If things get really bad, could Mars be the escape hatch for the 1 percent?

[LuckyTheDog]

The world sucks right now. Terrorism. Climate change. Political acrimony. Nonstop Justin Bieber songs.

It’s nice to know Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have a plan. They will help the richest people in the world go to Mars and start over, leaving the other 99 percent to suffer on a dying, warring planet. The only solace for those of us left here will be that the Biebs should be prosperous enough to go with them.

This is the unspoken flip side of Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin. The space travel companies say they are creating a way for the human species to endure by populating other planets. But the bottom line is that only the wealthy will have the means to move to Mars. Musk’s target ticket price is $500,000 a person in 2015 dollars, and that’s just to get there. Imagine the new outfits you’ll have to buy to go with that space helmet.

So you can picture a scenario that’s something like the 1970s white flight from inner cities, when the wealthier classes moved to freshly built suburbs, leaving the declining neighborhoods to the lower classes. In fact, the fleeing upper classes sped up the decrepitude of that era’s older cities by relocating their money and clout with them. Today, we’re seeing a similar situation in Syria, as the wealthiest and most educated people escape to the West, which will make the country even harder to stabilize and rebuild.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/could-mars-be-the-escape-hatch-for-the-1-percent/

[oldandhappy]

1. The wealthy are also the deniers.

Will they go? I doubt it. Only the young and educated and active will want to go. Hmmmm

[2naSalit]

2. Seems to be

the pipe dream of many of them.

[Nay]

3. No. When it is determined that the 99% is taking up too much room, it will be

much easier to let loose a superflu to kill us off, rather than the 1% undergoing the hardship of settling on Mars.

[VanillaRhapsody]

4. Who will nurse their babies

and clean their toilets?

[newblewtoo]

33. Androids.

With robotics and artificial intelligence it is no longer mere science fiction. Frozen sperm and embryos can withstand long flights to be thawed, incubated, and raised by on board robots. Scary isn't it. The 1% will survive. They are not going into space out of altruistic motives. Minerals, money, immortality. That is why they have privatized space.

[VanillaRhapsody]

34. Wow....you rhink too much about this......

I doubt that will happen in either of our lifetimes....

I have been around a while.....still waiting for my flying car.....I want my damn flying car!

[newblewtoo]

43. I been a few turns 'round the track

myself so you are probably right. But don't doubt these guys are already putting their seeds in a can in preparation for their future breakout.

And yeah, I wanted a flying car for years too but I got no place to park it.

[misterhighwasted]

5. Hope so.

We can slam the return-trip door shut & start cleaning up this planet.

[Laffy Kat]

40. That's what I say: Why wait?

Let's send them now.

[Iggo]

6. They'll die. Their existence depends on other people doing things for them. (n/t)

[arcane1]

9. Beat me to it. They'll give up by the end of the first Laundry Day n/t

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

20. Exactly... the richest folks are often not the the fittest in terms of survival.

If the rich and powerful destroyed the Earth, struggling to survive on Mars would be a fitting miserable end for them. Then they would realize how much much they suck and how they messed everything up before they die. They won't last long there.

[2naSalit]

47. So?

I don't have a problem with that.

[Iggo]

48. .

[ChisolmTrailDem]

7. Gawd I hope so. nt

[valerief]

8. They'll vacation there but not live there, not for some time anyway. As for us, they can kill us

of with endless wars, toxic food/meds, and new immune-suppressant diseases.

[cemaphonic]

10. What a ridiculous article

If rich people were itching to go live in a freezing desert with no other people around, they could go to the Gobi or Antarctica, and have such luxuries as breathable air, relatively accessible water, and not getting pummeled with radiation, or having your bones and muscles atrophy to uselessness.

I've noticed this meme (that other planets could be a refuge from Earth's environmental degradation) crop up over and over again in discussions about space exploration. But the truth is that the challenges of terraforming places like Mars to be suitable for complex, Earthlike life are so great, that if we could do that, solving Earth's environmental problems would be a cakewalk by comparison.

[cpwm17]

13. You're right.

"They will help the richest people in the world go to Mars and start over, leaving the other 99 percent to suffer on a dying, warring planet."

It won't be the 99 percenters that will suffer and die. Mars sucks. These are just science fiction fantasies to rationalize manned space exploration.

We can learn far more with much less money by using unmanned rockets to explore far more of our solar system. Men don't belong out there. Every other place outside of Mars that man could ever reach is worse than Mars.

We're earth creatures since we evolved here and very little of this Universe can support life.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Well expressed (and Newsweek published it!) It's amazing that people think Mars is any alternative

to the worst place possible, even after further environmental degradation, on Earth. And Earth orbit, although easier to get to, is no long-term solution either - the technological expertise needed to sustain a habitat in orbit can only be managed on the ground.

Newsweek seems to have settled for becoming a second-rate website that will publish anything sent in to them. The incredible thing is that they demand registration to read there, and a subscription for more than 20 articles a month.

[dlwickham]

37. I thought Newsweek closed down shop

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. sold off, and they started a print edition again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek#From_IAC_to_IBT_and_return_to_print_and_profitability_.282014.29

Whether any of the former staff are still on it, I don't know.

[NickB79]

25. Nailed it.

It would be easier to build a city under the ocean (ala Rapture in the video game Bioshock) or deep in the Earth's crust than fly off to the Moon or Mars.

[Edim]

32. Exactly!

How can anyone believe this cr*p?

[Mnemosyne]

11. Why do you think George W. Bush, war criminal, was so giddy about Mars?

He knew something.

[DetlefK]

12. LOL! No.

Mars is:
Dry as f**k.
Cold as f**k.
Radiated as f**k.
Toxic as f**k.

[Renew Deal]

14. Elysium

[Orrex]

15. Why wait? Let's send them now.

Without millions of slave laborers to prop them up, they'll have a rough go of it.

[Iggo]

17. Oh-zacklee!

[csziggy]

18. Colonization on the same model as Roanoke and Jamestown?

Where many of the wealthy adventurers had no idea how to do the basic chores required for survival and wanted to spend their time looking for gold? The death rate for Jamestown was horrific in the first few years - 80% of the colonists died in 1609-1610. The later shipments of people included lower class workers and indentured Africans (who by 1640 were declared slaves). Without those infusions of people who actually knew how to farm and build, Jamestown would have been a failure just like Roanoke.

More likely is that a form of indenture will be instituted in which people with the needed skills to build a colony will be underwritten by the wealthy and by corporations - a similar model existed for the later, more Northern English colonies. In those, wealthy colonists bought in and became freemen while others had their passage paid for by sponsors, either the wealthy who wanted servants or the colony corporations to bring in needed trades such as metal and glass workers.

This will ensure that the class structure will be maintained and that the wealthy can continue to live their privileged lifestyles while bringing in the required workers to create the infrastructure necessary to support life.

In other words, nothing will change other than the location and required technology.

[LuckyTheDog]

22. Also, it might not be much fun for them to go to Mars...

... given the planet's total lack of an indigenous population to slaughter. So that would be a disincentive.

[csziggy]

39. And no large animals to trophy hunt! n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. No.

Silly.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

21. You've got to mess the planet up really something awful

for Mars to sound like a great place. Not in my lifetime I think.

[Godhumor]

23. Pretty sure that is Ben Elton's book

Good read, by the way.

[elias49]

24. I wouldn't miss them nt

[BumRushDaShow]

26. Los Angeles

4 years from now.

[Android3.14]

27. Two things. First, this is a stupid article

Second, on Mars, my ability to repair the hydroponic nutrient pump is worth more than your billions.

Oh. And third, this is a stupid article.

[Jester Messiah]

28. Somehow I don't think colony life will agree with the poor darlings.

In a place where money means nothing because there's nothing to buy, where it'll be back-breaking work all day just to survive, they might just wish they'd stayed on Earth and raised the minimum wage or invested in renewables.

[BlueJazz]

29. Mars is a hell-hole. No way. Not for a long, long time.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. I hear a giant mutant stargoat is headed this way and will destroy the Earth.

Quick, get all the 0.1% onto that spaceship and off to Mars!

[jeff47]

31. Not gonna happen, as illustrated by this comic

[bluedigger]

35. And leave their wealth behind?

What would be the point of that?

[l.o.o.s.e.e-2]

36. With the proper breeding techniques, and starting with a ratio of, say, ten women to each man...

"Buck" Schmuck:
"You mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Wouldn't that necessitate abandoning the so-called monogamous form of sexual relationship?"

Von Klutz:
"Regrettably, yes. But it is a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to perform prodigious service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating order."

[Laffy Kat]

42. Favorite movie.

Welcome, again, BTW.

[l.o.o.s.e.e-2]

45. Thanx Laffy Kat!

When I read the OP my mind immediately went to that exchange between Sellers and Scott.

One of my favorites, maybe "THE", of all time... there'll never be another like Sellers: pure genius.

[center][/center]

[MerryBlooms]

41. No. Only people who live in a fantasy land would entertain such a scenerio.

[Johonny]

44. Yes, every indication says that it is their plan

No, every indication is it won't come true.

[grntuscarora]

46. Bahaha!

The idea that people who are unable to clean their own houses, fix the most basic of broken appliances, drive their own cars, or do anything else of practical value--the idea that they could survive on Mars is just too funny.

They'll be stuck here with the rest of us, in the hellhole they've done so much to create.

[hunter]

49. The meek inherit, but only because there are so many of them.

The oligarchs end up living or dead in the prisons they've built for themselves.

Even with entire civilizations burning, a few odd people will always walk or sail away, forever anonymous.

If I ever woke up one morning with the wealth of Bill Gates, (horrors!) I'd give it all away, no strings attached, no, no, no, please no, don't name anything after me, forget I was ever here.

I'd feel the same about winning big in the lottery. Which is probably why I don't play the lottery.

I'm actually okay with wealthy people relocating to Mars. Mars don't care about money and there are so many ways to die there.

Most extraordinarily wealthy people didn't get that way by being nice. By my rough accounting, 90% of them are assholes.

[niyad]

50. the beings on other worlds may well have learned the lessons of the americas, and decide NOT

to allow any off-planet migration/invasion.

[ladjf]

51. No. nt

[Agnosticsherbet]

52. Maeks more sense to move into permanent space stastons. A large enough cylander

set to spin would simulated earth normal gravity.

They are closer to their property on earth and an easily return when necessary.