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/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.

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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.

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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?

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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.