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A review by honnari_hannya
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku
4.0
3.5
A very accessibly written nonfiction tracking the trajectory of the human race. This starts with a brief look at the development of information and technology that helped us understand the cosmos and Earth's place in it, and moves on to the potential outcomes of human destiny. This is one of the more comprehensive books I've read on this particular subject and I think Kaku does a commendable job at showing us, if not exactly how to get from point A to B to C and so forth, then how to at least move forward in that direction in light of the existential threats faced by the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, and ultimately the universe.
I do have a few gripes with this book that prevented me from giving it a full 4 or even 5 stars.
First, I think Kaku seems to take a particularly rose-colored view to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. This was published in 2018, so probably written somewhere around 2016/2017, so it's not like the criticisms of either men were few and far between. Bezos especially had already been heavily criticized for worker's rights abuses, the environmental cost of Amazon's business policies, amongst other things. Just because he has contributed to the future of tech doesn't mean that scientists should wave away those issues, as none of these developments exist in a vacuum. The human-cost of acquiring the wealth that Bezos has in order to fund said private space ventures that Kaku praises should have really been examined with a critical eye. Elon Musk is also another one of those characters that get overly praised in the science and tech community for having a lot of money to put toward space technologies, which he earned himself as a "self-made" man—a persistent mythology amongst the "by your bootstraps" community of edgelords that Musk has curated. But I digress.
Second, I think Kaku puts a lot of stock in western exceptionalism, which is always an issue in science and technology books that focus on the "future of humanity." It is of interest to me that one of the primary reasons Kaku thinks space travel is our next step are lack of resources on the planet. I think there have been studies that show we do not lack for resources (space, food, materials) for the amount of people we do have on Earth or even double that, and that wealth inequality is a choice perpetuated by the top 1% of the population. NOT COINCIDENTALLY, the top 1% that has enough money to fund and participate in privatized space ventures. I wish Kaku had focused a little more on the idea of creating a sustainable, equitable present as a path toward a sustainable, equitable future. Otherwise we will end up destroying the planet and each other before Type 1/2 Technologies can be achieved.
One interesting thing to note is that I wonder if Kaku has any thoughts on how COVID has impacted people's willingness to commit to long space journeys, which was of primary concern for NASA in thinking about manned missions to Mars. The impact of isolation is being tested in real time, so it will be interesting to see how many people are going to be willing to go through it again for the sake of space missions. In my opinion, probably a lot more people will think they can take it.
A very accessibly written nonfiction tracking the trajectory of the human race. This starts with a brief look at the development of information and technology that helped us understand the cosmos and Earth's place in it, and moves on to the potential outcomes of human destiny. This is one of the more comprehensive books I've read on this particular subject and I think Kaku does a commendable job at showing us, if not exactly how to get from point A to B to C and so forth, then how to at least move forward in that direction in light of the existential threats faced by the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, and ultimately the universe.
I do have a few gripes with this book that prevented me from giving it a full 4 or even 5 stars.
First, I think Kaku seems to take a particularly rose-colored view to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. This was published in 2018, so probably written somewhere around 2016/2017, so it's not like the criticisms of either men were few and far between. Bezos especially had already been heavily criticized for worker's rights abuses, the environmental cost of Amazon's business policies, amongst other things. Just because he has contributed to the future of tech doesn't mean that scientists should wave away those issues, as none of these developments exist in a vacuum. The human-cost of acquiring the wealth that Bezos has in order to fund said private space ventures that Kaku praises should have really been examined with a critical eye. Elon Musk is also another one of those characters that get overly praised in the science and tech community for having a lot of money to put toward space technologies, which he earned himself as a "self-made" man—a persistent mythology amongst the "by your bootstraps" community of edgelords that Musk has curated. But I digress.
Second, I think Kaku puts a lot of stock in western exceptionalism, which is always an issue in science and technology books that focus on the "future of humanity." It is of interest to me that one of the primary reasons Kaku thinks space travel is our next step are lack of resources on the planet. I think there have been studies that show we do not lack for resources (space, food, materials) for the amount of people we do have on Earth or even double that, and that wealth inequality is a choice perpetuated by the top 1% of the population. NOT COINCIDENTALLY, the top 1% that has enough money to fund and participate in privatized space ventures. I wish Kaku had focused a little more on the idea of creating a sustainable, equitable present as a path toward a sustainable, equitable future. Otherwise we will end up destroying the planet and each other before Type 1/2 Technologies can be achieved.
One interesting thing to note is that I wonder if Kaku has any thoughts on how COVID has impacted people's willingness to commit to long space journeys, which was of primary concern for NASA in thinking about manned missions to Mars. The impact of isolation is being tested in real time, so it will be interesting to see how many people are going to be willing to go through it again for the sake of space missions. In my opinion, probably a lot more people will think they can take it.