Remember when everyone shat on Jeff Bezos for saying “The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel,” when world hunger exists? I still wish the richest man alive dedicated more of his wealth to philanthropy, but finishing the Three-Body trilogy reminded me of another worldview I softly hold. For context, here’s the rest of Bezos:
I’m pursuing this work, because I believe if we don’t we will eventually end up with a civilization of stasis, which I find very demoralizing. I am very lucky that I feel like I have a mission-driven purpose with Blue Origin that is, I think, incredibly important for civilization long term. And I am going to use my financial lottery winnings from Amazon to fund that.
Bezos seems believe in an idea I first encountered in my high school physics textbook, best summarized by quoting Soviet rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky:
Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.
I read said quote almost eight years ago as a high school freshman, while learning how humans can maintain gravity in space through centrifugal force. To the author and his physicist peers, Earth is merely humanity’s birthplace, but space the unexplored frontier and future. As a species, we are meant to venture further into the universe, and maybe destroy the planet as we do so. Earth destruction aside, when it comes to saving individuals vs. investing in technology, my ideology traces back to this letter, whose core theme lives within these paragraphs:
Spaceflight without any doubt is playing exactly this role. The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry. However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spin-offs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation.
Besides the need for new technologies, there is a continuing great need for new basic knowledge in the sciences if we wish to improve the conditions of human life on Earth. We need more knowledge in physics and chemistry, in biology and physiology, and very particularly in medicine to cope with all these problems which threaten man’s life: hunger, disease, contamination of food and water, pollution of the environment.
As a left-leaning techno-optimist, I can’t ignore human suffering and inequality, but I also recoil against indiscriminate techlash. Politically, some people, perhaps Da Liu included, see Leftists as pitifully shortsighted and incapable of withstanding inconveniences for greater progress, but at what point do we decide we have created enough wealth for everyone to live a decent happy life? Yet, where will humanity go if we do not keep on pushing frontiers to seek the better life that our ancestors could not even dream of? The choice isn’t binary, but the politics sometimes feels as if it is.
~Not unlike Obama~, I marveled at the immense scope of the Three-Body trilogy. I wonder if some people have just trained themselves to think about bigger problems at bigger capacities, and if my constant stream of petty thoughts can be cured. Judging by Da Liu’s wavering attitude toward his character Cheng Xin, I think even he wobbles on the line between caring for humanity and advancing it. Maybe it is just a choice we have to make again and again without knowing the right answer.