I’m skeptical that humans will ever realize the full cosmic endowment, and that even if we do, the future will be positive for most of the quintillions of beings involved.
First, as this video discusses, it may be difficult to spread beyond our own star system, because habitable planets may be few and far between. The prospect of finding a few habitable planets might not justify the expense of sending generation ships (even ones populated with digital minds) out into deep space to search for them. And since Earth will remain habitable for the next billion years, there isn’t much incentive to leave now. Granted we could set up permanent space habitats in the solar system and deep space instead of looking for planets to set up shop on, but… what’s the point?
Second, even if we do spread into interstellar space, there’s no guarantee that all of the settlements we set up will be great. Humans could bring factory farming practices to space with them. Societies in outer space could be oppressive and violent towards humans as well as towards sentient aliens. And the process of settling other planets could damage ecosystems already present there, which could cause any sentient beings on those worlds to suffer.
I’m skeptical that humans will ever realize the full cosmic endowment, and that even if we do, the future will be positive for most of the quintillions of beings involved.
First, as this video discusses, it may be difficult to spread beyond our own star system, because habitable planets may be few and far between. The prospect of finding a few habitable planets might not justify the expense of sending generation ships (even ones populated with digital minds) out into deep space to search for them. And since Earth will remain habitable for the next billion years, there isn’t much incentive to leave now. Granted we could set up permanent space habitats in the solar system and deep space instead of looking for planets to set up shop on, but… what’s the point?
Second, even if we do spread into interstellar space, there’s no guarantee that all of the settlements we set up will be great. Humans could bring factory farming practices to space with them. Societies in outer space could be oppressive and violent towards humans as well as towards sentient aliens. And the process of settling other planets could damage ecosystems already present there, which could cause any sentient beings on those worlds to suffer.