What use are humans?

[Torchwood]

What use are humans?

You may well ask, with their taste for not only being nasty to each other, but also to all the other life on the planet. So are most other forms of life, apart from photosynthesising plants, but no other creature is the cause of a great extinction, which we are going through now. The logical end of this argument is that Gaia would be much better off without us, and some fundie greenies almost seem to think that.

Humans are tribal, and even their faiths (all of which stress the importance of overcoming ego) encourage them to commit to a bigger, better and more dangerous tribe. That includes faiths without G-d as well as with Her…

So it has to be the whole of mankind, but given what humans do to the planet, more than that. As we fill space with junk, that boundary goes even wider. Indeed humans have so much power, actual and potential we had better dedicate ourselves to serve the whole Great Ordered Disorder that is the evolutionary system itself , or G.O.D for short ( a purely abstract and anthropomorphised concept, you understand).

So, what use are humans to G.O.D.?

(1) Consciousness. As far as we know, this is the only place where G.O.D is conscious of itself and trying to understand itself: it probably occurs elsewhere, but in which case the consciousness would be different (perhaps not the science, but certainly the art would be)
(2) Compassion . Massively primitive, patchy and imperfect, but we are the only creatures even capable of compassion beyond our own or kin interest.
(3) We have the potential to spread that consciousness and compassion across the universe (well, part of it, anyway).

That leads me to conclude that we have a moral imperative to colonise space.

[Apollonius]

You're absolutely right.

[Tinker]

Agreed.

[Demon of Undoing]

Therefore we exalt the highest development of what most faithfully holds the human spirit.

For the Emperor

[I am ST]

[Colonel Sun]

1/ Evolve consciousness and with it a concept of an anthropomorphic G.O.D. in our image.

2/ . . . . . ?

3/ Colonize space.

A plan the underwear gnomes would approve of.

[Colonel Sun]

While we as a species have only been shooting rockets up for less than a century, the effort required just to reach our orbiting moon is formidable.

We may make it to Mars, but I'm willing to bet that it won't be in my lifetime.

Beyond that the physics of the problem appear insurmountable. The nearest start, Alpha Centauri, is ~ 4 light years away.

[Hoosiernorm]

As an American I would like to report back to the mainland that we didn't have to go that far to make it work. The new colony was a success the problem of reintroducing what we have learned back to the mainland has failed. Subsequent warfare against the rest of the planet has also failed to expand their appreciation off what has been done here. We have not figured out a method of regulating other societies into the American collective Soooo...

[crashtech]

It may be a stretch to claim a human monopoly on compassion, or for that matter to believe that what we define as compassion did not originally arise to serve a selfish goal. I've seen animals raise the young of others as their own, is that compassion?

[Tinker]

[ansuchin]

[Ibrahim]

I still place colonizing space in the science fiction category, but conceptually it is possible, so I look to historical analogies. Cortez springs to mind.

[Torchwood]

Interesting. Several people here get it, and that very bright lady Ansuchin does not - and I would not know how to explain to her, it's an intuitive thing.

How to colonise space carries on

[noddy]

anyone from a socially functional and cooperative little collective is unlikely to understand the anglo/germanic borderer attitude ;P

space is the last place you can build a little world of you and your friends and not have to put up with the other buggers...

[Ibrahim]

[monster_gardener]