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It's interesting speculation. I just can't accept the existence of a spacecraft that can last 100 years without a catastrophic failure, or Ceres being reforged
by maxbond 2y ago
It's interesting speculation. I just can't accept the existence of a spacecraft that can last 100 years without a catastrophic failure, or Ceres being reforged into a factory, or a nation of people who live entirely independent of Earth until I see it.
Sometimes people talk about these things as if they are inevitable, but I would say there's an extremely good chance we go extinct without ever leaving this solar system (Voyager 1 notwithstanding). I think this is a valuable and grounding perspective in planning for the long term future of humanity, because we have to accept that that future takes place here on Earth and largely with the technology we already have. Space colonization is seductive, but like all silver bullets, impossible to operationalize within the constraints imposed on us by our situation.
But it's probably not a useful one when picking SETI targets or generating other research ideas, and that stands on it's own merit.