Interstellar Travel as Delusional Fantasy

[UnseenParticipant]

If the destination planet is so like Earth that it’s habitable to humans, there may be an intelligent race there none too happy over our arrival and perhaps with the weapons to match or exceed ours in destructive power. They might be thousands of years ahead of us. They might destroy the party of earthlings hundreds of millions or more miles away from the destination.

Most first contact movies are about aliens arriving here. Few are about humans arriving on another habitable world. Generally, though, in those movies, it doesn’t go well for one side or the other: In Event Horizon, for example, it doesn’t go well for the humans, whereas in The Martian Chronicles, it doesn’t go well for the poor Martians.

Here is the crucial scene from the very best first contact movie ever made:

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  Unseen.

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

Something else, maybe the Corona virus, will be the top of the food chain before Homo sapiens designs vehicles for the journey.

 

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

You are, knowingly or not, taking a position similar to Anti-Natalism, which argues that since all life inherently involves some pain, even if it’s just the prick of a needle or a crick in the neck, it is therefore immoral to bring other human beings into the world. The Anti-Natalists’ position is broader in that they think is applies to generations on Earth as well as hypothetical generations in Interstellar space.

It kinda hard to argue against. Whenever some bave asked me why I don’t have children, I motion around and say: “What? And leave them all this?” 😁

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  TheEncogitationer.

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen, You are, knowingly or not, taking a position similar to Anti-Natalism, which argues that since all life inherently involves some pain, even if it’s just the prick of a needle or a crick in the neck, it is therefore immoral to bring other human beings into the world. The Anti-Natalists’ position is broader in that they think is applies to generations on Earth as well as hypothetical generations in Interstellar space. It kinda hard to argue against. Whenever some bave asked me why I don’t have children, I motion around and say: “What? And leave them all this?” 😁

I do think it’s immoral to bring children into the world as, basically, slaves to a program initiated by a group of people on a planet of origin that may be lifeless or humanless by the time the plan reaches fruition.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen and Fellow Unbelievers,

Perhaps this is where A.I. can come into play. A.I. could be our explorers, rangers, and scouts going places where we humans cannot go with out massive systems of support and massive energy inputs.

Perhaps combined with mega-scale construction vehicles, A.I. can, dare I quote The Holy Bible, “go and make a place for you” before we make the leap.

Right now, A.I. could get a lot of dress rehersal with coal mining, underwater construction of a New Atlantis, or construction on the Arctic Circle or Antarctica.

I wish I could claim A.I. space explorers as an original thought. I did get it from a great source,though,the National Geographic series Year Million available for streaming on Disney +. An awesome program on the wonderous possibilities of the future!

Anyway, don’t be like Senator Kelly from The X-Men. Be nice to IBM’s Watson and he may he your ticket to the stars!

[PopeBeanieModerator]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Perhaps this is where A.I. can come into play. A.I. could be our explorers, rangers, and scouts going places where we humans cannot go with out massive systems of support and massive energy inputs.

I was about to suggest similar. I expect our scouts will not just be AI in nature, but designed to fit into tiny capsules perhaps as small as bullets, and shot out to thousands or millions of destinations. Once at a destination with adequate resources, they would manufacture and assemble bigger robots, computers, spacecraft, ways to phone home, and so on. This is probably not a new idea, but I don’t know, because I don’t read much science fiction.

Likewise, I wouldn’t expect visiting aliens to first reach us in anything as large as tour buses. And if they wanted to take over Earth, we’d be wiped out or enslaved ahead of time with something like covid, omicron zeta variant, or beyond. Whatever could fit into heat shielded bullets and land at Mar-a-Lago. 🙂

[Author]

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