7 ms·

The Ethics of Spreading Life in the Cosmos

42 points by JPLeRouzic 2y ago

ycombinete 2y ago
The same questions posed by “astronomical suffering” in this essay are posed of terrestrial suffering in the debates around anti-natalism. The infamous (amongst academic philosophers) book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence [0] by David Benatar, takes the stance that no it is not ethical to bring a human into this world. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been]
- jack_h 2y ago
  I feel like if our ethics tells us procreation is unethical we may want to re-evaluate the foundations of ethics.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    Why? Don't we reason about these things exactly to arrive at conclusions that go against our intuitions or feelings? If we decide that the reasoning is flawed merely because we don't like the conclusion, we might as well not reason at all.
    - ycombinete 2y ago
      Agreed. Bertrand Russel wrote of the Sophist Georgias, “We do not know what his arguments were, but I can well imagine that they had a logical force which compelled his opponents to take refuge in edification.” Positions that make me feel indignant, or viscerally repulsed, are often ones that I simultaneously don’t like and also have no argument against. (Moral Relativism, for example.)
    - setsewerd 2y ago
      We reason these things not simply to contradict our feelings (though that is often a side effect), but to draw conclusions of how best to improve society and our species as a whole. If human procreation is immoral simply because it creates suffering for "sentient" beings, then it's this particular line of ethics that needs to go extinct, rather than humanity itself. "The rules we invented for ourselves say that we shouldn't continue existing" seems like a mindset that natural selection will handle by itself though.
      - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        >If human procreation is immoral simply because it creates suffering for "sentient" beings, then it's this particular line of ethics that needs to go extinct You're not accurately describing the argument the linked article is making, but even so, is the argument you're making that creating suffering for sentient beings is not morally wrong? >"The rules we invented for ourselves say that we shouldn't continue existing" seems like a mindset that natural selection will handle by itself though. This is completely orthogonal to whether the argument is correct. Natural selection isn't moral; it just is.
        setsewerd 2y ago
        > You're not accurately describing the argument the linked article is making Page quote: "Benatar's antinatalist philosophy: sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate." The absolutism and anthropocentrism inherent in that statement renders his whole argument kind of silly. The existence of life itself is inevitably going to cause harm, regardless of how self-aware that particular life form is. It might be smaller degrees of harm, or more indirect, but harm nonetheless. Sure we should try to minimize the harm we cause others, within reason, on a case-by-case basis, but if your best solution to that is self-imposed specicide, what is the point of ethics? (Also the comment about natural selection was a half-joke, not a stance on the argument, but your final sentence seems to agree with me anyway.)
        InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    - DennisP 2y ago
      If reasoning is based on verifiable facts and logic, sure. But in this case, the starting point for his reasoning appears to be our own intuitions and feelings: "The reason why we do not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because absent pleasures are not bad." But we also don't lament bringing somebody into existence; in fact we tend to celebrate it. So we could just as well conclude that absent pleasures really are bad, or turn it around and say that pleasurable existence is good.
      - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        Why do you think this statement is based on feelings? It seems axiomatic. Non-existent beings can't be harmed.
        DennisP 2y ago
        But that wasn't the statement. The statement was that "absent pleasures are not bad." Whether something is good or bad is a value judgement, just like "procreation is bad" (or good). I countered with another value judgment: "pleasurable existence is good." This seems trivially true as well but Benatar ignores it. Whether the good of existence outweighs the bad of existence is yet another value judgment, and also depends on particular experience.
        InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        The point is that a person who isn't born cannot make a value judgment about whether something is bad.
        DennisP 2y ago
        Nor can they make a judgement about whether the good outweighs the bad. So that's up to us. I'm saying it makes no sense to make that decision solely based on the bad while ignoring all that's good; if you do, then of course it follows that it's bad to procreate, but that's because you left out half of the equation. In my personal life, I feel that the good far outweighs the bad, and existence is far better than nonexistence. So it doesn't make sense to me to assume that another person who doesn't happen to exist yet won't feel the same way.
    - phkahler 2y ago
      >> Why Because that notion is stupid on its face. If there is an ethical code that transcends human existence then nature itself violated that code by letting life evolve into humans. If some jackass wants to claim to know better than the forces of nature well... I'm not sure what else to say about that.
      - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        Nature doesn't care about ethics.
  - golemotron 2y ago
    Nothing to worry about. Anti-Natalism is self-extinguishing.
    - bhouston 2y ago
      > Anti-Natalism is self-extinguishing. Always had been.
    - sunrunner 2y ago
      And, by definition, Natalism is self-propagating. Is the implication here that the ideas that propagate and persist are inherently better?
      - tticvs 2y ago
        That is quite literally the meaning of life, so yes.
        sunrunner 2y ago
        Citation needed? :)
        tticvs 2y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
      - SammyNameTaken 2y ago
        The answer is wherever the balance is between extinction and cancer-like behavior
    - esafak 2y ago
      No, because ideas can be spread and enforced. People who believe in marrying minors don't outbreed those who don't.
  - lo_zamoyski 2y ago
    It fundamentally misunderstands the good and what ethics is about. Ethics is practical philosophy, concerned with the good life. It's basic question is "how shall I live?" It is concerned with one's voluntary acts, which presupposes one's existence. It is ridiculous to speak of one's existence as being bad when existence is the basis for the good, or harmful to others when you've already undermined the value of the existence of the individual. The measure of the moral life is rooted in how well voluntary acts accord with human nature. Immorality manifests in the discrepancy between nature and voluntary act. If human beings were cannibals by nature, there would be nothing wrong with cannibalism, for example, because being a cannibal would advance the actualization of a human individual and thus contribute to his good. But we aren't, and because of our social nature, cannibalism is to our own grave detriment in various ways. You cannot make such moral judgements, or make sense of notions like "selfishness", outside the context and parameters of the social nature of human beings. What is good for human beings is determined by our nature. And because of our social nature, it is good that others exist. Claims like "coming into existence causes harm" would be horrifying if they weren't so fucking stupid. People like that aren't serious thinkers. They're people who need psychiatric help, and maybe should knock off what looks like some kind of weird, life-hating self-pity. Maybe they should read some Nietzsche.
    - ycombinete 2y ago
      You represent a coherent model of (a communal and naturalistic) ethics well. I think you make a small argument against yourself though. > It's basic question is "how shall I live?" It is concerned with one's voluntary acts Whether or not to have children is a question of how one should live, and is concerned with one of life's most important voluntary acts. It seems like you think that existence is good per se because the idea of the good presupposes existence. If I understood that correctly, is that not circular reasoning? Your last paragraph of ad hominem and no true scottsman attacks against anyone who disagrees with you on the matter was a bit shocking after the coherence of your first. Is this the model of a "serious thinker"? (Although I know Nietzsche did indeed like a good ad hominem!) I think it's fair to say that David Benatar is a serious person, and a serious thinker. Although perhaps we have different ideas of what that entails. Just FYI, I'm not an anti-natalist (I hope not with a baby on the way!), I only shared the link because it echoes the Astronomical Suffering idea that the OP article talks about.
- izzydata 2y ago
  Assuming suffering is bad suggests there is some cosmic morality that the universe is judging us by. Perhaps spreading suffering across the universe actually doesn't matter at all.
  - rytill 2y ago
    There are many effective ways to argue against what you're saying, but I'll choose the easiest. You said "perhaps" it doesn't matter. Well, perhaps it does matter. If there is even a small chance it does matter, we might as well act like it matters.
    - izzydata 2y ago
      I'm not actually advocating for or against anything. I'm mostly suggesting there are some assumptions being made and that some concepts need to be better defined so it can be better understood what kind of framework we are thinking in. I think it matters when talking about things at the scale of the universe.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      The problem with philosophical abstractions is that you can conceive of just about any possibility. As a crude example, just about any baby you see might grow into a future dictator worse than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot combined. Is it really ethical to do anything without first of all screening all children under 3 to ascertain the probability that one of them will wipe out all life on earth by age 40? Shouldn't this be the top priority of our species? ...and so on.
    - anamax 2y ago
      > Well, perhaps it does matter. If there is even a small chance it does matter, we might as well act like it matters. Ah, Pascal's Wager. There's a small chance that you giving me $100 matters, so surely I'm going to find a check in my mail box next week, right?
chowells 2y ago
[flagged]
- pfdietz 2y ago
  > statistically there is other life in the universe Please explain the reasoning by which one reaches this conclusion.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
    Out of the dozens of planets in the universe, Earth is not likely to be so unique that it is the only place where life has arisen.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      This statement doesn't seem to follow from anything. Why is Earth "not likely to be so unique"?
      - zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
        Your comment is not worth replying to. https://www.space.com/30172-six-most-earth-like-alien-planets.html https://www.space.com/30172-six-most-earth-like-alien-planet...
        pfdietz 2y ago
        It's weird you think that link settles things. A planet could be Earth-like without having life. We don't know how likely life is to arise on an Earth-like planet. In particular, we cannot conclude that because we are here, the probability of it happening on Earth was high, due to observer selection bias. https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/W6-Observer-selection-effects.pdf https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/W6-Observer-sele...
    - rytill 2y ago
      Dozens? Don't you mean, probably hundreds of trillions in the observable universe? Not that the number of planets really implies anything when we don't know the probability of life arising on one of them.
flenserboy 2y ago
life expands to fit the space it's given. pretty much every habitable niche on Earth has something living there, extending even well down into the planet. we probably should be helping things along by sending craft filled with various single-celled organisms (& some tardigrades for good measure) to places where life isn't found (do the research first; no need to overwrite what could already be there) but might be able to get a toehold.
- ninalanyon 2y ago
  See Surface Tension by James Blish. https://metallicman.com/surface-tension-by-jamesblish-free-full-text/ https://metallicman.com/surface-tension-by-jamesblish-free-f... https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/surface-tension-full-read.pdf https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/surface-t...
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  Since terraforming is such a lengthy process, I wonder if such quick-evolving organisms would become something lethal to Earth life, making that planet inhospitable.
bhouston 2y ago
I think we should definitely expand life into the cosmos. Eventually we will likely find other life and hopefully it doesn't lead to conflict. I have recently been listening to the "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" sci-fi series. It is about a Von Neumann probe [1] that aids humanity in expanding past Earth. I find a lot of it is thought provoking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft
- noizejoy 2y ago
  > … find other life and hopefully it doesn't lead to conflict. … well, that would be a first.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    Nothing worth doing is easy.
    - rurp 2y ago
      This isn't like trying to start a new workout routine where the worst case scenario is some mild discomfort. The downside of contact with aliens is the obliteration of unique life forms and/or humanity.
      - bhouston 2y ago
        If there are very threatening aliens, I would prefer to expand into the universe and have multiple inhabited planets and meet them being redundant rather than they just happen upon us and destroy us in a single go. Exploring the universe is more interesting anyhow. In the history of human migration, there have always been some who have decided to stay behind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#/media/File:Early_migrations_mercator.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#/media/...
- sockaddr 2y ago
  The bobiverse is such a great series
Simon_O_Rourke 2y ago
Simple ethical filter - were you or any of your descendants ever a full time resident of Jersey City. If yes, then please don't step onto the spaceship.
smokel 2y ago
> So should we attempt such a thing, and if so, what would be our motivation? The thing is, this question needs not be answered satisfactorily before a single individual accrues enough means to make it possible. Apart from non-proliferation "we" seem to be very bad at keeping technology in check.
anigbrowl 2y ago
I can't help thinking the paper referred to is basically an effort to create a sinecure for philosophy professors. Would we be cautious if some random but obviously artificial space probe appeared? Of course. It's reasonable to expect the same of any other space-capable civilization. Conversely, I also think the undertaking broad scale bio-colonization with dumb planetary infection probes is going to be way more expensive and difficult than most people imagine. We would have a better prospect by sending out mycelia with human DNA comehow encoded as passengers on some cosmic equivalent of a taking our retirement funds to Las Vegas.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  As soon as decent AGI gets developed, we could send many scouring for promising lifeless planets in relatively cheap and fast probes, so we could direct our colonization effort better. I see no ethical dilemma in spreading our life to those. If any alien probe showed up here, I hope it's also a scouting probe.

42 points by JPLeRouzic 2y ago

The same questions posed by “astronomical suffering” in this essay are posed of terrestrial suffering in the debates around anti-natalism. The infamous (amongst academic philosophers) book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence [0] by David Benatar, takes the stance that no it is not ethical to bring a human into this world. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been]

jack_h 2y ago
I feel like if our ethics tells us procreation is unethical we may want to re-evaluate the foundations of ethics.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  Why? Don't we reason about these things exactly to arrive at conclusions that go against our intuitions or feelings? If we decide that the reasoning is flawed merely because we don't like the conclusion, we might as well not reason at all.
  - ycombinete 2y ago
    Agreed. Bertrand Russel wrote of the Sophist Georgias, “We do not know what his arguments were, but I can well imagine that they had a logical force which compelled his opponents to take refuge in edification.” Positions that make me feel indignant, or viscerally repulsed, are often ones that I simultaneously don’t like and also have no argument against. (Moral Relativism, for example.)
  - setsewerd 2y ago
    We reason these things not simply to contradict our feelings (though that is often a side effect), but to draw conclusions of how best to improve society and our species as a whole. If human procreation is immoral simply because it creates suffering for "sentient" beings, then it's this particular line of ethics that needs to go extinct, rather than humanity itself. "The rules we invented for ourselves say that we shouldn't continue existing" seems like a mindset that natural selection will handle by itself though.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      >If human procreation is immoral simply because it creates suffering for "sentient" beings, then it's this particular line of ethics that needs to go extinct You're not accurately describing the argument the linked article is making, but even so, is the argument you're making that creating suffering for sentient beings is not morally wrong? >"The rules we invented for ourselves say that we shouldn't continue existing" seems like a mindset that natural selection will handle by itself though. This is completely orthogonal to whether the argument is correct. Natural selection isn't moral; it just is.
      - setsewerd 2y ago
        > You're not accurately describing the argument the linked article is making Page quote: "Benatar's antinatalist philosophy: sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate." The absolutism and anthropocentrism inherent in that statement renders his whole argument kind of silly. The existence of life itself is inevitably going to cause harm, regardless of how self-aware that particular life form is. It might be smaller degrees of harm, or more indirect, but harm nonetheless. Sure we should try to minimize the harm we cause others, within reason, on a case-by-case basis, but if your best solution to that is self-imposed specicide, what is the point of ethics? (Also the comment about natural selection was a half-joke, not a stance on the argument, but your final sentence seems to agree with me anyway.)
        InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  - DennisP 2y ago
    If reasoning is based on verifiable facts and logic, sure. But in this case, the starting point for his reasoning appears to be our own intuitions and feelings: "The reason why we do not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because absent pleasures are not bad." But we also don't lament bringing somebody into existence; in fact we tend to celebrate it. So we could just as well conclude that absent pleasures really are bad, or turn it around and say that pleasurable existence is good.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      Why do you think this statement is based on feelings? It seems axiomatic. Non-existent beings can't be harmed.
      - DennisP 2y ago
        But that wasn't the statement. The statement was that "absent pleasures are not bad." Whether something is good or bad is a value judgement, just like "procreation is bad" (or good). I countered with another value judgment: "pleasurable existence is good." This seems trivially true as well but Benatar ignores it. Whether the good of existence outweighs the bad of existence is yet another value judgment, and also depends on particular experience.
        InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        The point is that a person who isn't born cannot make a value judgment about whether something is bad.
        DennisP 2y ago
        Nor can they make a judgement about whether the good outweighs the bad. So that's up to us. I'm saying it makes no sense to make that decision solely based on the bad while ignoring all that's good; if you do, then of course it follows that it's bad to procreate, but that's because you left out half of the equation. In my personal life, I feel that the good far outweighs the bad, and existence is far better than nonexistence. So it doesn't make sense to me to assume that another person who doesn't happen to exist yet won't feel the same way.
  - phkahler 2y ago
    >> Why Because that notion is stupid on its face. If there is an ethical code that transcends human existence then nature itself violated that code by letting life evolve into humans. If some jackass wants to claim to know better than the forces of nature well... I'm not sure what else to say about that.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      Nature doesn't care about ethics.
- golemotron 2y ago
  Nothing to worry about. Anti-Natalism is self-extinguishing.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    > Anti-Natalism is self-extinguishing. Always had been.
  - sunrunner 2y ago
    And, by definition, Natalism is self-propagating. Is the implication here that the ideas that propagate and persist are inherently better?
    - tticvs 2y ago
      That is quite literally the meaning of life, so yes.
      - sunrunner 2y ago
        Citation needed? :)
        tticvs 2y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
    - SammyNameTaken 2y ago
      The answer is wherever the balance is between extinction and cancer-like behavior
  - esafak 2y ago
    No, because ideas can be spread and enforced. People who believe in marrying minors don't outbreed those who don't.
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago
  It fundamentally misunderstands the good and what ethics is about. Ethics is practical philosophy, concerned with the good life. It's basic question is "how shall I live?" It is concerned with one's voluntary acts, which presupposes one's existence. It is ridiculous to speak of one's existence as being bad when existence is the basis for the good, or harmful to others when you've already undermined the value of the existence of the individual. The measure of the moral life is rooted in how well voluntary acts accord with human nature. Immorality manifests in the discrepancy between nature and voluntary act. If human beings were cannibals by nature, there would be nothing wrong with cannibalism, for example, because being a cannibal would advance the actualization of a human individual and thus contribute to his good. But we aren't, and because of our social nature, cannibalism is to our own grave detriment in various ways. You cannot make such moral judgements, or make sense of notions like "selfishness", outside the context and parameters of the social nature of human beings. What is good for human beings is determined by our nature. And because of our social nature, it is good that others exist. Claims like "coming into existence causes harm" would be horrifying if they weren't so fucking stupid. People like that aren't serious thinkers. They're people who need psychiatric help, and maybe should knock off what looks like some kind of weird, life-hating self-pity. Maybe they should read some Nietzsche.
  - ycombinete 2y ago
    You represent a coherent model of (a communal and naturalistic) ethics well. I think you make a small argument against yourself though. > It's basic question is "how shall I live?" It is concerned with one's voluntary acts Whether or not to have children is a question of how one should live, and is concerned with one of life's most important voluntary acts. It seems like you think that existence is good per se because the idea of the good presupposes existence. If I understood that correctly, is that not circular reasoning? Your last paragraph of ad hominem and no true scottsman attacks against anyone who disagrees with you on the matter was a bit shocking after the coherence of your first. Is this the model of a "serious thinker"? (Although I know Nietzsche did indeed like a good ad hominem!) I think it's fair to say that David Benatar is a serious person, and a serious thinker. Although perhaps we have different ideas of what that entails. Just FYI, I'm not an anti-natalist (I hope not with a baby on the way!), I only shared the link because it echoes the Astronomical Suffering idea that the OP article talks about.
izzydata 2y ago
Assuming suffering is bad suggests there is some cosmic morality that the universe is judging us by. Perhaps spreading suffering across the universe actually doesn't matter at all.
- rytill 2y ago
  There are many effective ways to argue against what you're saying, but I'll choose the easiest. You said "perhaps" it doesn't matter. Well, perhaps it does matter. If there is even a small chance it does matter, we might as well act like it matters.
  - izzydata 2y ago
    I'm not actually advocating for or against anything. I'm mostly suggesting there are some assumptions being made and that some concepts need to be better defined so it can be better understood what kind of framework we are thinking in. I think it matters when talking about things at the scale of the universe.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    The problem with philosophical abstractions is that you can conceive of just about any possibility. As a crude example, just about any baby you see might grow into a future dictator worse than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot combined. Is it really ethical to do anything without first of all screening all children under 3 to ascertain the probability that one of them will wipe out all life on earth by age 40? Shouldn't this be the top priority of our species? ...and so on.
  - anamax 2y ago
    > Well, perhaps it does matter. If there is even a small chance it does matter, we might as well act like it matters. Ah, Pascal's Wager. There's a small chance that you giving me $100 matters, so surely I'm going to find a check in my mail box next week, right?

chowells 2y ago

[flagged]

pfdietz 2y ago
> statistically there is other life in the universe Please explain the reasoning by which one reaches this conclusion.
- zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
  Out of the dozens of planets in the universe, Earth is not likely to be so unique that it is the only place where life has arisen.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    This statement doesn't seem to follow from anything. Why is Earth "not likely to be so unique"?
    - zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
      Your comment is not worth replying to. https://www.space.com/30172-six-most-earth-like-alien-planets.html https://www.space.com/30172-six-most-earth-like-alien-planet...
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        It's weird you think that link settles things. A planet could be Earth-like without having life. We don't know how likely life is to arise on an Earth-like planet. In particular, we cannot conclude that because we are here, the probability of it happening on Earth was high, due to observer selection bias. https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/W6-Observer-selection-effects.pdf https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/W6-Observer-sele...
  - rytill 2y ago
    Dozens? Don't you mean, probably hundreds of trillions in the observable universe? Not that the number of planets really implies anything when we don't know the probability of life arising on one of them.

flenserboy 2y ago

life expands to fit the space it's given. pretty much every habitable niche on Earth has something living there, extending even well down into the planet. we probably should be helping things along by sending craft filled with various single-celled organisms (& some tardigrades for good measure) to places where life isn't found (do the research first; no need to overwrite what could already be there) but might be able to get a toehold.

ninalanyon 2y ago
See Surface Tension by James Blish. https://metallicman.com/surface-tension-by-jamesblish-free-full-text/ https://metallicman.com/surface-tension-by-jamesblish-free-f... https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/surface-tension-full-read.pdf https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/surface-t...
ASalazarMX 2y ago
Since terraforming is such a lengthy process, I wonder if such quick-evolving organisms would become something lethal to Earth life, making that planet inhospitable.

bhouston 2y ago

I think we should definitely expand life into the cosmos. Eventually we will likely find other life and hopefully it doesn't lead to conflict. I have recently been listening to the "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" sci-fi series. It is about a Von Neumann probe [1] that aids humanity in expanding past Earth. I find a lot of it is thought provoking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft

noizejoy 2y ago
> … find other life and hopefully it doesn't lead to conflict. … well, that would be a first.
- bhouston 2y ago
  Nothing worth doing is easy.
  - rurp 2y ago
    This isn't like trying to start a new workout routine where the worst case scenario is some mild discomfort. The downside of contact with aliens is the obliteration of unique life forms and/or humanity.
    - bhouston 2y ago
      If there are very threatening aliens, I would prefer to expand into the universe and have multiple inhabited planets and meet them being redundant rather than they just happen upon us and destroy us in a single go. Exploring the universe is more interesting anyhow. In the history of human migration, there have always been some who have decided to stay behind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#/media/File:Early_migrations_mercator.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#/media/...
sockaddr 2y ago
The bobiverse is such a great series

Simon_O_Rourke 2y ago

Simple ethical filter - were you or any of your descendants ever a full time resident of Jersey City. If yes, then please don't step onto the spaceship.

smokel 2y ago

> So should we attempt such a thing, and if so, what would be our motivation? The thing is, this question needs not be answered satisfactorily before a single individual accrues enough means to make it possible. Apart from non-proliferation "we" seem to be very bad at keeping technology in check.

anigbrowl 2y ago

I can't help thinking the paper referred to is basically an effort to create a sinecure for philosophy professors. Would we be cautious if some random but obviously artificial space probe appeared? Of course. It's reasonable to expect the same of any other space-capable civilization. Conversely, I also think the undertaking broad scale bio-colonization with dumb planetary infection probes is going to be way more expensive and difficult than most people imagine. We would have a better prospect by sending out mycelia with human DNA comehow encoded as passengers on some cosmic equivalent of a taking our retirement funds to Las Vegas.

ASalazarMX 2y ago
As soon as decent AGI gets developed, we could send many scouring for promising lifeless planets in relatively cheap and fast probes, so we could direct our colonization effort better. I see no ethical dilemma in spreading our life to those. If any alien probe showed up here, I hope it's also a scouting probe.