We really need a way to protect ourselves against what the rich are doing to the rest of us.
- Don't have anything to hide.
- At least use Firefox.
- Nah.
Sorry but no, it's definitly apathy.
Take Elon Musk for example. His vision of the future is more compelling than anything I hear any politician of any political party in the USA (or most other nations) putting forward. I find the standard issue right-wing vision of the future repugnant and the standard issue left-wing vision completely impractical and divorced from reality. (Aspects of it are repugnant too, but much less so than the right.)
What other non-billionaire visions of the future does humanity have? Xi Jinping's smile-or-die panopticon? Putin's theocratic mafia state?
The billionaires are leading humanity by default because they're on balance the only class of people offering practical workable visions of the future that are at least incrementally better than the present.
However, never underestimate Congress's undying political will to give bucketloads of American taxpayer dollars and money the government borrowed to rich people with no accountability.
Really makes you think…
NASA could have built a reusable space launch system better than the shuttle, but they didn't. That's exactly my point about billionaires leading by default. It took a billionaire because nobody else did it.
Even if that is his vision, it won't work. You can't be king of a frontier for very long unless your rule is very competent, minimal, and low-cost. The tighter your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
In general, people living in hostile environments develop higher levels of trust and social responsibility. When you live closely with people, where everyone's choices impact everyone else, when a single person intentionally screwing things up could doom the entire community, you get societies that are pretty much the polar opposite of the archetypal billionaire libertarian vision.
Elon hasn't talked a lot about the social aspects of a Mars settlement. Maybe he doesn't care and figures that's up to the people who go there and his mission is just to get people there. Maybe he would agree with you and that's the point. Who knows.
I highly doubt he's naive enough to think the social outcome of a Mars settlement would be some standard issue Earthly political outcome or one that would exclusively favor him. If he is that naive he will be disappointed.
It's their responsibility to say no, and they failed in that job.
I ask because in-state tuition in California and Washington is so high that you could afford a full time PhD student tutor with it.
No, the university is responsible for providing safe housing for the students, and if they accepted this lunatic's plan, they would be breaching that trust.
When parents and students look for colleges, they assume a certain level of due diligence has been done for them, and they will be leaving their teenager in a minimally safe environment. You can't let people off the hook because of some right-wing idea of "freedom".
[1] In April 2014, during a budget crisis, Flint changed its water source from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.