Umm, yeah . . . prolly because we define “on top” as rich and powerful.
Tautology FTW!
That might be constant but who that small minority was has definitely not stayed constant. This is why there is so much historical debate about catastrophic events like the collapse of the Roman empire. It was a catastrophic collapse for the elites writing the histories, as some hairy barbarian came and burnt down their villa and took their stuff. How catastrophic it was for your average peasant is up to debate
And I’m definitely getting “Romano-british elites paying the Saxons to come protect them after the legions left” vibes from that article @SunUp posted.
These people are so rich that they already have enough resources available to accelerate the process of reaching space and sustaining a limited civilization. Government funded space programs are dreadfully slow because they are hampered by fiances and politics, so we can’t judge progress in the private sector in the same way.
If these people can attain an independent and self-sustained civilization in space, they won’t need us anymore, and they won’t need a world financial structure anymore.
“These people” can barely get a rocket to space without it blowing up, and can’t design a pickup truck that isn’t hilariously awful, I’m not holding my breath for them to somehow invent a self sustaining space habitat.
I mean I can see them claiming to have invented that, where instead they invent space-based version of the Titan submarine
I’d take my chances with the cannibal marauders before I step foot on anything Elon made
AH!! 
Okay, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t sign on with them as a test pilot any time soon, but it is that “damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead” approach that will eventually gain them much faster progress than NASA ever could have attained. Still, history has yet to be written so you may yet be proven right on. We shall see.
Putting aside whether the billionaires can fast-track the development of a reliable rocket to get off the Earth’s surface, and whether a self-sustaining habitat can be built, there’s that pesky little detail about the effects of zero/micro-gravity on the human body.
Oh, well, then, let’s build a rotating ring habitat that creates a form of gravity! And how big would that need to be? Power source for rotation engines, life support, other needs? Facilities for recycling waste, growing food? And how many support personnel would be needed to keep the whole thing running properly? To tend to how many billionaires and their entourages? Who could be enticed away from their homes for a one-way journey?
That’s just off the top of my head.
ETA: Let’s not forget how Biosphere 2 turned out.
The people behind Biosphere 2 did not, in fact, expect it to succeed if by success you mean a truly self-sustaining closed habitat. The point of Biosphere 2 was to learn what we don’t know, to note and analyze things going wrong in a system here on Earth where we could rescue the people if things got really bad. And we did learn a bunch of things not to do, which is useful. It is still being used for study, even if not exactly in the manner originally planned.
That’s true; it taught a lot of lessons, plus there’s the space station already in orbit – but do either of those provide enough information to create the kind of permanent habitat that could comfortably support the masters of the universe without constant resupply from Earth?
I’m a long-time sci-fi reader and I’d love to see humans move out into space, but I think we’re at least one generation away from being able to pull it off, and probably longer than that.
Look, the space travel we have now was invented by actual Nazis, so it’s an unavoidable fact that bad people sometimes come up with useful technology. If Elon et al want to build a self-sustaining space habitat, let them. Some government will eventually take it from them anyway.
Which of course just demonstrates how these guys can’t think further into the future than the next fiscal quarter or so. If the rich people really do want to escape into some luxurious space mansion, the time to be pushing space technology was back in the 70s, instead of complaining about how much NASA cost to run, and cutting it to save a fraction of a percent on their taxes. We wasted 30+ good years we could have been building cool shit because they were too cheap to think beyond immediate cash flow.
No argument there. There is about as much chance of him doing so as my dog inventing a room temperature semiconductor but sure seeing as our economic system has deemed fit to let dickwads like him have stupid amounts of money, by all means spend it on stupid shit.
To be clear I wasn’t pitting billionaires preparing for the collapse of society, even if they are preparing in very dumb ways. I was pitting billionaires deliberately accelerating the collapse of society because the dumbest theory ever* says it’s a good idea.
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- hyperbole, I realize there are probably dumber theories out there (the theory that Donald Trump will ever pay you something he promised is clearly the dumbest
)
- hyperbole, I realize there are probably dumber theories out there (the theory that Donald Trump will ever pay you something he promised is clearly the dumbest
“But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless?”
I chuckled at that. (Don’t need to wait for no apocalypse for your crypto to be worthless.)
Anyway, I just want to get on the record that I agree with the other half of the OP as well: the fourth turning is also bullshit. Absolute garbage.