Bricked Up

When I was a younger man I would imagine Humanities future among the stars. The construction of space elevators, orbital rings, massive spinning arc ships to carry us between the stars, and even Dyson spheres. I was naive, but I was hopeful. I really thought that we’d terraform Mars; We might even start in my lifetime. I admired Elon Musk, who I thought was a genius that was going to make us a multi-planetary species. I thought being a multi-planetary species mattered. I know, I was dumb.

As I got older my optimism was eroded. Some of this was unavoidable, like learning about how impractical some of these schemes actually are. Sort of like learning that Santa wasn’t real… just a part of growing up. Also, not really a big deal; There was still plenty of Sci-Fi in my future. We could green the deserts, create beautiful nature reserves for future generations. We could create levels of prosperity and abundance that would allow humans to live lives of leisure, pursuing our purest creative interests. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to go faster than light, but we could still create Star Trek right here on Earth. The bigger blow to my optimism was social, not technical.

In 2026 President Donald Trump shot my belief in a brighter future dead. The Trump administration didn’t just halt spending on green energy projects, they spent billions to reverse ongoing projects. They actively expended resources to undo progress. The woke energy offends Trump and so it must be destroyed. The current trajectory of the U.S. will give us vast tracts of smog choked land, city sized data centers powered by unfiltered gas generators, and poverty for all but the one percent of the one percent.

Lets say Democrats get both houses and the presidency in 2029. Lets say they correct course a bit; We start building green power again, and doing all the steps necessary to build a future for our children. What stops the next guy from stirring people up over “the woke” and, as a show of ideological commitment, demolishing the green energy the last guy built? Production doesn’t just spin up and stop instantly. Companies that build wind farms will be hesitant to start projects with 5 year lead times in a world where your contract might get cancelled in 4. The companies that manufacture the parts have surely slowed down as it’s clear that they won’t have any government contracts for the foreseeable future.

So my optimism for the future has been diminished somewhat. I am ready for it to be reignited in 2028. I am not a doomer; I truly believe we could turn things around at any time. But I wouldn’t place any bets on lifespans increasing, or the wealth gap closing, or that there will be more trees tomorrow than there are today. The smart money is on pointless self-destruction.

Where is the Future?

When I think about an optimistic future, I think about China. Is it a perfect country? No. They have engaged in massive human rights abuses, mass surveillance of their population, imperialism in their sphere of influence, and even genocide against their Muslim minority. Previously I would have said that any of these were non-starters for building a better world. I would have rolled my eyes at anyone who said anything nice about China. How could you express support of an authoritarian country like that?

Then as I got older, my country started engaging in more human rights abuses and mass surveillance. Kids in cages, cameras everywhere, Palantir creating databases of trans people… you get the idea. For my entire life my country has been dropping bombs *somewhere* on *someone* for *some reason.* My country sponsors the genocide of a Muslim population. My country has poisoned and killed minorities, and dropped bombs on its citizens when they dared to demand to be allowed to live and work in dignity.

I think about Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is an alternate history near future setting where the U.S. is an irradiated hellscape dotted with city-states ruled by world spanning corporations, but it’s not all bad. Radical body modification is relatively normal, from robot limbs to full body swaps. People become mechanical gods, bulletproof and able to perceive the world so quickly that they are able to effectively slow down time and deflect bullets. The world has gone to shit but at least there are some shiny toys.

The difference between the U.S. and China is that in the U.S. we got Cyberpunk with none of the shiny toys. China is dystopic sure, but at least they got something in exchange. They didn’t make the same tradeoffs as Cyberpunk; All the natural beauty of the world for trans-humanist technologies. Instead the Chinese got authoritarianism, and in exchange they are greening their deserts, building high speed rail, and covering mountains in solar panels. They are producing the infrastructure the world will use to transition into a future where my daughter can breath clean air and drink clean water.

If we (‘we’ as in, humanity) manage to colonize Mars in the next century, it will be because China put us there plain and simple. America will be a smoking crater, with every attempt at improvement quickly torn down because of woke. I know where the smart money is.