Twitter CEO’s subsequent large aim is to construct a metropolis on Mars. So what precisely may a Muskian Mars-scape appear to be?
Not lengthy after commandeering Twitter in October for a sum of $44bn, Elon Musk – who can be the CEO of SpaceX and the self-branded “Technoking” of Tesla – dispatched an ultimatum to Twitter workers giving them two choices. The primary was to decide to being “extraordinarily hardcore” and dealing “lengthy hours at excessive depth”. The second was to give up.
Musk had already fired roughly half of Twitter’s workforce – since anybody with a mere $44bn to spare on shopping for a social media platform is clearly within the enterprise of pinching pennies.
And so it's that my editors have pressured me to return on my promise to by no means write about Elon Musk once more. However, hey, that is capitalism, and we’re all hardcore.
On the floor, writing about Musk needs to be like taking pictures fish in a barrel. The 51-year-old US-based South African live-tweets his bowel actions, makes penis jokes, will get off on anti-Black racism, and builds not-so-self-driving electrical automobiles that crash into parked emergency autos. Sadly, this explicit fish occurs to be the richest particular person on the planet, who wields disproportionate management over terrestrial issues just like the inventory market and Donald Trump’s Twitter presence and who's now decided to make humanity a “spacefaring civilisation” as effectively – whether or not we prefer it or not.
As Musk advised Time journal, which shamelessly topped him “Individual of the 12 months” in 2021, the “subsequent actually large factor is to construct a self-sustaining metropolis on Mars and convey the animals and creatures of Earth there”. In keeping with Time’s obsequious writeup, Musk predicted colonising Mars inside 5 years. Finally, rocket ships would shuttle 100 individuals at a time to the Pink Planet after which journey again to Earth, powered by Made-in-Mars gasoline.
In fact, it isn't immensely reassuring that the person who's main the conquest of outer house is identical man who as soon as tried to bribe a university child $5,000 to take down a Twitter account that tracks Musk’s personal jet utilizing publicly obtainable knowledge. When the bribe didn’t work, Musk resorted to blocking the teenager.
However within the occasion Musk’s cosmic experiment succeeds, what precisely may a Muskian Mars-scape appear to be? Even leaving apart logistical issues like respiration, it’s secure to imagine the atmosphere can be pretty, um, hardcore.
For starters, employees’ rights would probably be nonexistent. Musk has already blissfully violated earthly labour legal guidelines, threatened employees wishing to pursue unionisation, spied on workers, and been bombarded with allegations that his behaviour encourages sexual harassment and racism within the office. And he reopened considered one of his California factories in Could 2020 in defiance of native coronavirus pandemic restrictions, resulting in tons of of COVID-19 circumstances.
On Mars beneath Musk, taxes would additionally probably be nonexistent – at the very least for multigazillionaires like him who've historically been loath to contribute even the tiniest fraction of their wealth to US authorities taxes ostensibly collected on behalf of the general public good. Naturally, Musk and his firms have by no means hesitated to obtain billions of dollars in public subsidies and authorities contracts.
As for the composition of the self-sustaining Martian metropolis, the 2021 “Individual of the 12 months” explains that will probably be “type of like a futuristic Noah’s ark” – however with greater than two of every animal as a result of “it’s just a little bizarre if there’s solely two”. Again in 2020, he reckoned that “one million tonnes” of vitamin C can be required to make human life sustainable on Mars, the place a system of “direct democracy” and self-governance would even be carried out.
By no means thoughts that Musk’s conception of “democracy” is principally no matter Musk himself thinks ought to occur in any given scenario – simply as his self-identification as a “free-speech absolutist” just about implies that Musk and solely Musk can say completely no matter he needs.
To make sure, “free speech” hardly applies to the antifascist journalists and activists who're at present being purged from Twitter with the intention to enable right-wing extremist delusions to extra effectively take flight and orbit the digital world. For an instance of Muskian “democracy”, in the meantime, contemplate his reinstatement of Trump’s banned Twitter account, which transpired following a 24-hour “ballot” of Musk’s Twitter followers.
A slender majority of respondents voted in favour of Trump’s return, whereupon Musk tweeted: “The individuals have spoken… Vox Populi, Vox Dei” – a Latin expression which means that the voice of the individuals is the voice of God.
One guess who’s enjoying “God” within the equation (trace: it’s not Trump).
However what, in the long run, would anybody really do on Mars, except for manufacture gasoline for Musk’s rocket ships and ingest large portions of vitamin C? Time journal informs us that Musk foresees a future wherein all labour is carried out by robots and items and companies abound: “There’s, like, lots for everybody, primarily,’ he says. ‘There’s not essentially anybody who’s the boss of you.’”
There have been little question loads of Twitter workers wishing for simply such an association in mid-November when boss-man Musk despatched his “hardcore” risk. It stays to be seen how a human race that's quickly killing itself and the Earth with capitalism will spontaneously face an overabundance of sources and worker-robots in addition – or the way you go from having to work “lengthy hours at excessive depth” to not having to work in any respect.
And who is aware of what “lots for everybody” means coming from somebody whose internet price has reached practically $300bn. What is going to the eight billion people who are usually not Musk have to just accept as “lots”?
In different phrases, the small print of Muskian fantasy want some ironing out.
In the end, although, the futuristic colonisation of Mars that Musk envisions would merely entail launching into house every little thing that's unsuitable with the Earth. Enlargement, in any case, is the secret in capitalism – and what higher place than the universe to broaden astronomically?
Musk gravitates in direction of Mars as a result of it’s tabula rasa: a spot the place legal guidelines, taxes, and different pesky phenomena received’t intervene with megalomaniacal, narcissistic tyranny. Obscene earthly wealth simply doesn’t reduce it; Musk is taking pictures for the celebrities – or to be CEO of Mars.
However as everybody’s favorite “Technoking” works at increasing his intergalactic CV, plainly, on the finish of the day, he simply needs to be the god of the cosmos. And if Musk’s Martian moist dream pans out, relaxation assured nothing will ever be all the way down to earth once more.
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