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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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I don't see how you CAN be a progressive leftist under the current popular definition of the term and openly support rapid industrialization of outer space.

On the practical side, advancement of space industries is a tacit admission that we're not on the verge or running out of space, resources, or energy for the planet, requiring everyone to cut back drastically on consumption or risk ultimate ruin.

That is, even if "Capitalism depends on unsustainable growth!" is technically true, we have a shitton of room to grow if we can get space colonies operational.

O'Neill cylinders could (theoretically) grow all the food we would need on the planet in a sustainable way (i.e. almost zero net impact on earth's biosphere). Orbital solar collectors solve climate/energy woes almost by themselves. If we get asteroid mining, all bets are off. Hell, if we put factories in space we could run them off the dirtiest energy sources imaginable without harming anyone.

Can't have "late stage capitalism" if Capitalism is even now staging for off-planet industry.

Private companies are driving space exploration forward WAY faster than government, with an overall better track record too I'd allege. Hard to make the claim that space travel is the purview of Government when government can't even launch rockets, currently. People are going to become billionaires or maybe even trillionaires if this industry matures, this promises massively increased inequality.

Money spent on development of this tech directs it away from special interest groups or captured institutions.

And perhaps the bigger downstream effect, it gets us on the path towards new frontiers which can be used to escape their social games and restrictions.

There's nothing to excite a progressive about space travel if their worldview requires believing that the world is in such terrible shape and beyond technological salvation that only socialism can solve it.