By Dominic Powell and Emma Koehn.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur and Tesla founder Elon Musk has elaborated further on his ambitious plans for humans to live on the surface of Mars, releasing a detailed journal on the his vision for a fully functioning society with “everything from iron foundries to pizza joints”.
Musk has long been an advocate for the benefits of developing a human community on Mars, and has said he plans to die on the planet, though”not on impact”. In the journal on the Mars colonisation, he outlines the “two fundamental paths” he believes humanity is faced with.
“One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event. I do not have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually, history suggests, there will be some doomsday event,” he says.
“The alternative is to become a space-bearing civilization and a multi-planetary species, which I hope you would agree is the right way to go.”
The trip to Mars “has got to be really fun and exciting” says Musk, reinforcing in the article just how fun a trip to Mars would purportedly be for humans.
“The crew compartment or the occupant compartment is set up so that you can do zero-gravity games—you can float around. There will be movies, lecture halls, cabins, and a restaurant,” he says.
“It will be really fun to go. You are going to have a great time!”
A survey of over 1000 Australian businesses by accounting software provider MYOB has found that 40% of SMEs expect to see significant disruption in their industry over the next ten years, with the finance and insurance industry expected to be hit the hardest.
Retail and manufacturing businesses also expect to be majorly affected by technological changes or disruptions in the coming years.
“With the advent of the information age, we’ve been living with the concept of constant change in business for more than two decades,” Simon Raik-Allen, chief technical advisor and futurist at MYOB said in a statement.
“Businesses have – in the main – accepted that and can plan for it. What they may not be ready for is the next stage. Technology isn’t just about to disrupt certain industries. It is poised to change the way we perceive and interact with the world.”
The barriers to innovation businesses feel they face include government regulation and time and cost restrictions. Perhaps alarmingly, 18% of businesses surveyed said their business “did not require” innovation.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has pledged to crack down on those “seeking to make a quick buck from people’s misfortune”, announcing a range of federal measures to reduce predatory behaviours in the credit card space.
Morrison says before the year’s end the government will have introduced new requirements on assessments of a credit card holder’s ability to repay credit limits, banning unsolicited offers to increase credit limits, and requiring providers have an online option for cancelling cards.
The Turnbull government has its eye on the nation’s $52 billion in personal credit card debt, with Morrison saying in a statement the plan would “ensure financial companies do the right thing by their customers”.
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