Billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos put forward his grand vision for the future of humanity at a convention center ballroom in Washington, DC on May 9. It was certainly ambitious, with declarations that humans need to return to the moon “and stay there” and that his aerospace company Blue Origin was the first step on a path to space colonies in orbit above Earth.

Earth is the best planet, Bezos assured his audience, but building space colonies is the only way to ensure “growth and dynamism” in our future, instead of the “stasis and rationing” that would accompany remaining an Earth-based species. His colonies would allow the human population to expand to a trillion people  —   it’s currently expected to peak between eight to eleven billion —   which he promises would allow us to produce “a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.”

Maybe that’s an inspiring vision to a billionaire and the coterie of people in thrall of his every utterance, but think about it for a second: the richest man in the world is saying that the only way for humanity to thrive is to embrace his vision of open pit mines in space and moving the vast majority of the human population off Earth.