by thenewgreen



I was recently taking part in a discussion in which I expressed my excitement for a manned exploration of Mars. Someone else made the point, "

We should stay away from other planets until we can figure out how to stop ruining this one"

.

What do you think? Is there some truth to that? Is it irresponsible to allow our intellectual curiosities and energy to pursue such things when there are so many problems to solve here? Does the path of human space exploration inevitably lead to "

Factory complexes on other worlds? Extraterrestrial strip mining? The spreading of hypocritical and polarizing religious dogmas to indigenous life forms, assuming that there are any

" as one commenter said?

The same commenter said, "

We don't deserve to stand on another planet. We don't even deserve this one"

. To which my response was, "

While I agree that humanity is less than perfect, I cannot say "we" don't deserve. "We" are a dynamic species capable of both great and horrendous things. I know many wonderful people that exist outside of religious dogma and hypocrisy. Perhaps you need to hang out with some new people if your take on humanity is so grim?

I also think that as we explore science and space our findings will either slowly or quickly dissolve the flimsy foundation of dogma. Knowledge is what is galvanized and with it the next phase of human evolution emerges. An evolution of enlightenment.

Or it could be we go to mars and go.. "meh", nothing to see here. Either way, I'm damned excited. But should we continue this thread, we ought to do it elsewhere. 1. It's not terribly relevant to the post and 2. I friggin hate Facebook"

.

At which point another commenter asked to know where the conversation migrated to? And that's where we find ourselves... on Hubski.

So how about it Hubski? Is it irresponsible?