This topic has been in the back of my head for a long time. I watched a video yesterday by Dave Cullen on this subject and it brought the concept to the fore of my thoughts.
I grew up on Star Trek, by which I mean the classic Captain Kirk era of TV shows and movies before there was such a thing as The Next Generation. I’ve been a fan of science fiction ever since I was a kid and I’ve dabbled in writing some myself. If there’s one thing that’s obvious from human history, it’s that science fiction has a tendency to not stay fictional. I had a friend in college (a physics/engineering major at that) who insisted that humans would never travel faster than light because “it’s just not possible,” and I, a lowly political science/English major just replied that it would be impossible until it wasn’t anymore, just like flying and submarines and travel to the moon and a thousand other technological advancements no one thought was possible or even thought of doing at all for centuries. I was more than a little gratified when I read about a theoretical design for a faster-than-light vessel that got around Einstein by reducing the mass of the ship to zero, which was the idea I came up with for a story more than ten years earlier (pity I never finished it, I might have looked prophetic). The point of this paragraph is that when we’re discussing scientific progress and space travel, the people who insist it cannot be done really need to get out of the way of the people who are doing it. We WILL have the means someday, and probably sooner than the naysayers think.
This is a good thing, because the sooner it happens, the better. I’m not referring to anything to do with overpopulation or global warming or any other leftist myths, nor am I even referencing the off chance that a stray asteroid could rearrange the face of our planet. No, children, we are not even close to overpopulating the planet nor have we made a mess of it like the ecofascists want you to believe. What I am referencing is the fact that planet Earth is out of frontiers, for all practical purposes. Sure, there are uninhabited and even unexplored parts of the world, Antarctica and the deep ocean being the two best examples, and these areas ought to be colonized and exploited as technology permits as well. But they would not be “frontiers” in a lot of the best senses of the word. Anyone trying to set up housekeeping on Antarctica would very likely be met by interference from other countries or the U.N., especially if they made efforts to make portions of the ice shelf hospitable for human habitation. The same would go for deep ocean colonies, even in international waters, again especially if the establishment of human outposts was dependent on controlling or changing the surrounding environment. Even if no one tried to interdict the establishment of these colonies, sooner or later if they proved to be useful or lucrative someone would roll in and try to take them over, especially if they become independent nations or city-states in their own right.
The reason we need to get to space is what I like to call the Captain Mal principle. Right now, socialists practically rule the world. There are a few flickers of light remaining, some former Soviet satellites being shining examples, and of course one flagging beacon which is the United States, but the “progressive” left is a lot closer to extinguishing freedom and leaving nowhere to run to than most people (even conservatives) like to think about. If the United States falls (as it could have last November), even if there are a few bastions left like Poland and Hungary, those last outposts can’t hope to stand when the globalist progressives decide to mop up the last shreds of resistance. There’s no need for an Iron Curtain trapping people inside if there’s nowhere you can run to, and this is the true danger and threat of socialism. Socialists and communists are not content to have their own backward societies that live and let live, they’re determined to bring all of mankind into one gigantic leftist dance party, and believe me brother, you’d better dance. It’s the same submit, convert, or die mentality that forms the foundation of Islam.
But if we can get to space, then running room will be infinite. The Captain Mal principle is that if you can keep flying, then no matter how far out the reach of the government gets, you can always fly just a little bit farther. On the frontier there is freedom. Of course, the story of Firefly is that freedom-loving frontiersmen were willing to trade the luxuries and comforts of the urbanized worlds of the Alliance for the hard-scrabble life on the outer planets (that the Alliance considered “savage,” kind of like rednecks in middle America), but even then the “progressives” couldn’t leave them alone. And in reality, the same thing will happen sooner or later. That doesn’t mean there’s a flaw in the plan, it just means it’s something for the folks who head for the new frontier will need to prepare for accordingly.
The important difference between getting to space and just going to the deep ocean is not merely the universe of resources just waiting to be found and exploited, but the fact that once interplanetary space travel becomes as easy as intercontinental flight, the “progressives” lose their ability to force their will on everyone. Life on any frontier has been hard and often solitary, but it’s vitally important that free men have a way to opt out of the social contract entirely. Right now we’re in the position where society can change the terms of that contract at any time and not fulfill its end of the bargain (like sixty million dead babies whom society failed to protect), and then laugh in the faces of anyone who objects. It’s like Lando Calrissian arguing with Darth Vader, as Lando protests that some things were never part of the deal and Vader coolly replies “I have altered the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further.”
This deal IS getting worse all the time. And it will continue to get worse as long as one side cannot walk away from it. The “progressives” cannot stand that anyone might be able to choose anarchy or a limited government tailored to their wishes (even if said government only governed a town of a hundred souls) over their utopia, but if such places exist, “voting with your feet” could actually be a thing again.
Oh, and to anyone who thinks humans would “screw up” other planets or who has a visceral knee-jerk reaction to the idea of “colonization,” you are literally too stupid to argue with.
Wanderer's Way 