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I don't see why we're obliged to care about the sanctity of Martian life. It's not an ethical question, because it doesn't involve harming any sentient being: l

I don't see why we're obliged to care about the sanctity of Martian life. It's not an ethical question, because it doesn't involve harming any sentient being: living species don't have any inherent right to exist. Species go extinct on Earth all the time, and we aren't obliged to resurrect them. Making humans better off (through advancing science, off-world colonization or mining) is an absolute good, and it should always take precedence over the possible extinction of non-sentient species.

pop8row9 10y ago
Ethics is changing: living species do have an inherent right to exist, I assert. The only item which is an absolute good is the end of human killing and torture in all its forms.
- sevenless 10y ago
  Species evolve into other species all the time, and go extinct all the time. This is a natural, inevitable, and ethically neutral event. Probably billions of species have gone extinct in Earth's history. Nobody's rights are violated if it happens. If it were ethically bad, we would be obliged to somehow stop all evolution and extinctions from happening. Individual beings (humans, maybe some animals) have rights; groups of individuals are not individuals themselves, and have no rights, not even the right to exist. This is even the case if the individuals are humans; if they are bacteria, the case is much weaker, as bacteria have no right to life (we kill millions of them every second just by being alive).
  - xapata 10y ago
    Are you trolling? The United States and most countries, AFAIK, have laws protecting endangered species.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Cute, fuzzy endangered species anyway.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      None of those laws apply on Mars, or anywhere else outside the Earth ecosystem. The only people who might be negatively impacted by destroying any (or all) native Martian organisms are research biologists and pharmaceutical manufacturers, and they still have plenty of work to do with Earth species. We can afford to debate the ethics of genociding xenospecies on other planets after we have replicated the Earth biosphere on a second planet. It sucks for Martian life--if it exists--but Earth needs Mars before exporting Solar life to other star systems. Martian species can either evolve enough to make a useful contribution--or at least enough to ask for mercy--or they can die and get out of our way. That is the cost here. Are you willing to sacrifice every living human (or human successor species) in existence a few billion years from now for the sake of some suspected xenobacteria now? I am not. Protect Martian species at the expense of Earth species at your own peril. Attempting a Greenpeace-style "save the xenobacteria" sit-in will just get you thrown out of the airlocks.
      - xapata 10y ago
        > None of those laws apply on Mars The article states that the US and the Soviets signed a treaty to protect alien life, so I guess they're saying we have an international law that applies on Mars. Yes, I know the Soviet Union doesn't exist any more. > sacrifice every living human ... I don't think you read the article thoroughly.
        logfromblammo 10y ago
        I didn't think it required a thorough reading. The Planetary Protection Office is a farce, in my opinion. Even if there were species on Mars to protect, they're going to have to fend for themselves against potentially superior Earth organisms. That's how life works; red in tooth and claw. I am actually of the opinion that we should intentionally infect all of our space probes with as many extremophiles as we can before sending them up, on the off chance that if Earth were destroyed tomorrow, that one lonely surviving bacterium might give the next planet a head start on DNA-based life. And I was referring to the eventual destruction of Earth itself by the expansion of the sun. Or any other mass-extinction event, really, but that's the nearly guaranteed, almost inevitable one. If humans do not transplant Earth life to other planets as quickly and cheaply as possible, out of fear of potentially destroying any native xenospecies that may exist, the gap in expenses and technical requirements may prevent that transplantation from ever occurring on a grand enough scale to matter. Earth life will then be destroyed when Earth is destroyed. I'm not going to doom trillions of organisms on the possibility that they might infect other planets. Colonizing other planets is the biggest point in favor of having a space program! -- In the US, a treaty requires implementing legislation to be binding on the subjects rather than just the government. Any such law would only be de facto applicable to American or Russian [0] subjects returning to Earth (and specifically the US or Russia) from Mars. Anyone remaining on Mars could simply renounce citizenship and thumb his or her nose at the blue planet. Without such a law, the US would be responsible for breach of the treaty, and the person doing the act that triggered the breach would be blameless. It would be analogous to attempting to enforce English colonial laws in Boston after 1783, except it would take the cops 2.5 years to get there before they could even begin to try to arrest you. [0] I think Russia is the designated successor state to most, if not all, USSR treaties.
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
This looks like a comment surprisingly devoid of intellectual curiosity. Leaving all matter of ethics aside, how could anyone be for destroying possibly the only alien life we might discover in our lifetimes in search for resources? Earth has plenty of resources to support mankind; we just need to manage them better. I'm sorry, but your comment just reeks of arrogance.
krschultz 10y ago
The implicit argument you are making is that off world colonization or mining is more valuable to our species than finding alien microbes. Space mining is fun in sci-fi movies, but it makes very little economic sense. More so when you are talking about lifting resources out of a planet's gravity well. Colonization is interesting, but in the early years it will primarily be focused on science and not building a second place for us to live. Destroying the exact thing we came to study seems dumb.

pop8row9 10y ago

Ethics is changing: living species do have an inherent right to exist, I assert. The only item which is an absolute good is the end of human killing and torture in all its forms.

sevenless 10y ago
Species evolve into other species all the time, and go extinct all the time. This is a natural, inevitable, and ethically neutral event. Probably billions of species have gone extinct in Earth's history. Nobody's rights are violated if it happens. If it were ethically bad, we would be obliged to somehow stop all evolution and extinctions from happening. Individual beings (humans, maybe some animals) have rights; groups of individuals are not individuals themselves, and have no rights, not even the right to exist. This is even the case if the individuals are humans; if they are bacteria, the case is much weaker, as bacteria have no right to life (we kill millions of them every second just by being alive).
- xapata 10y ago
  Are you trolling? The United States and most countries, AFAIK, have laws protecting endangered species.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Cute, fuzzy endangered species anyway.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    None of those laws apply on Mars, or anywhere else outside the Earth ecosystem. The only people who might be negatively impacted by destroying any (or all) native Martian organisms are research biologists and pharmaceutical manufacturers, and they still have plenty of work to do with Earth species. We can afford to debate the ethics of genociding xenospecies on other planets after we have replicated the Earth biosphere on a second planet. It sucks for Martian life--if it exists--but Earth needs Mars before exporting Solar life to other star systems. Martian species can either evolve enough to make a useful contribution--or at least enough to ask for mercy--or they can die and get out of our way. That is the cost here. Are you willing to sacrifice every living human (or human successor species) in existence a few billion years from now for the sake of some suspected xenobacteria now? I am not. Protect Martian species at the expense of Earth species at your own peril. Attempting a Greenpeace-style "save the xenobacteria" sit-in will just get you thrown out of the airlocks.
    - xapata 10y ago
      > None of those laws apply on Mars The article states that the US and the Soviets signed a treaty to protect alien life, so I guess they're saying we have an international law that applies on Mars. Yes, I know the Soviet Union doesn't exist any more. > sacrifice every living human ... I don't think you read the article thoroughly.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        I didn't think it required a thorough reading. The Planetary Protection Office is a farce, in my opinion. Even if there were species on Mars to protect, they're going to have to fend for themselves against potentially superior Earth organisms. That's how life works; red in tooth and claw. I am actually of the opinion that we should intentionally infect all of our space probes with as many extremophiles as we can before sending them up, on the off chance that if Earth were destroyed tomorrow, that one lonely surviving bacterium might give the next planet a head start on DNA-based life. And I was referring to the eventual destruction of Earth itself by the expansion of the sun. Or any other mass-extinction event, really, but that's the nearly guaranteed, almost inevitable one. If humans do not transplant Earth life to other planets as quickly and cheaply as possible, out of fear of potentially destroying any native xenospecies that may exist, the gap in expenses and technical requirements may prevent that transplantation from ever occurring on a grand enough scale to matter. Earth life will then be destroyed when Earth is destroyed. I'm not going to doom trillions of organisms on the possibility that they might infect other planets. Colonizing other planets is the biggest point in favor of having a space program! -- In the US, a treaty requires implementing legislation to be binding on the subjects rather than just the government. Any such law would only be de facto applicable to American or Russian [0] subjects returning to Earth (and specifically the US or Russia) from Mars. Anyone remaining on Mars could simply renounce citizenship and thumb his or her nose at the blue planet. Without such a law, the US would be responsible for breach of the treaty, and the person doing the act that triggered the breach would be blameless. It would be analogous to attempting to enforce English colonial laws in Boston after 1783, except it would take the cops 2.5 years to get there before they could even begin to try to arrest you. [0] I think Russia is the designated successor state to most, if not all, USSR treaties.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

This looks like a comment surprisingly devoid of intellectual curiosity. Leaving all matter of ethics aside, how could anyone be for destroying possibly the only alien life we might discover in our lifetimes in search for resources? Earth has plenty of resources to support mankind; we just need to manage them better. I'm sorry, but your comment just reeks of arrogance.

krschultz 10y ago

The implicit argument you are making is that off world colonization or mining is more valuable to our species than finding alien microbes. Space mining is fun in sci-fi movies, but it makes very little economic sense. More so when you are talking about lifting resources out of a planet's gravity well. Colonization is interesting, but in the early years it will primarily be focused on science and not building a second place for us to live. Destroying the exact thing we came to study seems dumb.