Musk Says That Third World War might stop his mission of going to Mars
In a recent interview with GQ, Elon Musk, a billionaire Bond villain who wants to nuke Mars, disclosed that he is worried that a World War III might hamper his ambitions to colonize Mars, which he hopes will be achievable through his Space X rockets. He was curiously optimistic.
One shouldn’t imagine, he said, that technological progress is a given.
“Most of us instinctively assume that technology relentlessly marches forward, but there have been times before now in human history — after the Egyptians built the pyramids, for instance, or after the multiple advances of the Roman Empire — when the civilizations that followed could no longer do what had been done before, and perhaps there’s a complacency and arrogance in assuming that this won’t happen again,” he said.
In a profile with GQ, Musk provided details on a bunch of his pet projects: Hyperloop, Tesla, space suits, and of course, going to Mars. He sees it as a moral responsibilty of mankind to establish an outpost on another planet.
Calling the desire to become a multi-planetary species a good common sense, he justifies the same by saying, “You back up your hard drive…. Maybe we should back up life, too?”
So, is it as easy as backing up your computer’s hard drive? The answer is a simple NO. But, SpaceX is working day and night to making its quest a reality. It’s developing a reusable rocket technology that will be needed to transport a large number of people and luggage to Mars.
However, Mark fears that a global war could set back humanity in many ways. He cautioned that there might only be a relatively short window for a colony to be set up on Mars. He fears that events on Earth could actually mean that technological progress is reversed and not just halted.
He explained:
I don’t think we can discount the possibility of a third World War. You know, in 1912 they were proclaiming a new age of peace and prosperity, saying that it was a golden age, war was over. And then you had World War I followed by World War II followed by the Cold War. So I think we need to acknowledge that there’s certainly a possibility of a third World War, and if that does occur it could be far worse than anything that’s happened before. Let’s say nuclear weapons are used. I mean, there could be a very powerful social movement that’s anti-technology.
This might sound like the script of the next Hollywood blockbuster, we can’t reject such possibilities. It’s easy deceive ourselves that humanity will always become smarter. However, with the increase in the number of cultural and political conflicts in our world, it may not be wrong to say that we are just a few signals and gestures away from a World War.
