# The Most Expensive Thing Isn't Mars — It's That We Believed and Dreamed For Him
I recently saw people discussing Musk's acquisition of an AI coding company, and the conversation drifted to the Mars project.
A question occurred to me.
The Mars thing — does Musk himself actually believe in it?
A lot of people don't know that even Musk's own early Mars terraforming proposals included detonating nuclear bombs above the Martian polar ice caps, hoping to release carbon dioxide and gradually warm the planet.
Sounds like science fiction.
Later, scientists actually did the math.
The conclusions weren't optimistic.
Even if you released every molecule of carbon dioxide Mars has to offer, the atmospheric pressure would still fall far short.
No magnetic field.
Gravity too low.
Radiation too strong.
Distance too vast.
Maintaining a single city would be a struggle, let alone turning it into a second Earth.
Hinton was deeply unimpressed by all of this.
From his perspective, humanity has far more tangible problems.
Nuclear war.
Climate change.
AI失控.
Wealth inequality.
And yet enormous resources are being siphoned into a Mars dream with an extremely low probability of success.
Does he have a point?
Of course he does.
A very strong point, in fact.
Because every resource has an opportunity cost.
A thousand of the brightest engineers sent to Mars means a thousand of the brightest engineers not solving other problems.
A trillion dollars poured into interplanetary migration means that same trillion dollars cannot simultaneously be deployed elsewhere.
Here's the problem.
Stories have a terrifying property.
They self-fulfill.
When a story is compelling enough.
Capital shows up.
Talent shows up.
Media shows up.
Policy shows up.
And in the end, a story that originally had maybe a five percent chance can be forcibly pushed to twenty percent.
So more and more people believe.
More and more people follow.
More and more people pay.
This is especially true in the stock market.
Many people think stocks are about valuing companies.
In reality, they're often about valuing dreams.
Sometimes, they're about valuing greed.
Strictly speaking.
The future has no truth or falsehood.
Only probability.
And the most magical thing about markets is their ability to convert an extremely low-probability future into today's wealth, in advance.
Everyone knows they're gambling.
But no one thinks they'll be the last one holding the bag.
So the story grows larger.
The price climbs higher.
And the faith hardens into conviction.
In the end, I've come to believe this.
Musk's true genius may not be rockets.
Not cars.
Not even AI.
It's a capacity possessed by an exceedingly rare few.
The ability to transform an idea others regard as nearly insane into a crowdfunding project in which all of society participates.
As for whether Mars actually works out.
That may matter less than we think.
What matters is that before the outcome is known.
Countless people have already paid for the story in advance.
And the most expensive things in human history.
Are often not gold.
Not oil.
Not microchips.
But belief.
Because when enough people believe in something at the same time, it begins to alter reality.
A con artist takes your money. A prophet changes the world. The most dangerous people tend to stand somewhere between the two.
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*Video: [Liwei Two Minutes — The Most Expensive Thing Isn't Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFpGn0_V_FA)*
*by Tuya*
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🎬 **Watch the video**: [Liwei Two Minutes — The Most Expensive Thing Isn't Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFpGn0_V_FA)
📱 [Mobile version](https://liweinlp.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/mars-dream-mobile.mp4)
*by Tuya*
