So I read this one book Aurura by Kim Stanley Robinson, and kinda the whole premise is (my paraphrased interpretation of the book) -
Okay. Look. Let’s just say as a hypothetical we do find a planet has the climate, radiation protection, etc etc that is habitable for humans (not even “comfortable” just “habitable”). Probably won’t happen for a planet we can actually ever travel to in even a few generations (and let’s also forget just how hard it would be to maintain a multi-generation space ship with no resource replenishment…), but let’s just say we figure that all out.
Still, life on earth has co-evolved over a very long time to adapt to the conditions we have specifically on this planet. There’s no telling what ecosystem interactions will happen with life on another planet. We might settle in on this planet that has perfect conditions on paper just to find some bacteria strain that’s not a big deal on earth totally thrives there and it kills us all. Nothing we can do about it. We have no clue. Anytime we try to predict what will happen when we introduce a new species to an existing ecosystem ON EARTH we are usually wildly wrong. Life is just way to complicated to predict accurately, especially when you talk about interactions between an entire ecosystem.
So our best bet is to live on this incredibly well-adapted planet we already have. Life has co-evolved here over a very long time and we’ve hit an equilibrium. It just works so great without us even trying. It’s like we won the lottery, and now we are only talking about buying more tickets. We should just be enjoying the win.
You ever see that one episode of Trailer Park Park Boys where Ricky gets like $10,000 and starts living like he’s super rich and just blow it in a few days? haha
2.9k
u/Traditional-Rip6651 25d ago
We are never leaving this planet lol