The working class is not at odds with the space industry. At least half, if not more, of all the workers in the industry are not educated. Many have trades like welding but they are usually trained on the job. It's not the case that only people who graduated from ivory towers can enter that workforce though it is an industry that is highly geographically concentrated at the moment. Even that is changing as start ups in this space spring up all over. And everyone benefits from the industry indirectly. Most people in the western world have smartphones, including the working class. A lot of the functionality of those devices are brought about by space technology. Even in undeveloped countries where many people are practicing sustenance farming like India, their productivity has been massively lifted by homegrown satellite weather forecasts. In other words, it's not the global elites like the US and Europe that are the only participants and beneficiaries of the industry.
I also do not think the US is poor enough that it has to make a sophie's choice; it does not have to be an either-or proposition and that's why I think it's either naivite or low-key manipulation behind his stance on this particular issue.
But I'll reiterate I'm not a single issue voter and this did not change my preferences for or against Bernie.
And one go-back:
It's actually this framing of the issue that bugged me about his stance and not the lack of support. I do not expect politicians by and large to have strong pro- or anti- space platforms and it doesn't weigh heavily on who I vote for. Gingrinch was serious about establishing a moon base in 2012, after all, and I would never ever ever vote for him. But framing the space industry as somehow a class struggle issue I think is reductive and naive and that can turn me off a candidate. It didn't this time because I like the rest of his platform. But it does not augur well for the argument that he has rational policy positions if this is his hot take on this issue.
People regularly attack him for being unrealistic with his promises and I've mostly tuned that out but this wasn't a good look on that front.
Edit:
The Bernie volunteer has been super polite and professional and has been texting with me about this for a bit now.
To be clear, I have absolutely zero problem with you taking issues with it, and I have no opinion on any stance you have on Sanders (because by all means they're entirely reasonable). Bias perhaps, but I'd never expect anything but good faith disagreement from you.
There are a few angles at play here, and I'm really not up my on class theory, so this could be embarrassing, but at least in a funny way. Anyhow.
- Any kind of space-related industry can synergise with working and lower middle-class job markets. However, this isn't the only way you could invest in those markets, and they're intensely related to geography. I'm not up on the geography of the US in its particulars, so this could just be a wild guess. But I do know (similar to Australia) there's a large concetration along the coastlands and moderately inland from there, and population density across the innermost areas is very variable (on the lower end of things). Less extreme than in Australia, for sure.
- We don't need more satellites, specifically. We're actually approaching an issue with having too many in the sky to the point where it could interfere with astronomy (and related fields), mainly around Starlink (by SpaceX) admittedly. There's obviously a need for national infrastructure too, but the issues we need to be considering more are both ethical and also technical in a problem-solving manner. They're not welding jobs, or labour-intensive jobs in general. And they're also by dint of their nature, intensely political (as much as I'd love for them not to be). I'm not arguing the benefit of technologies invested in because of NASA, or the field of space-related sciences in general. It is however important to note that we already have these benefits. They have been discovered, applied and implemented. There are more immediate priorities, even ones specific to the US (cough gerrymandering cough).
- A lot of things are unfortunately class struggles, because of how the working class (and working poor in general) are pitted against themselves and their slight betters in the hope that anyone can "make it". This isn't unique to the US. What might not be a class struggle in theory can absolutely translate to one in practise. That's why the interests of the working class need protecting, why their future needs safeguarding, in far more immediate terms than something (as crude as) Space Force (I know, that's not the whole thing, it's just an easy example). We're entering an age of very obvious and repeated "mask off" scenarios where it is shown to us that the ultra-rich really don't give much of a damn about anything but them and theirs. Especially given the political setup in the US (and the way the UK has gone), this means that their interests shape the nation's interests in more ways than one. The longer climate change is a debated "issue", the greater the suffering. The longer wealth inequality is a debated "issue", the greater the suffering. I'm not saying that a political platform can't hold more than one interest, or aim to fund more than one thing, but these are big problems to solve, and they already have a lot of money both against them and for them.
At the end of the day, if it puts you off Sanders in some small (or greater) way, it is what it is. Nobody is going to agree fully on a US political candidate (not least a Brit, hiya, hah), and I'm not interested in making that happen. I just wanted to understand your reasoning, and I do. Hopefully you can see where I'm coming from too.
Are "the interests of the working classes" really doing anything for us? "I want a thousand square feet of climate controlled living space per person in my family so we can all watch different cat videos on the internet without having to be in the same room" doesn't really seem like an interest that furthers humanity should we really decide to "push" it. If you look too closely, and honestly, at this question you may well arrive at engineering a massive die back as being the "best thing for humanity."
When I (and hopefully others) say "interests", I mean the best interests. Without derailing too much into the existing Space Force thread (hopefully), a push for military-driven space expansion
ain't it. Working class interests are more of the "I don't want to be bankrupt from getting ill" and "I'd like to have money leftover from being ill to eat". For more on that, see my reply to hobbs, above.
The school board candidate is also endorsed by my local congresscritter that I love so that sealed the deal.
