Musk has said Mars is the backup plan for earth. What if one day there is a disease or meteor that wipes out the entire human population on Earth? (e.g., see the dinosaurs) Even if the only appeal was the wild wild west and uncharted territory, what's wrong with that? Look at what exploring the Moon has brought us, many unexpected innovations and inventions useful for life on earth.
Every city I've ever seen has a large amount of personal cars on the road. Sure some people in some cities ride in shared public transit, but don't try to pretend that there are not large amounts of people that for whatever reason don't. You might want to look closer to home and solving your own problems instead of attacking the US.
> but don't try to pretend that there are not large amounts of people that for whatever reason don't. Oh, I know precisely the reason: there's no viable alternative in place. It might surprise you to learn that other countries were in that same situation and aren't anymore. When there's something more efficient, reliable, and cheaper to use, people tend to prefer that. But of course, you'd first have to step outside…
Right, because there is no car traffic in London or Tokyo or Paris or Hong Kong or Berlin, even though they are all noted for having some the best public transit.
Musk seems to really dislike the idea of public transport. There's an appeal in moving a large number of people from one side of the city to the other really fast, but with their cars!? The amount of trouble people in the US are willing to through to avoid the solution every other developed country enjoys is really mind-blowing to me. Dig a tunnel, put some rails in it, and add some sort of a vehicle on top of those…
From a physics standpoint, what is your argument that a giant car with transfers to a number of smaller cars is more efficient than just using all smaller cars? Public transit seems really wasteful to me: empty busses running up and down the same main streets, people going out of their way to get to a train station, subway cars stopping in the track and blocking the passage of all other vehicles, all movement stoppin…
Try Shenzhen. Super low cost ubiquitous underground train transport, augmented with super low cost electric taxis and buses for last mile. Occupancy is very high, and trains go every few minutes. Metros stop going at night because the taxi and bus system has sufficient capacity to cover nighttime demand.
You think nobody will bring their faith with them?
Precisely. Religions are in decline among the younger generations. By the time we go to Mars as a colonizing species, hopefully we won't bring "faith to a deity" with us.
>Religions are in decline among the younger generations.
I believe in Elon. He’s always late, but he mostly delivers. If he gets 10x faster instead of 14x and does it cheaper, it’s a huge boon to society (forces other companies to innovate). Cost disease for infrastructure is in my opinion the biggest drag against gdp and the economy.
We don't call him Rockefeller of this century for no reason