• emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    What makes life on another planet more worthwhile than life here? Also humans didn’t take that long to evolve so there’s plenty of opportunity for a successor to us to reach the stars in a way that causes less suffering. For that matter, we could have simply taken a couple hundred extra years to get there and reduced human suffering by like a thousandfold with a more equitable society. Bloody stupid capitalist nonsense.

    • Sordid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      there’s plenty of opportunity for a successor to us to reach the stars

      No, there isn’t. We’ve already used up all the easily accessible sources of fossil fuels, so whoever comes after us won’t have the energy sources necessary to have an industrial revolution and will be stuck at a pre-industrial tech level forever.

      • Blyfh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Great! So they’ll skip the fossil energy era and jump directly to renewables? We paved the path for them to avoiding another climate change.

        • Sordid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We’re having quite a bit of trouble making that transition even with the benefits of a couple centuries of fossil-fueled industry. I find the idea of jumping directly from horse-drawn wagons to wind turbines and solar panels rather implausible.

      • SimplePhysics@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        That’s right, if we kick the bucket, a new intelligent civilization would not have the resources to advance at our pace. They may figure out the atom, but they won’t have the resources to utilize their knowledge. Then there is the ever looming threat of a disaster, and these preindustrial civilizations will be wiped out with zero warning or preparation.

        Also: what are the chances a species similar to us in intelligence will emerge again on this rock? I’m going to bet it’s pretty darn tiny.

            • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Write for me 4000 words on how technological advancement is a linear progression that always follows the same path and needs the same exact external stimuli to occur.

              • Sordid@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                4000 words? Oh please, that can be done in a hundredth of that: The laws of physics are constant, and more advanced technologies have energy requirements that must be met by preceding technologies. At the same time, each technology also has to offer enough tangible benefits to be worth pursuing on its own.