We are never going to Mars. And the billionaires selling you the dream are lying to your face.
[...]
The idea of living on Mars has become one of Silicon Valley's biggest promises. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other tech billionaires claim humanity's future depends on becoming a multi-planetary species. But what if nearly everything you've been told about colonizing Mars is quite literally scientifically impossible?
In this week's episode of Power User, I sat down with physicist and science journalist Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever, a fantastic book that I absolutely loved, to break down the biggest myths about Mars colonization, SpaceX, AI, and Silicon Valley's vision of the future.
We discuss why Mars is far more hostile than most people realize, the scientific barriers that make permanent settlement nearly impossible, and why billionaires continue selling this vision despite knowing it will never become reality.
I wasn't sure whether to post this here in PPR or in the science and technology section.
_________________ - Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area. - Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
Joined: 2 Jul 2026 Gender: Male Posts: 97 Location: Garden of Weeds
Yesterday, 9:51 am
I've always felt that the idea of humans building space colonies was never going to happen. I guess that's why I've never enjoyed scifi movies and shows like Star Wars or Cowboy Bebop.
I feel like when the Earth eventually ends we're all going down on this sinking together...
Joined: 12 Feb 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 115,245 Location: the island of defective toy santas
Today, 12:40 am
we will destroy ourselves or get destroyed from without before we can develop the necessary tech to escape our home. time running out on us is part of the great civilizational filter that Drake et al spoke of in the Drake equations. according to Carl Sagan and others, humanity had several historical inflection points where our technological and social progress could have greatly accelerated us to a Kardachev level I civilization (the minimum level where solar system exploration could occur on an occupational basis) a thousand or more years before now. we obviously failed each test, each inflection point in history shows we chose wrongly each time, as reliably as sunset follows sunrise. humanity is fatally flawed. too many human brains are too limited to be a part of progress. if we managed a hundred years ago to be as relatively advanced as we are now, we might have had a chance.
Yesterday, 4:24 am
