Eventually the Earth will be uninhabitable. We KNOW it will be in about 800 million years when the Sun boils away the oceans. Humans will be long gone before then imo, but for the sake of argument, lets say we're still around (Or lets pretend this will happen in the next few hundred years) Everybody wants to go to Mars, but in this scenario Mars won't be safe either. In this scenario we need to find a new home planet that is suitable for human beings. We find one around a star relatively close, but there is life on it already. By moving to this planet we will destroy the natural balance of Life that has existed for billions of years, for the simple purpose of fulfilling our needs. Doesn't this seem wrong? I guess overfishing, or dumping our trash into the Oceans isn't that unethical since all life on Earth has a common ancestor, but when dealing with Alien life forms what right do we have?
Of course it's unethical. There needs to be natural balance. Humans should do the best we can to try and solve our pollution problems first before we even consider contaminating another life giving planet, or even going on safari there. I'm against the idea of humans colonizing or otherwise abusing any other life giving planets, outside of Earth. At least there's still time to think about things, and there's a lot of lifeless rocks in outer space between here and there.
In the end, might does make right. If we wanted to claim an alien world and could manage it by force, it would become right, especially in light of desperation pressing us to do it. Moralising and justification of it may occur before, during and/or after the event as well, but I have no doubt that, faced with that or certain annihilation, humankind would proceed along that course. Unless, perhaps, another way could be found.
history has shown man has never had a problem before, (ie. native Americans), so what would be any differ on another planet?
Especially with the psychopathic personalities we tend to have at the helms of business and government. Morality is generally reduced to a tool and a PR exercise.
It's a good question. Humans haven't been good at ethics through most (all?) of history. I have no doubt if the technology allows and the need arises we will destroy a sentient race or non-sentient lifeforms to take over their planet. After all, what does ethics mean if you're not around, your loved ones are not around, and your species is non-existent? We would be stupid not to take over a planet if that was our only choice. Is that ethical? No, of course not, but it is required as a human.
I don't think it would matter in this regard. - - - Updated - - - I'm not asking rather or not humans will have a problem destroying life on another planet. I'm asking rather or not it would be ethical.
There will be no need for permanent settlement on any planet , if mankind survives we will turn into space drifters living in orbiting / traveling cities and bases .
If the planet is inhabited by an intelligent civilisation then it may not be ethical, maybe depending on whether humanity will coexist or displace them. If we are talking about undeveloped life only, then I think any ethical issues are massively outweighted by the need to prevent the extinction of humanity.
I hope the only way our species gets permanently off this rock is by ceasing to be violent, shortsighted, destructive morons. If not, I sincerely hope we go extinct first.
So . . . unless all of humanity become unmotivated and passive sheep (per standard leftwing indoctrination programs) you are plumping for them to die off? Well at least the Left does have a goal.
I don't see why leaving the planet would be an ethical barrier in this context. If it's not unethical for us to destroy life on other parts of the land mass, continent or planet that we're on in our own support and development, why would it be unethical to do the same within the same solar system or galaxy? Anyway, ethics and morality are something of a matter of opinion. We basically decide what is ethical (and personally, I'd disagree with your reasoning that it isn't unethical to destroy life on our own planet). Ultimately, life will do what it does and that includes destroying other life that doesn't do it as well and the remnants of the human race fleeing a failing Earth could fall on either side of that line.
That was my point, we were not concerned about ethics in several points of our existence on this planet, so I'm guessing we won't care on another planet. But no, I do not consider it ethical to go to another planet and take over because we have destroyed this one.
What if Aliens came here after destroying their home planet? Would humans give them a chance to live here on Earth? Humans don't even like the fact that OTHER humans that don't look like them live here on Earth. Why would it be any different the other way around?
(My bold) If the new planet is suitable for humans, then there is a niche there for us. If there's a niche, then something is occupying that niche. I don't see space travel itself as a problem - you can argue about whether the energy, time, resources, effort, etc. could be better used in some other endeavor, but that's not necessarily an ethical issue. If we have to displace an existing species to occupy its niche, then yah, there's an ethical problem there. Given our history to date, we'd likely go ahead & displace them. There are (or will be) other alternatives. If we get tired to dealing with gravity wells, we could just build habitats in space - spin up & hollow out moons, asteroids, etc. There's plenty of solar energy in space, & we could mine for heavy metals & ice. We could also engineer our offspring to become better able to tolerate free space - that would take considerable time & effort. Of course, if we develop power plants & the engineering for interstellar travel in a reasonable amount of time, we could probably @ least begin to build planets for ourselves - we might not need to deal with the ethics of displacing native species @ all.
We could find an uninhabited planet way before Earth's demise and terraform it to suit our needs. Could have been what happened here too.
Unless there is intelligent life already there, I don't see an ethical issue with settling this hypothetical planet. However as has already been mentioned, it would probably make more sense to build our own habitats and tailor the environment of each one to our tastes. Or just terraform some lifeless planet.
(My bold) Just a note - terraforming is still a speculative art or science - but the timelines & the scale of change required to make a lifeless moon or planetary body amenable to human life is staggering - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming for an overview. The more serious science fiction that I've read talks about timescales of thousands of years - more if the target is completely lifeless & airless. A likelier target would be some moon or planet that had an atmosphere & at least some form of life. That would bring the timelines down to something manageable, if not exactly an ASAP project.
Well this topic, going to another planet after the earth blows up or whatever, it's pretty speculative as well. Terraforming a lifeless world would be a very long term project, but one in which there was even simple single celled organisms, as long as it has an oxygen atmosphere, is really just a matter of putting in the hard work.
(My bold) OK, my bad. I thought the lifespan for the sun looked funny, but I locked into the hypothetical. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Main_sequence "Main sequence "The Sun is about halfway through its main-sequence stage, during which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. Each second, more than four million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun's core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation. At this rate, the Sun has so far converted around 100 Earth-masses of matter into energy. The Sun will spend a total of approximately 10 billion years as a main-sequence star.[110]" So we've got 5.4 billion years to go before we need to worry about abandoning Earth. Lots of time. Which is fortunate, that'll give us time to work up terraforming theory & practice - maybe we can start on Mars, & work on digging out & spinning some asteroids/moons/small planetestimals.
I believe that our own well being is priority No. 1. We must survive and life is a constant battle. If we find a habitable planet and can colonize it, why not? If life exists there and causes no problem all is fine. If it does cause a problem, the problem has to be removed.
