Right, so, I’m sure at some point I wrote something about something to do with humans not thinking ahead when they do stuff. Developing nuclear weapons, out-of-control A.I. robots, climate change, human cloning (you just know this is happening in a secret lab somewhere). There are endless examples of stupid people doing wholly unnecessary things without considering the consequences and effects. People just aren’t built to think of anyone or anything other than themselves. It’s a constant struggle for us to be considerate.
And this concerns me.
When the most powerful nation on earth (populated mostly with people that can medically be described as ‘vegetables’) votes in a hell-bent, suicidal president like Bush, it’s time to get nervous. And here’s why.
We’ve just sent out a new probe into space, and by ‘we’ I mean the population of the earth (we’re all in this together). Its primary focus is to find other planets that are in the same rare minority as our one is. Just close enough to the sun to support life, but also far away enough to allow water to settle without evaporating. There’s not that many, but they are out there. And when we find some, and figure out how to travel sensibly over that distance, we’re going to visit those planets. That’s all very good and well, but what happens if we find it’s already populated with some kind of being? Which it well could be?
My concern lies with how we treat living things on our own planet. All humans and animals seem to be treated with contempt. We fight for nothing sometimes, kill living things for no reason, other than to make ourselves feel better. The things living on this ‘planet’ we visit will be at either one of two stages.
a) Earlier in the lifecycle development than us. Be it by 10 years or 10 million, we’ll just rock onto their planet and take it over. Look at the way we used to colonise countries 200 years ago. We’d arrive, declare that we’re better than whoever was living there previously, and proceed to screw the ‘newly found’ environment for everything its worth. Only now are we growing a conscious about what we do to the people around us and our environment, but will this make a difference? America, who undoubtedly will be the spokespeople in cases like this, still won’t admit there’s a global warming problem, and insist their way is still the only way. It’ll be Iraq all over again, but with more casualties.
b) Later in the lifecycle development than us. The fact we’re still alive means one of two things. One, they haven’t discovered our planet yet, which could be possible. Two, they haven’t fucked their planet up and aren’t looking at taking over other planets. They’re leaving us alone, to do our thing. If our race is anything to go by, this is clearly not the case. Maybe they realise our planet is too far gone to be of any use? Better to focus on another? Either way, they have modes of space travel, and [much more effective] weapons. We wouldn’t stand a chance. But that’s never stopped us trying before.
No matter how this goes down, I just can’t see it working out for the best. I feel ashamed. And scared. I guess it’s a bittersweet realisation I’ll be dead long before this gets to work itself out.
(Please do note here that I haven’t even considered the possibility we’re alone. We’re well, well past that point, aren’t we?) |
Posted by Danson on the 18th 2009f Mar, 2009 at 1:43pm. View their area without the other losers. |
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