Re:We need dramatic social and tech changes:is societal coll...
by bell-cot on Saturday December 28, 2024 @08:38AM
(#42530965)
If social collapse is the concern - then the huge, global, and extremely fragile (but current-profit-optimized, for the owner class) supply chains of the modern world are the #1 concern. Millions of essential items (chips, drugs, face masks, manufacturing equipment, etc.) are made in highly specialized facilities, in far-flung countries. So we've got the "perfect" setup, for very local collapses (or just natural disaster or social unrest) to take something critical, somewhere, off-line - which mushrooms into a major global problem.
The whole "owner class escapes to their space colonies" scenario is a combination of SciFi fantasy and short-term-only self-delusion. Space colonies are incredibly fragile, compared to life on virtually any inhabited part of the Earth. And most of the basic technologies they require - starting with air, water, and food supplies - have (at best) only been demonstrated at micro-scale. With extremely high maintenance needs...which gets you right back to the supply chain issue.
The whole "owner class escapes to their space colonies" scenario is a combination of SciFi fantasy and short-term-only self-delusion. Space colonies are incredibly fragile, compared to life on virtually any inhabited part of the Earth. And most of the basic technologies they require - starting with air, water, and food supplies - have (at best) only been demonstrated at micro-scale. With extremely high maintenance needs...which gets you right back to the supply chain issue.