Tom Ellis
Mar 31, 2023

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Agreed--though your "arts and entertainment" analogy is apples and oranges. I have no problem when governments engage in space exploration to advance scientific knowledge in the public interest, since they can be held accountable by the public for their activities. But billionaire entrepreneurs have no such constraints--their operations are unaccountable tyrannies. Every time Musk or his cronies send up a rocket, they burn huge quantities of fossil fuels in the process, with no accountability whatsoever except to their own fantasies. They are interested only in making and spending money--or in the fantasy of creating space colonies for themselves and other plutocrats while our global infrastructures implode and all the rest of us starve and riot. They are not interested in pursuing research that could have beneficial spin-offs for the rest of us--unless they can make all the profits.

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Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis

Written by Tom Ellis

I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.

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