In fact, any civilization capable of long distance space travel would have to overcome such idiocy and maximize the potential of all individuals, regardless of the wealth they were born into.
I’d be curious what you base this statement on? Historically, the societies which did the most long distance travel and exploration were the opposite of this. Spain and Portugal were absolute monarchies, with well defined feudal systems which exploited anyone outside the noble class. Yet, their efforts to “explore” and dominate the Americas were incredibly successful. The UK’s greatest exploration and extent was a direct offshoot of Mercantilism, with the East India Trading Company being both the primary actor and beneficiary. US Westward expansion was predicated on theft, war and genocide. Though, as a counter-point, the modern US system does a better job of providing opportunity to most people (with some notable problems), than it used to. And the US has been a hotbed of advancement in the last century.
In modern times, space exploration was originally driven by the desire to find new and interesting way to kill other people. And it’s only been recently that peaceful sharing of information has been normalized. Even there, the cutting edge of space exploration seems to be back in the hands of mercantilist forces. I mean, I love me some SpaceX, “let’s catch a rocket” shenanigans. But, we also shouldn’t pretend that SpaceX is anything other than a for-profit corporation under a leadership which would be happy to harvest organs from people for a profit.
I know it’s popular to think that space exploration must be a Star Trek style “space communism”. But, this doesn’t really align with the examples we have from history. And while that is certainly a human centric way to look at the problem, it’s also the only real world example we have to look at. Everything else is just philosophers sitting around, passing a bong and saying, “man, what if…” It can be a useful exercise to think about other possibilities. But, I’d tend to focus more effort on what we have evidence for, than made up ideas.
I’d be curious what you base this statement on? Historically, the societies which did the most long distance travel and exploration were the opposite of this. Spain and Portugal were absolute monarchies, with well defined feudal systems which exploited anyone outside the noble class. Yet, their efforts to “explore” and dominate the Americas were incredibly successful. The UK’s greatest exploration and extent was a direct offshoot of Mercantilism, with the East India Trading Company being both the primary actor and beneficiary. US Westward expansion was predicated on theft, war and genocide. Though, as a counter-point, the modern US system does a better job of providing opportunity to most people (with some notable problems), than it used to. And the US has been a hotbed of advancement in the last century.
In modern times, space exploration was originally driven by the desire to find new and interesting way to kill other people. And it’s only been recently that peaceful sharing of information has been normalized. Even there, the cutting edge of space exploration seems to be back in the hands of mercantilist forces. I mean, I love me some SpaceX, “let’s catch a rocket” shenanigans. But, we also shouldn’t pretend that SpaceX is anything other than a for-profit corporation under a leadership which would be happy to harvest organs from people for a profit.
I know it’s popular to think that space exploration must be a Star Trek style “space communism”. But, this doesn’t really align with the examples we have from history. And while that is certainly a human centric way to look at the problem, it’s also the only real world example we have to look at. Everything else is just philosophers sitting around, passing a bong and saying, “man, what if…” It can be a useful exercise to think about other possibilities. But, I’d tend to focus more effort on what we have evidence for, than made up ideas.
The traits needed to conquer a homogenous biosphere are not the same traits needed to conquered the vacuum of space.