Remember that one of the biggest contributions to women’s liberation was the invention of the washing machine.

I currently and never have made enough money to pay professionals to do those things. A LOT of my time is spent preparing food and repairing/cleaning my clothes and dwelling.

Don’t forget all the time spent dying from now preventable diseases!

Give it a try using ancient tech and get back to me after you come back to the city because your back is completely fucked.

You can go do that now, no one’s stopping you.

There’s no job from those times you couldn’t do today while literally living better than they did. Quit your job, give away everything you own and go live in a tent in the woods harvesting mushrooms: Your life would still be better than theirs because you would still have access to some emergency healthcare, foodbanks when you are starving, and be protected from marauding pillagers.

You can become a farmer if that appeals to you. Doubt you want that though

Well I guess that’s something you should consider before you kill a knight

The idea that there are no resources we know of in space which are not more easily accessed on earth is just outright untrue, or at least is only true in a narrow sense. My example here would be Helium-3, the ideal fuel for fusion (a difficult choice due to high fusion temperatures, but it has the advantage of not kicking off neutron radiation in the process the way something like Deuterium-Tritium fusion would). Earth contains ~10-50,000 tonnes of feasibly accessible Helium-3, and if we were to move over to fusion power at a large scale at our current rate of power consumption, we would consume that amount of fuel in a matter of years, likely less than a decade. By contrast, the moon contains orders of magnitude more Helium-3 in its regolith, somewhere in the ballpark of 600,000-1,000,000 tonnes, a sufficient quantity to last over a century in the same usage conditions as outlined for Earth. Additionally, both of these sources pale in comparison to the amount available in Sol’s gas giants.

The caveat here is, of course, that it’s unlikely we would switch to fusion entirely in the first place, and that accessing that helium-3 at scale is not easy, no matter where it comes from (though doing so at scale is likely easier on the Moon than it is on Earth). It also ignores ideas like degrowth, energy efficiency improvements, dealing with the drawbacks of alternative fusion fuels, etc. I think, however, that it remains illustrative of the larger point: there are compelling reasons to go to space, even from a raw materials perspective alone.

I categorically disagree with the premise that ‘the drive to explore’ is from Star Trek, and to state that authoritatively and leave it at that is, in my opinion, incredibly reductive. We’ve been exploring, as mentioned, since before we were even Homo sapiens, and I think at this point we can relatively confidently call it part of human nature. Human prehistory and (relatively) modern history has several examples of those who effectively blindly threw themselves out into the ocean, in some cases likely on rafts at most, and discovered new places to live as a result. For example:

Homo Erectus made it all the way to the island of Java and then proceeded to cross the Lombok Strait, crossing the Wallace Line and spreading to the island of Flores ~1.2 million years ago, at which point they stayed there, adapted, and became Homo Floresiensis. This crossing likely wasn’t blind, as Mount Rinjani would be visible, but this a distance of ~35km of deep ocean strait water. Treacherous conditions to brave on the promise of a peak in the distance; nonetheless they did it, and likely only with simple rafts. Along those same lines, the migration of Homo Sapiens from Sunda to Sahul ~65,000 years ago is similarly noteworthy, as some of the relevant crossings required would have been, in all likelihood, blind. (Take this with a grain of salt, though. I had a hard time finding an accurate measure of the distance between various island crossings at this period of history. Under perfectly ideal conditions it is possible each step was visible from the last.)

Another example is the fact that humans settled the remote islands of Oceania. Polynesia is particularly noteworthy here for its remoteness, and we managed that ~3000 years ago. This would have involved anywhere from hundreds to thousands of kilometers of open ocean, navigated with no promise of land, much less any indication that there even might be land. For that matter, given the massive nature of the ocean and the tiny size of these islands, how many people ventured off into the ocean, never to return, before we finally hit on success? I would imagine the number is quite high, and from a raw survival perspective, it seems an incomprehensible journey to embark on, but we did it anyways, and I would argue that is indicative of our drive to explore. Why else would you embark on such a trip except to see what may lie hidden, just beyond the horizon? We’re a naturally curious bunch, it’s one of our primary strengths as a species, and I feel that this is just an extension of that inborn curiosity.

Circling back to Star Trek, though, trust me, I’m well aware of the cognitive dissonance of Americans as it relates to expansionism and manifest destiny. Indeed, I did a long-winded breakdown (I’m prone to bloviating tangents, can you tell?) a few weeks ago in a different comment of the way that the American genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas is presented as a foregone conclusion; inevitable by fate and absolved by destiny. It’s an insidious idea, and one which infects a problematically large pool of our media; I won’t argue with you on that.

I also don’t know if it’s fully accurate to describe the society (at least of earth, not necessarily the whole Federation to my, admittedly limited, understanding of the lore) of Star Trek as communist, though it’s probably not inaccurate either. I think it would be more accurate to say that Star Trek depicts a post-scarcity society, and so the lack of certain economic pressures have led to an economic configuration that is hard to translate into modern terms, though I’ll admit that’s splitting hairs. I think it’s probably close enough, and I think it’s very fair to say that they are absolutely socialist. Funny enough (and to your point) I think the meme of “fully automated luxury gay space communism” is actually a pretty good descriptor of the economic configuration of Star Trek. Regardless, I think a lot of Americans miss that fact simply because words like “Socialism” and “Communism” have connotations and associations in America which are fundamentally inaccurate. Most Americans have, frankly, never moved past the red scare in their understanding of socialism more broadly, likely as a consequence of propaganda, so it’s not surprising that they missed the memo here.

I disagree that life requires a narrow set of conditions to continue. What I believe is the case is that life requires specific conditions to begin, but once it exists, it is incredibly resilient. There are extremophiles which could reasonably survive in the vacuum of space, and from a more anthropocentric perspective, humans have proven ourselves to be remarkably resilient in the face of climatic tests. Sure, the most inhospitable of earth conditions is a paradise in comparison to something like Mars as it exists now, but we adapted to those when the height of technology was a flint knapped hand-axe. It’s safe to say that the technological aspect of humanity has come a long way, and our ability to survive in and adapt to the conditions of bodies other than earth improves steadily day by day as the wheel of technology turns ever-faster (to say nothing of outright space habitats, which we could absolutely reasonably build with our current understanding of physics). I don’t mean this as a glorification of human industry; rather, I mean to say that ingenuity, adaptability, and tenacity are fundamental characteristics of our species - it’s why we’re here today.

I will also note that there’s no guarantee that there aren’t habitable worlds in other solar systems, and no reason to assume that they couldn’t be found. Even within our solar system, there are planets which, with sufficient effort, could feasibly be colonized near to our current tech level (looking at you, Venus. I know Mars gets all the attention but you’re my one true love).

And, indeed, I wonder if you’ve proven the fundamental point yourself with your observation on organization and long term planning. After all, is it perhaps possible that the very reason we have never demonstrated that level of resource management in our modern, industrial world is itself capitalism? Such a duplicative, wasteful structure is fundamentally inefficient, and more to the point, is fundamentally at odds with the communalist nature of humanity. We are a species which, historically, shares, and just the mere fact that we have convinced ourselves that selfishness is in our nature does not make it true. Additionally, centuries of planning becomes a lot more reasonable when humans reach the point of living for centuries, which is a prospect that I think a lot of people ignore the (relatively speaking) imminent nature of.

All that is to say: we are a species of firsts, and typically when we are met with a survival challenge on a physiological level, we conquer that with technology. Clothing, fire, tools, and planning allowed us to conquer the arctic despite a body plan which is adapted for equatorial living, why should we assume we won’t also eventually rise to this technical challenge in the long term? I have no idea what that intermediary period will look like (except that it will likely be, at minimum, equally unpleasant for us as it is at present), but if history shows us anything it’s that we eventually pull through. Humanity tried to migrate out of Africa several times before it stuck, populations died out, and we find fossil remains which have genomes entirely unrelated to anyone not from Africa, but the notable thing is that we kept on trying anyways.

We’re just stubborn like that.

Now-a-days you cant even do that if you have to in the states. Youll get scooped up and sent to a prison to be forced to work for free.