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Seems great for all the basic research it will require. But I'm unsure about the morality of it. I think the drive to expand and discover new things is perhaps

Seems great for all the basic research it will require. But I'm unsure about the morality of it. I think the drive to expand and discover new things is perhaps a direct cause of the deeper problems we have on Earth. Would humanity be better off just becoming a sustainable population of monks? Or are we morally equivalent to a virus, reduced to survival of the fittest and always seeking out the next host to reap?

freehunter 10y ago
Does it really matter? I mean honestly... until we discover other life out there, nothing we do matters one little bit as long as we stay alive. We owe it to the future of our species to diversify as much as possible. Even if we go green and save the planet, our planet will end anyway. Accidents, asteroids, etc. Something will get the planet, it will. But even if we go farm out every other planet and make it barren and even if we mined every ounce of every other planet in our galaxy... if we're the only life in the area, or the only life in the universe, it doesn't matter one bit. We could blow up every single other planet and it wouldn't hurt us at all, because we can't live there. So the only thing that makes sense is to keep living like we are the only life in the universe, all the while trying to figure out if that's true or not. Mars isn't alive. Venus isn't alive. The moon isn't alive. It's not "reaping" a "host" any more than me painting the walls of my house is. It doesn't make one lick of difference. There's nothing immoral about spreading to other lifeless planets.
- johnfjacobi 10y ago
  > the only thing that makes sense is to keep living like we are the only life in the universe uh...we aren't.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    Prove it, with actual hard evidence. Show me real, actual, living life that exists right now. Until then, it's hypothetical and it would be insane to put our species at risk of extinction if there is the possibility that we're the only life in the universe.
    - johnfjacobi 10y ago
      Maybe we're speaking past each other or using terms with different definitions. Either that or you're arguing from a sort of Cartesian standpoint. Because you're question has obvious answers: dolphins, trees, literally everything underneath the umbrella term of "biosphere"... And if you only mean conscious life, (1) I'm not sure why that is a special consideration, but I am familiar with the discussions around this point; (2) it is more than possible that certain animals, like other primates, dolphins, whales, etc., have some degree of conscious experience, and it is also more than possible that we won't find anything more obvious than that on another planet. Edit: Ah, I see. You were saying there is no life in space. I was thinking more along the lines of, "what about all the environmental damage we will do in order to travel to outer space." I just didn't realize that I should have included that concern in my initial comment, since for some reason I thought it would be obvious.
      - freehunter 10y ago
        Yep, by life I meant "life on Earth". I guess I should have clarified. What I mean is, if Earth gets destroyed, all life everywhere (as far as we know it) gets destroyed. So we should do our best, whatever it takes, to make sure we spread life to other planets to mitigate that. Sure we may cause environmental damage to get there, but I think that is far outweighed by the benefit of being a multi-planet species.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
I think from a morality standpoint it is an excellent reality T.V. show at best. But we are in such a critical moment right now in terms of our ability to really destroy the ecology we depend on. It's like there a small fire started in the bathroom and some of us have chosen this moment to start planning a new vacation home. For Elon Musk personally, he's so involved in the shift away from carbon through his work at Tesla that it feels like it balances out. He's a leader in fighting the fire and also spending half of his time on the new house. But in general I can't really commend the aerospace engineers working on problems like this when we are so close to being able to fix so many age old problems on Earth. This is such a critical couple of decades for Earth technology.
- JBReefer 10y ago
  Fires burn too fast for this analogy to work. Even in the worst climate change cases, we have a very long time to work out how to get off the planet. It would be great to avoid, but moving people out of coastal cities certainly has a precedence, and there's plenty of land in Kansas, the Taiga, etc. Life would be tougher than today, but it's not an existential thread.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    I think there's a pretty high probability that such a migration would be accompanied by quite a lot of genocide and war.
    - JBReefer 10y ago
      What, NYC vs Rockland county? That wouldn't be a genocide, it would be a zoning argument. Same as Miami vs Georgia. If waves lap up against my place in Queens, I'm not going to start killing my neighbors. I'm going to move to a Minnesota with better weather.
      - imron 10y ago
        You and how many other millions of people? Would the Minnesotans be happy with that?
orky56 10y ago
It sounds like we're hedging our bets not a moment too soon. The extinction even Musk alludes to is not just the natural expiry of the planet. The end of human civilization could come from a natural freak cause or just a series of bad judgements. Nuclear war or other conflicts making basic food/water inaccessible to most/all humans may just be the tipping point for our civilization's demise. Every other planet or location we can inhabit is another option for civilization to survive on.

freehunter 10y ago

Does it really matter? I mean honestly... until we discover other life out there, nothing we do matters one little bit as long as we stay alive. We owe it to the future of our species to diversify as much as possible. Even if we go green and save the planet, our planet will end anyway. Accidents, asteroids, etc. Something will get the planet, it will. But even if we go farm out every other planet and make it barren and even if we mined every ounce of every other planet in our galaxy... if we're the only life in the area, or the only life in the universe, it doesn't matter one bit. We could blow up every single other planet and it wouldn't hurt us at all, because we can't live there. So the only thing that makes sense is to keep living like we are the only life in the universe, all the while trying to figure out if that's true or not. Mars isn't alive. Venus isn't alive. The moon isn't alive. It's not "reaping" a "host" any more than me painting the walls of my house is. It doesn't make one lick of difference. There's nothing immoral about spreading to other lifeless planets.

johnfjacobi 10y ago
> the only thing that makes sense is to keep living like we are the only life in the universe uh...we aren't.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Prove it, with actual hard evidence. Show me real, actual, living life that exists right now. Until then, it's hypothetical and it would be insane to put our species at risk of extinction if there is the possibility that we're the only life in the universe.
  - johnfjacobi 10y ago
    Maybe we're speaking past each other or using terms with different definitions. Either that or you're arguing from a sort of Cartesian standpoint. Because you're question has obvious answers: dolphins, trees, literally everything underneath the umbrella term of "biosphere"... And if you only mean conscious life, (1) I'm not sure why that is a special consideration, but I am familiar with the discussions around this point; (2) it is more than possible that certain animals, like other primates, dolphins, whales, etc., have some degree of conscious experience, and it is also more than possible that we won't find anything more obvious than that on another planet. Edit: Ah, I see. You were saying there is no life in space. I was thinking more along the lines of, "what about all the environmental damage we will do in order to travel to outer space." I just didn't realize that I should have included that concern in my initial comment, since for some reason I thought it would be obvious.
    - freehunter 10y ago
      Yep, by life I meant "life on Earth". I guess I should have clarified. What I mean is, if Earth gets destroyed, all life everywhere (as far as we know it) gets destroyed. So we should do our best, whatever it takes, to make sure we spread life to other planets to mitigate that. Sure we may cause environmental damage to get there, but I think that is far outweighed by the benefit of being a multi-planet species.

erikpukinskis 10y ago

I think from a morality standpoint it is an excellent reality T.V. show at best. But we are in such a critical moment right now in terms of our ability to really destroy the ecology we depend on. It's like there a small fire started in the bathroom and some of us have chosen this moment to start planning a new vacation home. For Elon Musk personally, he's so involved in the shift away from carbon through his work at Tesla that it feels like it balances out. He's a leader in fighting the fire and also spending half of his time on the new house. But in general I can't really commend the aerospace engineers working on problems like this when we are so close to being able to fix so many age old problems on Earth. This is such a critical couple of decades for Earth technology.

JBReefer 10y ago
Fires burn too fast for this analogy to work. Even in the worst climate change cases, we have a very long time to work out how to get off the planet. It would be great to avoid, but moving people out of coastal cities certainly has a precedence, and there's plenty of land in Kansas, the Taiga, etc. Life would be tougher than today, but it's not an existential thread.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  I think there's a pretty high probability that such a migration would be accompanied by quite a lot of genocide and war.
  - JBReefer 10y ago
    What, NYC vs Rockland county? That wouldn't be a genocide, it would be a zoning argument. Same as Miami vs Georgia. If waves lap up against my place in Queens, I'm not going to start killing my neighbors. I'm going to move to a Minnesota with better weather.
    - imron 10y ago
      You and how many other millions of people? Would the Minnesotans be happy with that?

orky56 10y ago

It sounds like we're hedging our bets not a moment too soon. The extinction even Musk alludes to is not just the natural expiry of the planet. The end of human civilization could come from a natural freak cause or just a series of bad judgements. Nuclear war or other conflicts making basic food/water inaccessible to most/all humans may just be the tipping point for our civilization's demise. Every other planet or location we can inhabit is another option for civilization to survive on.