General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: We should have been colonizing the solar system by now. [View all]avebury
(10,952 posts)tends to more destructive then anything else. No one, not even you have a realistic expectation that this will change. To be honest I do not think that the human race has earned the right to impose itself on the rest of the universe. Look at the Christian Theocrats that honestly think that God has give mankind dominion over everything. Talk about having a sense arrogance. I hardly think that God really spends all that much time thinking about us as he has the entire universe to deal with. We may in fact just be a science experiment for a higher power.
I would love it if life from somewhere else came here to Earth and made itself known. I would be curious as to what form it takes and how it has evolved. I think that it is probable that there is life lesser evolved in some places are higher evolved elsewhere. I do not for one moment think that we are the top dog in this Universe. Statistics just works against that.
It is highly probable that, if mankind wants to exist in the long term, that we will have to look towards exploration because we may reach the tipping point of sustainability. When that time comes, unless mankind changes it ways, it will just begin a downward spiral on some other planet.
As to looking at the portrayal of aliens in various artistic forms: books, movies, tv shows, people write what they know. There really is not much of a difference between James Cameron's vision of Avatar then there is to what Europeans did to the native Indians when they came to North America, what has happened in South American due to the destruction of huge part of the Amazon jungle and native life, the intentional wholesale elimination of numerous plant and animal species, and so on. So much destruction has occurred on this planet without a thought to the long term repercussion. When you wipe out a particular plant in the Amazon have you lost the possibility that it could have been important in the development of medicine? I was watching a show today that talked about the massive destruction of Orangutan habitats in Sumatra in favor of building farms for Palm oil.
And finally, you can cross off any chance of real space exploration unless you can start to pry away some of the money being horded by the 1%. Because if true space exploration occurs, I guarantee that you and I and the bulk of the 99% won't be participating. It will be like a Noah's Ark situation where the 1% will be leaving us behind and only taking a chosen few with them to serve them.