Latest / Kvetch & Release / 610 CKTB | Walkerville to Moon Bases: Will Historic Corporate Towns Shape Humanity in Space?

Transcript

610 CKTB | Walkerville to Moon Bases: Will Historic Corporate Towns Shape Humanity in Space? · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Lid Key's gotta take John Lidkey joins me this morning,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and good morning John.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Good morning Jen.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the USA has announced plans for a permanent
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: moon base in a relatively short time. Now, I'm kind
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  Speaker 1: of excited about this. Now, you argue that because NASA's
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: public budget is always an easy target for political hacks,
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  Speaker 1: we've essentially handed over the final frontier to private companies.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Now is outsourcing space exploration to billionaires and in muss case, trillionaires.
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  Speaker 1: Is that a brilliant shortcut? Or are we sleepwalking into
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  Speaker 1: a big mistake?
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  Speaker 2: You know, I love this one too, Gene. We've got
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  Speaker 2: self driving cars, we've got flying cars. We're talking about
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  Speaker 2: moon bases now and getting to Mars after that. We
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  Speaker 2: are living the Jetsons. But we are sleepwalking right off
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  Speaker 2: of a cliff. NASA's budget is a political football because
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  Speaker 2: the average tax paying citizen usually is staring at their
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  Speaker 2: grocery bills or their gas bills, and they don't see
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  Speaker 2: what the immediate return is on a lunar rover. Even
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: though it was General Motors that did much of the
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  Speaker 2: work in what the seventies on the first one, and
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure that contributed to their bottom line and a
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  Speaker 2: lot of shareholders seeing good. But here enter Elon and
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  Speaker 2: Bezos and they're not bogged down by governmental risk allergic
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  Speaker 2: bureaucrats paralyzed. They have liquidity, they have speed, and they've
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  Speaker 2: got massive egos, and they're building very, very big, phallic things.
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  Speaker 2: And I think you know, they like the idea of that.
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  Speaker 2: But the profit motive will definitely get us out of
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  Speaker 2: low Earth orbit faster. But we're trading accountability for corporate photocracy.
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  Speaker 2: Boardrooms are going to be deciding whether or not they
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  Speaker 2: want to militarize their lunar base under the guise of
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  Speaker 2: protecting their assets. That is how we get a step
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  Speaker 2: closer to a weaponized Mars. We are cutting corners on
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  Speaker 2: the timeline, of course, but we're selling out democratic souls
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  Speaker 2: to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, whenever get one of your takes, you always have fascinating,
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  Speaker 1: fascinating takes. Now you drew a fascinating line between the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: future of deep space and your local history with the
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  Speaker 1: Hiram Walker's corporate whiskey Town near Windsor explain that one.
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  Speaker 2: You know, Listen, we're going to be allowing these private
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  Speaker 2: companies to go up onto the Moon on to Mars
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  Speaker 2: and build their own neighborhoods, corporate towns, if you will.
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  Speaker 2: And Walkerville is the ultimate historical blueprint for that. He
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  Speaker 2: was the benevolent corporate town. So in my backyard he
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  Speaker 2: built a beautiful, paternalistic corporate fiefdom. He paved the streets,
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  Speaker 2: he built the schools, he controlled his own police. But
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  Speaker 2: eventually geography took over and greater windsor swallowed Walkerville up
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  Speaker 2: in I believe thirty five. But space won't work that way.
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  Speaker 2: There won't be natural urban sprawl in a vacuum in
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  Speaker 2: Corporation on the Moon will happen exclusively through hostile corporate
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  Speaker 2: takeovers or aggressive geopolitical annexations by superpowers who are able
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  Speaker 2: to This won't be the benevolent distillery boss giving you
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  Speaker 2: a public park. This will be a megacorp where breathing
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  Speaker 2: will be an itemized line on your monthly bill. And
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  Speaker 2: if you cross management or if you try to unionize
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  Speaker 2: on the moon, they can remotely lock your habitat door
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  Speaker 2: from an office in Austin or Seattle.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well we already see that. To Elon Musk is
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  Speaker 1: controlling the majority of active Earth satellites with starlink, effectively
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  Speaker 1: making his infrastructure too big to fail for modern governments.
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  Speaker 1: But what happens to the balance of power? What a
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  Speaker 1: few private boardrooms own the literal oxygen, communication network and
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  Speaker 1: power grids on the lunar surface, especially when Russia and
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  Speaker 1: China want to get there as well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, kidding, right, The balance of power doesn't just flip,
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  Speaker 2: it will completely vanish. As you said, Musk already has
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  Speaker 2: put up more satellites into space than all of humanity
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  Speaker 2: and history combined. And if a government tries to overregulate
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  Speaker 2: him on Earth, they'll risk crippling their own communication networks
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  Speaker 2: or global internet infrastructure. I mean, he is already a
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  Speaker 2: sovereign entity and all but a name. But translate that
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  Speaker 2: to a hostile lunar environment. When a private boardroom controls
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  Speaker 2: the oxygen scrubbers, the water recycling, the power grids, the comms,
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  Speaker 2: they don't need a standing army to dictate the law.
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  Speaker 2: They don't even need to fire a single shot. They
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  Speaker 2: can throttle the data bandwidth, they can dial down the oxygen.
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  Speaker 2: They can turn off your water if you violate the
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  Speaker 2: terms of service on a contract. So we aren't pioneering
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  Speaker 2: the future we are blindly walking very quickly right back
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  Speaker 2: into feudalism, but with a digital spin.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like how you're looking way, way way down
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  Speaker 1: the road now. You anticipate a looming crisis. Once the
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  Speaker 1: first generation of native Moon people are born with zero
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  Speaker 1: physical or emotional ties to Earth. That's interesting. What do
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  Speaker 1: you think will happen?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know this is the problem. Right when these
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  Speaker 2: people who are born up there, the first generation of
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  Speaker 2: ones who have no ties whatsoever, they will only know
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  Speaker 2: their homes, and if people try to take their homes
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  Speaker 2: away from them, history has proven that people will fight
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  Speaker 2: for their homes full stop. The first generations born on
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  Speaker 2: the Moon won't care about Earth or the ties to
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  Speaker 2: it that their family might have had before them. To them,
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  Speaker 2: the planet Earth will just be a heavy blue ball
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  Speaker 2: in the sky, filled with politicians demanding resource shipments and
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  Speaker 2: taxing their labor. And you know they'll say this is
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  Speaker 2: taxation without representation, and we saw what happened with that
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  Speaker 2: a couple hundred years ago. But culturally and emotionally, the
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  Speaker 2: tie will be completely severed. Biologically, they'll be developing in
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  Speaker 2: one sixth gravity means their entire bodies will be adapted
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  Speaker 2: to the Moon, not to Earth. So coming to the
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  Speaker 2: Earth wouldn't even be a vacation. That would be a
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  Speaker 2: physically crushing, agonizing medical nightmare. So when some bureaucratic committee
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  Speaker 2: in Ottawa or Washington tries to pass legislation to govern
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  Speaker 2: a population two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, those
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  Speaker 2: Moon citizens are going to look up to Earth and say,
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  Speaker 2: you don't breathe our air, you don't walk on our ground,
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  Speaker 2: you don't rule us. This is a mathematic certainty.
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  Speaker 1: So what happens when I can't believe I'm saying this.
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  Speaker 1: What happens when the Moon decides to take on Earth.
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  Speaker 2: This is what gets really scary. This ends in a
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  Speaker 2: brutal Cold War style diplomatic stalemate. I mean, Earth can't
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  Speaker 2: capitulate if the Moon decides to push back by any
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  Speaker 2: means whatsoever. If governments allow space colonies to unilaterally secede
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  Speaker 2: in hijack supply chains, well, then the entire framework of
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  Speaker 2: international law on Earth will collapse. So this war will
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  Speaker 2: be entirely asymmetric. Earth will try to exert pressure by
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  Speaker 2: freezing bank accounts and trying to do things on Earth
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  Speaker 2: to the corporations, and then the Moon colony could retaliate
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  Speaker 2: by trying to just drop gran boulders onto Earth, for example,
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  Speaker 2: and gravity will do the work. But at the end
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  Speaker 2: of the day, it'll end in a diplomatic resolution, like
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  Speaker 2: most conflicts do. But what the outcome of that diplomacy
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  Speaker 2: looks like. That's where things get interested.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well, it's going to be a fun time.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you and I are going to
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  Speaker 1: be around for Moon versus Earth, but I hope so. Jane,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: well yeah, I hope so too. But this Moon base
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  Speaker 1: could be happening in a relatively short time. Great take this.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Morning, Thank you, Jeene, have a great one.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: All right, there he goes John. Letgay, Licky's got a take.