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I guess I think you're underestimating the scale of the problem of independently living in space? In theory we already know how to just live in space -- people

I guess I think you're underestimating the scale of the problem of independently living in space? In theory we already know how to just live in space -- people live on the ISS, and before that on Mir, for decently long amounts of time. But if we kill earth before we've fully worked out how to terraform somewhere for permanent living without restocking from a living planet, of which we know of only one for sure, that might extend human living for like.. 50 years or something but certainly not a million. I think we're realistically a long long long way away from that, and most of the ways in which we might "kill the earth" will have a negative impact on our ability to achieve it to begin with. And again, the odds of a planet-killing asteroid hitting the earth haven't changed materially in probably like a few million years. We're no less vulnerable to that than we were 20k years ago. So I don't see why you think we're less vulnerable now just because we've managed to throw some tin cans in orbit.

marcosdumay 5y ago
How much is "a long time away"? Is a thousand years enough? An almost planet killing asteroid hits us every 50 million years or so. Thus the probability of one not hitting us in a thousand years is around 99.99%. Certainly you are not proposing the great filter has a 99.99% survival rate? So talking about asteroids is absolutely a non-starter. For comparison, I was talking about a filter with survival rates of around 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% (more a few zeros, but who is counting?). What odds you place on a nuclear war?
- dharma1 5y ago
  It’s also a possibility that no matter what the timeframe, it’s simply not feasible for biological humans to live outside the Earth independently. It’s worth a shot, but it’s also worth acknowledging it may never work despite our best efforts.
- stormbrew 5y ago
  I feel like you're going around in some odd circles here. I'm not really super interested in trying to guess the odds of things we don't know about or things that have never (to our knowledge) happened, which makes me pretty skeptical of any concept built on the fermi paradox to be honest. Too many unknown unknowns. Your assertion is that the things that face us now are somehow less likely to destroy our species than the things we faced before, thus the "great filter" must be behind us. Ignoring for a moment that we certainly don't even know all the potential species-killing events we potentially face (ie. unknown unknowns), I haven't seen you explain why any of the ones we have faced are less of a problem now, or why any of the ones we face now are less dangerous than the ones we faced before. You just assert it as true and then when pressed try to haggle on some percentages you seem to have pulled out your ass.

marcosdumay 5y ago

How much is "a long time away"? Is a thousand years enough? An almost planet killing asteroid hits us every 50 million years or so. Thus the probability of one not hitting us in a thousand years is around 99.99%. Certainly you are not proposing the great filter has a 99.99% survival rate? So talking about asteroids is absolutely a non-starter. For comparison, I was talking about a filter with survival rates of around 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% (more a few zeros, but who is counting?). What odds you place on a nuclear war?

dharma1 5y ago
It’s also a possibility that no matter what the timeframe, it’s simply not feasible for biological humans to live outside the Earth independently. It’s worth a shot, but it’s also worth acknowledging it may never work despite our best efforts.
stormbrew 5y ago
I feel like you're going around in some odd circles here. I'm not really super interested in trying to guess the odds of things we don't know about or things that have never (to our knowledge) happened, which makes me pretty skeptical of any concept built on the fermi paradox to be honest. Too many unknown unknowns. Your assertion is that the things that face us now are somehow less likely to destroy our species than the things we faced before, thus the "great filter" must be behind us. Ignoring for a moment that we certainly don't even know all the potential species-killing events we potentially face (ie. unknown unknowns), I haven't seen you explain why any of the ones we have faced are less of a problem now, or why any of the ones we face now are less dangerous than the ones we faced before. You just assert it as true and then when pressed try to haggle on some percentages you seem to have pulled out your ass.