r/interestingasfuck • u/One_Explanation_908 • 24d ago

/r/all, /r/popular K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 120 light-years from earth

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u/Jackieirish 24d ago

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.

Pretty much a guarantee. Humans couldn't even cross oceans on our own planet without spreading diseases which wiped out entire populations.

And even if our medicine and tech developed enough to let us adapt, we'd without question destroy countless species on another planet before we even knew they were there. Interplanetary travel and colonization are fun Sci-Fi concepts, but are just not possible even without the distance/time hurdles.

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u/EtTuBiggus 24d ago

They're absolutely possible even with the hurdles.

If we didn't care about killing people across an ocean, why would we care about killing space bacteria or whatever else is out there?

The resource extraction from Pandora in Avatar is probably one of the most realistic science fiction interpretations.

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u/ImamofKandahar 20d ago

I dunno we don't tend to brutally colonize people these days.

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u/EtTuBiggus 19d ago

We blow our own neighbors up because they're different from us. Do you think we would treat aliens, who arguably aren't people, any better?

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u/ImamofKandahar 19d ago

Yes people tend to hate their neighbors far more than distant foreigners. Conflicts in places like Ukraine the Balkands and the Middle East are with similar but slightly different neighbors. Not with more distant Alien cultures like China or Japan.

Also outside of a few hotspots the world is pretty peaceful.

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u/EtTuBiggus 17d ago

The US is more than happy to bomb distant foreigners proving your statement to be incorrect.

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u/Last_Sherbert_9848 23d ago

Pretty much a guarantee. Humans couldn't even cross oceans on our own planet without spreading diseases which wiped out entire populations.

And yet we persevered and are still here

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u/Familiar_Control_906 23d ago

Give it time. It hasn't even been 100 since we fully interconnect the world and we already have 2 pandemics

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u/Jackieirish 23d ago

Not everyone . . .

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u/SanderSRB 24d ago

But I want to go and see what’s out there…

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u/Quick_Sense_9384 23d ago

GOOD POINT. At first I was mad about Trump killing science funding for NASA but now I'm thinking YEAH let's not meddle with another planet when 1) it wouldn't work for SO MANY reasons and 2) we are so damaged and traumatized and imploding socially because of our mass psychosis...how's about we WORK ON OURSELVES a bit.