[AstralStorm]

I like the base rate fallacy committed there. In recent history, there have been at least 5 sizable asteroid impacts, each of which would evaporate a big city. Just lucky those didn't hit any. In longer term, two of those triggered mass extinctions.

[PeterisP]

If a "evaporate a big city" or "kill all humans on Earth" asteroid strikes, the existence of a Mars colony doesn't help my personal survival or well-being in any way whatsoever unless I'm there.

And if I'm there, odds are that it made my personal survival chances worse, since they're mostly determined by the many "normal" causes of death and being a pioneer in a world not really suited for humans is likely to be worse than Earth.

You could make an argument that it's not wise to put all your eggs in one basket, and it has some merit in this discussion, but when all I have is one egg, the only thing I can do is to pick the safest basket I have - and for now it's Earth.

[peterwoo]

Can you elaborate? I do say that we should develop the asteroid defense capability, to eliminate those smaller more frequent impacts and others. My terminology was not standard or precise and I apologize for that. I mean by "small" those which are akin to an atom bomb or a hydrogen bomb explosion, and "medium" those which would cause catastrophe over a large region but not global annihilation.