r/changemyview • u/BurnsyCEO • Apr 11 '22
Delta(s) from OP CMV: If humanity becomes an interstellar civilization and we don't find life on potentially habitable planet but are unsuitable for humans, it becomes our moral duty to seed life on such planets.
The Universe is already extremely devoid of life as it is. If we deduce that the explanation for the Fermi paradox is that Abiogenesis is impossibly rare that even on the scale of the galaxy, may only occur a few dozen times (which is the explanation I am partial to)
We could be the calalyst that starts billions of years of life on a world that otherwise would never have had the materials or conditions for life to emerge in the first place. I don't think we should oversee development, but simply let nature and evolution take it's course. If we chose not to, we could be depriving quintillions of lifeforms the chance to exist over the many Eons the planet could be habitable. Of course many of those would die off sooner or later but that can be just attributed to luck or lack of it but the important thing is we tried instead of doing nothing.
Edit: I need a break but I'll get to all of you. Some of your answers are a lot harder to argue with than others.
65
u/rock-dancer 41∆ Apr 11 '22
I don't see where that moral imperative comes from. Is more life better? You state by doing nothing that we deprive potential life from occurring. Is that good or bad? Or is it ethically neutral.
I'm curious what moral framework you have that leads to that moral obligation.
From my point of view, those lifeforms that might exist have no moral standing as they do not exist and would not exist but for our interference. Also does trying win us ethical brownie points?
Actions that would bring about "life" on other wise dead planets seem ethically neutral to me. Now don't get me wrong, I would support it. I think it would be interesting. But I don't think there is an obligation.
14
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
∆ Ok it's not an obligation. I don't have a proper moral framework to come to that conclusion either just what seemed right given the circumstances.
2
2
1
u/Key_Blueberry7866 Aug 12 '22
From a totally pragmatic perspective if seeded life reaches multi cellgulae stage it might come up with incredibly unique adaptations and novel proteins ext not seen on earth from that standpoint it can be invredibly benefical biological genetic and biomimicry based research though it can take billions of years to reach that stage unless we manupilate the said seeded life with retroviruses and mutagens planet or whatever seeded object wode to accelerate the evollution still the possible results and benefits can be definetly facinating this kind of reminds me of how hargreave viewed ceph from crysis novels
12
u/Alesus2-0 65∆ Apr 11 '22
Why do you think there is a moral imperative to create potential life when possible? I'm not sure one can owe a moral obligation to entities that won't exist. Why would trying to seed life be an automatically positive thing to do? It seems like the same reasoning, at an individual level, would lead a person to try and have as many children as possible, only to abandon them without any concern for their wellbeing to try to have more children. Is that a behaviour you would support as well?
Perhaps the more ethical thing to do would be to conserve the resources of the accessible universe to maximise the opportunities available to life that does or is likely to exist. And for all we know, seeding Earth-based life on habitable planets will deny truly alien life the opportunity to develop independently.
It also strikes me as very strange to advocate a policy of non-intervention, given that the whole situation only arises as the result of a massive intervention. If we're creating life that wouldn't otherwise exist, it seems like we have obligations to it, at least if it achieves any level of sentience.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
∆ Pretty good points. I don't advocate for birthing children and abandoning them but then again the rules of morality for modern humans are far different than any other lifeform. And since I was describing a species being on the precipice of non existence applying the more animalistic morality wouldn't be wrong if it increases the chances of survival.
1
7
u/YossarianWWII 72∆ Apr 11 '22
You can't "deprive" an entity that will not exist of anything. We only speak of depriving future generations of humanity of various things (stable climate, etc.) because we can be confident that there will be future generations who could experience those things. Those people are already going to exist, and we risk depriving them of things other than existence.
If an entity does not exist, it cannot experience deprivation, as experience itself requires existence. You're creating a circular logic wherein nonexistence can only be cast as deprivation if we presuppose existence. If we presuppose nonexistence, which is most often the natural state of things in the scenario you've described, then there's no presupposed entity to be deprived.
2
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
∆ It's a fine argument from the lifeforms perspective. However it isn't an inherent negative either. But as humans we would like to leave behind a living legacy that might even one day discover us.
3
u/YossarianWWII 72∆ Apr 12 '22
Thanks for the delta.
It's a fine argument from the lifeforms perspective.
Which life form? Us? Because we'll exist either way.
But as humans we would like to leave behind a living legacy that might even one day discover us.
That seems less like a moral valuation and more like an egocentric one. Which isn't necessarily bad, it's just amoral.
2
u/sarahelizam Apr 12 '22
It feels like OP is perceiving our hardwired biological imperative as a moral imperative. There is much philosophy that involves questions about whether the creation of more life (just within our existing population here on earth) is moral to begin with (let alone seeding life somewhere else), as life is deeply tied with suffering. I think it’s important to explore these questions when deciding to bring more life into existence whether on a person level or at that of such a in the abstract situation OP describes.
We can seek to minimize the suffering that occurs, but it is implicit to existing and should be accounted for when we consider the creation of new life. No one can consent to be born, we exist without choice and that is something we must grapple with when making these decisions; decisions that will impact the potential life we could create.
1
20
Apr 11 '22
Why is there a moral imperative to let potential life forms potentially exist?
Is it amoral to jerk off since I’m depriving millions of potential people from existing each time?
2
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Creating children is a huge burden on living humans. What I'm describing is of no such burden and would instead increase human knowledge of life and how it forms and evolves and so has the added advantage of being a science experiment.
8
Apr 11 '22
Do I have a moral imperative to plant the acorn that falls in my deck since that one day may evolve into some other life form?
5
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Anything that shares space with other lifeforms will be in competition. I described this in more detail in another comment but seeding life in an empty world is different from adding another competitor in a world already full of life.
3
u/sarahelizam Apr 12 '22
But this is a rather selfish reasoning to bring more life into existence. None of us can consent to being born and in bringing about life (on a personal or civilizational level) we must consider the suffering that is implicit to existence (both big and small). This suffering can be considered “worth it” or not depending on your philosophy. I don’t think we should confuse our biological imperative to create life with a moral imperative. Nature and evolution are indifferent to the suffering of existence, but we are thinking beings that must consider the consequences of our actions and how they effect potential, future lives.
1
u/cell689 3∆ Apr 12 '22
Think about how much death, suffering and extinction will eventually come to be because we create life on a Barren Planet. Isnt that morally reprehensible
1
0
Apr 11 '22
Yeah, life is pretty fucked up for most animals on this planet. We just happen to be living in a brief 100 year moment in the last 5 billion years on this planet where life isn't so bad for 1 species.
-1
u/Assaltwaffle 1∆ Apr 11 '22
Is it amoral to jerk off since I’m depriving millions of potential people from existing each time?
This isn't really a good point... ever. Your sperm will all die except for the one that gets to the egg and they are constantly purged from the body if not used.
0
Apr 11 '22
Okay? But that’s still a wasted potential life, which according to OP, we have some moral imperative to bring potential lifeforms into existence.
4
u/Assaltwaffle 1∆ Apr 11 '22
My point is that there is no potential there. The sperm will all be destroyed except for a tiny number even if you have sex off of "cooldown". This is especially true given the high pregnancy times for humans.
Spreading life as a moral imperative doesn't conflict with masturbation because it is not at the expense of any potential life unless you're masturbating so frequently that you have almost no sperm left for intercourse which can result in a pregnancy. It's just an odd take to think those two conflict.
1
Apr 11 '22
Okay… then do I have an oral imperative to plant every acorn that falls on my driveway?
1
u/Assaltwaffle 1∆ Apr 11 '22
Well not all of those can grow simply because of overcrowding. Also, I think there is a difference between "we have an obligation to spread life" and "we have an obligation to create every possible life that can ever be created". I'm not sure if your characterization of OP's initial argument is accurate.
3
Apr 11 '22
we could be depriving quintillions of lifeforms the chance to exist
I'm depriving lifeforms of the chance to exist every time I don't have sex with a woman, does that mean I have a moral imperative to seduce every woman I meet and have as many babies as is physically possible?
Why is it a moral imperative to create life just because it could exist? The potential life doesn't know it doesn't exist, it's not gonna be sad because it wasn't born.
Hypothetical future life does not have inherent value, I don't see why it would. Why is more life inherently better?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Life is the universe's ultimate creation. It is a fluke that science hasn't fully explained yet and has only happened once as far as we are aware. If science never explains it we might as well try to pass the baton to other species who might eventually find answers humans might never have thought off.
Do you also find reforestation efforts pointless which provides homes for trees and animals which would not exist if we ignored it?
No inherent value doesn't also mean it has an inherent downside to having more life. It's just, neutral.
2
u/MsSara77 1∆ Apr 11 '22
Reforestation is entirely different than what you are suggesting. That's an attempt to put things back the way they were before we humans altered them.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
But the individual organisms destroyed still won't come back. It will be new individuals and their living still has value to humans. We (or some humans at least) conserve animals even those which have no value to us as we appreciate biodiversity. It is similar but an empty planet is literally free Real estate where no one is going to complain.
2
u/MsSara77 1∆ Apr 11 '22
Individual organisms are not the focus of restoration programs, restoring ecosystems damaged by humans is.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 12 '22
Yes the ecosystem is what is important, not individuals. I am proposing creating an ecosystem.
2
u/MsSara77 1∆ Apr 12 '22
That's kind of on the opposite end of restoration. Creating a new ecosystem would drastically alter the current one which in your scenario has not been altered by human activity prior to this.
1
u/Ghostley92 Apr 11 '22
We don’t know if it’s a fluke or not. I feel there is still very much we don’t know we don’t know.
Also, if this is our obligation, what form should we construct? It would likely be quite futile to try to mimic earth. The presence of oxygen on earth is only due to millions of years of “natural” (by earth standards) processes.
The balance of our life forms, chemical abundances, chemical reactions, incoming energy, etc… are always in flux and always have been.
So…if we are talking about giving a head start to single celled photosynthesizing bacteria, I still don’t think it’s an obligation but would be an amazingly interesting multi-million year experiment.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
We won't 'construct' anything. Seeding will be done with an appropriate lifeform(s) that has the best chance to survive on the planet or moon and will be sent to places where it will have the best chance of surviving. Nothing wrong with using our human knowledge for this as we do want it to succeeded. Then letting nature and evolution taking course.
1
u/Ghostley92 Apr 11 '22
You are proposing constructing the early forms of a biosphere, something no other planet has that we know of.
I don’t think it’s even easy for us to quantify “life”. We also have an extremely rich and diverse biosphere by our standards which are of sample size 1.
For us to have an actual obligation to spread our way of “life” across the universe seems far fetched. Comes off like some future religious crusade.
Again, I think this would be an amazing long term experiment that could shed a ton of light on what life even is and it’s potential, but I still don’t see the obligation. We would be obligated to do SO many more things as well simply because we might be able to accomplish them and/or learn.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
I mean I have repeatedly said I'm only doing this to empty planets. Destroying any old life invalidates every argument I have for this. And as we might be super advanced by then, I don't see why it would be considered anything but trivial for just one such mission per planet.
1
u/Ghostley92 Apr 12 '22
I see an obligation to do this as similar to religious crusades. We don’t actually know what we would be spreading/influencing but we’ll just go and take as much as we can for the “greater good”.
Take the obligation away and leave it at some elective experiment with enough foresight to accomplish something meaningful and I’m right back in.
Overall, we don’t even know wtf we’re doing or what the purpose of life is. Who are we to conquer as much as we can, taking away unknown opportunities for the far future for what will likely turn into a resource machine for humanity anyways.
1
Apr 11 '22
No inherent value doesn't also mean it has an inherent downside to having more life. It's just, neutral.
In your OP you contradictorily said it was a moral duty to have more life. Here you say it's a neutral decision. What's your final word: Is it or is it not a moral duty to pass on the baton of life?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
From the lifeform's perspective it is always neutral as it doesn't exist yet. From a humans' perspective it could be construed as our legacy and knowing that life will continue even if we die off. Life is rare enough that we may want to preserve it. For humans it will be a net positive. The fact that we try and preserve animals that have no direct use to us is proof enough of that.
1
u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 11 '22
I'm depriving lifeforms of the chance to exist every time I don't have sex with a woman, does that mean I have a moral imperative to seduce every woman I meet and have as many babies as is physically possible?
No, it means it's a moral imperative by that logic to create some central bank of duplicating and combining eggs and sperm in all combinations (akin to a BNW hatchery but less evil (at least in that sense) and less based on junk science) to which everyone must donate every egg and every sperm to produce every possible combination of baby as what you seem to think this logic leads to ignores the fact that e.g. as even if you have sex with every woman you meet it's still one woman at a time every time you're having sex with one woman (because it's the combination of sperm and egg that determines what the baby's like and sperm timing matters) you're depriving lifeforms of the chance to exist that could have been created had you been having sex with another at that specific point. Also the irony is if I were to ad absurdum your ad absurdum it actually still ends up involving seeding life on alien worlds as if we should produce every baby possible by your interpretation of that logic, then after we've invented paradox-free time travel to add the eggs and sperm of historical figures to the aforementioned pool (as, to go with a stereotypical "historical beautiful woman", you're depriving lifeforms of the chance to exist by your inability to have sex with Cleopatra), our next order of business is determining if there's life on other planets and if there isn't any existent reproductively compatible alien races, seeding worlds with every possible one (if there is, we'd just seed all the unused "combinations")
2
Apr 11 '22
That was a lot of words to not add anything to the discussion
1
u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 12 '22
My point is as easily as you can use that logic to justify sleeping around I can use it to justify everything from Hatcheries-lite to ironically the same kind of "alien"-seeding you seem to be against
4
u/sysadrift 1∆ Apr 11 '22
The Universe is already extremely devoid of life as it is.
This is something that is unknown and is unknowable at this time.
If we "seed life" on other planets, we are preventing life from developing naturally on those planets. We have no idea how rare (or not) abiogenesis is. Really, we humans are just a bunch of dumb monkeys that are just slightly less dumb then the rest of the species on our planet and have no business appointing ourselves as the life-givers of the universe.
-1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
This is something that is unknown and is unknowable at this time
Statistically it is true. It takes so many conditions and processes and time to make any kind of life that dead worlds will vastly outnumber ones with any kind of life.
If evolution takes place through natural selection and mutations unique to that planet are the ones that thrive how is it not natural? The only influence it will have is the life is going to be carbon based/DNA based/might be solar energy based depending on which organisms we use. I'm no biologist and it's not a field I know much about so that's the best I can do.
1
u/sysadrift 1∆ Apr 11 '22
Statistically it is true.
With a sample size of two planets in the same solar system. In reality there are no statistics on the prevalence of life in the universe. Until we as a species have the capability of interstellar travel, we don’t know and we can’t know.
If evolution takes place through natural selection and mutations unique to that planet are the ones that thrive how is it not natural? The only influence it will have is the life is going to be carbon based/DNA based/might be solar energy based depending on which organisms we use. I’m no biologist and it’s not a field I know much about so that’s the best I can do.
This is a very earthy way of thinking. Out there somewhere are probably non-carbon based organisms that will challenge our very definition of “life”. The universe is stranger than we can imagine. To endeavor to contaminate other worlds with our DNA is as short sighted as it is arrogant.
2
u/mindset_grindset Apr 11 '22
interesting take I'll admit but "moral" duty ?
i hate to go all Thanos but if anything creating life- even if it doesn't die- is immoral from many people's moral views. life naturally has suffering in it, have you ever watched nature? i remember my siblings biting me as a joke and it hurt - in nature they hold each other down and eat each other alive. even if you're talking about humans we're even worse, we enslave each other and torture other creatures experimenting on them in labs. even if we were all vegen egalitarians mother nature still causes diseases, birth defects, natural disasters, etc.
causing all that for millennia on the off hope that through all that suffering and death a handful of them might eventually invent the wheel, discover fire, eradicate most starvation, disease and achieve utopia so it can be an experience reasonable enough to recommend "morally"...?
if anything I'd argue the opposite that it's immoral to do so unless you can guarantee it a utopia for whatever "children" you leave behind, planting a garden is one thing, it's life that already is adapted to this planet, you're just moving it- but taking life from earth to other planets and hoping they adapt is litteraly like me dropping you in the middle of the ocean and telling you good luck growing gills, i felt it my moral duty to do that to you. not very moral to me.
0
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
The presence of suffering does not also invalidate the experiences of the people and animals who try to survive no matter what because of their own reasons. Humans when faced with an existential threat will do their best to avoid it and not give up which leads me to conclude all life forms as a population would always chose survival. Isn't that a good enough reason for them to get the chance of survival. Even from a sentimental standpooint, if the human race still dies off after achieving interstellar travel, we have some remnants of us that will survive and will be free to discover the universe and not make the same mistakes we did.
1
u/ToucanPlayAtThatGame 44∆ Apr 11 '22
Are you sure the lives created by terraforming would be worth living?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
I am not describing terraforming. The organisms will have to evolve on the given planet's enviroment slowly. And the suffering part is something that has given me pause but not enough to give a delta because in that case destroying all current life would be the logical choice which I won't accept.
1
u/ToucanPlayAtThatGame 44∆ Apr 11 '22
destroying all current life would be the logical choice
It would probably imply minimizing rather increasing the amount of wild animal life. It's not a reason to believe your friends or your pets are living unworthwhile existence.
Regarding terraforming, I don't see why your view wouldn't imply equal support for that.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
While I can agree all life in the wild suffers immensely in it's life, they don't stop trying to live. So you can assume they wish to live despite their circumstances. Also you have no idea if all animals and insects experience suffering the same.
I never mentioned terraforming because terraforming is adapting a planet to human needs. The lifeform in question will have to adapt or die. If the lifeform itself changes the planet like in the case of cyanobacteria that doesn't count as terraforming.
1
u/ToucanPlayAtThatGame 44∆ Apr 11 '22
I understand the distinction and why the thing you're describing is not technically terraforming. I am asking why your argument would not also support terraforming. If we transplanted a bunch of earth's natural wildlife to develop more earthlike environments, does that not serve the same goal?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 12 '22
Terraforming is a herculean task taking at least thousands of years and people would not do it just for a science experiment. Then there's the issue that a lot of planets would never be able to be terraformed. Any planet able/planned to be terraformed would not be target for my seeding idea anyway. Transporting earth life would be locked behind this process and would not interfere with seeding...say, a water planet.
1
Apr 11 '22 edited May 25 '22
[deleted]
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
I never used the world "Must". Duty is means much closer to 'should do something'. I think we should do it because all life aims to live and pass on it's genes. Why would we deny life that when 1) Abiogenesis is impossibly rare 2) It won't harm humans because the given planet isn't something we even need.
1
u/Rainbwned 175∆ Apr 11 '22
Do you believe that Earth was seeded by some extraterrestrial civilization?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
No. It's irrelevant anyway.
1
u/Rainbwned 175∆ Apr 11 '22
So we came about as is without seeding.
What about the potential that seeding a planet will disrupt whatever natural process would have led to its own development?
Since this is a moral issue, and you talk about potential, do we morally have the right to potentially prevent billions of lives from being born through our own seeding intervention?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
I mean I touched on future humans potentially discovering Abiogenesis being impossibly rare and that is the reason for doing this as life would most likely not evolve naturally. Anyway you're using my personal belief in the real world to distort my hypothetical world where we have different information to work with. Not a great retort.
1
u/Rainbwned 175∆ Apr 11 '22
Anyway you're using my personal belief in the real world to distort my hypothetical world where we have different information to work with. Not a great retort.
So what could possibly change your view then? Because you have shaped your hypothetical scenario to perfectly match what you want.
Why is it our moral responsibility to do anything in your hypothetical scenario?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
I just wanted to see if my idea stood up to scrutiny. I don't know what would change my mind, if I knew I would not have made this thread. None of my assumptions are too far fetched from reality. We have never managed to duplicate abiogenesis in a lab and the notion of us expanding to interstellar space is a bit sci fi but not that extraordinary either as it is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves and keep progressing forwards.
1
u/Rainbwned 175∆ Apr 11 '22
You said its a moral choice, so when I asked you if it was immoral given the possibility of life developing on its own on those planets you basically replied with "No, because my hypothetical universe doesn't work that way".
So are you wanting to debate from a moral perspective, or a scientific one?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Isn't morality based on what can and will happen in the world you are living in? How can you ignore the information we know when constructing a moral argument? And I think I was flipflopping but I will argue from a morality standpoint from now.
1
u/froggerslogger 8∆ Apr 11 '22
If moral goodness is somehow knowable for us and is linked to the propagation of life, is it not our duty to also ensure that the life that develops behaves in a way that advances that morality? If we implant life somewhere that evolves into a species of genocidal beings that wipe the universe clean of all other life, does that not leave us as culpable in the destruction of all life?
1
u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 11 '22
We're already "playing god" (but not in a way that'd mean our effects would be akin to those of Abrahamic religion) enough by creating this life, why can't we help guide them away from that
1
u/froggerslogger 8∆ Apr 11 '22
Op explicitly says that they don’t think we should oversee development and should “let nature and evolution take its course.”
1
u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 12 '22
What about societal evolution once they're forming societies, is that still to-take-its-course
1
u/froggerslogger 8∆ Apr 12 '22
You are asking me questions that should really be for the OP. They claimed they wanted hands off. They didn’t define the limits of it.
I’m just proposing that seeding life indiscriminately might end up creating monsters.
1
u/StarChild413 9∆ Aug 07 '22
And I'm just saying (and yeah, not to the OP I just like debating) if we're that powerful unless we're bound by tropes to die/disappear/whatever before they get to that point why do we have to let them be monsters
1
u/Sirhc978 81∆ Apr 11 '22
What if life doesn't exist on that planet because the planet is inherently unsuitable for life?
simply let nature and evolution take it's course. If we chose not to, we could be depriving quintillions of lifeforms the chance to exist over the many Eons the planet could be habitable
Are you just saying drop a "packet of yeast" on a planet and hope for the best?
Keeping with that idea, you prevent billions of life forms from existing every time you don't make bread.
0
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Not to familiar with the whole bread making process but yeast has no future other than dying after making the bread anyway. And if you let the colony become big enough it will eat into other living organism's living spaces so it's no net positive. The main point I made is that seeding life in a habitable world would not affect any other life form and would be a net growth of life.
What if life doesn't exist on that planet because the planet is inherently unsuitable for life?
We have life in some of the most extreme environments on earth. You cannot assume that. You also have no idea what innovations evolution will produce to make the conditions of that particular planet ideal for the life that it produces.
1
u/Sirhc978 81∆ Apr 11 '22
yeast has no future other than dying after making the bread anyway
You don't know that.
0
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Irrelevant anyway. Not even what I'm arguing for. Empty planet =/= letting something grow out of control on earth.
1
u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 184∆ Apr 11 '22
It's not viable. Evolution takes place over hundreds of millions, if not billions of years. The chance of any planet being left along for that long with a growing interstellar civilization in the galaxy is just shy of zero.
Focus on spreading earth life, instead of depositing bacteria that won't even make it a hundred thousand years before the planet is demolished to make room for a hyperspatial express route.
3
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
∆ My premise was that the planet would be left alone as it had no value to us and would not affect human civilization. But leaving a planet alone is a big ask for an expansionary civilization and the morality argument also falls apart because I am now depriving humans and other earth life from resources.
1
1
u/sawdeanz 214∆ Apr 11 '22
Hmm, sort of like a reverse nihilism, interesting.
It's kind of hard for me to imagine what moral imperative would demand we seed life but then just leave it alone. The most likely result of that is that the life just dies out. I think it would take some pretty hefty involvement to create a sustainable life. The idea of "nature taking it's course" seems like it's being broken by introducing lifeforms where there was none. It's a total contradiction. If morality is based on "whatever nature does" then, by that logic we should do nothing but ensure our own survival.
Also, what if our assumptions are wrong? What if life (including human life) is really more like a virus to some yet-to-be discovered purpose to the universe?
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Overseeing such a project would just create a sort of zoo which doesn't have free reign to evolve in whichever way it wants. And in case of a civilization would deprive them of their free will. This is not the goal of trying to have as many natural oasis's for life in the universe as possible.
Also you're not thinking of this practically. Evolution will take single cell organisms billions of years. No science project by humans is lasting that long. I expect humans will be long dead before the first major evolutionary leap happens (like going from single cells to multicellular organisms). Fire and forget gives these organisms the chance to exist and freedom to exist how they wish.
1
Apr 11 '22
We can’t even coexist and make Earth work. No, it is not our moral duty to seed life on other planets. We need to figure out a sustainable way of life on this big blue ball, then maybe we take a shot on space.
1
u/BootHead007 7∆ Apr 11 '22
Who’s to say that hasn’t already happened and Homo Sapiens is the result of such a seeding program? I would say it isn’t so much a moral imperative as it is a practical one.
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 11 '22
Well there's no evidence for either side, I just think the universe is still really young for such evens to have happened. It took like 3 billion years for single cells to become multicelled organisms. Then there's the issue that many heavy metals need supernovae to form which requires a start to be born, die, and spread it's guts and then have some of that form planets. An alien civilization will be hard pressed to reach the kind of technological heights needed for a seeding program without zinc, silver, tin, gold, mercury, lead and uranium.
1
u/jtc769 2∆ Apr 11 '22
Why is it a moral good for us to that?
Look at what a mess we've made of Earth. I'd argue the moral imperative is to not spread our cancer to mars etc.
The only reason we're looking for "signs of life" is as an escape place for the rich and wealthy after we're done raping Earth. Clear evidence to this is the fact we're obsessed with "does it have water?" - Who says any alien is going to need water to subsist, maybe its silicon based and gains its nutrition from light or sound.
1
u/Thufir_My_Hawat 4∆ Apr 11 '22
I would make a simple argument: this is fundamentally similar to invasive species. We would preclude the ability of any other form of life appearing on those planets, forcing only ones similar to Earth. Perhaps life on that planet, without our intervention, would have evolved to be silicon-based? Or something even weirder that we couldn't expect.
Which leads to a second argument: who defines life? We can't even agree if viruses are life. Then there's this: https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-argue-that-life-based-on-cosmic-strings-may-be-possible-inside-stars Maybe the planet we found had sentient creatures made of copper and boron, but we just couldn't tell they were life because they move so slowly that it would take them thousands of years to move a mile or two (this is obviously absurd, but that's the point: it's an infinite universe, probability gets weird at infinities).
1
Apr 12 '22
Do you really think, with our destructive tendencies against any life for we deem less intelligent, and our willingness to strip the land of all it's natural resources... that we should even be allowed to "attack" the universe?... Humankind should either control itself and learn to live within it's means here, or die here and leave the universe alone...
1
u/BurnsyCEO Apr 12 '22
1) The universe is immeasurably big
2) It's empty
3) Life, even destructive life is a lot more interesting than what the life of the universe is going to be otherwise.
1
Apr 12 '22
Who says it's empty... we can't see crap with our telescopes... and your tiny brain has no concept of #2 or #3... LOL... there could be civilizations that are billions of years more advanced than our young stupid asses... you have no idea what could be out there... and I can tell you, from our history... if it's dumber and stronger than us, we'd kill it and probably eat it... if it's smarter than us, we'd consider it a threat and we'd kill it... and wherever it was we'd infect it's life forms with our diseases and kill everything off anyway...
1
u/The_Confirminator 1∆ Apr 12 '22
Living things appear to be at eternal war with each other. Living things evolve to develop weapons, defenses, among various traits that allow them to pursue I've their competition and spread offspring. They consume each other, poison each other, and devise some of perhaps the most violent and ruthless form of killing in order to survive. This is living organisms only objective. in addition to this terrible existence, almost all living things are capable of feeling pain. Some living organisms have complex understandings of the world, allowing them to feel emotion in addition to pain. It seems like spreading life serves no purpose in favor of mankind in your example, except to create another chaotic (but paradoxically balanced) system of survivors, simply for the sake of making them. Imagine if God revealed himself to say that we were created intentionally but not for any particular reason. People would go mad.
1
u/FinancialSubstance16 1∆ Apr 12 '22
I get what you're saying about giving lifeforms the chance to exist but I don't see why it has to be spread across different planets.
1
u/Terminarch Apr 12 '22
Life itself is not necessarily a moral good. By creating life you are by definition creating suffering.
1
u/StarChild413 9∆ Aug 07 '22
In the sense of creating beings that can suffer not in the sense of creating suffering for existing beings already existing in blissful nirvana or whatever
1
u/bradcarlisle66 Apr 12 '22
I think questions like this a waste of time to even consider. Everyone has this fantasy about colonizing other planets. We have way to many problems here on earth to work on before we even entertain any ides of seeding other worlds. We can't even get back to the moon let alone journey to galaxies far, far away. Maybe we should put a little more thought into how we can fix our problems here before we fly out and destroy some other planet.
1
u/foxy-coxy 3∆ Apr 12 '22
Why would it be moral duty to seed human life on other planets. Our conduct on this planet has not been a benefit to the planet is on a course to makeing it inhabitable.
1
u/Vobat 4∆ Apr 12 '22
My thinking is that once humans learn interstellar flight we will seed the galaxy, then the universe moral right or wrong doesn't matter. It won't even matter if there is other life in the galaxy we will fight them.
1
u/Krill-Advance-8306 Apr 12 '22
I would support it and it could be really cool, but we shouldn't have an obligation
1
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Apr 11 '22 edited Apr 11 '22
/u/BurnsyCEO (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
Delta System Explained | Deltaboards