In contrast, our societies today instead try to maximize consumption, which devalues our people as they get softer, flabbier and, even, fail to reproduce.

This does not mean consumption as measured by economists, in dollars, although there is substantial overlap. It means consumption in the sense of satisfaction of individual human appetites, eventually to the detriment of the whole human being and his or her society.

The most unimaginably challenging megaprojects are not even interplanetary, but interstellar. A civilization genuinely committed to undertaking such projects would finally generate the political capital necessary to streamline the economy, eliminate rent-seeking, and solve a million other minor and major problems, annoyances, and inefficiencies. It would also finally generate demand for human beings and therefore offer the possibility of solving the fertility crisis.