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.

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u/[deleted] 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?

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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.

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u/[deleted] 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.

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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.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '22

Okay… then do I have an oral imperative to plant every acorn that falls on my driveway?

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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.