> Why is spreading life beyond earth so important? Because without doing that, in the long run, life will end. Why is that? Which existential threat are you re

> Why is spreading life beyond earth so important? Because without doing that, in the long run, life will end. Why is that? Which existential threat are you referring to? Overpopulation? The sun's transition into a red giant? (Not trying to be snarky, just looking for clarification.) I'm not sure I agree that prolonging the survival of life should be an overriding goal that takes precedence over all other concerns. Firstly, there is nothing intrinsically good about life. It's a complex physical process, one which has resulted in incredible emergent behaviors, but if all life were to vanish tomorrow, the Universe wouldn't really be worse off. The Universe has no goal, no desires (or at least none that we could claim to have knowledge of at this point); it's simply a bunch of atoms interacting. So this whole idea that "we must preserve the existence of life no matter what" has no objective basis. It's more a result of our own struggle to find meaning in the Universe, our own psychological need to believe that all of this isn't just cosmic dust in the end. My point: I don't think that human misery should be allowed in service of the "greater goal" of keeping life around. Because why bother? What's the point of sustaining life if misery is a prerequisite? If we can colonize other planets and explore the Universe, that's great; I'm just saying that we shouldn't use that as an overriding goal above all other concerns. The "best possible world" would be one in which everyone has the opportunity to pursue their desires, as long as their desires don't conflict with the desires of other living things (the feasibility of this scenario is another discussion altogether). And yes, I realize that if a giant asteroid were to strike the Earth tomorrow, that would interfere with a lot of people's desires. I just think that "spread at any cost" is a bad goal for humanity. If I had to choose between 100 more years of life on Earth in which everyone lived peaceful, fulfilling lives vs. one million more years of life spreading throughout the Universe at the cost of significant anguish and poverty, I think I'd lean towards Option #1.