The Mars-colonization myth can encourage people to neglect Earth's problems on the assumption that humanity will leave, even though the speaker says that departure will not happen.

“hatched from reality right you know musk has created i mean musk did not originate the myth of colonizing mars but he is you know in the same way that kurzweil didn't create the idea of the singularity musk didn't create the idea of colonizing mars but he's certainly you know mr occupy mars these days and and it creates this idea that we don't need to care about the problems here on earth because we're leaving you know and that's just not going to happen”