Recently there have been increasing mainstream attention regarding space resource utilization. Like for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGosZWBTF7A [Bloomberg] It mainly focuses on "monetary" benefits and completely misses the point about the broader implications. The most ignorant is how "in-situ resource utilisation" would work. My main point is that the level of automation required to fully utilize 16 psyche for instance... (If you don't know about it look it up, in our terms it would make us a Kardashev 1+ civilization all on it's own.) (Moving things like 16 psyche closer to earth would involve several magnitudes above our current energy budget) They still seem to think that the civilization that would evolve based on self-replicating machines and space habitats would resemble anything close to western capitalism. My main point is basically that 16psyche is going to be a choke point in regards to our path towards a space faring civilization. It has more accessible resources than anything else in the solar system and if history is any guide this will mean it will become independent of earth pretty quick.
