{"id":9434,"date":"2021-01-23T14:44:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T19:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=9434"},"modified":"2021-01-23T14:44:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T19:44:16","slug":"the-new-luddites-at-their-most-malignant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=9434","title":{"rendered":"The New Luddites at Their Most Malignant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I didn\u2019t have a topic in mind for today\u2019s post so I looked through my list of potential blog topics. It turns out that there were lots of pending topics but seeing this <a href=\"https:\/\/techeffect.substack.com\/p\/humans-destiny-is-on-earth\">Substack article<\/a> from last October rekindled the anger I felt the first time I read it. Or perhaps disgust is a better word.<\/p>\n<p>The gist of the article is that colonizing space is a fantasy whose real purpose is to maintain the status quo. Notice how it combines the usual New Luddite dislike of any technical progress and the infantile politics usually found in the more unhinged corners of Twitter. Oren Weisfeld says that space is not just a bad idea or waste of resources but that \u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The truth, of course, is just the opposite. That for humanity to survive, we must get off the earth has been said so often that it\u2019s become trite but it\u2019s still true. Most people, Weisfeld admits, agree with this and support the space program. But, of course, to the New Luddites these people are deluded and don\u2019t actually understand the issues. He believes that spending any resources on things that he doesn\u2019t care about is not only a waste but immoral. Apparently the three quarters of the population that have other priorities don\u2019t know what\u2019s good for them and shouldn\u2019t have a say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn\u2019t have a topic in mind for today\u2019s post so I looked through my list of potential blog topics. It turns out that there were lots of pending topics but seeing this Substack article from last October rekindled the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=9434\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[177],"class_list":["post-9434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-new-luddites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9435,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9434\/revisions\/9435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}