Is it ethical to colonize Mars?

[wayfriend]

Does abstaining from colonizing Mars equate with allowing the destruction of our own civilization?

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Does abstaining from colonizing Mars equate with allowing the destruction of our own civilization?

Potentially.

[Avatar]

Well, eventually we will have to leave the planet if we are to ensure our own continued survival, but that eventually may be centuries, even millenia away...

--A

[wayfriend]

Does abstaining from colonizing Mars equate with allowing the destruction of our own civilization?

Potentially.

"Potentially"? As in, primitive life might "potentially" evolve into another sentient species?

Av, right now Mars looks like the only conceivable option, but at some point there will be others, and we will be able to say, "if Mars has it's own life, we can try the next one."

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

No, not that kind of pie in the sky let's talk out of our ass potentially. I mean potentially as in there is no better planetary candidate in the solar system for sustaining human life outside of earth so we better get cracking potentially.

[wayfriend]

No, no, no, you were definitely talking about "potentially" our civilization will be destroyed if we don't colonize Mars. Please elaborate. I would like to know how much ass-talking that involves.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

You're a bright guy, you can pick from any number of scenarios that involve a global catastrophe on earth.

[wayfriend]

You're a bright guy, you can pick from any number of scenarios that involve a global catastrophe on earth.

I stated my opinion on page 1:

• First, I think it's unlikely that mankind's survival depends on colonizing Mars. To whatever degree that we're going to wipe ourselves out, it will likely happen long before colonizing Mars will make a difference. And to whatever degree we're going to sort it all out and be just fine, we'll be just fine with or without Mars.

I guess your statement means you're happy to call the odds 'miniscule' then. Which brings me back to my point - not worrying about potential intelligent life, because the odds are so long that will happen, vs. not worrying about Mars being necessary for our survival, because the odds are so long that will happen. I'm not seeing one side being the obvious answer.

On the other hand, if we take over Mars, we know the odds of life evolving goes to zero - it killed the only chance it would happen. By not colonizing Mars, does the odds of our survival go to zero? No. So ethically, one side stands out.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

In the first place there is a distinction to be had between the preservation of our present civilization with its technology and culture and the survival of the species itself. Not that it matters much as there are clearly cosmic events that could end human life on earth while sparing Mars. I haven't seen anything you've used to justify the idea that residence on another planet is unlikely to up the odds of our survival apart from your personal incredulity. Just so we keep things in perspective, there seems to be about a 63-4 million year periodicity when it comes to mass extinction events, so to escape that kind of risk to the species it is clear that eventually we are going to have to leave the planet. Setting that aside our civilization itself doesn't have near the shelf life of a species and is much more vulnerable to destruction via smaller, more frequent events. A cometary impact for instance may allow the survival of individual humans but it is unlikely that our advanced socioeconomic system would survive. Without, that is, outside help and intervention when it comes to rehab, which should be obtainable from a Mars colony.

Furthermore, no one is quite certain how much longer the sun itself is good for. I've seen estimates of as little as a few tens of millions of years. Put into cosmic terms that means we don't really know and it could happen at any time. So earth itself may be under threat in the comparatively near future. We do know that, absent some unforeseen circumstance, the sun will sterilize the earth at some point in the next 500 million years.

I also think your question greatly overestimates our ability to casually wipe out simple life forms. Get back to me when we've eradicated MRSA, malaria, and the AIDs virus. Put another way, it is the microbes and pathogens that are the dominant life forms on earth, not humans.

[wayfriend]

My "personal incredulity" is based on:
- how long it will take to get to Mars
- how long it will take to colonize Mars
- how long it will take to make the Mars colony self-sufficient w/o Earth

Because if something wipes us out before Mars is a self-sufficient container for the entirety of human life and human civilization, it isn't improving our survival.

Then you have to ask, from that point forward, how long will it be until we colonize Titan or some other rock in our system? How long will it be until we're in another solar system? (Some kind of gap drive is presumed.)

Because if something wipes out Earth after that point, then Mars isn't critical to our survival.

Looking at it from a geological-evolutionary timescale, the actual window of time where Mars makes a difference is very, very tiny. Miniscule.

Then you also have to figure that in the near future Mankind will become sufficient to protect itself from disaster. I'm talking comet-busting lasers, reducing carbon footprint, population control, epidemic-thwarting medicines. Possibly the toughest would be ending the stupidities that lead to wars. But lets say it can happen.

Short of solar collapse, the miniscule window of Mars being necessary is sufficiently occluded by our own advances. And if the sun dies burn out -- Mars isn't going to help.

So, yeah, I am incredulous. But don't say I am incredulous without good reason.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Oh but you are. When the sun expands Mars will still be habitable. Plus, Mars is the planet most like earth and most easily terraformed. I think you are also extrapolating difficulties and delays in creating a self sustained colony on Mars with precious little justification. Mars is the logical starting point for human expansion into the cosmos. It is the easiest place to make habitable. Whatever lessons we learn as we expand outward begin on Mars. Choosing to bypass Mars for some much less hospitable place is tantamount to abandoning the effort altogether. And for what? You can't even say if there is life on Mars, or if it is unique in some way relative to life on earth, or if it is even likely to be affected by our presence.

[Avatar]

It certainly is the logical place to start, although I'm not sure that it will remain habitable if the sun expands...for longer than earth, sure, but not much longer relatively speaking.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

You're a bright guy, you can pick from any number of scenarios that involve a global catastrophe on earth.

I stated my opinion on page 1:

• First, I think it's unlikely that mankind's survival depends on colonizing Mars. To whatever degree that we're going to wipe ourselves out, it will likely happen long before colonizing Mars will make a difference. And to whatever degree we're going to sort it all out and be just fine, we'll be just fine with or without Mars.

I guess your statement means you're happy to call the odds 'miniscule' then. Which brings me back to my point - not worrying about potential intelligent life, because the odds are so long that will happen, vs. not worrying about Mars being necessary for our survival, because the odds are so long that will happen. I'm not seeing one side being the obvious answer.

On the other hand, if we take over Mars, we know the odds of life evolving goes to zero - it killed the only chance it would happen. By not colonizing Mars, does the odds of our survival go to zero? No. So ethically, one side stands out.

I think there is to much speculation in your position.

1.

• First, I think it's unlikely that mankind's survival depends on colonizing Mars. To whatever degree that we're going to wipe ourselves out, it will likely happen long before colonizing Mars will make a difference. And to whatever degree we're going to sort it all out and be just fine, we'll be just fine with or without Mars.

What do you base this on? We haven't watched enough sentient species wipe themselves out to know at what point it's most likely to happen to us. Remember what Sargon told Kirk? We might survive our primitive nuclear age, and wipe ourselves out only after our minds become so powerful that we care think of ourselves as gods. Or any number of other possibilities.

2. As has been said, there's no way of knowing if life anywhere will evolve any degree of intelligence or awareness. All we know is that, of the 8+ million species on Earth, no other has got close what we have (No matter what arguments anybody cares to make, we're not in any danger of being toppled off of our pedestal because of any other species' intelligence. No species we've ever harmed has ever come up with a plan and turned on us. Or even come up with a plan to hide from us.), and most are very, very far below us.

3. We do not know that the odds of life evolving goes to zero if we colonize Mars. Although we've discussed the scenario of us wiping out life there, it's not the only scenario, and I don't see it as a very likely one. If there's life there now, there will be life there after we colonize. Do we prevent life on Earth from evolving?


I don't see any ethical problem with colonizing Mars.

[Zarathustra]

Av, right now Mars looks like the only conceivable option, but at some point there will be others, and we will be able to say, "if Mars has it's own life, we can try the next one."

But any planet or moon capable of sustaining human life is a likely candidate to have its own life. Thus, this reasoning only postpones the same exact ethical quandary to "the next one." It's an argument to never leave our planet, which is an argument to let humanity die on earth when it goes, because the earth will most certainly be lost.

In fact, Mars will be lost, too, when the sun expands. Titan or Europa may be our only long term options in this solar system. But the point is: if there is life on Mars, it may very well depend on the only space-faring species in the known universe to save it, by transporting it somewhere else. And to do that, we have to establish a presence on Mars.

We're not just talking about saving humans. If we transplant ourselves, we'll take a fair number of earth species with us. We're the only ark builders in the solar system.

Well, eventually we will have to leave the planet if we are to ensure our own continued survival, but that eventually may be centuries, even millenia away...

"Eventually" might be tomorrow. The Oort Cloud is full of objects that could launch a humanity killer at any time. We need to get crackin'!

On the other hand, if we take over Mars, we know the odds of life evolving goes to zero - it killed the only chance it would happen.

Talk about ass-talking! You're speaking of certainty on a subject you know nothing about. You have no idea how our actions would affect life on Mars. If we transform Mars, it will be in a way that makes life flourish ... at least earth life. But to suppose that life on Mars wouldn't also flourish in an environment conducive to earth life is like saying that earth microbes that can survive in space wouldn't flourish once they return to earth. Whatever life there is on Mars, it's barely hanging on ... it's a leftover from a time when Mars was much more like earth! Such life might just bounce back from our terraforming. There's a reason why we look for planets with earthlike conditions when we search for potential extraterrestrial life. Water is universal solvent, conducive to many chemical reactions. I suspect we'll find that earthlike planets are the ones most likely to have life, and thus earthlike life will be the most common in the universe.

But even if our terraforming efforts aren't conducive to the specific kinds of life on Mars which have adapted to live in the current harsh conditions, it's still not a certainty, as you suggest, that chances for evolution will stop. On earth, drastic changes in the environment have produced flurries of evolutionary change, as life adapts to the new conditions. In fact, an unchanging environment is one of the reasons why life forms stay static for so long--they don't have to evolve to survive! [See evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould's punctuated equilibrium theory.]

So in either case--mankind as species savior/ark builder or mankind as environmental stressor--the only certainty here is that we can't say for sure that colonizing Mars means potential Martian life has zero chance of evolving. There are good reasons to speculate that the exact opposite will happen.

On a final note, I'd like to point out how moral absolutism is usually coupled with illusions of certainty on subjects that the Righteously Indignant are merely the Righteously Ignorant--an attitude usually based on foundational principles which are taken as an unexamined given. And what's the foundational principle at work here? I've already noted it in previous posts: the idea that mankind can't have a positive effect on his environments, that mankind is always a net evil in the world. It's the self-hate, cosmic guilt I was talking about earlier. It has blinded you again, WF, into believing a "certainty" which is very easily proven to be false with very little thinking, which you obviously did not even attempt. That's what assumptions will do to you, they stop thought from evolving.

[Vraith]

It certainly is the logical place to start, although I'm not sure that it will remain habitable if the sun expands...for longer than earth, sure, but not much longer relatively speaking.

--A

It won't. But that isn't the disaster we need to worry about---it is billions of years away. We'll be dead, or multi-solar [and/or making suns from scratch, and walling off the unstable ones] by then.
It's smaller [but still catastrophic to Earth] and nearer in time things.
The best use for Mars isn't as a colony/new Earth, though.
The best use for Mars is as mega-Industry/Port. Manufacturing/Launch facility. Waystation between Earth and "out there."

[wayfriend]

It won't. But that isn't the disaster we need to worry about---it is billions of years away.

So I had surmised, on both counts.

The best use for Mars is as mega-Industry/Port. Manufacturing/Launch facility. Waystation between Earth and "out there".

The gravity well is as bad as Earth's, so I cannot see it going that way. Any waystation will be in the asteroid belt, I think. Which is even closer. You could mine, smelt, grow food, create fuel, and [hopefully] find water all in the belt.

[Fist and Faith]

Mars will be good, invaluable practice.

[wayfriend]

Mars will be good, invaluable practice.

Invading other countries is good, invaluable practice for invading other countries.

[Fist and Faith]

Mars will be good, invaluable practice.

Invading other countries is good, invaluable practice for invading other countries.

Which I have an ethical problem with. However, for the reasons I gave two posts ago, I don't think it's unethical to colonize Mars.

[Vraith]

It won't. But that isn't the disaster we need to worry about---it is billions of years away.

So I had surmised, on both counts.

The best use for Mars is as mega-Industry/Port. Manufacturing/Launch facility. Waystation between Earth and "out there".

The gravity well is as bad as Earth's, so I cannot see it going that way. Any waystation will be in the asteroid belt, I think. Which is even closer. You could mine, smelt, grow food, create fuel, and [hopefully] find water all in the belt.

Nah, it's gravity well is just over 1/3rd. And there are a host of concerns/dangers we don't have to worry about when launching from a basically sterile planet.

Most of the asteroids [the main belt] are well beyond Mars.
And not that big. It's a heck of a lot easier to bring the asteroids to factories on or orbiting Mars than it is to build a bunch out in the belt.

And, right now, living for extended periods without gravity seems to be pretty damn unhealthy for people.
Once we're cybered up, that won't matter so much.