?

A: No.

Q: (L) Is it something like what you said about the whole South West going into 4th density?

A: No.

Q: (L) So, HAARP has nothing to do with the weather?

A: And also EM associated with same as reported.

Q: (L) So, when is this HAARP thing scheduled to go into operation?

A: Open.

Q: (L) Is it currently in operation?

A: Experimental.

Q: (L) How long have they been working on this thing?

A: Since the 1920s.

Q: (L) What?! The 1920s?

A: Yes.

I don't know how relevant it may be here, but I might take a look at this John Naisbitt's work.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Woodsman said:
I was thinking about recurring patterns through "time" and what might be learned by reviewing the progress of the industrial revolution. I can't imagine that our 4D keepers wouldn't have failed to recognize the ripe opportunity; bending humans towards assisting their goals through managing the way our technologies and industrial practices evolved.

Ugh. Double-negative. I meant "would have".
 
Re: Elon Musk

He's an ambitious inventor? But I think it is really risky. His projects require a lot of capital. And space-EX, electric cars, depend on federal funding, subsidies. If the next administration ( Trump ) decides to do something different, then that would affect his plans. He's friends with Obama, that helps him. But I think he's getting more and more private investment, as his projects come along, soon he won't need the government. But it underlies, that his visions, they are not economical, in some ways, that is why he is a visionary. Because people don't think it makes economic sense to have electric cars, or trips to mars in 12 months, but he says, he can do it. So he's the first one.
 
Re: Elon Musk

I've read bits and pieces about him in articles over the past few years. I pretty much subscribe to the pseudo-innovator/false hero camp. The US had a great space program in the 70s and landed on the moon several times, way before anyone else had the capability. We could've had a moon colony in the late 80's and already been on Mars by now. Now in 2016 the US has no manned space program and relies solely on *gasp* those evil Russians. It amuses me to no end that the Empire of Chaos is utterly reliant on its arch nemesis Putin to access a space station that it in large part funded and constructed. Anyway, along comes Musk, who is chummy with Obama, and Obama gives him a bunch of money to rebuild the nation's space program. The fact of the matter is, most of Musk's rockets fail or blow up, and his only real success is delivering cargo into orbit, which is really a bit passé in this day and age. Despite all of the decades that have passed and all of the NASA engineers that were out of work when Bush eviscerated the space program, SpaceX cannot do the same things that the US space program could 40 years ago. Now that is change you can believe in :rolleyes: All SpaceX has done is capitalize on being in the right place at the right time and having the right connections so that it can suckle on a massive taxpayer teat to which it owes its entire existence. It is crony capitalism at its finest and propagandized much more glamorously than Solyndra was.

Tesla motors follows a similar template. Electric cars existed in the 20s. While battery and engine technology has improved a lot since then the same basic template remains. While I do not think it is easy to build and sell a functional electric car, it does not change the fact that the cars are ferociously expensive and the company is not competitive and can only really sell its cars with government subsidies. Oh, and these battery packs have the tendency to suddenly burst into flames. But this company also has a massive taxpayer teat to suck on, so such things don't really matter; and the cars do look pretty cool.

This brings us to so-called renewable energy. Renewable energy is fossil fuels. If you go "off the nonrenewable grid" you can only do so for a limited time in a limited way. Most people don't realize this because they are satisfied with appearances instead of looking at the essence of things. The fact of the matter is, solar energy requires rare earth metals in order to build the equipment, which by definition are rare. This requires huge strip mines to gather massive quantities of ore to yield a small quantity of usable material. This is environmentally intensive, to say the least. Then there is the fact that battery technology has a lower energy density than chemical fuels and electric motors have a habit of overheating. It is not dependable enough to run heavy equipment, which will be powered with oil. Then the trucks to move all of the raw materials around will be powered by oil, as well as the ships to move the finished products, most likely. The renewable economy depends on fossil fuels at its root. And the materials currently used to make solar cells are nonrenewable and only last about 30 years. Wind power is not quite as bad as solar in the sense that the mining is not quite as intensive, but the power generated is far less reliable. Tidal power may be more reliable if you could keep the turbines from becoming dislodged by passing storms and salt water corrosion, but they are not without their environmental impacts and the fossil fuels to manufacture and transport them aren't going away any time soon. None of these technologies are as reliable as fossil fuels to maintain industrial infrastructure and without something like nuclear fusion or more exotic free energy technology, which have clearly been taken off the table for this planet, you might as well "drill baby, drill" to quote Sarah Palin because it is all the same. The only tangible benefit from all of this is that it would help to concentrate the pollution away from residential areas, however the renewables initiative as it is currently debated is ultimately a zero sum game.

As far as I'm concerned, Musk is a PR front man who works within MCS consensus reality/conventional wisdom, taking already existing ideas and rebranding them with his own personal spin and charisma. He markets to the millennial generation and college students to make them believe that the system actually does something and has a future, when in reality it is just a churn center for financiers and oligarchs who have planned its obsolescence. Hence he is a perfect fit for the cult of personality which surrounded Obama. The man does seem intelligent and has some capacity to organize things, which might make him a decent middle manager in a tech company, but I don't think he's anything special.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Neil said:
I've read bits and pieces about him in articles over the past few years. I pretty much subscribe to the pseudo-innovator/false hero camp. The US had a great space program in the 70s and landed on the moon several times, way before anyone else had the capability. We could've had a moon colony in the late 80's and already been on Mars by now. Now in 2016 the US has no manned space program and relies solely on *gasp* those evil Russians. It amuses me to no end that the Empire of Chaos is utterly reliant on its arch nemesis Putin to access a space station that it in large part funded and constructed. Anyway, along comes Musk, who is chummy with Obama, and Obama gives him a bunch of money to rebuild the nation's space program. The fact of the matter is, most of Musk's rockets fail or blow up, and his only real success is delivering cargo into orbit, which is really a bit passé in this day and age. Despite all of the decades that have passed and all of the NASA engineers that were out of work when Bush eviscerated the space program, SpaceX cannot do the same things that the US space program could 40 years ago. Now that is change you can believe in :rolleyes: All SpaceX has done is capitalize on being in the right place at the right time and having the right connections so that it can suckle on a massive taxpayer teat to which it owes its entire existence. It is crony capitalism at its finest and propagandized much more glamorously than Solyndra was.

Tesla motors follows a similar template. Electric cars existed in the 20s. While battery and engine technology has improved a lot since then the same basic template remains. While I do not think it is easy to build and sell a functional electric car, it does not change the fact that the cars are ferociously expensive and the company is not competitive and can only really sell its cars with government subsidies. Oh, and these battery packs have the tendency to suddenly burst into flames. But this company also has a massive taxpayer teat to suck on, so such things don't really matter; and the cars do look pretty cool.

This brings us to so-called renewable energy. Renewable energy is fossil fuels. If you go "off the nonrenewable grid" you can only do so for a limited time in a limited way. Most people don't realize this because they are satisfied with appearances instead of looking at the essence of things. The fact of the matter is, solar energy requires rare earth metals in order to build the equipment, which by definition are rare. This requires huge strip mines to gather massive quantities of ore to yield a small quantity of usable material. This is environmentally intensive, to say the least. Then there is the fact that battery technology has a lower energy density than chemical fuels and electric motors have a habit of overheating. It is not dependable enough to run heavy equipment, which will be powered with oil. Then the trucks to move all of the raw materials around will be powered by oil, as well as the ships to move the finished products, most likely. The renewable economy depends on fossil fuels at its root. And the materials currently used to make solar cells are nonrenewable and only last about 30 years. Wind power is not quite as bad as solar in the sense that the mining is not quite as intensive, but the power generated is far less reliable. Tidal power may be more reliable if you could keep the turbines from becoming dislodged by passing storms and salt water corrosion, but they are not without their environmental impacts and the fossil fuels to manufacture and transport them aren't going away any time soon. None of these technologies are as reliable as fossil fuels to maintain industrial infrastructure and without something like nuclear fusion or more exotic free energy technology, which have clearly been taken off the table for this planet, you might as well "drill baby, drill" to quote Sarah Palin because it is all the same. The only tangible benefit from all of this is that it would help to concentrate the pollution away from residential areas, however the renewables initiative as it is currently debated is ultimately a zero sum game.

As far as I'm concerned, Musk is a PR front man who works within MCS consensus reality/conventional wisdom, taking already existing ideas and rebranding them with his own personal spin and charisma. He markets to the millennial generation and college students to make them believe that the system actually does something and has a future, when in reality it is just a churn center for financiers and oligarchs who have planned its obsolescence. Hence he is a perfect fit for the cult of personality which surrounded Obama. The man does seem intelligent and has some capacity to organize things, which might make him a decent middle manager in a tech company, but I don't think he's anything special.

At least regarding SpaceX, I don't think that it's a fair assesment. "Most of their rockets blow up"? You may be confusing their work on landing the first stage of the rocket, which usually crash-lands, so as to save costs by reusing it. Nobody else has done this before.

Which brings me to the main achievement of SpaceX and Musk: their rockets are already much cheaper while offering the same reliability as the ones of NASA, ESA and Russia. Even if their initial funding involved a lot of government money, that in itself is a big achievement.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Axj said:
At least regarding SpaceX, I don't think that it's a fair assesment. "Most of their rockets blow up"? You may be confusing their work on landing the first stage of the rocket, which usually crash-lands, so as to save costs by reusing it. Nobody else has done this before.

Which brings me to the main achievement of SpaceX and Musk: their rockets are already much cheaper while offering the same reliability as the ones of NASA, ESA and Russia. Even if their initial funding involved a lot of government money, that in itself is a big achievement.
This is correct, the man is not without some achievement, and I suppose I was overly hard on him, but it doesn't change the overall direction of my post.

My point basically was, if we needed to get to the moon in a month, leaving aside "secret space programs" for a moment, we couldn't do it. We could do it in 1975. Not NASA, not Musk, not China. Putin is the only one who might be able to do it, but the Russians have never attempted it so it would be a gamble. Musk doesn't even have a manned vehicle. I know he is supposed to be working with NASA on modifying the Dragon for a manned suborbital test flight in a couple of years, but at the moment he really has nothing. Kennedy's legacy was dismantled and the whole thing has devolved.

Furthermore, my university was about 30 miles from NASA and the space program was a big deal there. I remember they had constructed a maglev launch assist track complete with miniature spacecraft and model rocket engines in the physics lab. While the maglev launcher wasn't really a new idea and had its issues, it was cool to watch it work (and sometimes crash). Yet here we are still using basically the same old rockets to accomplish less than when the Apollo program was running. There have been a few refinements, but they have not been significant in my opinion. To be fair, this isn't really Musk's fault, such things are expensive and it takes decades to get a return on the investment, but he seems to have a lot of concepts and not much tangible to show for it that is new. Heck, I can make a concept. I don't dispute the man's intelligence or ability to run his company, I just don't see the reason for his reputation as a "creative genius." Those people actually tend to get killed. He was just paid a lot of money to take over the broken US space program, and he pulled it off somewhat successfully. Interesting now that NASA is building a new moon capsule on its own pretty much completely independently of Musk, however the timeline keeps getting pushed further and further back, so I doubt it will come to fruition.

Lastly, I do understand that public space programs are likely just a show for public consumption. It just gives science and engineering types a false hope of progress to believe in. All of the real stuff is under a mountain somewhere hoarded by deep state pathocrats who have managed to partially reverse engineer 4D technology. It appears that we already belong to some vast galactic economic conglomerate, and we have about as much say in how that system is run as the Republic of Congo has in the G7. If the Cassiopaeans are to be believed, some of these 4D starships even go so far as to blow up some of our satellites and probes, just to prove a point. So 4D STS probably only allows the technology to advance to a certain point, anyway. Against the backdrop of civilizational collapse, it is all kind of a moot point, but even without the conspiracy angle, I fail to see what all of the fuss is about.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Just stumbled upon the following article, that clearly shows who exactly butters Musk's bread. ;) He or his family are afraid the evil Russkies will kill him because of his progress? Yeah, right. Megalomaniac and hysterical much. :rolleyes: This statement is particularly ridiculous, when just last week "cosmodrome Vostochnyj" launched its first rocket. And to think that I was excited about the Dragon launch. ;)

When the West is going to understand that Russkies mostly "compete" with themselves? They take pride in achieving heights of professionalism, while being super pragmatic and creative at the same time. But surely it is very nice when such approach brings good money too. In such a case, Russia's answer is: let the best man win. Nothing wrong with that.

Also when reading the article keep in mind that The Moscow Times is a known US propaganda source. It's also pretty obvious from the content and the wording.

_http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/565756.html

Over the past decade, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been fond of telling people that he wants to die on Mars.

But with the recent successes of his company SpaceX, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-rocket man has taken to qualifying his remarks. "My family fears Russia will assassinate me [first]," he told a Bloomberg reporter last year.

Musk can perhaps be forgiven for feeling this way. On April 9, just days before Russians celebrated the 55th anniversary of Yury Gagarin's historic flight into space, SpaceX successfully landed one of its rockets on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. It was a clear demonstration that Musk is on the verge of radically transforming the business of space exploration, an industry traditionally dominated by Russia.

SpaceX hopes to begin reusing its rockets 10 to 20 times, and Musk has on various occasions claimed that reusability can reduce costs for launching things into space by a factor of 100.

That is likely to be an overambitious estimate, suggests Russian space journalist Igor Lissov. But even in a more realistic scenario — say, for example, SpaceX manages to halve its advertised $60 million launch cost — the challenger will be a problem for Russia, which leans on foreign cash flows in times of economic crisis.

In November, President Vladimir Putin ordered Roscosmos to take measures to protect its market position. The following month, Roscosmos carried through a planned reorganization, turning the organization into a state-corporation supposedly better placed to compete with tech upstarts like SpaceX .

Roscosmos did not respond to a request to elaborate on those plans, but the company's chief, Igor Komarov, told RIA Novosti on April 12 that it is "actively working to reduce costs" and develop a reusable rocket of its own — one that won't fly until after 2030. Komarov had told RT that Russia is still the undisputed industry leader, responsible for 40 percent of all launches.

Roscosmos counts on this market position to supplement its government funding. Over the next ten years, it has predicted some 230 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) income from foreign customers, which compares to state funding of 1.4 trillion ruble ($21 billion).

With SpaceX already eroding Russia's standing in the global space industry, it is not currently clear that Roscosmos can meet that goal.

In an attempt to fend off Musk's encroachment, Roscosmos has begun offering potential customers discounts for launches on its Proton rockets — the commercial competitor to SpaceX's Falcon 9 — if bought in bulk. Industry publication Space News has suggested bulk discount prices may be as low as $65 million per rocket, as opposed to the list price of $90 million

Cost-cutting is a tactic Roscosmos might not be able to rely on for long. Most assume Musk will be able to significantly reduce launch costs down in the near future, and no one quite knows how much Proton's eventual cost would be. It may well be that the market price settles at a level that Roscosmos will find too difficult to manage.

There are several other factors working against Roscosmos as it maneuvers to compete with SpaceX — primarily brand image and reputation. Russia is struggling to overcome serious quality control issues that have caused a series of spectacular launch failures since 2010. SpaceX is meanwhile becoming "increasingly reliable," says Phil Smith, a senior analyst with the Tauri Group, a U.S.-based aerospace consulting firm.

There are two other means by which SpaceX poses an imminent threat to Roscosmos.

The first is the impact it is having on United Launch Alliance (ULA), the immediate U.S. competitor to SpaceX. ULA currently buys Russian-made engines for its Atlas V rocket, but SpaceX's success may cause it to rethink. Without sales to ULA, Roscosmos' engine-making subsidiary, Energomash, will lose its main customer.

An even greater impact is expected when SpaceX begins flying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in the next two to three years. Since the U.S. space shuttles were retired in 2011, Roscosmos charged NASA $70 million for each seat. Musk promises to undercut that significantly, charging around $20 million on his "Dragon" spacecraft. Considering that Roscosmos is expecting an annual budget of $2 billion over the next decade, the loss of an $500 million annual subsidy is significant.

Even if Roscosmos is able to weather these storms, the long term future of the company does not look too promising. The space behemoth remains largely dependent on state budget injections, and that makes it inflexible.

"A slow, state-owned, ineffective and mostly non-market oriented company is, simply speaking, incapable of competing with SpaceX and other agile private space companies," says Pavel Luzin, a space industry expert at Perm State University.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Interesting stuff about Elon Musk in this opinion piece by "Miles Mathis", I believe that many of his points were already covered in this thread.

_http://mileswmathis.com/musk.pdf

I think the CIA connection is the most glaring thing about this person.

Also, seriously, what is up with using Nikola Tesla's name as a way to sell your company? Doesn't that show that these people don't really have much respect for this person, deceased, who has actually made serious discoveries. Not to mention the fact that Tesla's purported wireless power system was buried by the PTB of that era due to the fact that they could not meter and charge people for using it.
 
Re: Elon Musk

The Miles Mathis stuff is outstanding for the contrarian viewpoint. I don't know enough science to say how accurate he is. Wildly entertaining, though. I particularly liked his work on double rainbows. I've looked at them differently since reading the stuff. I think he is right.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Yupo said:
The Miles Mathis stuff is outstanding for the contrarian viewpoint. I don't know enough science to say how accurate he is. Wildly entertaining, though. I particularly liked his work on double rainbows. I've looked at them differently since reading the stuff. I think he is right.

If you put "Miles Mathis" (with quotation marks) in the search engine, you will find many posts about him, like this one, for instance:

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,38817.msg586296.html#msg586296

where it was stated:

That's a very non-scientific approach and if he uses the same approach with his science (which seems to be the case), his science would be very non-scientific too.

[...]

The moral of the story for me is I should approach what Miles Mathis claims with a very high degree of skepticism.

To which Laura agreed with in the next post.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Entertainment purposes only, then. And for this value alone, I find some of it worth a read.
 
Re: Elon Musk

Found this book exerpt from the author Derrick Jensen.

In the rest of the interview [Elon] Musk talks about his plans to get a million people to Mars in the next hundred years on 10,000 space ships (presumably built by his company at taxpayer expense), shooting these transports into space at rates “that would convert Earth’s launch pads into machine guns, capable of firing streams of spacecraft at deep space destinations such as Mars.” He talks about mining Mars, like this culture has mined the earth. He talks about how the entire universe might be a giant computer simulation.

It’s all nuts. And it’s nearly always couched in terms that are Biblical, magical, childish, or all three. The journalist repeatedly talks about the “sacred mission” of space colonization, and he describes Musk’s “cathedral-like rocket factory,” then finishes his description by saying, “The place felt something like Santa’s workshop as re-imagined by James Cameron.”
The Biblical/magical/childish imagery continues, as here we go again with the Noah metaphor: “It’s possible to read Musk as a Noah figure, a man obsessed with building a great vessel, one that will safeguard humankind against global catastrophe [except, of course, that only humans will survive, but then again, “-flick- Earth,” as Musk has said]. But he seems to see himself as a Moses, someone who makes it possible to pass through the wilderness— the ‘empty wastes,’ as Kepler put it to Galileo—but never sets foot in the Promised Land.”

The article concludes: “He is a revivalist, for those of us who still buy into cosmic manifest destiny. And he can preach. He says we are doomed if we stay here. He says we will suffer fire and brimstone, and even extinction. He says we should go with him, to that darkest and most treacherous of shores. He promises a miracle.”
***
All this talk of miracles and preaching and fire and brimstone and sacred missions is not coincidental. The technotopian vision is just a secular version of the same monotheistic conceit that life on Earth is a vale of tears and the real glory is in heaven. It doesn’t much matter whether you believe the only meaning comes from a God who looks like an old man with a beard, or the only meaning comes from things created by man, you’re still saying that the earth is meaningless. You’re still showing contempt and hatred for the earth. And it doesn’t much matter whether the God you created tells you that you should have dominion over the earth, and all creatures on earth should fear you, or whether you believe it is human’s manifest destiny to convert the earth into machines and pollute the earth (cuz that’s what intelligent beings do), and you not only make all creatures fear you, you drive them extinct, you’re still destroying the place. It doesn’t matter whether you have the God you created tell you that you are the Chosen People (or Chosen Species), or whether your own delusions tell you that your vast intelligence is “a single candle flame, flickering weakly in a vast and drafty void,” you still think your chosen stature allows you to exploit and/or exterminate all those you perceive as lesser than you, which is everyone. And it doesn’t much matter whether you believe heaven is way up in the stars where God lives, or whether you believe heaven is way up in the stars where you want your space ships to go, you still don’t believe that the earth is a good place to live.

There are some differences though. One is that it used to be that at least God was more powerful than Man. Now, though, we’ve gotten rid of that silly God talk and it is we who are on the path to becoming godlike in our capabilities. Another is that in the olden days the Heaven to which the hell on earth was contrasted was at least marginally pleasant, so long as you like harps, and petting zoos that contain both lambs and lions. This new heaven on Mars promised by Musk sounds more like hell: “If you were to stroll onto its surface without a spacesuit, your eyes and skin would peel away like sheets of burning paper, and your blood would turn to steam, killing you within 30 seconds. Even in a suit you’d be vulnerable to cosmic radiation, and dust storms that occasionally coat the entire Martian globe, in clouds of skin-burning particulates, small enough to penetrate the tightest of seams. Never again would you feel the sun and wind on your skin, unmediated. Indeed, you would probably be living underground at first, in a windowless cave, only this time there would be no wild horses to sketch on the ceiling.”

It gets even better: “Cabin fever might set in quickly on Mars, and it might be contagious. Quarters would be tight. Governments would be fragile. Reinforcements would be seven months away. Colonies might descend into civil war, anarchy or even cannibalism, given the potential for scarcity. US [sic] colonies from Roanoke to Jamestown suffered similar social breakdowns, in environments that were Edenic by comparison. Some individuals might be able to endure these conditions for decades, or longer, but Musk told me he would need a million people to form a sustainable, genetically diverse civilisation.”

So basically the heaven he’s promising us is worse than the worst prison cell in the U.S. penal system. At least those in solitary confinement get an hour a day to walk in a walled-in exercise area where they can see the sky and breathe outside air. At least there is outside air.

But from the perspective of capitalists—and more broadly, that of an authoritarian technics—this really is heaven. Recall that a central point of agriculture has been to make people dependent on those in power for their food: if you control someone’s food, you control their lives, which means you control their labor. The people in Musk’s heaven would be dependent on those in charge for the very air they breathe. The God of capitalism/Authoritarianism is smiling.


- pp. 294-297 of chapter entitled Earth-Hating
Madness from “The Myth of Human Supremacy”
 
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