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> Or is it just to feel a bit more optimism that not every doomsday fear ends up coming to fruition? Exactly. I suspect mirror-image molecule life hasn't evol

• ceejayoz 2y ago
  Many invasive species get into new ecosystems only with human help. They can’t do it on their own, but once they’re there… Asian carp and zebra mussels.
• mlyle 2y ago
  I'm not in favor of a full-on precautionary principle for everything. But if you take on too many 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000 risks, eventually things go badly. Russian roulette or reckless driving looks safe-- for awhile. Note the person who really advanced the view of "igniting the atmosphere" with fission was Teller back in 1942, who was about the most pro-nuclear scientist you can find. They didn't just shrug and push the button: Bethe and others did a lot of math to conclude that it was exceptionally unlikely. (Was it too much of a risk, given that we didn't have much experimental data about nitrogen-nitrogen cross-sections? Probably not, but we can't conclude that it was a reasonable risk purely on the basis of "we didn't die.")