The Case Against Mars | Boston Review: "The problem is that there’s nothing harmless about space expansion. Deudney’s book exposes the persistent refusal of its advocates to think meaningfully about the consequences of their proposals."
Musk: “if something is important enough to fit on the scale of evolution, then it’s important.” It’s not obvious whether that’s a tautology or a non sequitur, but in either case it is breathtakingly facile."
"in the absence of a pacific trans-planetary government—and given our inability to create a single world government here, the chances of that seem slim—opportunities for plunder and general mayhem will likely abound."
Deudney on the ascensionist assumption: “humanity will be succeeded by creatures who are significantly better than humans.”
"Most techno-utopians—the giddier boosters of geoengineering, Artificial Superintelligence, nanotech, de-extinction, genetic enhancement, you name it—operate with some version of this background assumption."