this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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askchapo

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I hate Artemis II. Have I gone off the deep end? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 month ago by mr_sunburn@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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I see this moon launch as an exorbitantly wasteful, nationalist project. No money for healthcare and housing, but plenty of money to boldly go where man has gone several many times before.

When I bring this up with liberal friends and family, they give me a sort of incredulous look and talk about how wonderful and scientific and non-political it is. I don't mind being the "you've gone too far left" guy, but you talk to the same people about military spending and they're right on board.

Is someone here able to diagnose my crankiness and explain why this is actually a good use of resources? (Will also accept echo-chamber validation and ways to use this to increase class consciousness, if offered.)

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[โ€“] j_elgato@leminal.space 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well... We can exploit the resources of the asteroid belt, or we can continue to exploit terrestrial resources until we die from it.

So either colonize the belt or colonize our own decedents.

[โ€“] thefunkycomitatus@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

The quote says we need to keep expanding because only expansion provides the productive vitality to carry humanity. This is simply not true. If we treat space exploration as imperial heritage then we won't just exploit natural resources, we will create slave labor in space. That's the heritage of exploration in history. It's never about only about gold or coal or oil, it's about exploiting labor to access those things. It's about not letting the cultures that live on top of those resources benefit from extraction. In space there are no cultures living on resources but that doesn't solve the problem. The exploitation of labor will continue and give a jolt of vitality to human cruelty in the name of making Earth owners more rich.

The choice isn't either mine asteroids or steal resources from the future. We have resources to support future humans on Earth. The choice is either you stop the capitalist extraction of those resources along with human slavery or you kill your descendants. Which, by the way, are already likely dead because letting capitalists extract oil to support billions of car owners, with absolutely no survival advantage, has killed the planet.