“Nobody has any intention of building a wall.” - Walter Ulbricht
Every organization has a purpose. Of course, the purpose of most companies is the generation of profit. But the purpose I am talking about is what the company does, how it brings value for society, some of which it can appropriate for itself in the form of profit. Amazons purpose was to build a store that sells everything, which worked out pretty well, especially for its founder. Starbucks purpose was to make drinking a coffee a unique experience and Ubers purpose was to make cab-hailing easier.
Of course, there are also organizations which main purpose is not the pursuit of profit, generally known as non-profits or NGOs. The purpose of these organizations is often focused more on a societal good, or a specific context. Greenpeace has a pretty obvious purpose completely unrelated to profit, as does Peta. Other organizations have goals less beneficial to all of society, such as ISIS or the IRA, but generally fall into this category as well.
The two do not need to be as exclusive as it seems. An organization can be found as for profit, while still following a goal beneficial to society. Famously, Tesla comes to mind. A car manufacturer in pursuit of profit, found with the purpose of eliminating one of the biggest polluters of the planet – gasoline powered cars.
The purpose of the organization, more so than anything else perhaps, is the heart keeping it alive. An organization without a purpose is after all just a group of people. And often, without this common purpose, the organization falters rather quickly.
But sometimes, the purpose of the organization and the actual outcome of what it achieves are not perfectly aligned. Consider Greenpeace, or Fridays for Future, both organizations that want to raise environmental awareness and stop the exploitation of the planet at the hand of capitalists. Yet a lot of people are turned away by the dramatic theatrics these organizations employ, the stunts and acts which not only inconvenience big organizations but often normal people just going about their business. Many examples surfaced of the internet of climate activists damaging art works or gluing themselves to streets. More of then not, they raised awareness, but quickly drew criticism for their methods to do so and arguably not helped the planet in a meaningful way.
The same could be said for Tesla. While for now it has led to a major shift in the car market, with all major organizations focusing on electric vehicles going forward, the shift has so far been less beneficial than one could have expected. For Tesla to truly achieve a mission of clean transportation, the electricity that EVs run on would need to be fully renewable as well – which so far it is not:
If you burn coal to power an EV, there is virtually no benefit over using as traditional car. The issues with the components used in the car, especially the lithium in the battery, have also been widely criticized.
These were examples in which an organization and its purpose are not perfectly aligned, but what the actions go directly against the purpose? Not in a nefarious, we say one thing and do another way, but in an honest effort which just so happens to lead to an opposing outcome. In my previous essay: Intentions v. Incentives, I have explained perverse incentives, which motivate a person to do exactly the opposite of what was wanted. This is a similar issue, a perverse purpose, in which pursuing a goal is equal to working against it.
Think about SpaceX, another Musk company and the most valuable private company in the US. Its purpose was to make humanity a multi planet species, to ensure mankind’s survival in the event of planetary extinction. Said differently, in case that Earth becomes uninhabitable, trough climate change, a meteor, or the sun exploding for example, humanity could continue to live on a different planet, the first contender being Mars. And SpaceX did revolutionize rocket launches, being the first one to make rockets reusable and therefore space travel much more affordable. Currently, it is less about shipping humans to different planets, but rather doing commercial missions, such as supplying space stations or sending satellites into space. The latter it also does on its own behalf, as part of the Starlink programme, in which it wants to have more than 40.000 satellites orbit earth to enable planet covering Wi-Fi for subscribers.
And precisely the latter part, while well intentioned, could lead it to undermine the very purpose of the company. Because in pursuing this strategy and showcasing its availability, it drew competition. Other companies are now pursuing the same idea, such as OneWeb or Amazon. Perhaps more worrying, the Chinese government has similar plans to support a domestic industry under an entity called Guo Wang, and a network of different startups, which applied for 13.000 satellites so far. Why is this a worrying development?
For humanity to become an interplanetary species, first we need to transport humans to other planets. But in the near future, this could become very difficult, if not impossible, thanks to the Kessler Syndrome. The Kessler Syndrome describes the idea where there is enough junk, such as unused or uncontrollable satellites in the earths orbit that they collide and create space debris, which in orbiting the earth collide with other orbiting systems, creating ever more space debris. At some point, this layer of debris could become an impenetrable shield, making any effort to leave the planet impossible, since any rocket entering this layer would literally get shredded.
The number of proposed satellites is staggering, seeing as only about 12.000 have been launched so far in all of human history, with nearly 3000 of them inoperational, just orbiting earth without control. Of course, experts are aware of this issue. The Kessler syndrome was first hypothesized by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, and efforts have been taken to limit the amount of space debris. The Space Safety Coalition has proposed voluntary guidelines, such as equipping all satellites above operating above 400 km with a propulsion system, amending contracts to dispose of rockets safely in the atmosphere and encrypting satellites to defend against possible hijacking.
But all these are just proposed guidelines and in the past, China has been not all too careful with its space programme. Just in December 2022, a Chinese rocket fell uncontrolled into the Pacific Ocean, while other parts left behind a 350 piece cloud of space debris. This uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere was the 4th time in the last 3 years, and China has repeatedly drawn criticism from other space agencies for its indifferent attitude toward safe space faring. There is a real possibility that China continues this carelessness with orbiting systems that later become uncontrollable.
NASA estimates already more than 500.000 pieces of space debris larger than a marble orbiting the planet, and with the planned launches of satellites this could become much more and much more unbearable. While SpaceX may be careful to avoid collisions and leaving behind parts of its satellites, the competitors it inspired could be less inclined to do so, ultimately leading us to a state in which we are entirely trapped on Earth, defeating the very purpose SpaceX was built upon.