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jeezlyCurmudgeon t1_iy7yb5t wrote

Watch the expanse. Minus the alien bit it's a very believable future society.

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Harbinger2001 t1_iy8a6nr wrote

Also minus the insanely efficient drives. Real propulsion would make most of that society infeasible.

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Khrontek t1_iy8el95 wrote

Even without Epstein drives there were the less efficient torch engines which are in the books and came before the Epstein. Humans had access to those engines to colonize Mars and the start of the belt I believe (Finishing up Leviathan Wakes currently). Even today NASA has researched and experimented with NERVA which is a nuclear rocket engine design. They also recently from my knowledge spun that research back up so maybe we will see this new engine in space in the near future.

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drakeschaefer t1_iy85ooo wrote

Probably when Dyson realize they need to stop making vacuums, and aim a lot bigger

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joshberer t1_iy809yx wrote

After Mars is successfully colonized, it will declare independence as a congressional republic and the belt will provide all the resources needed, but there will be terrible income inequality. Also earth will suck and everyone will be on Basic.

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Scrubface t1_iy87qt6 wrote

Will Mars be the new Australia?

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Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8e6s1 wrote

"Scientists believe genetically engineered martian spiders are the key to terraforming the red planet."

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JJKBA t1_iy7yrhn wrote

As said, The Expanse is pretty believable although it actually have no “mega corps “. That is my guess, a bunch of Bezos and Musks controlling it all. So, pretty much as it is now, but in space.

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Reasonable_Basil5546 t1_iy8510c wrote

Kinda like a mix of The Expanse and The Outer Worlds. Corporate towns that treat work as a cure all, and sick people as lazy, worthless layabouts. Everything is leased, nothing owned, nothing without its price.

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MySpaceLegend t1_iy8a2nv wrote

Off world manufacturing would probably be 100% automated, no people involved

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EmbarassedFox t1_iy8arf8 wrote

Who would repair the automated systems? Repair robots would also need to be repaired, at times.

People would likely be cheaper.

Edit: there is also the question of speed. Sending a message to mars at lightspeed takes about 8 minutes. That's 8 minutes of sending a "error" message, plus another 8 of sending a "reset" back, in the simplest of cases, meaning 16 minutes of lost revenue. On-site personnel is a quicker response.

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Johnny_Glib t1_iy8f7re wrote

Repair robots will repair each other.

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MrZwink t1_iy9o4ir wrote

Yes this will be it. And when the repair robot can't solve it. There wil probably be some fall back to a human with remote access.

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MySpaceLegend t1_iy8eqhi wrote

I'd imagine AIs would do all the management on-site. Repairs would be done by maintenence drones and bots. All humans need to do is send annual production quota and finished products are sent to earth orbit to be picked up. We're not talking near-near future here though. In maybe 80 years?

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Uvtha- t1_iy9d5tm wrote

They likely wouldn't ever break in a meaningful way. Thing generally break because of imperfect human design and oversight. The eventual AI that will be developed will likely be much more capable of designing and maintaining the tools needed to do the space labor. It would be monitoring everything 24/7 and fixing problems (with advanced AI designed robotics) before they happen. It all depends on how quickly AI develops, but human labor is not going to be a big part of the sci fi future. In fact humans may not be a big part of it at all.

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minterbartolo t1_iy8f72c wrote

Jules Pierre Mao's Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile is the big mega corp of the expanse.

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Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8dqk9 wrote

>That is my guess, a bunch of Bezos and Musks controlling it all.

Odds are someone with an army will take anything they manage to build.

Unless they've got better armies.

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EmbarassedFox t1_iy8bj4e wrote

Isn't "a bunch of Bezos and Musks controlling it all" the basic idea of a megacorps?

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JJKBA t1_iy8c4q6 wrote

Well, I was too clear of what I meant I guess.

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benjaminactual t1_iy80wd4 wrote

Rich people will get wealthier and poor people will now get shot into space for minimum wage.

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madikosya123 t1_iy887hl wrote

I will tell my grandchildren to marry to Martian partners. So they will get free visa👍

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Gari_305 OP t1_iy7y3ru wrote

From the Article

>The potential for innovative space applications is immense, especially if established aerospace companies form partnerships with businesses that traditionally haven’t ventured into orbit. Pharmaceutical companies might establish a lab on a space station to study cell growth, for instance, or semiconductor companies might manufacture chips in extraterrestrial factories to determine whether any aspects of the space environment, such as the lack of gravity, improve the process. Such possibilities, which might have seemed like the stuff of science fiction a few years ago, could become an essential part of a business across multiple industries in the near future.

Which leads to an important question, once the space economy is up and running what would be the implications for us as a species?

Will we eventually have industrial belts in Space?

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UniversalMomentum t1_iy82ryp wrote

I think the space economy will just be a lot of what you see now. There isn't a bunch of necessary resources for Earth's development worth collecting from the vastness of space. There isn't any reason to populate inhabitable locations vs staying on Earth.

Expanding into the solar system mostly just has research value. The Space Economy is just ways to use the immediate space around Earth to benefit Earth, like satellites.

Things like researching exotic materials in space will become less and less useful as computer modeling improves, you don't need many labs in space and we aren't going to convince people to move off Earth to conditions that are way less healthy other than the few hardcore scientists who can study the preserved records of the solar system, but even there robots will scale upward to do that better because it's so hostile and so vast and humans take so many resources to send into space vs robots.

Humans will develop brain to computer interfaces and that will change how we view space exploration and future development. It's all about super high efficiency and low mass, not mega structures and giant spaceships.

We will have self assembling robots that can build anything, even a new Earth and that will happen long before we can get humans to another solar system while at the same time humans can upload their minds into machines and gain virtual immortality and super high efficiency/low mass existence. All that will happen LONG before you can travel anywhere all that interesting through space, probably in the next 100 years.

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MySpaceLegend t1_iy8yr7k wrote

Space is full of valuable resources. One asteroid could have a particular rare mineral x10 of that of earth. No doubt in my mind that the space economy will transition from science to manufacturing once certain thresholds are met. Not anytime soon, but perhaps within our lifetime.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy8238x wrote

it will take us to a de facto post-scarcity society. the amount of resources in immediate vicinity of earth will fundamentally change our way of viewing property.

it will also create space industrialization thus leading the way to levels of human comfort that we can't even imagine, all without destroying our environment.

it will *be a net positive for all...

edit: added a word, laptop getting weird today.

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ScaleneWangPole t1_iy82e51 wrote

They said the same thing about the industrial revolution. How's that going?

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ajabardar1 t1_iy834e6 wrote

way better than before, that is a fact. it has problems, yeah. but by every metric possible the industrial revolution was a net positive for all. well at least for humankind.

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dookiehat t1_iy9eb70 wrote

That is why we make less money than our parents did, because the world is objectively better. Also why authoritarianism is on the rise around the world, and why homelessness has been rising since 2008 in western economies. Elon Musk has plans to make starlink spell out “eat poop, earth” so we can always see how quirky he is. Also you’ll never own anything because we are in post scarcity so why would you need to own anything that a corporation can’t own and manage for you, it is so much easier that way!! Yes, the boomers are extending their lifespans and you have to live in one of our podrooms in one of our leisure campuses, where you can use new technologies all day long and forget being lonely, you’ll have lots of neighbors! Like the good ol days in college when you saw people irl. you don’t have to worry about those big person jobs that are scary with all sorts of responsibility because your parents can do them for another 60 years now while they add a wing to their suburban boomer palace that you visit with less frequency as they always vote against the leisure class, that’s us, but one day you think maybe they’ll come around. The future is objectively better, that’s a fact

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ajabardar1 t1_iy9fz8g wrote

i mean, come on. you think before there was less authoritarianism? are you trolling?

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dookiehat t1_iyat4zr wrote

I’m not, you should read capitalist realism by Mark Fisher. Honestly i feel like I’m a serf in one of the most opulent periods in history. Social progress and technological progress are not the same thing and when technological progress happens that doesn’t mean social progress happens.

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ajabardar1 t1_iyau97b wrote

yeah being a serf is such a recent possibility.

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Uvtha- t1_iycb501 wrote

The fact that there are still classes and injustice doesn't mean that there's been no social progress made, there quite obviously has been. You live a far more secure, socially free, and politically relevant position than any 17th century peasant, and to say otherwise is pretty silly.

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dookiehat t1_iycgpuw wrote

HA HA HA HA, you have no clue what you are talking about dude. I’m about an inch from homelessness. You can’t apply an objective measure to subjective sentiment or individuals and say things are objectively better so therefore my feeling is invalid. Your conception of what objectively better means is purposefully ignoring subjectivity, which i claim has worsened in quality of life in the past few decades. People feel worse about life therefore it IS worse.

There is something toxic about the world right now that i feel like everyone can feel the underlying tension but they pretend things are dormant or that nothing can go wrong. Tell me in twenty years the world is better and that it hasn’t been the most chaotic disorienting upheaval of social order you’ve ever seen.

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Uvtha- t1_iyd24lz wrote

I mean, yes, you can apply objective measurements to peoples subjective experiences, that's the whole reason we make an effort to gather empirical data rather than just relying one how we feel. Obviously people can have a flawed perspective, and also some people will be on the bottom end of the bell curve in any situation. Neither of which are invalid positions when in regard to individual... but when you are trying to express the general state of the world it's not useful to try and frame it through the lenses of one persons subjective experience, you know?

It sucks to hear about your situation, mine's not very good either. That said I know that my life isn't the only or even anything near the most average example of life in the modern age in general.

I in no way think that either the world is dormant or that nothing can go wrong, quite the contrary. The world is full of injustice and inequality, and there are very real looming existential crises... That said, just because it sucks doesn't mean it's not an improvement on the past. Most of human history was really really horrible especially for people in the lower classes.

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ScaleneWangPole t1_iy86dzb wrote

I don't think that's a fact. It depends on your definition of better. Have their been technical advances and innovations that make life better? Sure, but at a cost to society, the health of the planet, and betrayal of the human condition.

Cottagers in the late 1700s had a great thing going until economics forced them into pauperism due to not being able to compete with big manufacturing plants. Maybe they didn't have many physical items, but they lived a simple life near family and local communities. Their needs were met. They didn't have cell phones or access to the worlds knowledge at their fingertips, but they didn't get those things in cramped cities either living to make some rich guy more money.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy874u9 wrote

cottagers in the late 1700 where specifically? and what percentage of population where these 1700s cottagers? 0.001%, 0.1%, 1%, 10%?

society is way better in every metric possible. that is just a fact. ted, please, your manifesto was wrong. idealism is not a metric.

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Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8ffzc wrote

>society is way better in every metric possible.

People back then had enough kids to prevent population decline, that's one catastrophic metric right there.

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BKGPrints t1_iy94u04 wrote

No it's not. There are indications that prosperity leads to lower birth rates. A lower birth rate is not necessarily a bad thing.

It took thousands of years for the population to increase to two billion by 1900. It took less than a century to get to six billion and then another twenty years to get to eight billion.

During that time, most of the population growth was in impoverished countries in Asia, Africa and Indonesia.

As the economies of many of those countries have improved, so has the birth rate decline. But at the same time, recognize that a significant part of the population decline is because many of the population is just getting older and dying out.

And to support that poverty increases birth rates. The population for Nigeria, which more than 90% of the population is considered to live in poverty, is expected to double from it's current population of 210 million to more than 400 million by 2050.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy8kreb wrote

less kids die today. i guess if you just measure quantity yeah, you are correct. if you want to measure quality, infant death is a great metric.

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1015267 t1_iy87faj wrote

They also died of paper cuts and mama/aunt sally was buried out back because she died in childbirth. Uncle Reg was locked in the upstairs attic because ghosts had sickened his brain.

The whole family had worms and scurvy

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ScaleneWangPole t1_iy88swy wrote

There are plenty of people in the US post industrialization still believing in ghosts and sky man and unfortunately eugenics for that matter. But at least they weren't filled with microplastics and their food wasn't poison. They didn't die from the sun or peanuts. We can only sit here and say it's better now because we've robbed the global south thanks to industrialization. These exploited countries aren't gaining from all the innovation that they paid for.

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Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8fjjr wrote

>and unfortunately eugenics for that matter.

Eugenics are real, just not very ethical.

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TheZimmerian t1_iy8c6jf wrote

Just the fact almost nobody in any western nation has to worry about water, food or shelter answers that question for you. The industrial revolutions have also produced for us the tools needed to fix the problems they have caused. For those problems, the industrial revolutions are the cause, but it's the human factor that perpetuates them.

We wouldn't even be having this conversation without the industrial revolutions, because the internet would (likely) not exist in the form it exists today, if at all, and you certainly wouldn't be able to buy a pocket computer more powerful than the one that sent mankind to the Moon for less than 1/3rd of an average month's salary.

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Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8frxn wrote

>Just the fact almost nobody in any western nation has to worry about water

Laughs in Flint.

Laughs in 3000 cities with worse water than Flint.

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Red_Aurora1917 t1_iy997en wrote

I saw a 10 year old boil water advisory that was still in effect posted in a gas station in rural Canada. This was in cottage country too, plenty of property taxes being paid. If our government won't even fix the water supply for well-off vacationers, there is no hope for the hundreds of reservations and poorer communities without access to clean water.

"Almost nobody" is actually an unacceptable amount of people when you look at the details! And very little is being done to fix it!

On topic: The wealth of space will be snatched up by billionaires and trickled down on our heads from their ivory towers at minimum wage.

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TheZimmerian t1_iy9qpxr wrote

Good job taking the sentence completely out of the context of the argument.

>For those problems, the industrial revolutions are the cause, but it's the human factor that perpetuates them.

I never claimed it all to be perfect, I never said there wouldn't be any problems left to solve, looking at the past years there are quite a bunch of problems yet to be solved. I said the human factor is the problem, and not the technology.

The industrial revolutions have drastically improved the standard of living across the board in western nations with every subsequent revolution since the first. To deny that is to be completely disconnected from any semblence of common sense.

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BKGPrints t1_iy92is4 wrote

The Industrial Revolution did bring millions billions of individuals out of poverty and increase the quality of life. That's not to say there aren't issues but progress has been made.

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Harbinger2001 t1_iy8dlkr wrote

I really doubt we are even close to a post-scarcity society, and even more that space will help get us there. We already have far more resources than we need here on Earth. There is little value in mining and bringing down additional ores from space.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy8l8vi wrote

depends on a single factor. do you want humanity to be imprisoned on earth or do you want humanity to colonize space. if you choose earth prison then yes we have more than enough resources. if you choose colonize space then no, we don't have enough resources.

but i enjoy that you said we aren't close to a post-scarcity society, and then you say we have far more resources than we need here on earth at the same time.

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Harbinger2001 t1_iy8u9g6 wrote

Colonizing space requires a compelling reason for the colonists to endure the hardships required. Since the resources can’t be profitably repatriated to benefit Earth, there must be some other reason found.

And just because Earth still has vast resources doesn’t make it ‘post-scarcity’ which requires advances in power generation, automation and social structures that have nothing to do with resource availability.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy8v819 wrote

why can't the resources be profitable?

astronauts go into space all the time, mostly for human progress.

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Harbinger2001 t1_iy97gzl wrote

Fewer than 600 people have been to space. Colonization requires a whole new level of heavy lift capability and a destination worth going to. We are going to have nothing but government funded temporary staffed outposts for the forceable future. For people to permanently move, there needs to be a reason for them to go.

As for the resources, the issue it you have to have a customer for them. The only customers are on Earth and no space-based ore extraction can compete on price. On the flip-side, no Earth based extraction can compete for space construction, but that market will be minuscule in comparison. So it can be profitable- but not if we’re talking ‘benefit to Earth’

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ajabardar1 t1_iy99mjg wrote

and how many are at this very moment in line for a chance to go? how many applicants for astronaut does nasa get every year? how many does chinese space agency?

there have been 600 people in space not because lack of willing candidates that is for sure.

depends massively on the future pricing of mining ore on earth. one can even deduce that needed regulatory restrictions on environmental damaging mining operations is a must have if we want to keep the earth habitable for humans.

unless you think everyone should either live in a cave or reduce the number of people by 90%.

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BKGPrints t1_iy91qxk wrote

>but i enjoy that you said we aren't close to a post-scarcity society, and then you say we have far more resources than we need here on earth at the same time.<

He's right on that, though. The scarcity that we deal with today is artificial scarcity.

But I disagree with him that there isn't value or opportunity with being in space.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy92mns wrote

yes that is the reason i enjoyed it. because its true, we could live in a post-scarcity society right now. but investors must be kept happy, so we don't. kind of spoiled these investors, wouldn't you agree? like babies, they are, to whom we must cater and obey, getting them fatter and fatter by the day.

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Red_Aurora1917 t1_iy9aaxq wrote

We will never achieve a post-scarcity society under our current economic model which fundamentally *encourages* artificial scarcity. See: diamonds, housing, and food production to name a few. "post-scarcity" is incompatible with capitalism.

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ajabardar1 t1_iy9ds58 wrote

that is a given. unless we fundamentally change our economic model there will be no post-scarcity society. space exploration can help that change of economic model.

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[deleted] t1_iy8cxn2 wrote

>de facto post-scarcity society. the amount of resources in immediate vicinity of earth will fundamentally change our way of viewing property

No, it will be a de facto forced artificial scarcity society and nothing about our view of property will change in that those of us down here in the dirt will still be priced out of owning anything significant

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ZephkielAU t1_iy89d61 wrote

It won't change a single thing about figure; we'll still be the poor rubes working til we die while a select group of jackasses turn their billions into quadrillions.

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Uvtha- t1_iy9c1zx wrote

Really depends how far into the future. Once advanced AI is working in tandem with advanced robotics and advanced space flight (likely once the AI comes it will develop the other two better than humans could) there really won't be much for humans to do that a AI designed and operated robot cant do like 100x more efficiently, including take care of the robots/AI. I imagine there will be people around to try to keep the AI from deciding that humans are no longer worth the upkeep, but beyond that it's just gonna be... a search of ways to pleasantly spend our time/avoid collective madness? I'm guessing virtual reality will be ubiquitous.

I don't really see how the concept of money as we understand it will be sustainable when no one has work to do, and resources are really only limited by how far we can go in space.

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ZephkielAU t1_iya1brq wrote

Automation hasn't really done much to reduce our work/workload. They just gave us new tasks to pick from

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Uvtha- t1_iyc978c wrote

Not yet, but it almost certainly will. When we have more advanced robotics, and fully functional AI systems they will replace most if not functionally all human labor.

The real reason automation hasn't replaced human labor is that the robots still require human input. When AI reaches a sufficient stage it no longer will. Also at that point there will likely be a shift away from robotics designed to be utilized by human to ones designed to be utilized by AI. Things like operating nano machine masses in tandem that humans couldn't even accomplish if they wanted to.

To be clear I'm talking about more like in 100+ years than in 10-20 or whatever. It really depends on how advanced AI gets how quickly but there's no reason not to expect (barring our premature extinction) that eventually AI/robotic systems will be able to do anything humans can currently do, but better and faster, including art. Even in it's current infancy we can see how easily it can replicate human effort, just project that down the line.

At such a point human labor (and even human creativity) will become superfluous at a technical level in almost all situations. What happens to humanity from there, it's hard to say. It could be the end of us, or some weird transhumanist shift, or I dunno a voluntary simplification into one of those goofy star-treky super agrarian utopias ... who can really say.

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Bloorajah t1_iy8sgtd wrote

Ever seen Elysium?

Yeah probably something like that

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LegitimateCrows t1_iy8wdr6 wrote

It won’t. We can’t even fix existing water pipes on earth. Space?!?! Beaaahahahahahhhaa!!!!! Good luck with that.

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Uvtha- t1_iyc9gui wrote

We won't be doing it, AI and robots will, and they will do just fine I would imagine.

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NukeouT t1_iy86ngq wrote

We're not going to have a space economy at the rate we're going with putting trump in prison

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m0stly_toast t1_iy8r3qd wrote

“How will the space economy alter society?” Shut the actual fuck up, holy shit we love making up imaginary problems without any intentions of fixing the ones we actually have at hand.

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mnamilt t1_iy8vagr wrote

This book/article gives a pretty solid idea of why robots will do the large majority of work on a space economy: https://www.wired.com/story/end-of-astronauts-robots-space-exploration/

As such, no, The Expanse is not actually a remotely realistic view of a space society. It heavily misunderstands how crazy cheap robots can get, and how crazy expensive human life support will be structurally.

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FacelessFellow t1_iy8yqdf wrote

What resources would humans want access to if getting off planet earth was easier/cheaper?

How close are all the mineral filled asteroids?

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FuturologyBot t1_iy81b5h wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305:

From the Article

>The potential for innovative space applications is immense, especially if established aerospace companies form partnerships with businesses that traditionally haven’t ventured into orbit. Pharmaceutical companies might establish a lab on a space station to study cell growth, for instance, or semiconductor companies might manufacture chips in extraterrestrial factories to determine whether any aspects of the space environment, such as the lack of gravity, improve the process. Such possibilities, which might have seemed like the stuff of science fiction a few years ago, could become an essential part of a business across multiple industries in the near future.

Which leads to an important question, once the space economy is up and running what would be the implications for us as a species?

Will we eventually have industrial belts in Space?

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z7swo5/how_will_the_space_economy_alter_society/iy7y3ru/

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Redditwhydouexists t1_iy8226f wrote

I got recommended your post here and on r/space at the same time

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elefantsblue t1_iy858qg wrote

If it’s anything like the rest of the economy, it’ll ruin society.

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bigdaddyboy65 t1_iy873eb wrote

I believe that in the near future we will harvest unlimited nature resources from the asteroid belt. And it will become cheaper to harvest resources there than in earth.This will change our economy from a profit based economy to a results based economy state projects space stations and mining outposts will encourage companies to pay workers in different ways than they do with money. Say you want to live in a nordic country if you work for so many years they will pay you by property in a place of you choice. Or if you work for so many years you will be able to retire to a mars out post. Etc...

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CaliMassNC t1_iy88h4g wrote

The rich will get richer, and the poor will get irradiated.

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kronicfeld t1_iy88tyu wrote

>in orbit or on other planets

"or on other planets" doing A LOT of work here.

We've had a space economy "in orbit" for decades. It won't reach "on other planets" for generations, if ever.

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Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8g77n wrote

Long term it'll shatter it into countless pieces, either by opening up interstellar colonisation or just by letting every commune and cult park a O'neill cylander in the oort cloud.

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LetMePushTheButton t1_iy8p5gt wrote

Go watch Elysium to help predict the future of space.

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2nd_mars_revolution t1_iy8xh46 wrote

rich people will get richer and poor people will slowly have their DNA fried by UV radiation from the sun due to poorly shielded habitats.

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TheChaosEntity t1_iy8zbfg wrote

Next comes the construction of Laplace, I’m guessing, and then goodbye Anno Domini, hello Universal Century…

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thefiglord t1_iy90djj wrote

when they can harvest an asteroid

but they need to figure out gravity 1st as rockets are not the answer

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BKGPrints t1_iy923sm wrote

Hope the biggest benefit to society is not the economical aspect but the revelation that all the petty indifferences that we have on our planet are just insignificant and we're better off working together.

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Storyteller-Hero t1_iy95fev wrote

Some recent technological discoveries like synthetic fibers for machine "muscles" have led me to believe that there is a slight chance we'll see a future not unlike the Gundam anime or the Battletech timeline.

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seantasy t1_iy98st6 wrote

It should all go fine until those bastards clinging to life in the belt start committing terroristic acts. Wait one sec.. what? Independence?! Fuck Mars! This is WAR!

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eltegs t1_iy9arv5 wrote

If history is anything to go by, which it always is. Slavery will be big business.

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TimeJumpRonin t1_iy9lz94 wrote

If the world doesn't change course politically, none of us may be around to find out how the space economy affects anyone. We are teetering on the edge of a world war because of the current admin. And the entire planets future is at stake.

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Major-Phrase5668 t1_iycchlv wrote

It has already altered us a lot. We just dont see it so well as yet.

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mhornberger t1_iye1crg wrote

The words "space economy" covers a huge diversity of possibilities. Even asteroid mining is a space economy. Space-based solar power, to some extent. So, a "space economy" can cover everything from asteroid mining to something like Iain M. Banks' Culture series.

How it pans out will depend on any number of things. Whether we have FTL travel. How good automation gets. And frankly we barely understand the economy here on earth. Even economists were (and are) all over the map on predictions, for COVID-19 ramifications, looming decline of fossil fuel demand, declining fertility rates, etc.

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Eruionmel t1_iy96wmy wrote

Um, hi, it won't. We aren't going to get to the space economy. The planet is literally dying. Vertebrate and insect populations are both in complete freefall, and global warming is going completely unchecked. Most estimates are looking at 50-100 years before we start seeing mass famine and water shortages leading to die-offs of humans in the billions.

A "space economy" is a hilarious pipedream in our current situation.

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Apprehensive_Deal483 t1_iy85wx9 wrote

So far its been mining the souls of the working class so thats something

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Assassin_by_Birth t1_iy8a3ao wrote

Nothing meaningful for anyone making under 7 figures a year.

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Last_Young t1_iyb5coa wrote

Lmao I hope our local towns start banding a aeronautics program for the awesome keen-ass kids cool enough to lead it....no one here now is a damn follow me and we'll be back ass person

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