Elon Musk argues that putting a million people on Mars ensures humanity's future
Every time that this argument is made, I can't help but wonder if the mere existence of a sustainable off-world colony would cause humans on Earth to give even less of a damn about maintaining a habitable planet. A sort of moral hazard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard) on an interplanetary scale. Which is to ask, could colonizing other worlds actually accelerate the destruction of human civilization, rather than ensure it?As an alternative to possibly engendering environmental apathy, imagine a scenario akin to the Cold War, except that one of the superpowers has a million citizens on Mars, and the other doesn't. Does MAD still apply, or does the interplanetary superpower suddenly becoming all the more willing to watch the world burn?