Elon Musk, a billionaire Bond villain who wants to nuke Mars, revealed in a recent interview that he’s worried a third World War might mess up his plans to colonize Mars.
In a profile with GQ, Musk talked details on a bunch of his pet projects: Hyperloop, Tesla, space suits, and of course, going to Mars. He sees it as a moral responsibilty of mankind to establish an outpost on another planet—kinda like backing up your computer, only 54.6 million kilometres away. The technical details don’t seem to bother him too much—he’s more concerned about what will happen here on Earth to spoil his plans:
I mean, I don’t think we can discount the possibility of a third World War. You know, in 1912 they were proclaiming a new age of peace and prosperity, saying that it was a golden age, war was over. And then you had World War I followed by World War II followed by the Cold War. So I think we need to acknowledge that there’s certainly a possibility of a third World War, and if that does occur it could be far worse than anything that’s happened before.
The full interview is well worth reading: as ever, Musk comes across as a technologist hellbent on improving the Earth, with only the slightest hint of a megalomaniac supervillain.
[GQ]