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What makes you think any lifeform from Earth will ever independently live on another planet, much less one orbiting a distant star? Goldilocks conditions appear

What makes you think any lifeform from Earth will ever independently live on another planet, much less one orbiting a distant star? Goldilocks conditions appear to be rare, so far as we can see. And therefore very unlikely to be reached in any organism's lifetime.

jevoten 3y ago
Technological myopia bordering on outright blindness. Ever? Compare technology today to that from 2000 years ago. Now compare it with technology from 2000 years in the future. Now 10000 years. A 'generation ship' could be just a bio-lab and genetic material (possibly digitized) that is grown into life only after the destination is reached. Or after it is terraformed by other genetically altered organisms, engineered on-site by AI (or by Earth-based scientists, at the cost of a few communication round-trips). And this is just the most basic version someone from the 21st century would come up with. Edit as reply because I am "posting too fast": From TFA: We are not gods A cheap way of dismissing what is already, today, nearly working technology - artificial wombs [1], and building genomes from scratch [2]. Further, what I proposed is basically equivalent to seeds - as in literal, existing plant seeds. But we won't be able to replicate, in 10000 years of technological progress, what nature already has working? Such a claim requires showing some strong, fundamental barrier, not to have the possibility handwaved away with "we are not gods". What technological progress can't be dismissed with "we are not gods"? Landing on the moon? Splitting the atom? Heart transplants? Heavier-than-air flight? Fire? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_womb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_womb [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter...
- try_the_bass 3y ago
  A 'generation ship' could be just... From TFA: We are not gods, and anyone who thinks of science as a magic wand, or even as a verb, is making a mistake, a category error sometimes called scientism. Drill down a little harder on these issues, look at the evidence; use the scientific method properly. Limits to what we can do will quickly appear around you.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    We are not gods, and anyone who thinks of science as a magic wand, or even as a verb, is making a mistake, a category error sometimes called scientism. Drill down a little harder on these issues, look at the evidence; use the scientific method properly. Limits to what we can do will quickly appear around you. When's the last time someone making this argument turned out to be right in the long run?
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      Past performance is no guarantee of future success. And the low hanging fruit has been picked.
      - throwuwu 3y ago
        We’re not running out of fruit, we’re just so fat and lazy from eating all the fruit we’ve already picked that we haven’t even bothered to go after the rest.
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        We live in a closed system, excluding energy from the sun. Our ability to reach outside this planet's system is extremely limited, as no NEO station is independent. The fundamental physical resources needed to launch and land enough material for an independent colony, even on our moon, would strip Earth of the things needed to sustain us here. There may be more fruit out there, but it's on other continents while we live on an island atol with a single tree.
        throwuwu 3y ago
        Well you heard it here first folks, that’s a wrap. Once you finish your portion of tearing up the roads and knocking down the houses please proceed to the nearest thanatorium and enjoy the last show. Better to go now with dignity than to just wait out the inevitable here.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Technological myopia bordering on outright blindness. Ever? Compare technology today to that from 2000 years ago. Now compare it with technology from 2000 years in the future. Now 10000 years. OK. Give me the keys to your time machine, so I can take a look at what "technology from 2000 years in the future" will look like. You appear to be confusing fantasy for reality.
throwuwu 3y ago
We are talking about generation ships so one lifetime isn’t a limit. Second, they said no unmodified life would make it. Third, I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out the Copernican principal when it comes to rocky planets in the Goldilocks zone, you’re just making the same mistake that those who said any planets were a rare event and they were very wrong. Small planets are hard to spot and most of the ones we’ve found have short orbital periods around small stars. Using transits for detection is also very limiting because the orbital plane has to align perfectly with ours. Hell, there was just a story about the JWT finding a bunch of Jupiter sized planets in interstellar space that nobody predicted so it’s looking like planets are everywhere more abundant than we thought.

jevoten 3y ago

Technological myopia bordering on outright blindness. Ever? Compare technology today to that from 2000 years ago. Now compare it with technology from 2000 years in the future. Now 10000 years. A 'generation ship' could be just a bio-lab and genetic material (possibly digitized) that is grown into life only after the destination is reached. Or after it is terraformed by other genetically altered organisms, engineered on-site by AI (or by Earth-based scientists, at the cost of a few communication round-trips). And this is just the most basic version someone from the 21st century would come up with. Edit as reply because I am "posting too fast": From TFA: We are not gods A cheap way of dismissing what is already, today, nearly working technology - artificial wombs [1], and building genomes from scratch [2]. Further, what I proposed is basically equivalent to seeds - as in literal, existing plant seeds. But we won't be able to replicate, in 10000 years of technological progress, what nature already has working? Such a claim requires showing some strong, fundamental barrier, not to have the possibility handwaved away with "we are not gods". What technological progress can't be dismissed with "we are not gods"? Landing on the moon? Splitting the atom? Heart transplants? Heavier-than-air flight? Fire? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_womb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_womb [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter...

try_the_bass 3y ago
A 'generation ship' could be just... From TFA: We are not gods, and anyone who thinks of science as a magic wand, or even as a verb, is making a mistake, a category error sometimes called scientism. Drill down a little harder on these issues, look at the evidence; use the scientific method properly. Limits to what we can do will quickly appear around you.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  We are not gods, and anyone who thinks of science as a magic wand, or even as a verb, is making a mistake, a category error sometimes called scientism. Drill down a little harder on these issues, look at the evidence; use the scientific method properly. Limits to what we can do will quickly appear around you. When's the last time someone making this argument turned out to be right in the long run?
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Past performance is no guarantee of future success. And the low hanging fruit has been picked.
    - throwuwu 3y ago
      We’re not running out of fruit, we’re just so fat and lazy from eating all the fruit we’ve already picked that we haven’t even bothered to go after the rest.
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        We live in a closed system, excluding energy from the sun. Our ability to reach outside this planet's system is extremely limited, as no NEO station is independent. The fundamental physical resources needed to launch and land enough material for an independent colony, even on our moon, would strip Earth of the things needed to sustain us here. There may be more fruit out there, but it's on other continents while we live on an island atol with a single tree.
        throwuwu 3y ago
        Well you heard it here first folks, that’s a wrap. Once you finish your portion of tearing up the roads and knocking down the houses please proceed to the nearest thanatorium and enjoy the last show. Better to go now with dignity than to just wait out the inevitable here.
tivert 3y ago
> Technological myopia bordering on outright blindness. Ever? Compare technology today to that from 2000 years ago. Now compare it with technology from 2000 years in the future. Now 10000 years. OK. Give me the keys to your time machine, so I can take a look at what "technology from 2000 years in the future" will look like. You appear to be confusing fantasy for reality.

throwuwu 3y ago

We are talking about generation ships so one lifetime isn’t a limit. Second, they said no unmodified life would make it. Third, I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out the Copernican principal when it comes to rocky planets in the Goldilocks zone, you’re just making the same mistake that those who said any planets were a rare event and they were very wrong. Small planets are hard to spot and most of the ones we’ve found have short orbital periods around small stars. Using transits for detection is also very limiting because the orbital plane has to align perfectly with ours. Hell, there was just a story about the JWT finding a bunch of Jupiter sized planets in interstellar space that nobody predicted so it’s looking like planets are everywhere more abundant than we thought.