Musk proved unable to understand Asimov, it’s no surprise he is emotionally deaf to our desire to survive – Portnikov

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The unexpected “peace plan” of the American billionaire Elon Musk was perceived by many Ukrainians – and not only by us – with sincere surprise and irritation. Representatives of the Ukrainian leadership, including president Volodymyr Zelensky, and representatives of the russian opposition, including the thirteenth world chess champion Garry Kasparov, argued with Musk. And representatives of the American political elite, of course, too: the position of the billionaire objectively undermines the public consensus, which is all about supporting Ukraine and opposing russia, writes Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov for zbruc.eu.

And it is exactly this, and not its factual part, that makes Musk’s plan dangerous. Because even if we were to imagine that Ukrainians would suddenly agree with the businessman’s ideas, we, together with Musk, would face the wall called russia. The kremlin clearly and plainly answered the billionaire: no re-votes! The inhabitants of the “new subjects” of russia have already expressed their will, and it is not up to Musk to inspect it. And in this sense, the “peace plan” of the American dreamer has the same meaning as the Minsk agreements.

For several years, I did not get tired of explaining to my compatriots: there is no danger in this document. russia will never and under no circumstances agree to hold fair elections in the occupied regions and ensure the reunification of the stolen territories with Ukraine. The danger is not at all that russia will agree to “attach” the “people’s republics” to Ukraine. The danger is that it will want to attach Ukraine to the “people’s republics”. On February 24, this is exactly what began to happen. But putin’s attack on Ukraine has nothing to do with the Minsk agreements – no matter what tales about Ukrainian “unconstructiveness” are told in the kremlin.

The same applies to Musk’s plan. Far from European history and reality, the billionaire sees the threat of an economic crisis and offers Ukrainians to sacrifice their own territory in order to appease putin and give Western economies the opportunity to recover. But putin cannot be appeased by just four regions and Crimea, because for him the occupied territories are a springboard for conquering all of Ukraine. Ukrainians can sympathize with Musk, who may begin to experience significant economic losses, but for them, the possible failures of the extravagant businessman are no reason to abandon their own state.

Musk’s biographers claim that Isaac Asimov’s space saga “The Foundation” influenced the future entrepreneur. It is impressive that the main conclusion made by the entrepreneur after reading famous novels is about the importance of space travel. But Asimov’s books are not about that at all. They are about the fact that no matter how many worlds you create, no matter how many planets you populate, the essence of man, the essence of politics remains unchanged: evil eternally fights with good – and good always wins. On our planet, in the Galaxy, in endless space, the same battle has been played out for thousands of years.

And if evil wins this battle, there is no point in designing electric cars, planning flights to Mars, creating the global Internet and developing new technologies. Evil will use technology to attack, limit access to information, enslave and destroy humanity everywhere – on one planet, hundreds, or thousands. And Elon Musk – no matter how many hundreds of billions he earned – will simply be one of the victims of this destruction and will lie on the streets of the former New York next to people who have never held even ten thousand dollars in their hands. And if he manages to escape to Mars, evil will destroy him and the entire Martian colony there. Evil is omnipresent. And its world doesn’t need any Elon Musk.

And this was actually the whole meaning of Asimov’s novels: for the development of progress, for the development of humanity, the undisputed victory of good is necessary, otherwise, there will be nothing – neither people nor progress. Due to a completely natural mental callousness, Musk sees those books, every page of which convinces us of this simple truth, only as a manual for a spacecraft. Why then should we be surprised that a man who proved unable to understand Asimov, was equally emotionally deaf to our desire to win and survive?

No, we have nothing to argue about with Elon Musk, convince him of his political fallaciousness and thank him for his help. It is Musk who should be thankful to us. Thankful that he is still alive, able to dream, make money and write nonsense.

Because if we lose, I won’t give a dime for Elon Musk’s life.

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