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Comment by dotnet00 | Hacker News Reader

This idea often gets brought up, and it's always so ridiculous in reality. Earth will always be easier to live on, if anything it would be the opposite where the rich live it up somewhere on Earth well protected from the effects of climate change (even if it is a domed habitat, such a habitat is infinitely easier to build and expand on solid ground) , while everyone else has to labor in poor conditions in space to extract resources.

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Protip: it's a metaphor

It's not a metaphor when they've literally written "where the rich party in a satellite and we rest labor for their luxury on a ruined earth"

The "Satellite" could be a rich person's enclave. I can see an extension where someone in a wealthy powerful country has a good standard of living, but it depends on the toil and environmental destruction which affects those people "outside".

I can't help thinking you're mistaking a metaphor for a simile (where the comparison is explicit).

Everyone knows that the existing SOTA satellite (the space station) is pretty crude as habitats go, but it's a good stand-in for the bubble that the ultra-wealthy are able to inhabit thanks to an array of economic and security infrastructure. A billionaire today could spend the rest of their life on megayachts, private jets/helicopters, and island resorts without ever having to use the same streets as you and I to get around.

So, the Expanse.

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