Kirk Swearingen at Medium wrote an interesting book review of Adam Becker’s - MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER, that I only caught up with yesterday, and I think it’s worth sharing.
I’ll admit, I’ve always had a gut level contempt for all talk of colonizing Mars, because it doesn’t add up, no matter how you honestly look at it. (Challenges welcomed, bring your facts. We’ll take a closer look.)
Now, I am flabbergasted how it’s really became a thing during the post second millennium society, when all hands and brains were supposed to be one deck and working on solution for slowing down our self destruction of Earth’s complex systems, yeah the ones that keep us alive and happy.
It simply made NO sense on any level we look at it. But dreams and hot air has always been more fascinating than down to Earth physical reality - so here we are.
Now someone with real scientific chops, has finally written the book that explains why colonizing Mars is as stupid a dream as believing you have God in your back pocket.
“Every rational person knows that Elon Musk’s incessant talk about moving human life to Mars is a colossal, likely drug cocktail–infused fantasy, but far too many people apparently are buying his nonsense that the tech bros will heroically save humankind via interplanetary travel.
So, it’s heartening to listen to an astrophysicist take down Musk’s lunatic ideas. On a recent Nerd Reich podcast, “Why Mars Will Kill You: And Why Tech Billionaires Are Lying About It,” host Gil Duran interviews science journalist Adam Becker (who holds a PhD in astrophysics) about his new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, and the conversation manages to be both sobering and hilarious.
For example, here’s Becker’s succinct take on just how hospitable to humans the Red Planet is: …”
For more a deep dive here’s an interesting talk with Adam Becker in person.
