(OPINION) Billionaire Elon Musk on Wednesday gave brief remarks at the World Government Summit, warning attendees to avoid excessive cooperation because it could pose an existential threat.
The 2023 World Government Summit commenced Monday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Musk delivered his speech remotely via video call.
“I know this is called the ‘World Government Summit,’ but I think we should be a little bit concerned about actually becoming too much of a single world government,” Musk said.
“If I may say, we want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having — frankly, this might sound a little odd — too much cooperation between governments,” the Tesla CEO continued. Musk referenced the fall of Rome, which took place in the 5th century, as an example of civilizational collapse.
According to Fox News, He pointed to the simultaneous advancements in the arts and sciences among Islamic societies as an example of the benefits of separated civilizations that are capable of survival without the other.
Musk explained, “While Rome was falling, Islam was rising, so you had a caliphate doing well while Rome was doing terribly. And that ended up being a source of preservation of knowledge and many scientific advancements.”
“So I think we need to be a little conscious of being too much of a single civilization because if we are too much of a single civilization, then the whole thing may collapse,” he continued.
“I’m obviously not suggesting war or anything like that. But I think we want to be a little wary of actually cooperating too much,” Musk concluded. “It sounds a little odd, but we want to have some amount of civilizational diversity so that if something does go wrong with some part of civilization then the whole thing doesn’t just collapse and humanity keeps moving forward.”
