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The chances of finding a preexisting viable alternative actually make the prospect of developing all that technology seem trivial. Life has evolved over hundre
by tmuir 11y ago
The chances of finding a preexisting viable alternative actually make the prospect of developing all that technology seem trivial.
Life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years, influenced by the earths environment, which itself has been influenced by its size/gravity, proximity to the sun, axial tilt, air composition, our atmosphere, and countless other macro scale variables, many of which are random and independent of each other. Most of these quantities have exceedingly small windows that can support human life. Furthermore, the particular sequence of these variables changing over millions of years has shaped evolution.
Think of it like this: there are 68 teams in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. This makes for 9.2 quintillion possible outcomes. There are certainly many orders of magnitude more variables that have shaped the evolution of life on earth. I'm not saying only one of those permutations results in a planet suitable for humans, just that the sheer scale of how large of a cosmic accident we are makes me think we'll run out of time before we ever find another earth suitable for normal human life.
- cl42 11y agoHmm... You're just getting me thinking now: if we get sophisticated enough to travel hundreds/thousands of light years, etc... Then wouldn't it also stand to reason that we wouldn't even need to find planets, but rather can build our own artificial "microplanet"? Curious what you think.
- tmuir 11y agoThat's a far more difficult prediction: what technology will be developed in the next several hundred years. What sticks out as some problems with building a planet are where do you get all of the material, and how would you manage its rotational and revolutional speeds as it grew larger? Propelling a space ship seems fairly simple compared with propelling a planet. Douglas Adams had some things to say about designing planets.
- DyingAdonis 11y agoI was going to rebuff about not necessarily needing a second earth, but after re-reading your earlier comment and considering sustainability issues like oxygen and food production, you may have convinced me. I guess I should spend more time being productive and less time considering how I could survive the heat death of the universe.