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93 points JPLeRouzic | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.463s | source
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agentultra ◴[] No.44379920[source]
Won't dreams stay dreams?

There's literally nothing there, why go all that way? The distances are so incredibly vast. It seems like we ought to be content with staying put.

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cryptoz ◴[] No.44379983[source]
All life on Earth is going die. Humanity has never been content with staying put, why would we start now? And what do you mean "literally nothing there"? The universe has a loooooot of stuff in it.
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NoMoreNicksLeft ◴[] No.44380166[source]
>Humanity has never been content with staying put, why would we start now?

For whatever reason, humanity's attitude in this regard has changed drastically in the last century. We can't even bother to make the next generations, and a shrinking population eventually (quite quickly, really) shrinks to zero. Not only do they want to "stay put", they want to lay down and die.

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kibwen ◴[] No.44380634[source]
The steelman counterargument is that focusing resources on extraplanetary colonies at the expense of the one habitable planet within reach will hasten humanity's destruction. How are you going to make an Eden on Mars if we can't even make an Eden on Earth? The only large-scale planetary engineering in humanity's history is Veniforming its home world.
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1. NoMoreNicksLeft ◴[] No.44380907[source]
>The steelman counterargument is that focusing resources on extraplanetary colonies at the expense of the one habitable planet within reach will hasten humanity's destruction.

That doesn't seem like a strong argument to me. It seems like a distraction from the crowd that would save the planet by extinguishing humanity if that's what it took. Though what value the planet might have with all of us gone I leave as an exercise for the reader.

The first priority of any society that wants to continue to exist into the future must always be to make the next generation. If you do not do this, or if you just leave the task to others hoping that someone else will do it, then you are behaving in a way that will in all probability lead towards there being no next generation sooner or later. The "global warming is the apocalypse" movement constantly talks about how the best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to have no children.

>The only large-scale planetary engineering in humanity's history is Veniforming its home world.

So it is claimed, but from my point of view it looks very much as if it's intent on making itself extinct through fertility decline. But at least carbon dioxide levels will return to normal, eh?