Where should people sit on the balance sheet? – Charlotte O’Leary

Elon Musk says the purpose of SpaceX is to ensure the light of consciousness is never extinguished. It is a grand vision: humanity as a tiny candle in a vast, dark universe, worth protecting at almost any cost.

Yet he has also called empathy the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation. To be fair, he has said he believes in empathy, just that it should extend to civilisation as a whole, not only to individuals.

However, civilisation is individuals. Consciousness is not an abstraction. It is the nurse, the factory worker, the child in a flood zone, the pensioner relying on a promise. Each is a conscious life, here and now. Protecting consciousness in theory while treating people as a line to be cut in practice is a contradiction worth naming.

So, I find myself asking: where do people actually sit on the balance sheet?