Exactly, it's fine to make a point with a story, but it should not provide justification only clarity. To go back to the original point, I've never understood

Exactly, it's fine to make a point with a story, but it should not provide justification only clarity. To go back to the original point, I've never understood the problem with 'hubris', it's not as if we have evidence for something or someone taking offence and then taking it out on us. There's no reason to believe we wouldn't be able to terraform a planet eventually. Even if we do screwup a couple of times, there's enough resources in the solar system to try again a bunch of times once/if we can get to them. There's something to be said for a human locust swarm over the milkyway. Just imagine one day in the future having an internet connection between earth and mars. For some reason imagining operating those links is even more exiting to me than the original colonization (which I'd partake in given half the chance). How would be deal with the immense latency? How would facebook or google sync their datacenters? Once a day? A private uplink with 30m lag? What?