The infamous Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 to gauge the ever-changing threat level of nuclear Armageddon, is currently as close as it’s ever been to midnight.
By the time it ticks two minutes closer and rings in World War III, serial apocalypse speculator and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk believes that the human race should have already established colonies away from Earth.
The SpaceX founder gave his ominous warning last Sunday — days after President Donald Trump announced that preparations for meeting North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un were well underway.
Musk said it would be foolish to not prepare for the possibility of another dark age brought about by a third world war.
These remarks, and even his very presence, came as a complete surprise at the Westworld panel at the 2018 South by Southwest (SXSW) conference last weekend.
After being introduced by Jonathan Nolan, a cocreator of the popular HBO series, Musk walked out on stage to people cheering and one person, in particular, screaming, “Elon, we love you!”
But his time on stage wasn’t solely for delivering impending doomsday warnings. He also spoke about the excitement of space travel, sending a Tesla Roadster and astronaut dummy into space, and what a time it is to be alive:
There are a lot of terrible things happening all over the world, all of the time. There are lots of problems that need to get solved. Lots of things that are miserable and kind of get you down.
But life cannot just be about solving one miserable thing after another. That can’t be the only thing. They need to be things that inspire you, that make you glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity. That’s why we did this.
During his time on the panel, Musk gave a specific shout-out to Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose ideas have inspired the intergalactic pioneer beyond measure.
Tsiolkovsky once stated that Earth is the cradle of humanity, but you don’t stay in the cradle forever.
After sharing the Russian scientist’s statement with the audience, Musk exclaimed, “I find that incredibly exciting. That makes me glad to be alive. I hope you feel the same way.”
As it stands, the SpaceX CEO’s mission to Mars is to develop a rapid and cost-efficient rocket to get to and from the Red Planet.
But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t considered what will happen once a sustainable interplanetary spaceship has been built. According to Musk, the entrepreneurial opportunities will be immense:
Once that [ship] has been built and there is a means of getting cargo and people to and from Mars as well as to and from the moon and other places in the solar system then I think that’s really where a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial resources will be needed because you’ve got to build out the entire base industry.
In order for colonies on both Mars and the moon to sustain human life on such a large and heavily populated scale, there will be a need for everything.
A city on a different planet will need people, businesses, power stations, glass domes in which to grow crops, and other necessities for survival.
According to Musk, there will be an “explosion” of entrepreneurial opportunity. Mars will need everything from iron foundries to pizza joints to nightclubs.
“Mars should definitely have great bars,” he quipped before adding, “The Mars bar.”
But Musk is adamant that such colonies won’t be a mere “escape hatch for rich people.” This opportunity would be available to all walks of life should the necessity arise.
And as I stated earlier, that reason could be the possible onset of World War III. As Musk’s said:
I think that’s why it’s important to get a self-sustaining base, ideally on Mars because Mars is far enough away from Earth… a Mars base is more likely to survive than a Moon base. But I think a moon base and a Mars base that could help regenerate life back here on Earth would be really important and to get that done before a possible World War Three.
We want to make sure that there’s enough of a seed of human civilization somewhere else to bring civilization back, and perhaps shorten the length of the dark ages.
Musk has frequently warned of all the ways in which humanity may be doomed in the future — and not just from nuclear war but also from carbon in the atmosphere and potential dangers posed by artificial intelligence (AI).
And that’s why he preaches the need to colonize away from our home planet.
But at the SXSW conference — a technology, culture, and marketing extravaganza where people are ostensibly excited about the future — Musk’s words provided a stark deviation from the overhyped prognostications about how tech will change the world for the better.
In some ways, it also comes across as Musk ratcheting up his own rhetoric on these subjects. He likes to hound the idea of a future dark age after an undetermined civilization-obliterating calamity.
And it’s why he believes the best way to ensure that this dark age is “shortened” is by having outposts on other planets so those humans can eventually return to Earth and rebuild from the ashes.
He merely wishes to provide humanity with the tools it would need to do so.
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
John Peterson
Pro Trader Today