natural selection is fabulous.

[figsauce]

Sukebe and I were watching the Discovery Channel and discussing the value of space colonization

Comments

[barnabas_truman]

As I see it, there are a hell of a lot of things that could go wrong with Earth (or any planet, really) that are potentially destructive enough to completely wipe out humanity. Nuclear war, asteroid impact, massive solar flare, rapid climate change, violent geological upheaval, plague, etc. Everything we've worked for these last ten thousand years, gone forever. For this reason I think it would be very wise to make a "backup copy" of civilization in the form of a colony somewhere else. Yes, the other planet would be just as susceptible to disaster as Earth, but the likelihood of both Earth AND the colony being destroyed in the same stroke is much lower, and whichever one of the two survives could rebuild civilization.

[figsauce]

But ten thousand years is but a blink in the eye of the universe. We really will go down in the books as nothing more than "mostly harmless", if anyone's bothering to keep tabs.

I dunno. I think we're headed towards doing ourselves in with environmental destruction and warfare long before an asteroid comes by.

[figsauce]

...and long before we can colonize space to the point where we have an Earth II.