It’s true that these experiments haven’t been funded seriously, but the reason they aren’t getting funded is because nobody has come up with a way to earn a living in space that makes sense given launch costs of circa $5000/lb., and no one has come up with a convincing story about how they can lower launch costs enough to matter.

First, demonstrate that you can put cargo into orbit for under $100/lb. Then come up with a business case for building a colony on Mars instead of in Antarctica. Then come talk to me about funding research.

Probably because it would require neoreactionary style government for these frontier space arcologies.

Take this video. This is a discussion amongst the top of 21st century American society. Of course, Elizabeth Warren understands Econ 101 and is intelligent. Yes she isn’t very important. But isn’t there still a sense in which, come on, something has gone wrong and you can’t just blame the proletarians.

Disagree.

They are not selected for intelligence – in fact the opposite – they weed out intelligence whenever they discover it. They are selected for ideological conformity and bureaucratic infighting.

They have huge structural advantages that allow them to be unintelligent and still remain on top and those structural advantages should not be underestimated.