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by AlexanderTheGr8 1251 days ago
tbh I never really understood that conversation. TARS is a machine and if it's impossible from an advanced machine's standpoint, it's impossible from a physics standpoint. Cooper's maneuver was pretty simple that TARS should have been able to simulate and figure out.

Regardless, I agree that being multi-planetary is absolutely a requirement for humanity. We are too risky here. And the risk is not from outside. Humanity has survived for 100s of millions of years without as asteroid annihilating us, and I don't see it changing now).

The biggest risk to humanity is humanity. We will probably figure out a way to destroy ourselves, either with something much more powerful than nuclear bombs or some new unimaginable tech.

1 comments

Single planetary system isn't much more of a protection than a single planet against some of the possible extinction events, e.g. ones associated with the activity of the Sun or intelligent aliens.

> Humanity has survived for 100s of millions of years without as asteroid annihilating us, and I don't see it changing now).

Homo sapiens is thought to have existed for mere 300,000 years. Our last common ancestor with the chimpanzee [1] existed no more than 13 million years ago. K-T extinction event [2] that wiped out dinosaurs happened 66 million years ago. There have been numerous extinction events before and after that [3].

On the timescales of species this planet isn't safe. At these timescales rare events become regular occurrences.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee%E2%80%93human_last_...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events